Wax Teeth looks outward, finds ‘Ritual Chaos’

Mike Stokes’ father, Rob, died suddenly in early December. Five weeks later, Mike joined his longtime bandmates in Playing to Vapors onstage at a celebration of life service for the man he credits with nurturing passion for music 

“He taught me how to play, and he introduced me to a lot of cool music. He was into early proto-punk, like the MC5, and ’80s alternative, like the Meat Puppets and Dinosaur Jr. … He had wider taste than a lot of people his age, which was great, because we could sit and share music with each other, and find new bands with each other,” said Stokes, who was initially hesitant to perform at his father’s gathering owing to the weight of grief he carried into the New Year. “I was pretty tore up in the days leading to it, and it was like, ‘Oh, God. Why did I agree to this? I’m not really in the headspace for this right now.’ But then it actually went great. He always loved coming out to see all my bands – I mean, he was at one of our shows a week or two before he passed – so once we started playing, it definitely felt nice. It felt freeing.”

During the celebration, Stokes also took in stories from the various musicians and music lovers his father had crossed paths with over the years, many of whom told stories about the ways his dad’s songs and performances had soundtracked various phases of their lives. One couple shared how they exchanged their first kiss at one of Rob’s shows, while another person said they started performing because Rob bought them a shot and then urged them to get up on the stage that first time.

“Seeing that kind of turnout and the community he built when he was young, and how much of that brothership still exists within it today, it helped me redefine my purpose,” said Stokes, who has performed in a number of Columbus bands throughout the years, including Playing to Vapors, Friends with Elephants, and most recently Wax Teeth. “How can I put this? What you’re doing has an impact whether or not you’re ‘making it,’ or anything like that. … I think it’s something where even in the last couple of years my drive has gone from the intention of doing something grander with the music toward the realization that this is just something I have to do. It’s what gives me purpose and joy in my life.”

Within Wax Teeth, this joy takes the form of eardrum pulverizing guitar noise, the four bandmates constructing tightly arranged instrumental rippers that have taken past inspiration from internal strife (Stokes has long struggled with anxiety) but are increasingly shaped by external forces. “Context Collapse,” which kicks off the group’s new three-song Ritual Chaos EP, is rooted in everything from the societal isolation brought about by the pandemic to the digital flattening that takes place on social media platforms “and the stress and chaos” it can introduce to a person’s existence, as Stokes explained it.

“All of these elements of your life get condensed down pretty much to your computer, to your phone, where all of your experiences … are funneled into this one space,” said Stokes, who will join Wax Teeth bandmates David Jost (guitar), Sebastian Olsson (bass) and Michael Neumaier (drums) in celebrating the release of Ritual Chaos at Ace of Cups on Friday, Jan. 31, joined by Unchipped, Idioms and Coffin Makers. “So, with that song, we wanted to have all of these different riffs and sounds, and then it all coalesces into one big mass at the end, and it’s just chaos.”

Befitting this increasingly outward look, Wax Teeth adopted an equally expansive musical approach this time around. With the group’s debut EP, from 2024, the bandmates focused on creating tracks that could be more easily replicated live – an idea they jettisoned entering into a new round of recording sessions at their Milo Arts practice space late last year. 

“We just wanted to add more coloring and more layering to this record,” said Stokes, pointing to the saxophone that floats above the morass in “Context Collapse” as just one example. “There’s a section in that [song] where the saxophone kicks back in, and it’s not necessarily soft, but there’s almost this romantic feeling or this nostalgic feeling, where you have this melody rising above the chaos. And I thought that created a really cool dynamic. At that point, you’re almost floating instead of falling.”

These moments of respite tend to be rare within Wax Teeth’s music, which by its nature hews to those darker corners – a leaning Stokes said intensified in the months that passed between initial writing sessions and tracking the songs. “Even beyond the election, I had been going through it,” said the guitarist, who was hospitalized by appendicitis in the weeks before his father passed. “We didn’t really lock in the songs until late last year, and even into early this year, to be honest. … And I think everything that happened in that time shows through a little bit in the music, for sure.”