Chad Ubovich, a longtime fixture on the California garage punk and new psychedelic scenes, moved from Ty Segall protege and sideman to bandleader with Meatbodies, whose guitar-heavy sound is as hard-hitting as the best punk while also brimming with bent, pop-friendly melodies. 2017's Alice is an underrated concept album that vaulted Ubovich into the same realm as his mentor, and 2021's 333 expands the group's reach into new sonic realms while retaining all the punky punch of earlier works.

The Meatbodies first came together in mid-2012, when Ubovich was playing guitar in Mikal Cronin's road band; while Cronin was in between tours, Ubovich began playing shows with a handful of friends who included Cory Hanson of Wand, Erik Jimenez, and Riley Youngdahl, using the name Chad & the Meatbodies. Ty Segall was impressed with Ubovich's new music, and released a cassette-only collection of home recordings on his label God? Records. The tape quickly sold out, and in 2013 Segall recruited Ubovich to play bass in his band Fuzz. Meatbodies' work caught the attention of the In the Red label and it released two songs from the now out of print tape on 7" in early 2014; later that year, the self-titled Meatbodies album arrived. While Hanson, Jimenez, and Youngdahl participated in sessions for the album, Ubovich put together an official lineup of the group for subsequent touring. He was joined by Patrick Nolan on guitar, Killian LeDuke on bass, and Ryan Moutinho on drums.

After the album's release and tour, Ubovich went back to his sideman duties, playing bass on Fuzz's 2015 album II and touring with Mikal Cronin. After adding new bassist Kevin Boog and releasing the "Hibernation" single in 2016, Meatbodies went back into the studio to record their second full-length, Alice, a concept album revolving around light subjects like war, sex, politics, and religion. It was released by In the Red Records in early 2017. After touring behind the record, Ubovich got off the treadmill that had pushed him to chemically fueled exhaustion and dedicated himself to a more sober lifestyle. The result was a flood of writing and recording that gave birth to an album with drummer Dylan Fujioka; it was all set to be mixed when the pandemic hit and put the project on indefinite hold. During lockdown, Ubovich happened upon a lo-fi demo he and Fujioka made in 2018 and decided that with a little mixing, the songs would make up the band's third album instead. Delving into shoegaze, spacy Stereolab territory, and gnarly hard rock, 2021's 333 is the band's most diverse effort to date.

Biography by Mark Deming
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