[Editor’s Note] Milwaukee, Wisconsin rockers IfIHadAHiFi is self-described by singer and drummer DJ Hostettler (aka DrAwkward) as “Milwaukee’s favorite noise-rock miscreants.” They’ve proudly held onto that title since forming in April 2000. The group also features Chris Van Gompel (aka YaleDelay) on guitar and vocals, Josh Davis (aka MrAlarm) on bass/synth/vocals, and Michael Marchant (aka Rev.Ever on guitar and synth.
This fall, the band will be releasing their first releases since their 2019 studio album We’re Never Going Home – Paws in the Bacon Grease EP (releasing Friday October 10) and Night Vision Creeps EP (Releasing November 7 on Bandcamp and November 14 elsewhere). Both a 15-minutes in length and were recorded and mixed 2024 in 2025 with Shane Hochstetler at Howl Street Recordings.
“The songs represent two different batches of songs written in two different spurts after Covid,” Hostettler says in a press release.
The band also plans to release a CD containing both EPs plus 2012 EP Songs From Sexy Results: Cedar Block’s Dig for the Higgs and How the Quest Was Won.
Hostettler wrote an exclusive essay for SWT about the band’s legacy and finding a place in the Milwaukee music scene at over 50 years old.
IfIHadAHiFi has a pair of new releases we’re unleashing in the next month – a pair of EPs called Paws in the Bacon Grease and Night Vision Creeps. They’re our first recordings since our 2019 full-length, We’re Never Going Home, representing our first new music in six years. Jeez, six years? What the hell took us so long? Used to be we’d pump out 40 new minutes of abrasive-yet-catchy noise rock once every three or four years. Heck, between 2004 and 2008 we produced three separate releases: ’04’s No More Music, ’06’s Hot Nuggets split with the Modern Machines, and ’08’s Fame By Proxy. We were pumping this shit out 20 years ago! OK, sure, Covid definitely slowed us down this time; maybe we should be allowed to say that two of those years don’t count. But nah – the truth is really that we’re not the piss-n-vinegar high-energy troublemakers we were back then. We’re getting older, and slowing down. And in a form of performance art such as loud-ass indie rock, which tends to be seen historically as youth culture, that feels really weird – especially since I think we’re making some of the best music of our “careers” right now.
Back in the 00’s, I had loads of time for The Hustle. Even with the ever-present ball and chain that is the 40-hour-a-week Day Job, I had obnoxious levels of energy when it came to all things HiFi. Booking as many shows as possible? Check. Getting the heck out of Milwaukee and hitting the road? As much as our jobs would allow, including the two-week tours that PTO made possible. Nonstop promotion, flyering, blathering “check out my band!” on the Internet to a degree that annoyed friends and enemies alike? Happy to do it! Any independent musician will tell you that The Hustle is paramount, maybe even more so now than back then. The signal-to-noise ratio on the Internet was ridiculous in 2005 and it’s even more ludicrous in 2025. You want people to hear your music? If you’re not putting all your chips on red and shoveling a bunch of money at some PR dope, hoping they got drunk with an editor at Pitchfork once and thus have an “in” to get you some press, well, doing it yourself is a full time job. Sorry guys, we have to cancel band practice this week – I’ve got emails to send.
So here’s the deal with all that. I turned 51 this year. I’m not even 50 anymore – I’m in my fifties. The other HiFi guys are all in their forties. Three of us have mortgages now (a running joke of mine: now that three of us own garages, absolutely none of us want to deal with owning a sketchy $600 tour van). In 2004 we played around 54 shows; last year we played…6? 7? Good god. And yet, the faint call of The Hustle tugs at me still. There remains this nagging feeling that if you’re playing in an original band, you have to respect and adhere to The Hustle. Otherwise, what’s the point?
When you’re an artist, you want people to actually encounter your art, sure. For most of us, that’s part of the joy of creation. For us specifically, we’re weirdos who like validation from strangers, but not so much that we, I don’t know, play in a cover band or a ska band or something (no shade – people actually go see ska bands). Straddling that fine line between “please love us” and “fuck you, we’re uncompromising artists” has always been the tension that’s driven IfIHadAHiFi’s particular brand of noise rock – sure, we’ll write a catchy hook, but you have to dig through layers of feedback and detuned instruments to find it. So even now, I feel this…itch in my limbic system telling me that I’m in a band, and thus, need to do everything possible to get our music in front of as many people as we can. On the other hand, there are many scenarios—finding bands to play with, for instance—where I feel like the Steve Buscemi how do you do, fellow kids? meme.
So what is the point of doing independent punk rock music in your fifties? It’s actually an easy answer once I get over myself—something I try to remind myself often. It’s because when you strip all that Hustle bullshit away, playing music is still fun. Every year, the call of The Hustle fades a little bit more. Yeah, it’s still there, but it’s not as loud as it was ten years, five years, even a year ago. The shiny brass ring in the distance becomes more and more obviously fool’s gold. And holy shit is that a freeing feeling. Playing music just because it’s fun? That’s…so much fun.
And yeah, I’ll say it again – I think the music we’re making now is some of the best we’ve made in our 25 years. We’re already two or three songs deep in writing the next record and I think some of those songs rank among our finest. What a feeling! And to be honest, I don’t think we’d have stuck around this long had we ever gotten “big” or “popular.” Had our popularity ever peaked at some point—even just locally!–we may have forced the issue trying to get back there after the wave crested, and that sort of thing has killed far better bands than ours. These days, I hang my hat on accomplishments like how we’ve never written the same song twice, or recorded two albums that sounded the same. We’ve evolved, but never compromised. We’ve been blessed over the years to share the stage with bands like The Jesus Lizard, Archers of Loaf, Poster Children, and Brainiac, and that’s absolutely insane. We don’t take it for granted.
These new EPs are are full of some moodier lyrical content, reflecting the state of everything. But I’m grateful we still get to write and record songs after all these years, and I’m glad that we still (mostly) get along enough to break into excited laughter when a new riff is really clicking. At this stage of our lives, that’s a gift. But hey, we still like when people buy our records, too! So, while we still exist in a world of indie bands fighting over the same air, here’s to The Hustle. But also, screw The Hustle.
You can see the band live at the following dates:
Saturday, Oct. 11: The Checkpoint Bar, Kenosha, WI (a benefit for the White Lilac)
Friday, Nov. 14: The Uptowner, Milwaukee, WI
Saturday, Nov. 15: UFO Museum Gift Shop & Records, Green Bay, WI
DJ Hostettler
Contributor
DJ Hostettler has spent the last 25 years drumming and singing in IfIHadAHiFi, and the last 13 doing the same in Body Futures. He occasionally contributes to Milwaukee Record and writes about Pro Wrestling on his own blog, HEART PUNCH. He's been told he has pretty good hair.
Bands:
IfIHadAHiFI: ifihadahifi.bandcamp.com; Instagram @ifihadahifimke
Body Futures: bodyfutures.bandcamp.com; Instagram @bodyfutures
