The Invincible Gods is a band that needs no introduction. But, for the people that really enjoy introductions, here’s one anyway: They’re from New Jersey, it’s two dudes and a lady, and they play a truly rad amalgam of punk, garage, and shoegaze, draping everything in the kind of psychedelic goodness that triggers violent acid flashbacks. They recently took some time out of their busy schedule to answer a few of our questions about their creative process, the excellent genes they’ve been blessed with, and Jared Leto’s stint in the Hitler Youth.

Assault.it: You guys are all ridiculously good-looking, yet you don’t include any photos of yourselves with your CD. Isn’t that kind of a missed opportunity?

Sean: Well, we’re also pretty humble – epically humble, in fact. We’re so humble that we didn’t want to go rubbing our extreme gorgeousness in anyone’s face, but thank you. We’re flattered. Next time, we’ll send out pictures and locks of hair.

How did you guys all hook up? I know Nick and Sean have some history together, but what was the genesis of Invincible Gods?

Sean: Well, we’re billions of years old, so it’s actually weird how long it took for us to all meet.

Candace: I’m kinda foggy on the details. I do remember going to one awesome raging house party in LA and waking up 2 weeks later in a van in New Hope, though. At first I thought I was being kidnapped again, but, no, it turns out I just joined a new band.

Sean: Nick and I played together in The Atomic Missiles [as a side note: you can download every A-Missiles song for free @ http://www.reverbnation.com/theatomicmissiles ] for years. We got together in NJ, moved to Brooklyn, and then again to Hollywood, where we eventually split up. That’s also where we met Candace and started jamming together. It was supposed to be just for fun, but it came together so naturally.

Nick: Then we moved back to NJ and fell under the influence of a few cool bands like Screaming Females, Thomas Francis Takes His Chances, The Imperialists, The Sex Zombies, and later, Ben Franklin, A few of those bands have been sort of starting a resurgence of the old streetwave scene.

Candace, according to the press release in my hands, you’re Alaskan. What’s that like?

Candace: I can see Russia from my backyard. I left because I was sick of being chased by giant moose and catching wild lynx, I’m still not quite used to the weather outside of my igloo.

Nick: Alaska has to be the most gnarly place I’ve ever come from. Those are some mean hills up there. Everywhere you turn there is flannel, guns, saloons…. It’s kind of like the Canadian wild west with people riding snow mobiles instead of horses. And there’s bears! Up there those motherfuckers got horns! Everything is extreme.

Sean: Ummm, Nick?

Nick: Yeah?

Sean: You’re from NJ. We grew up together.

Nick: Oh.

What’s your songwriting process? Who brings what to the table?

Sean: Usually, we meditate for thirty to forty minutes in the dungeon before lighting the ceremonial candles and drinking mugs of absinthe. By the time that is over, the song has revealed itself to us and we begin the process of etching it into stone. A lot of times when we tell people that we take a long time writing songs, they think we take a long time coming up with the ideas for songs or for the way that we are going to play them. That simply isn’t true. We are literally carving the songs into granite. It’s not easy. Nick holds the granite over his head, while Candace and I take turns carving words into it. It’s honestly a group effort.

What was the recording process like for Slightly More Ballsy Than Pretentious? It’s pretty short but stylistically elaborate – does that take a lot of time, or is it pretty natural?

Sean: I’d say both. It comes extrememly naturally, but in a band with one guitarist and no bass, it takes a certain amount of time to lay down all of those tracks, no matter what.

Candace: Yeah. But if you subtract all the time we spent playing shows, going to shows, eating, sleeping, watching tv, having parties, cleaning up parties, instructing yoga, posing nude for art classes, watching iMax porno, baking cookies, making up complicated handshakes, talking about streetwave, voodoo zombies, robbing banks, and being hung-over it was actually really short. Like 2 days.

Sean: Not to mention, the temple we rented to record in was filled with snakes and spiders. That took forever to sort out.

I know bands hate to explicitly discuss their influences, but who influences the Invincible Gods?

Sean: A lot of what we do is shaped by people who have influenced us outside of the music world. If it weren’t for Kurt Vonnegut, George Carlin, Aleister Crowley, and other great 20th century minds, we wouldn’t be making the music we are in this new millenium. Musically I think my biggest sources of inspiration are probably The Velvet Underground, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, psychedelic Beatles stuff, and, of course, The Ramones, but I try to listen to other people’s favorite music as much as possible, just to keep my mind open. At this point, I’m just as comfortable listening to Drake, The Grateful Dead, and Taylor Swift as I am with Iggy and The Stooges or The Misfits.

Nick: I think that what we are influenced by plays a little bit bigger role in our music than who. I mean we grew up listening to a lot of punk rock in high school and then later broadened our horizons and really started listening to almost everything. We really just wanted to make awesome punk rock that you can dance too. But most of our songs are really influenced by the experiences of life, the ups and downs, love, parties, religion etc.

Candace: For me, Karen O from the YeahYeahYeahs and Blondie.

30 Seconds to Mars stole your album cover. What the fuck is up with that?

Sean: I keep reading on the internet that Jared Leto is a big fan of ours, but I’ve never met him or anything. It’s weird, we were just sort of minding our own business and then some corporate rock band from Hollywood comes along and vomits at our party.

Nick: That’s not even the worst of it. He entitled it This Is War, declaring war on us. I’d like to put his nuts in a Slap Chop.

Candace: Jared Leto is almost my favorite actor, only after Freddie Prinze Jr. I loved watching him get hacked to pieces in American Psycho.

Sean: I wouldn’t be so offended if they weren’t so godawful. Their music is like easy listening for teenage girls who cut themselves. It makes me feel hopeless. If Andrew W.K. or Jack White stole our album art, we could live with it. But, 30 Seconds to Mars? Just horrible. A lot of people think we hate them because of the Nazi rumors about Jared Leto, or the kiddie porn that people have alleged that 30STM makes, but really, it’s just because of how terrible their music is. We’re not the type of people who go around spreading rumors, you know? I mean, who cares if people say he was in the Hitler Youth? We’re not just going to believe everything people tell us. But even if they are good people, it doesn’t make up for their sonic awfulness.

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Invincible Gods on the Interweb:

• MySpace
• ReverbNation
• Official Site
• CDBaby