“I was horribly sick that day and took too much Mucinex, which gave me a massive nosebleed right as we were doing soundcheck,” singer/ guitarist Kevin Lough said. “I was in the bathroom nearly passing out while [drummer Paige Willett] was running around trying to convince everyone that we could still play.

“I had a bunch of dried blood caked into my mustache and beard, but people said it looked cool, so I just played like that. I was nearly falling off the stage because I was so weak from the blood loss. It looked pretty hardcore, but I felt pretty dumb.”

Dadrock started off as a solo side project for Lough as he still played with metro punk outfit Psychotic Reaction, recording the debut How to Be Cool on a four-track cassette recorder. Requests to play live led Lough to ask his girlfriend, Willett, to join him on drums, and Dadrock was born.

“I like it because the image you get of a beer-swilling, middle-aged guy listening to Led Zeppelin is about the last thing you would think of when you see me and Paige,” Lough said. “It’s fun to play with that idea and subvert it. Plus, a lot of old music we like could be called ‘dad rock,’ so it’s also kind of honest. We really do play old-fashioned guitar music — just kind of differently.”

The music falls in line with like-minded locals The Boom Bang, Bronco and Shitty/Awesome, but with a poppier skew.

“We’re really influenced by DIY pop music, everything from ’60s garage rock to ’80s twee pop,” Lough said. “We started out extremely minimalistic, but we’ve started experimenting with what styles of songs we can do, so it’s become more complex than the straight-ahead noise pop we started with.”

Playing as a couple has streamlined the process of forging a unique take on lo-fi.

“It’s nice to play with my girlfriend, because we communicate so subconsciously,” he said. “The collaboration is really comfortable, because we know neither one of us is going to shoot ideas down without giving them a chance. It also helps us feel more comfortable while we’re onstage. It feels more like we’re just hanging out.”

The two followed Cool with Do You Believe in Physics or Ghosts? and The Kids Are Uptight, and hope to release a box set of cassingles in lieu of a new album next year. In the meantime, Dadrock is putting out a single recorded at Norman’s Breathing Rhythm Studio.

“Everything else we’ve done was in living rooms and bedrooms, so it’s a bit higher-fidelity,” Lough said. “We did still put a guitar amp inside a trash can, though.”

Hey! Read This:
• Cosmostanza interview