NYC Electropunks Lip Critic Explain Their Credit Card Statement

Credit History is an interview series where we ask our favorite artists to comb through their credit card statements and tell us about what they bought, from the necessary to the frivolous to the outlandish.

For the digital hardcore quartet Lip Critic, strange situations tend to make their way into the music. Their new album, Theft World, began after a fan showed up at their Boston merch table wearing a Five Nights at Freddy’s hoodie and a surgical mask, and casually recited frontman Bret Kaser’s Social Security number. “Right when he gets up to the table, he just says it,” Kaser says, “And he’s laughing his ass off.” The fan thought he had uncovered a hidden alternate-reality game buried deep in the band’s lyrics and Discord posts, complete with cryptic codes and characters. Instead, he’d stolen Kaser’s identity and went on a shopping spree, including the purchase of Lip Critic’s entire discography on Bandcamp. “We were like, this is the most absurd possible situation,” Kaser continues. “We’re all okay, so we might as well do something with it.” 

They scrapped a Hex Dealer followup that was nearly finished and began imagining the contours of Theft World. Kaser compares the album, out May 1 via Partisan Records, to a Brothers Grimm fairytale collection rather than one continuous narrative: interlocking stories about theft—material, digital, emotional—born from this real identity-theft episode, and expanded into a hyper-detailed universe built out of cultural “trash” and treated with obsessive care. “There’s all this slacker rock where people pretend they don’t care,” says Kaser. “We care a lot. Our veins are popping out of our necks trying to make this music.” 

Forever sounding like Fred Schneider backed by Death Grips, Kaser confronts the listener with experiences of falling in love, falling into debt, and managing myriad addictions in a world that feels more and more like a dystopian scam every single day. With a sound centered on two pummeling drummers (Danny Eberle and Michael Sandvig), foreboding synths, and a sampler setting off all manner of found audio, Lip Critic records are a breeding ground for chaos and overstimulation. But there’s a surprisingly tuneful strain of clubby R&B chords running through Theft World tracks like “Shoplifting,” “My Blush,” and lead single “Legs in a Snare,” whose hypnosis-heavy video takes inspiration from the Japanese horror classic Cure. For just a moment on “200 Bottles on Eviction,” Kaser and the boys sound indie-pretty like Animal Collective; approximately three seconds later, they transform into the gnarliest, most viscerally-named grindcore band imaginable. 

Theft World’s explorations of our relentlessly transactional contemporary world made them a natural fit for Credit History, our interview series that posits you are what you buy. Below are six charges—some fraudulent, some self-inflicted while shooting a video at Caesars Palace—from Lip Critic’s recent financial orbit.

Lip Critic’s Discography on Vinyl ($350)

Bret Kaser: We got the notification that someone bought the entire discography [on vinyl] via Bandcamp and that was kind of a tell that something fishy was happening. At first I was honestly just stoked—like, sick, someone bought everything—and then I thought, this is not normal. Later we realized it was part of the identity theft. 

[The thief] ended up being a gigantic fan. Like, truly a huge fan. He thought there was this big ARG [Alternate Reality Game] happening. Our Discord probably didn’t help because we post all this cryptic imagery and audio and people are decoding lyrics. So he kind of got on that wave and was like, I’m going to figure out the whole thing. And somehow that turned into him stealing my identity.

Did this experience change how you approach the “gamified” aspects of your music or fan engagement? 

Connor Kleitz (synths/songwriting): Not really. In a lot of ways we’re just doing what he [the thief] does too. Throughout our entire discography, there’s a ton of samples that probably we should not have gotten away with.

A Comfort Inn & Suites in Massachusetts ($125)

Bret: Most of the fraudulent charges were pretty innocuous. Hotel rooms in Massachusetts, like a Comfort Inn. Stuff that could have easily been me. The funny part is they were actually places we’d stayed before. So my bank was like, “This seems normal.” Eventually the account was frozen and the situation got resolved, but there was a moment where I thought my life was over. 

Slot Machine from Marshall’s ($26.58)

Bret: We bought this little slot machine that we were going to use for the “Jackpot” video. It was on sale at Marshall’s in the male gift section after Christmas, so everything was cleared out. There was this giant box with nothing on it. I opened it up and it was a slot machine… for 26 bucks. It doesn’t take money, but it has these plastic tokens. We’re talking about bringing it on tour.  You’d get one token when you buy something, and if you hit the jackpot you’d get a free shirt or something. 

We’ve had a lot of gambling options for merch, and it’s only caused us to lose money. We had this thing where you’d pay a few bucks to roll a Dungeons & Dragons die, and if you rolled a 20 you got any item for free. “The odds are literally one in 20. So we’re like, okay, this will probably make us money. And then one kid rolled two 20s in a row and got our limited-edition clear vinyl and the most expensive shirt we had.

Connor: It cost him maybe 10 bucks to get $75 in free merch. Long term, it was priced out that we would make money. But in the short term, we got hit by variance. The house doesn’t always win.

Caesars Palace Hotel Room ($202)

Bret: Our window looked out to the inside lobby of Caesars in Atlantic City. I opened the window and I was looking right at the check-in desk. We lit like 130 candles in this hotel room too, for the shrine where we do this blood sacrifice thing [in the “Jackpot” video]. It felt like we were on the edge of getting kicked out the entire time. The amount of times security was like, “No filming in the casino….” And I’d be like, “It’s my boy’s bachelor party, c’mon!” And they’d be like, “Whatever, stop,” and then we’d go back to filming one second later.

Johnny Rockets in Atlantic City ($255) 

Connor: [adding up the charges in his head] We spent $255 at Johnny Rockets in four days somehow. That’s amazing. 

Bret: In our defense, the only other options in that area are like nine different Gordon Ramsay restaurants. You’ve got Hell’s Kitchen, Gordon Ramsay Pub, Gordon Ramsay Steakhouse, Gordon Ramsay Hibachi… Johnny Rockets was the budget move. I think I got the grilled chicken sandwich every single time. It was only like 10 bucks.  

Mechanical Bull Ride ($10)

Bret: I rode this mechanical bull [for the “Jackpot” video], and I didn’t know that you could only use one hand. I get on the bull and immediately this old guy next to me goes, “One hand, junior.” And I’m like, “Yeah, yeah, it’s fine, we’re in New Jersey.”

Did you get thrown immediately?

Bret: Yep, I’m frail as heck.