Portland, Oregon post-punk group combobox‘s new EP, Oh No! seems to cull its sound from several places. My brain went to a combination of bands from my past, specifically Devo and Tokyo Police Club. Driving drums and bass with guitars that rely on riffs more than chords make for a great record. Lyrically, it has the satire and bite of the Dead Milkmen. Musically, everything feels intentional and precise.
The opening track, “Worth It,” goes back and forth between frenetic verses and a calm chorus. The chorus of the title track “Oh No!” has a guitar riff that makes you feel like you’re falling, only to be swooped up by the verse right before you hit the ground. The EP itself is aggressive where it needs to be, but also knows where to stick in its moments of reprieve. One thing is for sure: it’s fun. My favorite track is probably “Coffee Shop.” Between bass riff and build-up before each chorus, it would be easy to write the song’s humorous lyrics off as goofy, but there’s some smart stuff bubbling beneath. We spoke with Zach and Tyler about the band and Oh No!
How did you form and how long have you been playing for?
Zach: combobox initially formed in the summer of 2022 when Ty and I had a conversation about starting a band, and Ty said, “Sure, you wanna play post-punk?” We’ve been friends since around 2016, but despite us both having formal music backgrounds and decently overlapping tastes, it took us years to actually get around to playing music together! So we started writing that summer, but then life got in the way in various ways, and we ended up playing one singular show in January of 2023 before I took an extended trip around the world for the next several months, which ended with the two of us and some other friends of ours in New Zealand in July/August 2023 to watch the Women’s World Cup.
Our conversations naturally turned back to the band, and we put up a Craigslist post looking for a bass player before we even got back to the States. We played our first show with bassist Cody and our old drummer Ben in October of 2023, and I’d say that’s when we really started being an actual band. And then Amy joined us last summer, so this current lineup has been together for almost exactly one year.
Tell us about the Oh No! EP.
Zach: As a band, we’ve talked a lot about what defines the combobox sound, and this collection of songs is kind of our best guess at an answer to that question (at the time of recording, about eight months ago). A big part of that, to me at least, is that our lyrical themes acknowledge and address the big human emotions we all have, while also acknowledging the absurdity present in a lot of those emotions. For example, “Oh No!” (the song) is about Trump running for president (yet again) and how, even though it is a literally deadly serious real-world current event, he is also an inherently ridiculous person, and the idea that he can still be taken seriously as a legitimate candidate for any elected office is just absurd and also devastating.
And that’s just kind of one example of something I see a lot in our modern experience and try to reflect in the songs. There’s so much bad stuff that we’ve constructed as a society over decades or even centuries, and things are particularly bad right now in the year 2025, so it’s almost a coping mechanism to kind of lean into the unseriousness of these systems. Playing loud music is also a great coping mechanism, if you were wondering.
What bands were you listening to when you wrote these songs?
All of us in unison like a Greek chorus: We like a lot of bands! Some key ones during the development of this EP were Ex Models, Gustaf, Mannequin Pussy, METZ, Dry Cleaning, Cool Greenhouse, Wet Leg, Buddy Wynkoop, and Yuvees.
What would be the most surprising influence?
Ty: combobox has always been a live-first project, meaning that band decisions, songwriting, etc. prioritize the experience of our live show. So, when we stepped into the studio to record, all of our songs were in a sort of battle-tested state as part of our live set, and initial tracking went quickly. However, during vocal sessions & final mix, we had the opportunity to really sit with and dissect the emotional impact of our tracks, and especially the character of the various narrators Zach plays, and found a new source of inspiration in Amy’s experience working in theatre. So, I’d say the most surprising influence is probably the theatre scene in Portland in general.
I’ve audibly laughed at the lyrics, but they seem very sporadic. Do you improvise them or work them out before?
Zach: I’m far from the main songwriter in this band, but for whatever reason, it worked out that I wrote almost all of the words on this EP. As Ty mentioned above, we’re a live-first project, so all of these songs had been written and tested and mostly set in stone before we ever stepped into the studio, and that’s true of the lyrics as well.
There’s definitely a period of lyrical fluidity in the early stages of a song’s lifespan, as drafts get evaluated through rehearsal and performance, and either something doesn’t quite physically feel right to deliver, or we decide we don’t like a line, etc. “Oh No!” is a great example of that, where my first draft was far less silly, and Cody contributed some significant rewrites to add the sense of absurdity that I imagine you were laughing at (Freedom Legumes, et al.).
Are there plans to do a full-length?
Zach: In short, not immediately. We recently returned to Empty Lane Studio to record a second EP, which we’re excited to start releasing with a first single in late summer or early fall. We’d love to do a full-length eventually, but we want to make sure we’re not rushing it and that the band is at a place where it makes sense both artistically and financially/logistically before tackling a project that big!