The making of Moxie

Iowa City-based Velcro Moxie is a five-piece, but most of what the band is about comes from two sources: vocalist Jasmine Terrell and guitarist/vox-man Nick Carney.

Velcro Moxie plays Gas Lamp on Saturday, Dec 28.

“(Velcro Moxie) came from (Carney),” Terrell explained in a phone interview. “He used to work on a project called Bloody Dove, and he had all these songs he’d written for (that). Eventually things kind of fell through on that one, and he was left with all these songs.

“He and I worked at a co-op together. So we eventually got together and started working on the songs that he’d written. It came from a shared love of wanting to jam out. (Carney) will come up with lyrics and a basic melody, and we build from there.”

The band’s undergone a couple of lineup changes — most notably discarding a keyboard player and focusing on a more traditional five-piece setup — but the group’s sound has remained more or less consistent. That sound is a heady mixture of old-school psychedelic rock with some punk undertones all layered on top of Terrell’s bluesy vocal hooks. It all gets baked together on stage and produces an amalgam that’s sexy and slow, with driving guitars and a heavy dose of Terrell and Carney’s harmonies.

“We’re all about the same age,” explained the 34-year-old front woman. “We all kind of grew up listening to rock from the hippie era. Nick’s song-writing is very influenced by punk music and by psychedelic sounds.”

Now, after a couple of years worth of live shows, basement demos and jamming under its belts, Velcro Moxie is stepping up its game.

“Middle of next month, we’re (in the studio) and we’re going to record an album,” Terrell announced.

While the project doesn’t have a title yet, the song list is mostly set, and the band is looking forward to having a fully-produced version of its sound to show people.

“(The album’s) at least 10 songs,” Terrell said. “We’ve got possibly three or four other songs that we’re looking to work on a bit, and we’ve got some covers that we might try to get the rights to. So maybe 14 songs when everything’s set.” CV