The first step in understanding Diarrhea Planet is getting past the fact that the band’s called Diarrhea Planet. Once you’ve heard their explosive garage rock anthems or seen them passionately thrashing about onstage and offstage during one of their raucous live shows, it’s easy to embrace this Nashville-based sextet, crappy name and all.

“The Myspace page for Underoath was taken,” jokes guitarist Evan Bird.

After seven years as a band, the members have learned to harness their unusual band dynamic to create song after song of rich guitar interplay and yelled group vocal hooks, falling back on a thrilling sound that toes the line between total chaos and rich clarity.

Myspace caught up with two of the band’s singers and guitarists, Bird and Jordan Smith, midway through their continued US tour to ask about their growing pains as a group, their songwriting process, and their hometown.

Here are 10 things you should know about Diarrhea Planet.

They Started As a Reaction to Other Artists at Belmont University

The members of Diarrhea Planet met and began playing together during their time at Nashville’s Belmont University. The school that produced a pop country superstar and an American Idol finalist, Belmont seemed to favor a mainstream music culture that Bird and Smith deride as frustratingly “safe,” driving Smith and former member Evan Donohue to form Diarrhea Planet as a joke.

“We were both fed up with the status quo,” Smith says. “We wanted to do something more rock n’ roll.”

They Have Four Guitarists

Having an unwieldy surplus of guitarists seemed natural for Diarrhea Planet in the early days, as they strove to be a noise-heavy band for particularly unhinged house parties. Vacillating between three guitars to as many as six, the band finally found themselves settling upon their comparatively reasonable four-headed guitar lineup.

“It’s not as hard as you’d think, but that’s easy to say, years removed from us first trying it,” says Bird. “We’ve spent so much time playing together we know what to expect.”

Today, Diarrhea Planet’s wall-of-sound approach to garage rock is inseparable from their unusual lineup. But, Bird says, it wasn’t always so easy to balance their overwhelming surplus of six-strings without stepping on each other’s toes.

“You get a bunch of drunk 20-year-old dudes in a band called Diarrhea Planet with electric guitars, there’s definitely going to be a bit of a pissing contest at first.”

Each Guitarist Fills a Different Role

Four guitars playing the same part or even the same style wouldn’t work too well, but luckily Diarrhea Planet’s members each fill their own niche, and fill it well.

“Everybody has a different strength, and a different weakness,” Smith says, “and we’re getting better about using the strengths to overcome each other’s weaknesses.”

Emmett Miller is classically trained and tends to concoct melodically dense parts for himself. Smith humbly calls himself the “sloppiest” guitarist among them, bringing a jagged punk edge to the table.

Brent Toler contributes his classic rock influences in the form of unexpected but always welcome Allman Brothers-esque riffs, often saving a song with what Bird dubs the “spaghetti western trumpet,” referencing the famous “wah wah wahs” of Ennio Morricone’s The Good, The Bad and the Ugly score.

Only Bird’s role is more ill-defined for his versatile ability as a “jack of all trades,” providing smooth rhythm parts that fill in whatever gaps need to be filled.

Four Guitars Creates Some Logistical Problems

Though four guitars might make a catchy gimmick to distinguish one upstart rock band from another, it’s caused plenty of difficulties throughout Diarrhea Planet’s career as a band.

“We’ve played some stages where we have to stand sideways because we can’t all fit, like a firing squad setup,” Smith says.

When touring, the members have often had to settle for dangerously cramped spaces, in order to save up for a Mercedes Sprinter van that could support all six members and their equipment without forcing them to squish together or sit illegally during their interstate travels.

“It’s slower because we need to work up to new levels to be able to afford to do a lot of things that smaller bands are able to do fairly quickly,” Smith explains.

Their Live Shows Helped Them Achieve Success In the Early Days

When Diarrhea Planet was still a new band, just barely transitioning from a purposefully noisy joke into a legitimate effort, they gained prominence among the bands playing at Belmont University for their willingness to play whatever concert came their way.

“We made a conscious decision to not play sides of a particular scene,” Smith says. “Our band became way more in demand because we weren’t focused on that—we were just focused on playing.”

Their Live Performances Are Deliberately Undeliberate

Diarrhea Planet’s live shows brim with the combined energy of all six band members. Their propensity for stage dives, power slides and playful mugging in between simultaneous solos—as well as the propulsive beats of drummer Ian Bush—has been known to make indifferent crowds into immediate fans.

According to Smith and Bird, Diarrhea Planet’s reputation as electrifying performers comes from their conscious choice to not make any conscious choices, relying on their own spur-of-the-moment passion and audience interaction instead of on any particular shtick.

Smith envies the energy and connection of Bruce Springsteen’s concerts, while Bird finds himself inspired by The Hives, likely his favorite live band of all-time.

“I’ve never been so stunned by just five guys sitting on a stage, with minimal light and no effects,” he explains. “It’s five guys coming out swinging, and they don’t stop. I think if you have passion for what you’re doing, it’s so infectious and can’t be contained and it rubs off on the crowd.”

Nashville Made Them Into the Band They Are Today

Diarrhea Planet’s involvement in the tight-knit independent label Infinity Cat has afforded them more than a few key opportunities in their still-short career, including touring with label-mates JEFF The Brotherhood. But Smith and Bird both credit their homebase in Nashville with much of their band’s success.

“Nashville is one of the most unique music communities I’ve ever seen,” Bird explains, “because there’s an intense amount of competition at every tier, but it’s not because you want to be better than someone else. You’re expected to be the best you can be. You push yourself, and everyone gets boosted by proxy.”

Diarrhea Planet has made enormous strides since their founding as a joke band, and with every step along the way, they’ve had the music community in Nashville to spur them onwards to the next level.

They’re Growing as Songwriters

Smith is the closest thing Diarrhea Planet has to a lead songwriter, but the band has taken strides to move away from that familiar dynamic, particularly with their new album Turn to Gold. Their collaborative approach is especially helpful to combat the repetitive habits any songwriter is prone to develop.

“I might write four songs with the same ending,” Smith says, “but now we’re taking the approach of, we have a cool song structure with a cool lyrical idea but let’s make it exciting and different from the other songs. As a band, we work together to make each song stand out a little more.”

Save for Bird, who has no interest in songwriting, every band member contributed their own tracks to Turn to Gold, singing and finding exciting ways to push themselves out of their comfort zones.

They Worked with Producer Vance Powell on Their Latest Record

The four-time Grammy Award-winning producer behind much of Jack White’s discography, Vance Powell proved to be an integral new addition to Diarrhea Planet’s recording process. His level of expertise and easygoing attitude made it easy for the band to translate the propulsive power of their live act into the studio.

“It was almost disappointing how smoothly it went, because I was hoping for some crazy recording stories,” says Bird.

Bird and Smith describe Powell as “almost telepathic” in his ability to transform a series of rough demos into precisely the kind of songs they were looking to create for Turn to Gold.

“I might say, ‘it needs to sound like I’m in space flying in a Cadillac getting sucked into a black hole,’ using no audio terminology whatsoever,” Smith explains, “but Vance is always spot-on, no matter how you describe it.”

They’ve Got Big Plans For the Future

With Turn to Gold in the bag, Smith is looking forward to improving their formidable live performances and releasing material more consistently after their three-year gap between full-length albums.

“We’re looking to take the level of professionalism we have for our stage show and start putting that into our studio stuff,” he says. “We’ve neglected that in the past because we just haven’t been in the studio too much.”

But Bird’s most prominent goal, he proudly proclaims, is to “sell out as soon as possible.” If that means bigger venues to suit their gloriously outsized sound and onstage antics, Diarrhea Planet fans should have plenty to look forward to as well.