Once upon a time, three dudes from a small paper-milling (i.e., foul-smelling) town in Washington called Longview/Kelso (okay, technically two towns, but there's no real separation) met a kindred spirit from San Diego. "Kindred" might actually be the wrong word to use; how about "garbage" instead? Four garbage spirits, united in their disregard for cleanliness, giving a shit, and the daily grind, set out on a gunk-rock odyssey that has persevered, on and off, since 2004.

The Trashies, as they came to be known—their personas are Ron Wolfman on guitar, Ricky Ticky Router Table on drums, Jesse-Cody Trashington on keyboard, and Billy Goat on bass—started by way of a jam session in the rotting basement of the now-defunct 24/7 Haus, a punk house/venue in Seattle's Central District. (Disclosure time: I once lived in this house, and I know these trash men personally. But fear not! I'm 98 percent certain I would still be writing this!) Their first jam session produced a song called "Taz Tattoo" (You got a Taz tattoo, what the fuck you gonna do?), followed by "Chicken Sandwich" (Hold the lettuce, hold the tomato, don't forget the extra mayo/get daddy a chicken sandwich), and "Nude Beach" (I looked through binoculars/a total failure/maybe next summer?), and the imbecilic, avant-savant punk tone was set. "'Nude Beach'—that let me know that we were a real band—that's when I knew we needed to pursue this," Ricky says, during a near-incoherent interview at the Elysian Brewery. Besides the hilarity of the Trashies concept—satirical rejection/celebration of small-town, white-trash backwardness—the songs themselves are really catchy, and the lyrics are so stupid they're smart. Kind of.

But no one can deny that the live shows are legendary. Wearing cutoff shorts and little else (though acceptable outfits might include American flag and NASCAR imagery, or one of the band's own handmade tie-dye disasters), they play amid beer and Sparks (RIP) cans sailing to and from the stage, spit, blood, and sweaty grime—the Trashies can turn any venue into a bruise-y mud pit. Eventually, they took the show on the road. "On our first tour, we had no idea that you were supposed to get paid for shows and sell merch," Ricky remembers. "We left Seattle with absolutely nothing to sell or give away."

Four self-recorded albums (Let It Be Trashed, Life Sucks Trash Fuck, What Makes a Man Get Trashed?, and Space Jam), a handful of singles and EPs, and a two-year-ish hiatus later, the Trashies still record and tour semiannually, despite the fact that Jesse-Cody now lives in Oakland. But no matter what, they haven't lost the gunk that held them together in the first place, and their newest album, Teenage Rattlesnakes (1-2-3-4 Go! Records), is a testament to that. Rough, ridiculous, and created in fits and starts over the course of a year (though the total time for writing and practicing took more like 48 hours), it's everything a Trashies album should be. The songs are a little less straightforward in content than earlier efforts like, say, "Sweatpants Boner," and Rattlesnakes' more abstract crud is a necessary evolution into more complicated/strange song structure, though clever as ever, with caterwauling vocals/group yells still intact. My favorite new song, "Shit Show in Shilshole," is a vertigo-inducing keyboard and guitar spiral that makes me want to take acid and slow-dance on the beach of an abandoned, radiation-filled body of water.

I asked Ricky about the album title. "A teenage rattlesnake doesn't have a fucking clue, all they want to do is get radical, as any young person should," he explains. "They don't know how to release their venom. They are born with this ability, and they don't know what to do with it," he continues. "So you can do whatever—you can take the life of everything in sight, but it's just a matter of knowing how to release that venom. We all have venom, in one way or another. With great power comes great responsibility, you know?" The Trashies will flout their responsibility at their album-release show at Black Lodge, followed by a two-week tour down the West Coast.

So what does the future hold for the Trashies? "What's next is Psychedelic Camouflage and Hoodrat/Woodrat," says Ricky, who proceeds to spit out words that make little sense. "Hoodrat/Woodrat is a concept, a 7-inch. The 'Woodrat' side is a recording in a rural scenario, entirely outdoors, using as many acoustic instruments as possible—pure trash-folk breaking all musical boundaries. I want to be understood between A$AP Rocky and George Carlin lifestyle choices. 'Hoodrat' is recorded in the city, in a confined, dank, fucked-up, practice-space scenario where we have no room to move, let alone be comfortable." I still don't know what Psychedelic Camouflage entails, but it sounds amazing.

Ricky also sees the Trashies touring Europe, saving music abroad. "I think the next step is to bring the Northwest trashcore to Europe, to a global audience. I think that there are a number of Trash-heads in other parts of the world that we know nothing about. Born into the rattlesnake family. If they see us, it will help them mature. They are not free, and they need to release their venom accordingly. I mean, there might just be a person who doesn't know they need to hear us, but they do. In France."