Several months ago, I noticed a video on social media of a band I had heard of but had yet to hear. Frankie and the Witch Fingers jumped right from my screen into my heart as they tore through a song of theirs, “Empire” (off 2023’s “Data Doom”) at a show in Brighton, England, earlier this year. It was everything I like in a band: heavy, fuzzy, enthusiastic, and oozing with that good, universal feeling of fun.
Flash forward to about a month ago, and I see that they are coming to Phoenix to play a show on Wednesday, July 30, 2025, at the Rebel Lounge. I reached out to their drummer, Nick Aguilar, to see if he wanted to talk about the show, and he said, “Yes!” As I type, I realize how this vaguely smacks of some weird TikTok proposal, but he did say “yes,” and here we are.
Aguilar is a beast behind the kit. Most recently, I got to see him play up close and personal when my former band, The Father Figures, opened for Mike Watt (with Nick on drums) at Valley Bar several years ago. That night, he and Watt locked in on a cover of “We Are Time” by The Pop Group, which was incredible. I wanted to see Aguilar play drums again and again after that.
For the last couple of years, the Long Beach-based Aguilar has been drumming for Frankie and the Witch Fingers, who started out in Bloomington, Indiana, before founding members Dylan Sizemore (lead vocals/guitar) and Josh Menashe (lead guitar/backing vocals/various other instruments) moved out to Los Angeles. If you listen to the band’s latest record, “Trash Classic,” which came out in early June (and you really should go and listen to it right now… well, after you finish this article), you’ll notice that the drums are fucking awesome.
Los Angeles based band, Frankie and the Witch Fingers, comes to the Rebel Lounge on Wednesday, July 30, 2025.
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Frankie and the Witch Fingers recorded “Trash Classic” in April of 2024 at Tiny Telephone in Oakland with Maryam Qudus (Tune-Yards/La Luz) at the helm, so they have been patiently waiting to play the songs live.
“(‘Trash Classic’) has been out for a little over a month now, and it seems like the water has settled. We are going to be playing mostly new songs from that record on tour, so it is going to have a bit of spark again,” says Aguilar.
The process of putting out records can be a lot of ‘hurry up and wait’ for a lot of bands, and the wait to play songs on a record that hasn’t been released can cause a fair amount of angst. For many musicians, having to wait to play a song like “T.V. Baby” or “Dead Silence” (the second and third tracks out of eleven absolute rippers) would be daunting, at best, and torture at worst.
“It’s been fun re-falling in love, for lack of a better term, with these songs. We wanted to save them for the actual tour, and we love to play new stuff more than anything,” says Aguilar.
Luckily, “Trash Classic” is the band’s seventh LP, so they have had a good backlog of songs to choose from while on tour the last year. Aguilar joined in 2022 and played on the aforementioned Data Doom, as well as a couple of EPs and a live album called “Live at Levitation” from 2024.
The story of Aguilar’s inclusion in the band is like a modern romance.
“The band Instagram account sent me a DM saying they were looking for someone new,” remembers Aguilar, before adding, “Within one band practice, I was in the band.”
The band’s chemistry is palpable on “Trash Classic,” which also features bassist Nicole’ Nikki Pickle’ Smith (formerly of Death Valley Girls) and guitarist/synth player Jon Modaff. The five-piece makes a huge wall of sound that oozes influences like Devo, Gang of Four, Butthole Surfers and even a little Oingo Boingo.
“I think I’m the only legitimate Butthole Surfers fan in the band, so I kind of love that you hear that. To be honest, I think some of my bandmates kind of sleep on those guys, but you know, to be compared to them is nice. We are for sure doing some Oingo Boingo references, but we don’t listen to them a lot,” says Aguilar, who is one of the busier guys in rock and roll.
With the fast pace that Frankie and the Witch Fingers put forth on “Trash Classic,” it is not surprising to know that Aguilar, Pickle and Modaff stay busy when they are not on the road. Aguilar has several irons in the fire. In addition to playing music, he books bands at Alex’s Bar in Long Beach, DJs, works at a couple of record stores and works as a longshoreman when time allows.
“I’m kind of a workaholic, for better or worse,” says Aguilar.
Bassist Pickle has a merch company called Church of Pickle that does some cool, limited edition band merchandise for Frankie and the Witch Fingers and several others. Modaff, according to Aguilar, works as a stagehand and does a variety of side hustles, too. Only Sizemore and Menashe work full-time on the band.
Aguilar promises a high-energy live show on Wednesday night.
“We encourage it, you know. We encourage everyone to be safe, but we also want people to go fucking crazy,” says Aguilar.
The universe definitely smiles on that guy and the rest of Frankie and the Witch Fingers. Listen to Trash Classic, go see the show, and see for yourself. You won’t be disappointed.
Frankie and the Witch Fingers will perform at 8 p.m. on July 30 at Rebel Lounge. Iguana Death Cult opens the 21-and-over show.
