Four out of five podiatrists agree: Foot Patrol is Austin’s foremost foot fetishist funk ensemble.
Formed by keyboard virtuoso T.J. Wade and bassist Hung Nguyen in 2006, the Patrol has since morphed into a sevenpiece band that resuscitates the party-up vibe of early-1980s synth-funk via clever toe-tappers like “Golden Arches” and “Trample Me.” Wade and Nguyen’s prolific musical partnership dates back a decade, when Wade was a student and Nguyen was a residential instructor at Texas School for the Blind.
“The school had a four-track recorder, so I would make all the music, and Hung would be the engineer,” Wade says. “We did a lot of original gangsta rap and death metal songs back then.”
Later, Wade flirted with the mainstream music business.
“I worked with Alicia Keys on a song she did for a Christina Aguilera project,” he says. “For some reason, they took the parts I played out of that, but it was cool.”
Afterward, Wade re-sumed work with Nguyen, alternately cultivating atomic prog-rock in Terror-istic and hardcore rap in MC Terroristic. Wade also performs a one-man tribute to Japanese noise-rock duo Ruins. Despite Foot Patrol’s novel veneer, Wade insists the foot thing is no joke. As the group’s popularity grows, fellow travelers are stepping out of the shoebox.
“I’ve had a couple of women who are foot fetish models come up and express how they love it and dig what we do,” Wade says. “That gives me ideas for songs, because sometimes they’ll let me give them foot rubs and stuff, you know?”
So what does Wade look for in a foot?
“Just a woman who is pedicured and really smooth,” he reveals. “I really like size 10s. That’s my favorite kind of thing!”
This article appears in March 20 • 2009.
