MY NEW ZINE HIGH ON HUNGER WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE 2/7. THERE WILL BE A RELEASE PARTY AT MOLASSES BOOKS IN BROOKLYN. FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. 9 PM.
“High On Hunger” is a new zine by Jane Chardiet featuring personal essay, photography and interviews with 12 artists about their artistic goals in the new year. By asking artists to reflect on their accomplishments of 2013 and declare set goals for themselves in 2014, High On Hunger hopes to manifest creative action by helping to provide the vision. Each artists was photographed licking flame as it served as both a ritual and a symbol of the creative process.
Come celebrate the release, enjoy a couple drinks and browse some books.
Featuring:
☯JS Aurelius, Artist and Musician (Ascetic House/ Destruction Unit/ Marshstepper)
✳ Heather Benjamin, Illustrator (Exorcise Book/ Sad Sex)
ϟ Margaret Chardiet, Artist and Musician (Pharmakon/ Cheena)
☠ Christopher Hansell, Musician, Curator (Ascetic House East/Warthog/ Ligature)
My photography will be displayed at Big Love records in Japan for the month of February. On Feb. 1 there will be a launch party in celebration of a new book, Violet Eyelash, published by I Hate Miss Crybaby that features five female photographers from around the world. There will be a full color book that has work from Jenna Thornhill Dewitt, Tara Dwelsdorf, Jesse Spears, Chiro and myself. A B+W zine of more of my work will also be available. I am so honored and excited. I wish I could attend! If you are a sugar daddy and wanna fly me to Japan HMU.
CHIRO(東京 / 日本) 東京出身。世界を旅しローカルシーンを撮影、数々の写真展を東京にて開催。またインタヴュージン「WALLNUTS」 の編集長。LOWER「Someone’s Got It In For Me / But There Has To Be More」のポートレートを手掛 け、また現在はLA ARTBOOKフェアやマサチューセッツで行われるグループアートショーなどの出品を控えている。
Wolf Eyes playing a surprise set at the Lamb Skin/ Sagan Youth Boys show that I booked at Acheron.Customized box at Warthog/Pharmakon/Hoax show“Varmakon”: Var/ Pharmakon collaboration for their record release showRussian Tsarlag setting fire to my plastic beer bag at the Ho_seSparse stage dive situation at Fitness center for Arts and TacticsSonya and Emma in MontrealThe nice lady at Enla Photo who develops my photos for meDisturbing treeSecret BoyfriendChealsea and her choker: “Fuck forever” “Sex Maniac”Puce Mary at Sacred Bones at a Northside showcase
Pineapple door stop and stems
PhemaleHer against a woodland wallpaperNick beating Fizz with a beltNarwhalz of Sound flipping over his gear tableTwo babes eating ice cream cake topped with Psilocybin mushroomsMiles with my Hello Kitty umbrella in the backyardThe drummer of Medicine with a girl backstage when before he told me he collaborated with WhitehouseDJ Dog Dick swinging from the rafters with his legs around MikeChris Hansell and Margaret Chardiet with a hot dog on the fourth of JulyMargaret after I tattooed my name on her armJesse Riggins with a peach and an alien and New York CityJess Poplawski from SurvivalHoax record release showGriffin and his RVLamb Skin as a gothik baby princess with angel wingsFertile MyrleFizz post whippingFizz and his sweatpantsDanny during his bartending shiftCrazy Jim from Wolf EyesCities Aviv double exposureChris and Sully eating ice creamChris and Mac DeMarcoMy altarCiarra at a Bunker Party at a Chinese Buffet in Ridgewood
I first heard Phemale through a friend, during a long car ride. We listened to A Root Terror, a perfect album for speeding somewhere between North Carolina and New York, very late at night. I was immediately transfixed by Phemale’s peculiar pop music, unbound by genre or pretension. It turns out that this was a very serendipitous introduction to the project, as I may not have found out about it otherwise. Mixed media artist Michael Donahue, who has been playing under the moniker Phemale since 2008, is sort of a secret. And that’s not because he’s unknown, as he is widely loved in certain underground circles. And it’s not because his music’s not readily accessible, as anyone can download all eleven of his albums for free via the WFMU free music archive. I guess it may be because he just doesn’t really promote himself. (Until recently he’s only self released small batches of cassettes for his close friends.) During our interview, he stated that writing updates about his project in all capitals on Facebook was about the extent of his efforts to promote himself and admitted to being ‘bad at it’. I simply had to speak to Donahue after devouring every one of his albums one by one, finding it hard to listen to anything else for weeks on end. I was obsessed.
Michael Donahue met me at the New Haven train station and greeted me with a hug. We were strangers but this didn’t feel strange. The reputation that proceeded him, according to several accounts, is that of “the nicest guy ever.” He speaks much more softly than I imagined, and hides his smile behind chain-smoked Pall Malls. Even when he speaks of a musician’s worst nightmare – having two full length unreleased album demos stolen from him on tour – he remains positive and poised.
Donahue chooses to split his time between New Haven (where he works) and Providence, Rhode Island. While the commute is expensive and time consuming, he enjoys gathering inspiration from both places. He likes the dingy inner city vibe in New Haven, and loves his job as an art teacher. In Providence, he gains inspiration from the rich musical scene and close friends.
When we reach his home, he immediately introduces me to his new kitten and roommates before we settle in the back yard. Donahue speaks so openly that soon I find myself confiding in him and engrossed in a long conversation before we even begin to roll tape. I must remember what brought me there. I had a chance to talk to Donahue about “Wet Hood” and those who dwell there, his celebrity sister, and his new album City Silk, which is out this month on Red Scroll Records.
Due to some problems at the pressing plant, City Silk will not be available by its original July 4 street date, but you can stream and download our premiere of “Plastination” as well as download a mix of my personal favorite Phemale songs.
tell me a little bit about the beginning of phemale.
I had been doing really crappy folk music for years in college, bad “new weird America”. I got bored of it; playing coffee shops… And got bored of people so… When I was in college I had written a little screenplay with characters with masks and I decided to make a project around that. Each of the characters would have songs about stuff that they cared about and this [Phemale] came from that.
so when you dress up in different costumes when you perform live, are those songs written in different perspectives that relate to those characters and costumes?
Yeah. There is one character, named Raymond, and he is obsessed with aliens and his songs are all about reptilian conspiracy and stuff. And there is the Helper, which is an eight-foot tall lady and she knows everything so she is really affected by that in a negative way. She is a very troubled person.
fuck, i never picked up on that. i can’t wait to see you live now. how many characters do you have?
I have eight and I am working on a new one. A six-foot-tall four-legged creature on stilts. His thing is that he used to be a lot taller but he shrunk down. He doesn’t fit in with the normal-sized people or the tall people anymore.
do your characters tell parables based in reality or pure imagination?
It’s definitely a mixture of both. Half of the lyrical content is purely from fictional events that my characters go through, and half is derived from actual events that happen to me. It’s definitely a defense mechanism thing, too. It’s easier to write about things that affect me negatively under the guise that it’s all fictional. The stories my characters tell are usually about obsession, whether it’s obsession over a topic, or over a person or a feeling. There are even fictional characters within the lyrics that represent real people in my life. It’s all a way of balancing being honest and keeping everything secret.
do you have a favorite character, and if so, what is their story?
My favorite character is definitely Raymond Braybyr. I even have his face tattooed twice on my shoulder. He works at the worm counting factory where all day he counts worms and makes tallies of the numbers. He lives, as all my characters do, in a small town called “Wet Hood,” where all the freaks live. He lives in a dark apartment with a rat named Meat. Although this all sounds very grim, he’s actually a pretty happy person. He knows deep down things will get better and he will find his true love. He’s my favorite because we share a lot of the same interests like aliens and beautiful women. And we’re both introverts.
He also has a large deformed left hand that he is very sensitive about, which ties in with my dislike of my own small hands. He also looks like a mixture of Nosferatu and Batboy, which were two huge childhood heroes.
how many full-length records have you recorded, and how many have you released? have you released all the recordings that you have made?
I have eleven available for download [With most released as Female. His moniker had to be altered not be confused with a UK producer]. Then there are two tapes that are gone, because they were stolen from me in San Francisco. Before then, I had twenty albums of bad folk music that only my sister and a few close friends are allowed to listen to.
are you tight with your sister?
Yeah, totally. She lives out in Pasadena, [California]. She is an actress. Have you ever seen House of the Devil? That’s her. The main girl.
wow, really? damn, that is so cool. and she likes your crappy folk albums?
Yeah, but she likes the new stuff more. She has always supported me no matter what and I love her for it.
do you rapidly write songs and record them? or do you do things slowly and meticulously? i just can’t move past the fact that you have so much stuff out there and it’s available to everyone for free.
It causes problems in my life because I don’t go out and people only see me at shows, because I hide away. And play. I have been constantly recording since 2008. But that came from a fear. When 2000 happened, and I was one of those people who thought that the world was going to end. So since then, I have felt like I have to get as much shit as possible out before the world is going to end.
is there anything else that compels you to stay inside, besides trying to produce as much work as you can? i know you told me that you no longer drink or do drugs. do you feel that this alienates you from time to time, or do you think you were more alienated when you did drink?
I only felt alienated during the period directly after I stopped doing that stuff. I went from living a life that revolved around that shit, to one that had nothing to do with it. For a short while I had a very negative feeling around individuals who “partook,” but I was just being an idiot. Everyone has the right to do whatever they want, and just because that shit messed up my life, doesn’t mean that it messes up everyone else’s. As soon as I got over myself and started being around people who drank again I began to find comfort in being the sober one. I’m no longer compelled to stay inside because of feeling left out or feeling alienated.
I’m usually tucked away because I’m working, drawing, or hanging with my BFF, Kylie. She has been great for my confidence when I moved to Providence. She gets me out of my cave and into the real world where there’s people and sunlight. I realize now that any alienation I felt was self-inflicted. It helps immensely that I have a great circle of friends.
you have albums that are more electronic and dancey and the albums that are more guitar driven and a straight noise record… but a common thread seems to be horror soundtracks and the supernatural. can you talk a little bit about that? besides, you know, your sister being a horror movie actress.
Ever since I was younger, my sister and my friends would pass along horror movie suggestions or burn me disks of old horror movies that were not in rotation anymore. I really liked that because… if people are still watching them, it creates some redeeming value to them, even if it doesn’t reach the masses anymore. I love camp and kitschy stuff. It has a nice ethereal value to it, especially the sound quality. I immediately recognize when I am going to sample something because I can hear the exact sound quality that I am making anyway.
in addition to horror, it seems like there is a lot of “world” influence, although i cringe at the use of that word to describe a genre because it is so vague.
Yeah. I remember that someone introduced me to Ravi Shankar at a really young age. I like percussion-driven music. I have always found that more interesting than Western music, even at a young age. I went from only listening to that sort of stuff and being sort of pretentious about it. I got over that phase and realized that every culture affects another culture. Then I got into American music that was really percussion based. A lot of my influence comes from Bollywood. Even to this day they prefer a tape quality sound. They will make multi-million dollar movies and still use a blown out sound. They have a dedication to that.
what are some american artists that you like the most?
I like Crash Worship. I don’t know if they are doing stuff anymore. They had a hippie vibe I wasn’t so into, but they make this really throbbing, gritty sounding music. I am recently getting into cleaner sounding stuff. I recently heard ELG. I heard about it because they were released on the same label that put out the Sewn Leather LP. It is clean sounding. Container, too. Oh and I listen to [Aaron] Dilloway’s “Modern Jester” once a week.
speaking to the diversity of your music, your forthcoming album city silkstrikes me as a little bit more somber than a lot of your other records and ends with a piano ballad titled “deeply personal”. you told me that you had to re-record the album from memory because the original demos were stolen from you on tour. how did that incident affect the album and your personal life? how much of the mood of the album relates to this time, or is its sadness coincidental?
It was not coincidental at all. I remember the original demos that I had recorded were much more harsh, and there were some rock and roll songs. I was really happy with them and when they got stolen it hit me really hard.
I was in San Francisco when it happened. Initially, my tour mate, Kylie [Father Finger] was more upset for me. She knew that I had worked really hard on them. I had to call my Dad because I was afraid that they would get into my computer, which was also stolen, and take passwords that he had emailed me or something. He is this gruff, old dude with a heart of gold. When I called him he was like “Fifty years from now, no one is going to give a shit”. I was like… “You’re completely right.” And five minutes later, I didn’t give a shit. Whatever.
that’s so harsh though!
Yeah, it’s pretty harsh, but it helped me get over it too. It’s funny because Kylie helped me out by saying, “You can write new songs, but the people who stole your songs will always be bad people.” But this all pushed the direction of the album to a somber place, because that is where it was coming from. The songs are slower. But the stuff that I sing about is happy.
Except for that last song, “Deeply Personal.” That is about pure hatred towards someone. I thought it was a funny way to end an album, with the biggest downer possible.
i thought it was interesting… the track being titled “deeply personal,”and the nature of the song almost make it feel like you are overhearing someone singing in the shower… sounds like you are accessing something you shouldn’t be allowed to hear.
That was the idea.
it is so rare, in this internet age, to stumble upon an artist who has produced so much but has as little information available about them as you do. do you shy away from self promotion?
I do. I gear self-promotion differently. It happened because of the product itself. Phemale is a brand. Phemale is the name of the pop star that writes all the music for all of these characters. He is a ghostwriter.
I guess the biggest move that I do, when promoting things online, is to write things in all caps. I don’t really know how to do promotion… I am not good at it. I recently started making more copies of stuff. I used to just make ten copies of a release and give them to my friends and then they would disappear. It has become a pain now, because when I want to listen to something, I have to track down people who may have it and have them make me a copy of my own recording. Now I am getting used to the idea that I have to promote if I want people to listen to my music. WFMU has helped me so much. I got the in from Mark [Angels in America]. It really helps to have a place where I can put all of my music.
i’m so used to people trying to do things…
“The right way.”
yeah, and it’s not like i am suggesting that you should not put out records or that you should not be paid well to play shows. i am not saying that at all, but i’m used to people putting more energy into promotion than substance.
Luckily, the record label that is putting out the new record [Redscroll Records] knows me personally, and they know that I have a hard time doing promotion. They are giving me the rights to the music, so I can give it away for free if I want to. The records will be theirs, but the music will be mine.
I even have a hard time with the pricing of the album. It is such a small run that it is going to be a little pricey, at least for me. So I made sure that the album comes with a little book of art and writing and a mask cut out, so it is not just a record.
how do you feel with this new record coming out? what do you hope to gain from your project? what role does it currently play in your life and what are your hopes for it in the future?
I want to develop the world of Phemale more. I want to make movies about the characters. The only people who know about the characters are people that know me personally and ask me about it. Hopefully after I sell some records, I can make a little money and buy a video camera and then I can film and flesh it out more. I am crossing my fingers, because I asked Carlos [Russian Tsarlag] to help me out with a movie in August. He is incredible. People who see me live know that I do little play pieces. Hopefully in the future if they want to know more about what I am doing, they can watch the film.
I’m also currently writing a comic about “Wet Hood.” As for the role that Phemale plays in my current life, it is all-consuming. The project has become my child, and all the characters are like family members. Its easily compared to any practice or trade where it takes up most of your time. Say if you’re an electrician, you start to notice if things are wired weird. If you’re a photographer, you begin to see things as if they would look good in a photograph. Whenever I see like a weird bump on a tree or funny looking dog, I’ll want to recreate it in a mask or costume or song. It’s like a really healthy obsession. An obsession that evolves and leads to output. And like most proud parents I like to show off my child.
All of these photos were taken on a single disposable camera that I still remember saving up my allowance for in 1997. I was ten.
Margaret jumping from my top bunk
Our Malnourished teen mom street cat, Endora.Camp Friend gorging on cake.
My cool ass beenie baby collection taking lunch in my cool ass Barbie car.When Margaret was six, my mom let me dye her hair green and give her a fake nose ring / brown lipstick.Our friend Sally at her home in Kent, Ohio.My sister as my Grandma.
Profligate is Noah Anthony’s Philadelphia based solo project. He makes beat driven electronic music that may have some roots in early techno but certainly can not be described as ‘minimal’. His music is ethereal and layered, calculated and unexpected. I had a chance to chat with Noah before his impressive performance at Wierd record’s weekly party at Home Sweet Home. I learned everything from how to correctly pronounce the project’s name (whoops) to his plans to robo trip with Lazy Magnet.
You played sort of similar music under the moniker Night Burger for a while. What inspired the name change, especially when Profligate doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue?
[Noah laughs at me]
I had to question myself before I pronounced it…
Yeah. It’s pronounced prof-la-git. GIT. Not Gate. I didn’t think it was going to be a big deal, haha. For Night Burger, I had never really played solo before and I really wanted to explore that zone. And it was really just a pile of garbage equipment strung together so it was a challenge trying to come up with these really minimal compositions with the most bullshit gear I could get. That fucking organ that I always used was something that the band Pedestrian Deposit found on the street when they were staying at our spot. We didn’t even see if it worked. We used it as a table for the grill for the entire summer before we even checked it out. Total garbage gear. I dunno, I’m mainly just interested in writing songs, so sure enough after a year or so of playing weird minimal dubbed out garbage, some vocals and straightforward tunes started to emerge from the Burger rig and that was when I sort of knew it was time to switch it up. Also all my gear died on me.
Guess that meant it was a time for a whole new sound.
Yeah, none of that shit works anymore. So, it was a clear indication that it was time to rethink some things. Social Junk had split up a while back also, and that was at one point my main vehicle for songwriting, so I needed another outlet. There is a solid line between the two projects in my view but the mood is sort of still the same, just more vocalized. “Videotape” was sort of where it started, with a heavy beat and a synth line. Actually, I played a lot of the songs from the Profligate records as Night Burger but they were always kind of fucked up and never sounded right.
The other day you posted “Not a Noise guy. Not a techno guy either.” What were you speaking to?
Just a basic statement of intent. No labels. No politics. No bullshit. I just don’t get why people make such a stink about using a drum machine. Please spare me your labels and politics. I just don’t care about it. Social Junk wasn’t a noise band and Profligate isn’t a techno band. The first instrument I ever bought was an Alesis drum machine back in 1997 anyways, so like I said who cares.
Profligate live at Wierd
Sometimes I find myself wondering what the next big “wave” in music may be. Could you argue that anything important is happening right now in music with your Not Not Fun label mates like Father Finger and Maria Minerva? There almost seems to be a push toward “outsider-esque” electronic music…
I’m not really up on Maria Minerva’s music honestly so I can’t really say if there’s any connection there but Father Finger is really great. I guess there has been a “push” for a while now and it’s nice to see killer underground acts getting some much deserved recognition.
I was going to ask how your tour went with Father Finger last summer. I don’t know either of you especially well but it is my impression that you have pretty opposite personalities…
Yeah, we’re pretty similar in a lot of ways also though. We sort of acted like divas a bit, mainly at ourselves. She is fun and kind of wild but also has a real professional attitude toward music which I dig. She taught me how to wrap a cable correctly, HA. We had a great time. What can I say? We did a lot of drugs.
Did she get you into any trouble?
I wouldn’t say we got into any trouble. We didn’t get caught. It was a sick tour, I have to say. I can’t elaborate. Sorry.
Some buddies of yours released Come Follow Me joking that it was a “shared burden” between More Records and Hot Releases. Thought that was funny. Do you feel support from the noise community? What is it like living in Philly these days and making music…
That’s just a little Plotkin humor. Do I feel support from the noise community? Umm…
You might not be a “noise guy” but I feel like you might “fall into that crowd”. And a lot of people who follow noise music are seemingly the majority of your following. I am not sure if that is true…
I’m not sure either, but I’m down with it. To me, it makes more sense to refer to it as the underground community, rather than ‘noise community.’ I mean yeah, I have gone to most of the INC’s [International Noise Conference in Miami] but… It’s different. It’s all these maniacs losing their shit and just doing their own thing. It’s about total freedom. People doing whatever they want to do. I’ve never really felt like a part of the noise scene but I’ve definitely been inspired by the general attitude behind it.
What about Philly? I lived there for a while but by the time I moved back to New York I was feeling so lonely.
It is a quiet time for Philly. I’m mainly just trying to help my friends who come through with cool shows. I don’t feel like I am very active right now or really able to be. There are some sweet new venues though. Heaven’s Gate is one. It rules. There’s some new blood, and that helps.
Do you think that the people who are doing Heaven’s Gate have the power to rejuvenate the citiy’ scene?
Anything is possible, it is a new year, baby.
2013 is the year of Philadelphia.
But not for me.
Shifting a bit, it seems like you have adopted a pretty uniform saturated, distorted VHS aesthetic. Your latest record is called Videotape. Additionally, your girlfriend is a visual artist and has done some artwork/video work for you. How much of this was collaboration? Or were you giving her a lot of direction? Do you plan on continuing to work with her for album art and music videos? She makes really cool videos…
Yeah, she just got into it recently. For Videotape the artwork was her idea. She just sent me a weird cell phone picture at one point that I thought would make a great cover. We tried to recreate that cell phone picture by filming in our apartment and then grabbing stills from it. The original source footage was then used in the music video for the song.
Come Follow Me was made in the same style. Filming, processing and taking stills. I gave her some vague idea of what I wanted and she made it happen by just tossing some fabric up in the air to 2 seconds. I think it’s really fitting for the record. It was exactly how I wanted it to look. It just clicked.
The original picture text that inspired the “Videotape” album art.The final artwork for “Videotape”.
Do you think you are going to stick to this style? Or do you just like the way it looks and are not particularly dedicated to it?
Yeah, I think I will stick to what works. You’ll probably see more of that. We did something similar for the Form a Log LP that is coming out soon.
The video she made for the Form a Log video is so fucking insane.
Yeah, it’s so fucked up and creepy. I love how well it goes with the music. There’s a part where she stabs a strawberry and there’s a ‘squish’ sound that we thought was from filming, but it’s actually in the music! It’s perfect.
You included the lyrics to the record which I feel like is becoming increasingly rare. Is there any significance to that? How much do you think about your lyrics?
I definitely wanted to include them. They’re important to me. It makes me feel a little exposed also, and I’m into that. I did that for both of the records, even though on Videotape there’s only one line so it was easy. Personally I just like staring at a lyric sheet while listening to a record. I wish Russian Tsarlag LPs came with the lyrics.
Musically and otherwise do you think about where you want to be and where you want to take yourself with the project? Any frontiers you have considered exploring with the project? New approaches to song writing? Gear you’d love to obtain? Collaboration?
I like to limit myself with gear. I don’t want to go crazy. I don’t want too many options with my gear, I like to try to get the most out of what little I have. I tinker around enough as it is and have a very backward way of recording that I like to stick to, at least until I can get inside a real studio. I recently bought my first synthesizer, but I really haven’t even touched it. It’s just sitting in the corner. It’s a beast that I’m not ready to tackle yet. The most I’ve done with it is record some pan flute for Form a Log. My goal for the winter was to get it set up, but “lazy boy winter mode” is sort of hitting me hard.
There are a couple more shitty cold months ahead of you to get that done.
Yeah, there’s plenty of time, so I’m just taking it slow. I have a lot of ideas that I’m excited to try out for the new songs I’m working on. Hopefully I’ll walk away with something. The challenge of integrating rock guitar into dance music is one for example, does it ever work? I want to find out. Also, in terms of collaborating with other people, the door is open. Especially with vocalists. I have been trying to do that for a while at this point. I’ve asked different people… It never ends up happening, haha.
Who are some of these people?
I had better not name names. They know who they are. I definitely want to get more people involved. But that one song would’ve been so much better! [shaking fists] Ha Ha. Just kidding.
I thought it was really cool that you included re-mixes that your friends did of your songs with the last record. It’s also a cool way to interact with other musicians without compromising yourself/songs as a solo act.
I have some really talented friends! These songs are just sitting there. And I am just sitting here. And maybe they are just sitting there. We should just jam each others shit, come up with some new stuff. Some new old stuff. Haha. What am I saying? It is really refreshing and rewarding to play solo but I definitely love getting other people involved. Maybe even turn this into a full band at some point, it’s possible.
Besides Outmode and Toe Ring and some of the people you have worked on remixes with, who else are you really into right now?
Well, everybody knows Human Beast is the best fucking band around. Everybody knows that. So, there you go. Human Beast. The best. Moth Cock, from Ohio makes some of the strangest music I’ve ever heard. And also, Daryl from Meager Sunlight’s new solo project Samantha Vacation is really fantastic.
I’ve never seen her solo; I have only seen her with Meager Sunlight.
Really? She is out of control. So good. Honestly, I have to say that the East Coast is filled with some real freaks who are blowing my mind constantly and there’s probably a lot I’m not even aware of. It’s great to be a part of it.
Profligate live at Wierd
Yeah I feel like for the first time in a long time, I want to be where I am.
Totally. I lived in Oakland very briefly and didn’t have a lot of time to dig deep into the scene which was unfortunate. I feel like I’m pretty out of touch with the West Coast in general, and hope to fix that soon. I’ll bet there is some crazy shit happening over there.
Speaking of working with others, you are about to go on a tour with Lazy Magnet and I read that Jeremy is enlisting a lot of help. What are you anticipating with this tour?
The Soft Moon is an Oakland based project masterminded by front man Luis Vasquez. The music sounds anxious and visceral; dark without being melodramatic or over the top. The Soft Moon does not follow the lead of the all too common Depeche Mode worshipping contemporary Post-Punk outfits. Vasquez isn’t crooning below his vocal range to sparse snyth. His whispers turn into screams, delicately layered in a collage of sound. I can’t think of a band to compare The Soft Moon to, they have created an unapologetically hypnotic sound that is all their own. And that is the point. With The Soft Moon’s latest album, Zeros, Vasquez set out to snatch the listener out of their own reality with the albums beginning and spit them back out at the end. I had a chance to meet with the band before their sold out show at the Mercury Lounge in New York City to talk about shitty childhoods, Nine Inch Nails and getting seasick on a barge in Leon, France.
The Soft Moon backstage at Mercury Lounge, January 8, 2012. NYC.
While people tend to file The Soft Moon under “post-punk”, you sometimes strike me as unique approach to “post-industrial” music. You aim to create a full sensory experience with your live shows and create atmospheres and noise landscapes rather than manufacturing traditional “pop” songs. What do you make of this?
I think it’s funny. Most bands talk about how they don’t like to be generalized and think they are too cool or too pretentious to be some sort of genre. I am open to whatever sort of genre people want to align me with. I am open to what they feel. I don’t really know what I am making, honestly. I am just making music, whatever feels right, whatever happens naturally. You can call me whatever, and it is cool. I like the genres like post-punk and post-industrial because those feel like they work.
You mentioned not writing conventional songs. That is totally true. That is something that I do on purpose to stay away from the typical approach to making music. Critics, every once in a while, will take note of that as though it is wrong of me not to write songs. But every track that I write is more of a soundtrack to my emotions. Or sonic photographs of how I am feeling at that moment. Memories. I don’t necessarily need to write a hook to express that I am sad or mourning over the death of a friend or something like that.
Speaking of post-industrial, you recently re-mixed ‘Ice Age’ by Trent Reznor’s new band How to Destroy Angels_. How did that happen? Did it feel strange? Are you a Nine Inch Nails fan?
I never really delved into NIN. I had downward spiral. I would watch Pretty Hate Machine videos on MTV, things like that. It was still an honor. I consider Trent Reznor a pioneer. I respect him completely.
The way it came about was really random. It was out of nowhere. My publicist just e-mailed me and was like ‘Trent Reznor gave you the go ahead to do a remix’ and I was like ‘What?’ We talked about maybe crossing our fingers and touring with NIN if he ever released a new record and that was the last thing we talked about. A few months later there was this e-mail requesting a remix. I never talked to him directly.
I procrastinated on it. I didn’t want to listen to the track until the absolute last minute because I was really overwhelmed with the project. Especially knowing that he is really precise and that he is really particular and is a perfectionist when it comes to his music and I am the complete opposite. I like flaws.
At the same time, I embraced what I do and my style of writing and combined it. But I was scared. I wanted him to like it and I was scared that he wasn’t going to like it. In the end I pulled it together and I’m pretty happy with it.
Do you know if he is happy with it?
Yeah! He considered it his favorite remix. We got that e-mail and we were like “yeahhhh”. And I just got another e-mail. They want me to send them stems of an instrumental of the track because I think they want to perform my version live.
WOW
Read that right before I got on the plane here.
You’ve said that the Soft Moon has been largely inspired by you facing your difficult childhood. Do you feel that The Soft Moon has helped you come to terms with your childhood? Do you feel emotional growth with each release?
I am still trying to unravel my childhood. I completely blocked the entire thing out and that was the initial reason why I started the project. I wanted to figure out why I feel so fucked up in my head. Why I feel so much paranoia and anxiety and suffer from depression. I mean we all suffer from these same things but I know that mine is directed towards my upbringing.
The sole purpose of The Soft Moon was to dig up what I buried away. It has definitely helped me realize certain things about me but it has definitely fucked me up even more because I am realizing things about me… Becoming more aware. Become more awkward. Having worse social disorders and things like that. And drinking more because of it. I am hoping that there is going to be some clarity in the future. The whole purpose of the project was to help me feel sane and it is driving me crazier at the moment. But we will see what happens.
Have your parents heard The Soft Moon?
I keep it away from my Mom. I have invited her to a show though… She says she is going to come and she never does. I don’t think she would be able to handle it if she came. She would be able to see exactly what I am saying. She would see so much reality in it.
I get text messages from her all the time telling me that she is a horrible mother and all that… And that she is sorry… So if she sees the result of it on stage… She’ll be able to consider it me doing something that I love but at the same time I am doing it so I can live.
My brother came to a couple of shows and he totally saw it. He has a similar upbringing… He is younger than me but once he told me that he could feel the “family stuff”. But I think it would fuck my Mom up for sure… But maybe one day… We will see…
The Soft Moon, live at Mercury Lounge.
You grew up in the Mojave Desert. I recently returned from a trip from Joshua tree and was awestruck by the almost un-earth like beauty of that area. As a New York native, the Desert was brilliantly foreign to me. You are now living in the rather bleak city of Oakland, CA. How do you think this change of scenery affects you? Did you move to Oakland specifically to remove yourself from the Desert, which while being beautiful- is isolating and holds bad memories?
Growing up there, I completely hated it. The second that I was old enough to move out I moved to LA, Long Beach and those areas. I think it is because I went to a contrasting city to gain perspective on where I grew up that I started to appreciate where I grew up. After gaining that perspective and once I stepped away from it for many years and started appreciating it allowed me to go back their sonically through The Soft Moon.
Have any major developments in your life [since the self-titled album] inspired Zeros? Or would we have to wait a few years to hear that album?
I think the third record is going to be the most evolutional for me. I approached Zeros with more of a concept in mind. I wanted to bookend the album with the opening track and a reversal of it to bring you out of your consciousness, into mine and then bringing you back to reality at the end. I went with a post- apocalyptic approach because I have reoccurring end of the world dreams all the time. I played into that. And I wanted to have a soundtrack formula to writing music.
The third record feels like freedom to me. I am going to be allowed to do something that comes natural. There are always expectations when it comes to a second record. Now that that’s over with, I think the third record is truly going to be me.
“Zeros” cover
Do you see the project taking all sorts of different directions, tackling something new?
More me. I don’t predetermine what I write. I don’t like to think about it until it is time to write. I do want to make it more visual. That is a goal of mine. In terms of the music, I can’t really control that. But when it comes to the visual aspect, I want to enhance that more. Make that more focused. Have more a concept. I think the music already has a theme and a feel to it. People know it is The Soft Moon. Now it is time to hone in on the vision.
It sounds like you really want to develop the visual aspect of the project. What would you ideally be able to “pull off” for a live show? If you could do anything? You seem very interested in soundtracks, have you considered making a movie and scoring it? What would be your dream live performance?
Definitely. It would be amazing to make a film and score that film and combine it with the third record so the third record is part film. That would be pretty amazing. I also want to bring in more of a Neubauten approach and start banging on things… I am doing that more and more with each recording. But I want to embrace the industrial thing, but in a different way. Not because it is industrial, but because I am curious about the way that things sound.
Live at Mercury Lounge.
You dropped a new video for ‘Die Life” today and are beginning an international tour tonight. How do you feel about this upcoming adventure? Do you like to tour?
I do. If I am home I get really depressed and stare at walls and drink a lot. When we are on tour I feel like there is purpose to my life. I like being active. Being productive just makes you feel better. And also having a schedule. It is cool to have a place to go, a place to be every day. But besides that it is completely spontaneous and stimulating, you never know what is going to happen because we are somewhere new everyday. It is the best of both worlds.
Are there any places that you like touring to in particular?
France is amazing. I don’t know what happened there, but they like us a lot. Barcelona, too. I could play there ten times a year, easily. Of course, Berlin. Mainly, Paris, huh?
Remember the boat in Leon? [The other dudes egg Luis on to tell “the story”] What happened? I mean, I broke my elbow open. It was the encore and it was kind of slippery…
[Justin and Kevin chime in intermediately]
We played a small barge. We were watching as the light moved up and down. As more people got on the barge we could see more and more movement.
What was cool was that drinking balanced it out.
That seems kind of counter intuitive!
It was really bothering me until I started drinking… A lot. The stage was tiny and wet. That’s the name of the new record, Tiny and Wet. I think Bon Jovi already took that… What was the name of the new Bon Jovi record? Because We Can. Seems kinda arrogant.
January 9 – Cambridge, MA @ T.T. The Bears *
January 10 – Rochester, NY @ Bug Jar *
January 12 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle *
January 13 – Columbus, OH @ Double Happiness *
January 14 – Lexington, KY @ Al’s Bar *
January 15 – Atlanta, GA @ 529 *
January 16 – Athens, GA @ Caledonia Lounge *
January 17 – Durham, NC @ The Pinhook *
January 18 – Philadelphia, PA @ North Star Bar *
January 19 – Hamden, CT @ The Outer Space *
January 20 – Washington, DC @ Black Cat *
March 5 – Las Vegas, NV @ The Beauty Bar
March 7 – Phoenix, AZ @ The Crescent Ballroom
March 10 – Denton, TX @ 35 Denton (Denton Fest)
March 12 – Houston, TX @ Fitzgerald´s
March 13 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
March 14 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
March 15 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
March 16 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
March 18 – Kansas City, KS @ Riot Room
March 20 – Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge
March 21 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court
March 29 – Aarhus, Denmark @ Atlas
March 30 – Copenhagen, Denmark @ Loppen
April 2 – Helsinki, Finland @ Kuudes Linja
April 6 – Prague, Czech Republic @ Meet Factory
April 7 – Budapest, Hungary @ A38
April 9 – Ljubljana, Slovenia @ K4
April 10 – Rome, Italy @ Circolo degli Artisti
April 11 – Milan, Italy @ Elita Milano Design Week Festival
April 12 – Bologna, Italy @ Covo
April 13 – Padova, Italy @ Loop / Bastione Alicorno
April 14 – Dijon, France @ Consortium
April 15 – Paris, France @ Trabendo
April 16 – London, England @ Islington Academy
April 17 – Amsterdam, Holland @ Melkweg
April 19 – Lille, France @ Le Grand Mix
April 20 – Amiens, France @ La Lune des Pirates
April 28 – Austin, TX @ Austin Psych Fest
Hanging out in an abandoned/ preserved gynecologists’ office.
A logical place to start would be where you are right now: on tour. You’re supporting “Children of Desire” in the wake of a very favorable Pitchfork rising article. So far, does this tour feel very different from past experiences touring with Merchandise?
Carson: Yes. A hundred percent different, and probably the last time we’ll ever tour this way.
In what way?
Pat: Punk shows.
C: Punk is just way different in Florida. There was this reason to stay true to where we were from and the more I play punk shows, the less I feel this way because… It means a lot to us and it doesn’t mean the same thing to other people; especially in New England and the big city. It’s an easy thing for a lot of people here. There are cool bands all the time. It is a social scene. It feels like, as a whole, the big DIY shows here are less passionate that where we come from. There are a lot of things about the way that we are doing this tour that doesn’t work.
Live at Wierd Night
You guys come across as unified front, and very close confidants. Do you ever worry that the stresses of being in a band will strain your personal relationships?
Dave: With this band, I don’t think it will ever come to a head like that. We are pretty much a family. We have been playing together for seven years in various bands. We are closer now than we have ever been despite getting more popular and making more friends and more enemies.
C: Seriously. Especially enemies. This has destroyed all of our other bands. This is the kind of thing that tears all bands apart but it is an experience that we have already lived through, honestly. At this point, we know what to expect.
I was very impressed with the literary companion to the album, “Desire in the Mouth of Dogs”. Carson is often credited as the songwriter of the band but I read that Dave actually wrote the piece, intertwined with Carson’s lyrics. The prose is very realized and I was wondering if Dave is a writer?
D: I am not much a writer.
C: That’s bullshit.
D: That was the first big piece of prose that I have ever tried. I read a lot. I have a literature degree from college. I am just interested in finding a new voice for the music. In this band we want to make it more than just music, we want to push everything.
C: Even if we fail.
D: We just want to try.
P: There are a lot of expressions that need to be released through different mediums. This is not just a band that is writing songs. This is way bigger than that.
C: We started out playing music but we essentially broke up and I wrote the first record by myself. I had Dave record a bunch of shit over it. We had no intention of playing live. I had no intention of continuing the band. I thought it was going to be a tape and that was going to be it.
Since the inception, it seems that we have always worked the opposite of the way that a lot of other bands worked. We never played live. We only made music videos for a long time. I wasn’t interested in touring my ass off to get my foot into some door. I was more interested in communicating directly with people.
D: It was an outlet that accidentally turned into a band. But the book [“Desire in the Mouth of Dogs”] was very much a ‘I just want to do this’ sort of thing. We didn’t even plan it. At the end, it just all came together.
That is so interesting because I read it as a manifesto to the album.
C: At the same time, there is a psychic thread linking the two because we were working on both of them at the same time. The headspace was shared with both projects.
They mirror each other.
C: Not to mention real life. And not to mention art, in general, being a mirror. That is part of the reason why it’s good for us to space out records. I don’t know what is going to come to me at what time. [The book] was not really planned but it was foretold. It was shown to us.
Another extension of the record and of your last would be…
C: Are you going to ask me about God?
Do you believe in God? Another extension of the record is your music videos. I noticed that several of the videos use a lot of mirroring, multiple layers of the same image and patterns of imagery. I assume this is not simply a stylistic decision as on the albums cover art, that the letter W stands before the word ‘Merchandise’,undoubtedly a nod to the bands nom de plume, W. Marehendes. Also, a W is an inverted M. Can you speak a little bit about this?
C: It is a play on language. It is a play on communication. It’s a play on Dada poetry. It is a way to vent fucking frustration and bordom.
P: We want to show that you don’t have to follow one straight path.
C: I feel like even the word ‘Merchandise’ almost doesn’t sound like English. It sounds hard; the consonants in it are strange. We knew what we were doing.
We want to have fun and confuse people. People started following us and we were like. Okay, let’s change [the name].
In terms of the divine I was raised to believe in God but I don’t believe in a Christian faith. I believe it has a lot to do with who I am. It has a lot to do with my guilt and my fear.
You can’t take all of the Christian out of someone who was raised Christian.
Live at Wierd
C: This is me working through that. I still feel vulnerable from that period of my life. I remember being a kid and crying because I knew what death was. Time to me, is a big theme of life. Time is the same as death.
A lot of the record was very much inspired by me reading about Taoism and Buddhism and the difference between East and West. The East is totally fascinating to me. The afterlife is the absence of an after-life. They have come to terms with reality in that way. In the East you die and you become one with the universe. Your consciousness changes. And they think that is beautiful. They are not afraid of it. In this country, you see fear constantly. The way people work, the way people act.
You’ve spoken about the theme of time but dreams also seem to be a very important theme throughout your work. In Freudian thought, dreams and desire and absolutely related. Can you talk a little but about the correlation of dreams and desire in your own lives and music?
C: For the record, I was having tons of nightmares. Everyday. And night terrors. In general, I believe that dreams parallel art and creativity. A dream will show you what has been building up inside your head.
Is there a specific nightmare that inspired “In Nightmare Room”?
C: Yeah, Verbatim. Dreams are like a gut feeling. That is why they are the only thing I can guide art through. It goes back to a Psych landscape that was really fascinating to me, like really psyching out a record really dubbing out a record and just making it be like a sit down experience. Like a movie. And dreams share a lot with visual plastic arts like video. There is a lot you can do… The last video we made was dream based. There was a short at the end that is the “nightmare room” lyrics all put into a very simplified thing.
Live at Wierd
Carson has cited that Merchandise’s romantic sound is largely due to the fact that his Mother taught him to sing…
C: And I am making my Mother more famous than I am, because people ask me about her all the time. Constantly.
How is your Mother?
C: She is wonderful. She is my favorite person ever. She is also mad at me because I won’t ever sing with her. But she always wanted me to sing with her at the choir in church and I was like ‘No, I am not going to do that.’ She is 62. She comes from a different generation where the American Songbook was very much a part of her growing up and she raised up sort of like Midwesterners growing up in Florida. It was very strange.
I have memories of us struggling. My father leaving the family and my mother raising us, my grandfather helping to raise us. The soundtrack to that was her singing Sarah Vaughan and pop music from the 50’s, where the notion of beauty is all anyone ever cares about. They just want to make the most perfect sounding thing. Pre-70’s. Nothing really cheap to it but the life we were living was very different, very fractured from that. It was not the 50’s at all.
We were living in Tampa Bay, a developing city. The public schools were really fucking bad, really shitty. It was like her voice against the reality of being a little kid. My Mother’s voice exists outside of that. I believe she will come back to me after she is dead. I believe she will definitely be there.
So… She taught me how to sing. And then I got into punk. And then I don’t know what happened. I can’t even explain why it happened. But this music [Merchandise] was like faggot music. Nobody wanted it. But apparently it has appealed to a lot of people who I didn’t expect it to. Half nurtured by punks and half destroyed by it. Strange.
Carson confronting a very dull Philadelphia audience
But there is also a preoccupation with romantic love in your lyrics… Do you believe that all men are preoccupied with romantic love, weather exalting it or cursing it?
C: Both. Absolutely.
P: Or avoiding it.
C: Yeah, or avoiding it… yeah. I would say at this stage in my life that I am avoiding it. It just sucks to fall in love. It is a big pain in the ass. In general. Come on. It’s not even a joke. You are bound to it. It is part of what happens. Loneliness is a constant thing with everyone. I am totally serious, it just is. It gets at everybody and you can’t say that it doesn’t.
At the same time you can’t just listen to that voice. There are a million things you can pay attention to and most people pay attention to the most negative thing. I don’t know… There are just too many good songs about heartache. Hank Williams Senior is up there.
D: Roy Orbison.
C: Roy Orbison is another one. The Everly Brothers. Music that will fucking kill you. Jimmy Rodgers. Above all. The last time I was really heart broken it was like: ‘I have got to stop listening to Jimmy Rodgers, because it is killing me’. It is so good. It is so sad. It is just a sad cowboy yodeling with a guitar. Some of the things that have hit me the hardest are not punk. They are not electronic.
With Jimmy Rogers or that shit… It was recorded onto wax cylinders or something. It was really, really raw. And really fucking sad. And folk music is a huge part of our music headspace too. Beyond Neil Young, Bob Dylan and the grateful dead… Jimmy Rodgers, Merle Haggard, Abner Jay. There is so much in folk music that translates to all music. I don’t think really think of separating music. I do not think of genres and like you know… That is why we had one song on the new record having a song with a piano on it because it was like ‘this is the same layout as a synth’. You can convey it in a different way. But it was important to me to have that. And the next record is going to be touching on more things. I am not interested in us being stuck into something. We are not a fucking Brooklyn band. I don’t want us to be stuck in one space and if people think we are an Indie rock band than that’s really not what I am trying to do. I am trying to make something new, the best I can. And if I fail, so be it.
I believe the fact that you do not play a particular ‘genre’ of music is really important and I think that is what many people recognize in you. I think it is really funny because I got into you guys by you just giving me “Strange Songs ( in the Dark)”. We were talking about music all day [in Tampa] and you were like… “You should not pay for this, you should have it.” HAHA ADAM [Katorga Works]!
C: And Adam is fine with that, too. That is the crazy thing. You’ll never find a label that is like OK with that.
D: I mean, he posts all the records for free.
I think that is really cool. One of my best friends, Casey, who I met in High School came to the show last night and asked me if you had any CDs, because he doesn’t have a record player. I told him he could download it for free. He wanted to support you guys but I told him to buy a shirt. You have everything online from the guy who released it!
C: At this point in my life I am really, really interested in reaching to people who are not into music. More than anything.
D: We do not want to be exclusionary at all.
C: I am fascinated with this being a way to communicate with people. It was always expression to me but I never thought that it was a way to communicate with people…
It was so interesting to me… To receive your record in Tampa and after a 25-hour drive I put it on right away, after returning to Philadelphia. Just because… I really liked it. And I was really happy that I had no idea what it was, in a way. I just loved it for whatever it was. It just resonated with me.
From the very beginning, from the first time I heard it, I was really into it but I have also always been happy that I got into it through hanging out with Carson and Dave. Having a long conversation on your porch in Tampa and then going home with this amazing gift that really touched me. I have always thought that is the best way to get into a band…
C: And that is the best way to find people that are genuine. And that is how it worked for so long and that was part of the reason why we didn’t expect labels to be asking us to do stuff because it was so personal. That is how we met, but that is also how we do everything. Because we care about it. It is weird to me that many people don’t.
And now you are in this awkward position where you can not play the same sorts of shows that you were playing even a year ago but many of the people who are going to your bigger shows only care on a surface level.
Secret show with a live drummer, NYC
C: Yes… A surface level. You played that set last night and I thought it was really moving. Especially for any of the girls in the audience. But even for me… I have been called a faggot my whole life. Everyone is school just thought I was gay or they were totally mentally abusive. That is the part of me that identifies with this minority that women play.
And my Mother. She is stronger than any male in my family. Raised me and my sister. Got a ton of shit for being on welfare for a long time and being a single Mom. And she is not even bitter. She is just like I had to make money, I don’t care. I don’t have time to feel like dog shit because these people think that I am a piece of shit. That is how her spirit is. She is from the old world. To me there is a lot of virtue in that.
Oh, to be a woman.
C: I love all people, but I especially connect with women in that way and I don’t know why. Which is also maybe the reason why maybe I fall in love with them in the way that I do and it is really hard when it goes bad is because I see something in them that they don’t see in themselves. I have fallen in love with girls who just don’t respect themselves in a lot of ways and I respect them more than they do. And at some point it becomes impossible.
If they are used to abuse, whether it is mainstream social abuse and oppression or being part of this world and suffering because of it or if they are used to suffering at the hands of people that they love. They are told that this is what it is to be in love and it’s not. You can only respect someone who respects themselves.
Live at Wierd
What do you love more than anything in this world?
C: Beauty. D: It is hard to say anything other than beauty. My friends. My music.
So, Pat, energy drinks?
P: I think energy drinks are a worldly thing.
C: You are supposed to say Florida Hardcore.
P: Yeah, Hardcore, Florida, Hard Times magazine. Nooooo. I think positive energy. Good spirits. Beauty has a lot to do with it. Carson touched on this but people’s perception of reality and how things are usually so short sighted and I think that people live in this reality where they are super suppressed. And when people break out of that, it is very beautiful. It is definitely and opportunity that comes very rarely in people’s lives and I think it is important to embrace it. And it goes back to how to band functions and how I don’t ever think it will be a problem because we have all recognized this and we have taken an opportunity. There is nothing subversive about what we are doing. And it is a great thing.
C: To communicate honestly… Is the greatest thing. To be able to talk to one person is really wonderful. It is way better than communicating in a massive way. To be able to reach one person is still the goal, overall. It is kind of changing now. I don’t know how we are necessarily going to do that all the time. I want to do that, though. I want to communicate directly with people. I don’t want there to be a bullshit barrier between us, press and the audience. I don’t want there to be a wall. Our e-mail address goes straight to us. If anyone wants to talk to us they can just talk to us. That will never change, I don’t think.
It’s becoming really hard to stay that way. I used to be able to say concrete things about what we were going to do and what we were never going to do… I used to be able to say that “we are never going to do this, you are never going to see us here, and you are never going to see us appealing to these sorts of people” and that is just not true anymore. So much is changed I can never say never anymore.
At the same time I believe that we can do more than what a band is supposed to do. Which is another reason why I don’t even think we are a ‘band’. We are all drummers. We all play guitar. We are all songwriters. We all write our own songs. So is that a band? I don’t just sing. Dave doesn’t just play guitar. Pat doesn’t just play bass. There are a whole lot of things that make it work. I love doing this as long as I can keep it how I want it to be. But to make something beautiful is ultimately what we want to do. We have kind of done a lot of shit over the years and we are entering a whole new chapter. And that is why I can never say never anymore. But if I can make my Mother happy… That is the perfect goal. It is a perfect goal because I can achieve it. To communicate with some directly is a goal that I can accomplish. To me I feel like we’ve done a lot and I am proud of where we are at this point.
Honestly, I was really inspired when I was researching online about you guys and trying to figure out what questions I should ask you. I came across people talking shit on you guys on the Internet, especially about how you’ve “sold out” and have press. And coincidently, my boyfriend started doing press for you guys.
C: Yeah, the kid whose band I booked at Heinrichs Workshop. You know what I mean? Come the fuck on. Do you know how we know these people? We know these people because we were all shitty punk kids together and we all played the same shows and we played the same basements together. It is so natural it is retarded.
When I met him he was unemployed and before that he worked at a Best Buy so that he could tour. His current job happens to be a job that he just got through being in his last band [The Men].
C: Price tagging Rancid CDs…
It’s not like he is some evil person who set out to work in the industry or sponge off independent bands…
P: People have been talking shit forever. Ever since we were in punk bands dubbing tapes on my own in my bedroom on my own stereo and someone across the country on the Internet feels like shitting all over it. It has been such a sick cycle. It started with local hate, to national hate and now there is international hate.
C: INTERNATIONAL HATE.
P: I think I was quoted in an interview as having said that hate is the glue that holds the world together.
C: Even though I said it. We wrote in Pat’s answers for an interview. It was fun making him say whatever I wanted. But really, the DIY world needs to fucking check themselves because they have been getting away with righteous bullshit for a long fucking time. Man, I have met CEO’s of major labels that are much more humble than these assholes. The whole game has changed. And if you think you are going to stay on top forever you are as delusional as every fucking republican and democrat in this country. You are as delusional as every fucking Christian. They are just as delusional as every mainstream, person in this country. Everyone who thinks of themselves as a part of this DIY society is just as dumb, you just buy records all of the time. You are a consumer. You are not a purist. You are not an individual. You are defining your identity through this and it is fake.
I was really fascinated by this threat that you pose to so many people. Punk kids are lashing out at you. I honestly just like your music, and I like you guys but I also have faith that whatever record label you put a record on doesn’t matter because it is still going to be good and beautiful and interesting and I am going to want to listen to it. Who the fuck cares? If someone wanted to publish my book or allowed me to be a paid journalist- if someone gave me the opportunity to make writing my job, fuck yeah, I would take that. I would take that in a heartbeat. That is what I want to do… But I don’t think people would have a problem with that. The fact that people have a problem with you guys doing what you love and ONLY doing what you love is fucking gross. And they need to chill the fuck out.
C: It is ridiculous because it is almost like DIY kids want us to go for broke and sign to a major label. It’s almost like they won’t respect us until we do. We feel like okay… We are just like you and we are going to play this show in this city… We have been doing this for years and years just like you have. Doing the same thing. Booking with the same people. Still doing it. Still playing houses after getting some press and people thinking that we are bigger than we are. Still doing it and people don’t respect that. They only respect power. They are just like everyone else.
DIY kids were not supposed to be like this. There is supposed to be this unwritten spiritual contract between us like “I’m punk, your punk, this is how we do it” but there are divisions throughout it I have stood on both sides and at the end of the day nobody knows what they are doing but you can only decide what you are going to do. I try to tell that to my friends.
I know so many people who are so creative and are so smart and they are totally held back by their peer group. 100%. Merchandise was not supposed to be a band. Nobody offered to do a record besides Adam. Nobody was interested in it. In my city, we were a joke because we were not hardcore. We played with bands like Cult Ritual and it doesn’t matter. We are just playing music, man. At the end of the day I have to say, I have grown up a little bit and the DIY scene is just like high school. It’s just like high school bullshit.
An American band
And DIY culture mimics all the problems that we have in this world and mainstream society… Just smaller versions of the same problems.
C: It is a microcosm of Christian thought and Christian society.
Who is cool? Who is not?
C: Who is righteous?
D: Judge and jury. Police, its bullshit. The society that they are rallying against… They are just replicating it. And it is just a little more gross because it’s so personal. It’s crap. I think it’s awful.
Our generation wasn’t part of the punk movement; we are part of punk culture that we have appropriated.
C: I would say we are more power violence than anything else at this point. Honestly, that is what it is. Old punks don’t really know what it is all about now and young kids are still making great music. And no one really expects it. No one is expecting there to be a second wave of honest to goodness good independent music. And everyone is trying to get a piece of it. Who knows how long it is going to last or if it can really mirror anything that has happened in the past. I feel like it is a totally different thing.
Again, we are not punks we are hardcore kids. This is hardcore, not punk. Punk is something that happened before us and hardcore is still happening now. When I was 18 years old I only recorded power violence bands because that was all there was but I called it punk. I just thought they were punk kids. Again, we are making something new now. We can’t really attach to this whole thing. It is cool that old dudes want to be a part of what is happening. It is cool that they still want to be a part of everything. It’s cool that Negative Approach is apparently still good.
They were.
D: It sucks that they are touring with OFF! Though.
I know! So are The Spits :(.
C: Off! Fucking sucks. It’s fucking garbage. I think Keith Morris is a fucking piece of shit. And you can print it! I don’t give a shit! He’s never done anything for me and he has been running his mouth in every fucking punk documentary for thirty years… Being like ‘This is how it is’ and trying to be a person who was part of everything but what the fuck is he participating in now? Look at what you are doing. Do you think it is the same? I get it, you are old and you are scared of anything else. Punk is not what it used to be. Everyone is going to look back and he is going to be a clown. And it’s sad. He can’t even see it. But it’s not the same thing at all. I think that people realize it and it is part of the reason why it is still exciting to play DIY shows and the reason why I still want to book DIY this year but it is starting to come to a head. The more popular we become the more visible we are, the less we can do in that world. I want to do everything I can, I want to play with as many bands as I can before we get to the point where we have to do something else. I still feel like we could play huge rooms but we wouldn’t sound the same. It wouldn’t be the same band. You wouldn’t see what you saw last night. And if we did it would have to be very special.
But we wouldn’t have Henry Rollins playing with us. We would have Rat Bastard on guitar. That is where we come from. It is a different place. And it’s not punk, why do we even care about honoring these people? They don’t honor us. And they are just as fucking desperate as all the industry people. And a lot of the industry people… The wind has been taken out of their sails because they can’t make money anymore. It is not what it used to be. There are people that people think are millionaires who are not millionaires. It is not as easy to put out records anymore. At the same time, labels are kind of dumb. They are putting out dumb stuff.
Too many record labels are just putting out whatever they think is going to make them money and opposed to what they feel passionate about.
C: It is so short sighted. It is so fashionable. And it sucks. There are only a few record labels that are curated in a personal way. Night People, to me, have always been part of my scene. It has been part of my life. It wasn’t a barrier between me press band label it wasn’t like that. Which is how a lot of people want to work. They want to keep that wall up so they seem exclusive. And it is press doing it. It’s PR people doing it. And they don’t care. They are not even musicians. They are like wanna be celebrity people who want to live a glamorous big city life but they are not artists. They just live off artists. It’s totally weird. And I am sure you guys see it more than we see it because we are in fucking Tampa Bay.
It’s funny though because when you talk about “big city music” I don’t really exist in that. I don’t really go to ‘big’ shows.
C: Because you are in love with music. And most people are not in love with music. Most people do not listen to music. It’s true, most people that come to our shows now, they don’t listen to music. They don’t. They are not interested. They are doing something else. It is like, get fucked. That is why our scene was so small for so long, it was just the people who really liked it. People want to create fame. People want to create a celebrity. They want to create this thing. They want to create an idol. And I don’t know why. It’s the food chain. It’s high school. They want to create the quarterback of the football team. They want to create that. They don’t want an artist. They don’t want something new. They don’t want an experiment.
On another level, I wonder how many people who were at your show last night were like “We want to see this Merchandise band, they are going to be something! They are going to be famous!”
D: And they can be like “I saw them in a gallery in Philly!
C: I saw them when they sucked!
I really do wonder that. I was at your Philly show last year and…
D: No one was there!
But also, I am trying not to be a person who wants to keep a band to myself.
C: I used to. But the older I get, the more personal my priorities get and less about music. Like I am more concerned about my friends being okay, my family, my own personal life. I am not really concerned with my scene anymore. I used to be really involved. I recorded every band in Tampa that was worth shit and played in my little circle. It was important to me. But that was also also how I got into electronic music. Because I got into kids playing music with keyboards and it was awesome. It was way inspiring to see bands like Byron House place. And it was way inspiring to see bands like Halves and Thirds and Skeleton Warrior doing it because they wanted to do it and for no other reason. And it was way before this fucking dark pop thing. Sooo coool.
We’re leaving the fake Goth thing and entering into the ironic grunge stage now.
C: WHAT!
D: Is that what’s happening? I guess we’ll see when we are in New York.
Look around at your New York show. See what’s cool now. It’s half fake Goths and half ironic grunge.
D: That is the perfect demographic for our music!
C: I gravitate towards people that don’t like music. The last girl I had a crush on was hilarious. She didn’t know anything. She didn’t know who Animal Collective was. She didn’t know any big Indie bands. I was like I like you so much because I feel like you are not as obsessed with bullshit as I am. It seems freeing and liberating. There is a stigma to listening to music that is not part of your thing/ I remember getting into punk and throwing away my rock CDS. I felt like I cannot be into this anymore because it is not fast. I cannot be into this anymore because it is on a major label. And now it is like, I don’t care where I pull music from.
Your life is a drop in the bucket and to care about that seems like a waste of time. And I feel that people who are not as knowledgeable about music know it’s a waste of time and that is why they don’t do it. They work hard. Some of them live honestly. Some of them live dishonestly. But it doesn’t really matter. You can fall in love with somebody and it doesn’t have to be on that level. It is really shallow. Music is really shallow.
And so many friendships and relationships are based on musical tastes. It is kind of sad and strange.
D: It’s not a strong foundation.
C: What is the difference with being on a DIY label and being on a major label when it comes to the people that you are talking to? The way that it is done is very different but communicating directly to the people. I don’t care if they have never heard anything that we like or if they think that we invented. I don’t care if people have a sense of History. I feel like I have a strong sense of History, I know my History really well. I think. But is it important to play to those people? No. Do I care if I play to a bunch of hipsters who are excited to here something new? No. I don’t really feel like they are that different that the cool ray ban punks or the trust find crusters.
Different Costumes.
C: Absolutely, different costumes. And it ‘s almost like the fakers are more honest than the hip kids. I almost don’t see a difference. Punks are hipsters now. I look at music, fashion, art, film, and journalism… They are all part of one thing that that is what is: today. What is going on today? The new thing. What is the new thing that is happening right under other people’s nose. And they don’t realize it. Those who don’t try.
It’s like the Buddhist ideal of pure motive. If you don’t start out with pure motive, every step is a misstep. If you want to be in a band to play music that is a pure motive. If you want to be in a band to get laid, that is not a pure motive. If you want to be in a band to quit your job, that is not a pure motive, If you want to do this to fucking do this and it is pure and there is a reason for it… We started because we wanted to play music. That is a pure motive.
Everything else has happened to you.
D: it’s all incidental.
P: We never sent a demo to a record label.
C: Ever, in our lives. No bands we have ever been in have ever sent demos to anybody.
P: It has never been about getting signed, it has never even ever been about touring.
C: We were at a record label date back home and there was this band setting up to play and they were selling download cards. Ten dollar download cards. WHAT? Why? Who is going to buy that? Who gives a shit? They had CDs and download cards. It is weird that that is just how it is now. It’s like selling shit on Itunes, out of a box, in real life instead of selling the real thing. Instead of a fucking record. And it is just weird. This is a band that is networking to make it. I turned to the dude from the label and was like “check this out” and he just fucking laughed. So many people send them hundred of demos. To all the major Indies. And they don’t listen to them. It is because these bands don’t do anything on their own. They think that they have to play the game to fucking make it. Do it yourself doesn’t just mean DIY. Do it yourself means cultivate yourself. Do what you love.
P: Enrich your life.
C: Express yourself because you love it and because it doesn’t exist in the world already.
P: Everyone thinks there is a fucking formula to becoming successful and that is just not the case. There is just too much chance involved. And like he said every step would be a misstep if you don’t have pure motive. That’s it. You’re automatically fucked if you go into it thinking you’re going to make it. “I know I am going to do it! I am going to follow these steps and it should work out, right?” And that is so destructive. Not only to themselves but also to everyone around them.
C: It is just clearly, people have been brainwashed into thinking there is a certain way to do things and there absolutely isn’t, we are proof, I guess, of that.
JANE PAIN 