XL Life - The Boogie Down South

 

The Boogie Down South is the latest from Wales' next great hardcore hope. XL Life are an interesting combo, a group who deal with their personal issues of substance abuse and mental health head on rather than by making coy innunedos. Their music too is deceptively straightforward. AS much as they might be a stripped back hardcore band with some admittedly rough production, there's also something here that resonates deeply. They're building on the work of bands like Turnstile to craft something hard hitting but also poppy and emotionally resonant.

XL Life charm with their working classic Welsh roots too. There is nothing pretentious about this album rather the band just lean into the elements that have come to shape them. References to 'wastemen' and touches of UK rap pad out a record that is surprisingly ambitious and which is bubbling with raw and angry energy from a band who go for the throat and force listeners to appreciate an inherent darkness that lurks beneath the polished entertainment systems and government systems that allegedly support us. This is hardcore done with a clear aesthetic and a vision for something far more internally sorrowful and unrelenting. 

The UK Hardcore scene has been bubbling for a while now, and the release of The Boogie Down South feels like the scene is finally starting to boil over and get a sound and vision that is wholly its own. There is something wonderfully human and emotionally resonant about what XL Life are doing here. It's music for people who realize that despite everything that's happened around them, their lives are going to remain hard, unforgiving and hopefully short. XL Life unveil something pained about our own lives, and that mirror to our world hits a bit too close to home.

Find out more:

https://www.instagram.com/xllifeworldwide/

R.A.M.B.O - Defy Extinction

 

Now this one is a blast. R.A.M.B.O are Philly hardcore gods, masters of the genre back in the day who have now returned after fifteen years with what is likely their strongest record to date. Defy Extinction is a raw nerve of punk rock energy. It's a record focused on environmentalism and tearing down oppressive systems that choke all of us out. Over the top and endlessly exciting, this is a hardcore devotees hardcore record. It's proud to wear its influences on its sleeve and speak to the eternal power of this genre that we devout our lives too. 

Defy Extinction is thrilling in its delivery and audacity .Though the band don't really stray from too many classic hardcore tropes, it's clear that they are really goddamn good at what they do. This is a record that uses its primal energy as a blunt force object to crack open skulls and very deliberately force listeners to confront the environmental horrors that so many of us have to deal with every day, all with the looming understanding that it's only going to get worse. It's a record that speaks to the thrill of this music, the gut wrenching fun and the sense of chaos that defines the mosh pit as you find yourself getting lost in the madness. 

R.A.M.B.O have proven that they are still the kings of Philly hardcore. Their music is as abrasive and exciting as ever, and the intervening years have only deepened their understanding of hardcore music. This is Philly hardcore done loud and proud at a million miles an hour and guaranteed to get you stoked. R.A.M.B.O understand the eternal power of the underground and all that they have accomplished. You owe it to yourself to turn this one up!

Pre-order the album!

https://ramboofficial.bandcamp.com/

Interview with Mathias of Wakrat

 Storming unto the scene with a knack for loud, heavy sounds and syncopated rhythms, the Wakrat trio are certainly a force to be reckoned with. Led by french drummer Mathias Wakrat and fronted by renowned bassist Tim Commerford (Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave), the band made its mark alongside their friends and tour mates from the Prophets of Rage on the “Make America Rage Again” tour and is about to release its debut album over at earache Record. Here to talk about the project is none other than the mastermind himself, Mathias Wakrat, who was nice enough to agree for an interview.

First off, could you tell us a few words about your musical background up until the start of Wakrat?

I started playing music around 10 or 11 years, I forget why I chose the drums. I studied in drumming schools in France and I moved to the US when I turned 22, so 20 years ago.  I wanted to play heavier material, I liked listening to heavier stuff than what I was used to hearing around me and what people made me play. I played a lot of Jazz sessions a the time but I was also mostly into heavy music. I figured that it would be easier to find these kinds of projects in the US so I moved. I played in a lot of bands, I played popular music and stuff like that up until I decided to get this current project going. I had this agressive punk music in mind with irregular time signatures. I talked to  few musicians I knew in LA who were very interested. We started jamming but nothing really clicked yet. Then I started jamming with Laurent, whom I met through one of my best friends, probably the only french musician I played with since I moved here. We got along well and the project happened to be what he had in mind as well, so it all started all from there.

From what I understand you guys met through a french Bistro in Los Angeles.

Yeah, I’m actually a co-owner of a french restaurant. At the time I was really struggling to get by with music as my sole resource so I started taking jobs here and there on the side and I somehow ended up in the restaurant business. Being french, it was one of the easiest way to make money abroad. I wasn’t too bad at it and I ended up taking over a restaurant with my partner Jean-Christophe.  We’ve been open for quite some time now. Laurent actually worked there for a bit, that’s how we first met, he was a friend of Jean-Christophe. Through this restaurant, which frequently serves a lot of artists and musiciens, the word and the fact that I play music spread out. I became quite good friends with the frontman of Rage Against the Machine. Being a mountain biking enthusiast, Zach planned to hook me up with Tim to go riding together. So that’s how I met Tim over 10 years ago.  Tim know I played the drums but never knew how well until he heard the demos Laurent and I made. He and Zach really dug it, they thought it was different and they were impressed. We asked him if he’d like to lay some baselines on the songs and so it all went from there.

So you already had the basis of your sound when you brought him into the band.

Yeah, a lot of the demo tracks actually landed on the record, some of them having been more or less rearranged in the meantime after we added the bass and vocals. Once we rearranged everything we got back to the studio to re-record everything with Tim. We relearned the songs and rearranged them all together, which wasn’t an easy task for Tim, being that he had to play bass and sing. In the end we finished up all of the drum parts in one afternoon. It was a long process to get there but the recording in and of itself was done very quickly. 

Your songs rely on a lot of odd time signatures. Was this part of your artistic vision for the project or simply an integral and natural part of your playing style?

Being a drummer, the idea of playing to odd time signatures was a dream. As a matter of fact, all of the riffs and time signatures are based on rhythmic ideas, they’re the basis of our writing. I come up with a groove and a few riff ideas and Laurent works with them. On top of that, the bass comes over to add the melodies. At first our music was very mechanical and electric. It got a lot more melodic after Tim joined us. I’m a big fan of The Prodigy and their electro/punk style with weird sounds and crazy rhythms and I liked the idea of creating that sound with electric instruments. I really like odd time signatures because it gives a “kick”  to the songs. Instead of having the monotonous 4/4 time signature you get this unexpected hit before things kick back on track, kind of like a hit in the face. I like that, but it wasn’t intentional at first, we just ended up with odd time signatures.

Are the main ideas born from jam sessions or rather rhythmic ideas that you work on your own before bringing them to the rest of the band?

The three quarters of these rhythmic patterns are based on ideas I had on the fly. I’ll wake up one morning with these rhythms in my head. I test them out in the studio and Laurent tries to lay something on top and we discuss it. It’s a real team effort. Everyone adds their own element, that’s what’s great about the band. There’s a huge group effort and I’ve never seen anything like this before. Everyone brings their own angle and that’s what makes our unique sound. With that being said, people are always going to trace things back influences: people would mention Helmet and Fugazi. I was really into Helmet back in the 90s’ actually and Tim also loves them. Nowadays however I listen mostly to Jazz from the late 50s to the late 60s. Strangely enough that’s what inspires me to make stuff like this. 

Although the lyrics center around a more personal outlook, they seem to be the reflection of broader socio-political issues. What is is that feeds this energy of yours in Wakrat?

The music is really born from the collaboration between the 3 of us, it’s not really thought out. Lyrics-wise, the political aspect is entirely Tim. I know Laurent is also into politics as well, him and Tim agree on a few things but not everything. Tim is a very political from his background. I will admit that I don’t agree with everything he says, namely his way of condemning the US, which is the country I chose to live in and love, even though Tim may have a few points on a few things. Tim handles all of the lyrics. I always say that he never told me what to play so I’m not going to tell him what to write. It’s part of his way of expressing himself, it’s what he wants to do and thats’ what makes this project so beautiful. This project is a dream. Tim has things to say an I’m not going to stand against that. He’s got some ideas I don’t related to, but I respect them. I’m glad to give him this medium through which he can express himself and talk about it. 

Aren’t there limits to what you’d agree to affiliate yourself with as a fellow bandmate?

Not really, because when you listen to the lyrics you don’t really know where they come from. You can make up your own interpretation and your own opinion. You’re not necessarily going to interpret things the same way as he does, that kind of happens very often when you listen to the radio. You’re surprised when you hear about the inspiration or meaning of the song because you had a different idea in mind. I let tim write the lyrics without having him explain what they mean and I had made my own interpretation of them. When we finally sat down and he told me what inspired him to write these words I found some things I totally agreed with and other things I completely disagree with where I prefer to refer back to my initial interpretations. That’s whats’ beautiful about it. I love Rage Against the Machine but I’m sure that there are some ideas that Zach sings about that I wouldn’t approve of, but that doesn’t change the fact that I love the music and that I hear his lyrics from a different angle. I will never impose Tim any ideas. It’s what makes art beautiful and it’s called freedom of speech. Although I may find he goes a little too far on certain subjects, I support him completely the same way I let him do his thing when he expresses himself through his bass guitar. We might change a few things if they sound better musically, but in terms of content I respect his choices. Again, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I approve of them.

I was wondering where the french title “La Liberté ou la Mort” came from. Why the french song title?

Actually that was just a song title that we kept. It was the name of the song when we wrote it with Laurent. It was the second song we wrote together. The rhythmic pattern with the open and closed hi-hats reminded me of a guillotine, we were joking around with Laurent on that idea. We were talking about revolution and so as a joke we called it La Liberté ou la Mort (Liberty or Death), figuring that we’d change it later. The song title turned out to fit well with the lyrics and Tim liked the idea of having a French song title. It just came from a private joke. There are a few titles like that, we changed quite a few of them but there are 2 or 3 of them that kept the same title. The same goes for “Nail in the Snail”, which came from a private joke between Laurent and myself. We were eating snails and Laurent was fixing somethings to the walls so I told him “Watch out, you we don’t want to end up with a nail in the snail!”. It made us laugh and it just so happened that we were writing that song at the time. Again, the name just stuck because people liked it and we liked the way it sounded.

Regarding The Thing, is that a reference to the movie? Or maybe Heidegger?

No actually that’s how I happen to call my wife (laughs). “La Chose”! It’s just an old joke. Again, we had the title before writing the lyrics. We changed the song title after writing the lyrics. We had finished the record and mixed it and it came back to us saying “I loved The Thing! I think it fits with the lyrics and it’s way more interesting than the other title!”. I feel a little silly giving you this answer, it’s a lot less “intellectual” than you had expected I’m guessing ! (Laughs)

How did your wife react?

She laughed. My wife is the most laid back and supportive person there is. It’s true that it’s not a super positive song but it’s not about her. It makes her smile. When we finished everything it was Tim that insisted that we keep that title. He also wanted to make sure that my wife wouldn’t take it personally, he knows I call her that. She doesn’t care. 

Touching upon a subject from in your Earache introduction video, you mention social media and our relationship to them in modern day-to-day life. As a band, what is the line that you draw between the benefits and downsides of social media?

I admit that I really don’t care for social media. On the other hand it can also be a magical tool, the fact that you can record a song and share it with the whole world within the hour is great. It’s amazing. When I was a kid I remember that when I went to by this album by Tony Williams I needed to order it and wait a month before getting it. Nowadays when a record comes out you can have it immediately. As a band you have to use them. I’m just glad I don’t have to handle all of that because we wouldn’t have gone very far otherwise. What bothers me with social media is that you can’t dissociate what’s true and what’s false. The same goes for music. The beauty of a project like ours is that we’re 3 guys playing together. Nowadays you can listen to incredible things but you’re not sure whether they can really play these things. It’s all turning into an illusion I find. It’s easy to put a bit of makeup on and look good. That’s what you see with music and social media. It’s all based on what’s called “the hype”. You expect something until you find that there isn’t really much of anything behind it.

There are a lot more ways to hide and compensate for imperfections and nowadays.

Exactly. On the other hand you’ve got guys making albums on their own and that’s great. You’ve got some incredible electronic music producers out there. I love electronic music and I’ve got a lot of friends who are DJs and who do amazing things, but I find it sad that we’re losing these bonds we used to make as musicians. There’s nothing better than meeting up with your friends and making music together. We’re losing that in the internet age. I guess you need to keep up with the times, but we lose human contact and interactions. People go out less, they’re less curious. People come see us because we’ve got Tim from Rage Against the Machine, otherwise people don’t leave their homes to check things out.

People find their music online instead of going out to shows to discover new bands.

Exactly. You go online, listen for a bit and if you don’t like it you skip it, kind of like girls nowadays. You go on these apps and swipe right or left if she’s not your type (laughs). It’s kind of the same deal with music nowadays. People listen for a couple of minutes and move on to something else. It’s a shame but what are you gonna do.

Have you kept an eye on the music scene in France since you left?

Actually I had stopped paying attention before I even moved out of France. It was kind of like the mafia at the time in France, it was always the same deal. I followed a few musicians from the Jazz music scene, I have a few friends who are Jazz musicians in France. In terms of radio songs, I don’t know anything at all and to be honest I’m not too upset about it (Laughs). With that being said, we’ve also got some shitty radios over here!

Can you name one of your favorite albums, movies and books?

That’s hard, there’s a bunch. I’ll go with Evil Empire by Rage Against the Machine! Movies… I don’t go often to the movies, the other two guys would have jumped all over that question, they love movies. I really enjoyed The Last Temptation of Christ by Martin Scorsese. It’s one of the rare movies I loved and that I’ve seen dozens of times. I mainly read biographies, so I’m going to go with The Amazing Life of Jaco: The Extraordinary and Tragic Life of Jaco Pastorius. I must’ve read that book 25 times, and I’m not even a reader, which goes to tell you how much I was obsessed with that book! (Laughs). Basically all of my picks are music related. What struck me with The Last Temptation of Christ was namely the score by Peter Gabriel.

Interview conducted and Translated from French by Robin ONO

A huge thank you goes out to Mathias and to the the staff at Him Media for Making this Interview Possible!

Be sure to check out Wakrat on their website and social media pages!

Wakrat

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/Wakrat/

Official Website

http://wakratband.com/

Refused in Paris (@Le Trianon, 01/12/2015)

Whether you love them or hate them, Refused are the best example of a band whose artistic delivery and impact match their gargantuan ambition. The same way “Who wants to be a Millionnaire” contestant John Carpenter confidently baffled the world by calling his dad to boast about his 1 million dollar winning, the ballsy statement that is “The Shape of Punk to come” has baffled the world with its accurately foretold prophecy. What was once a grossly underrated band rose up and returned to the scene, greeted by the newfound fan base and praise they deserve. Returning to Paris for the 2nd time since their reformation, the punk quitet from Umea, Sweden were greeted to a Sold-out show at the large, prestigious venue known as Le Trianon.

Scheduled to open up for the band were a local four fifth all-girl band known as X Syndicate, whose sharp attire consisting of black and white suit and tie combos combined with their voluminous haircuts and makeup made for quite the first impression. The bands’ blatantly straightforward overdriven blend of punk n’ roll bordering on slow thrash, while incredibly simplistic, did make for a nice starter for the show… at least initially. While there wasn’t anything all that bad about the set, the bands’ lack of inspiration seemed to become more and more evident as time went by during the course of their uninterrupted mishmash of metal guitar 101 riffs. The vocalist did give out a solid performance, though her microphone was all too often way too low in the mix. Most disturbing of all was the staleness of the performers whose onstage attitude made them seem a lot more preoccupied by the press photographers at the front of the stage than their actual audience. Overall, I couldn’t shake the bitter aftertaste hinting towards a sense of shallowness after listening to a somewhat fun but all too generic set of riffs and songs.

Refused were then next in line and prepared to take on their avid fans. As the time for the bands’ set to start off came night, the audience was greeted and treated to an introduction with Kendrick Lamar’s King Kunta, suggesting the bands’, an unexpected yet pleasant choice that got a fair share of the audience pumped up. The Swedes took to the stage looking sharp as ever with their buttoned shirts and fired up with Elektra off of their comeback record Freedom. While the opening number for the show did feel somewhat underwhelming, the band quickly got back on track after getting warmed up for the first few minutes, getting all fired up in time to unleash The Shape of Punk to Come  unto the audience as a follow-up. Vocalist Dennis Lyxzén visibly needed a song or 2 to get warmed up but as soon as the initial tracks gave him time to get in the groove he quickly turned into a juggernaut. With a fair balance of songs off of Freedom and the classic The Shape of Punk to Come to please and win over old and new fans alike, the band delivered an incredibly fun and intense live set, brilliantly articulated and punctuated with breaks and builds to keep the show fresh and dynamic. Admittedly not a fan of larger venues such as Le Trianon, particularly in the context of a punk show, I was very impressed by the bands’ ability to make the best out of their setting and close off the typically large gap between the stage and audience through their explosive stage presence and their interaction with the audience. With Dennis swirling his mic chord and jumping around like an acrobat while busting some sweet moves, the band shows little to no signs of ageing  and are visibly still fully charged up with the electrifying energy that inked their music and name in punk rock anthology. With each outburst of the bands’ syncopated rhythms and danceable rock grooves contagious enough to tear lesser prepared venues down to the ground, Refused had their audience on their toes and running wild in the pit.

Having lost nothing in the way of their militant spirit, the band also took a brave stand to address the COP21 summit as well as the tragic events having struck Paris only 2 weeks earlier. The quintet from Sweden had played at le Bataclan the last time they toured France and were very adamant in spreading a message of unyielding love and solidarity to their audience. “THIS is our Weapon! Please take care of each other!” the band cried out, with Dennis Lyxzén on the brink of tears as they fired up “Rather be Dead”, during which he jumped into the crowd to yell the refrain alongside the fans.

Thanks to the bands’ incredibly rich sound, Refused offered a superbly paced and diverse set, crashing down with hard-hitting powerhouses all the while steering clear from a one-dimensional sequence of the same grooves and moods. I was most notably pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of the dance-able rock numbers such as the new Servants of death which helped to switch up the mood for a bit.

The bands’ live Bombination in 14 bursts flew by in what seemed like a mere half hour, closing off the main set with a brilliant rendition of the classic “Worm of the Senses / Faculties of the Skull” before leaving the stage. A sold-out venue full of fans cannot be fooled though, as every single person in the room were fully aware that the band had still some unfinished business to attend to. After a roaring ovation of fans calling out for the closing songs of the evening, the band returned to the stage to the iconic opening riff to “New Noise”, to which the crowd lost their minds and split pit from side to side before wreaking havoc. To add some more the icing on the cake before bringing an evening to a definite close, the band followed up their anthemic encore with the crushing “Tannhäuser / Derivè”, the perfect encore for the bands’ phenomenal set.

With a set such as this one, Refused leave no doubt as to the band’s relevance in today’s rock scene, their latest creative output and their explosive live shows stating loud and clear that these Swedes are going to keep tearing it up for years to come. Don’t believe what they say, Refused are fucking alive and kicking it harder than ever.

Robin.

Thank you to the staff at HIM Media for making this live report possible!

Live photos by Nessie Monteiro.

Setlist 

1. Elektra

2. The Shape of Punk to Come

3. The Refused Party Program

4. Dawkins Christ

5. The Deadly Rhythm

6. Françafrique

7. Rather Be Dead

8. Coup d'état

9. War on the Palaces

10. Servants of Death

11. Refused Are Fucking Dead

12. Thought Is Blood

13. Summerholidays vs. Punkroutine

14. Worms of the Senses / Faculties of the Skull

15. New Noise

16. Tannhäuser / Derivè

Sacrilege - Behind The Realms Of Madness

Sacrilege are one of those bands from the 80s that are far too often ignored. But with a sound that feels like a circle pit incarnate and a blistering sonic attack that speaks to the magic of the scene Sacrilege should have been able to establish themselves as metal masters in their own right. The kind of band who can appeal equally to punks and metalheads their classic record Behind The Realms Of Madness has now been re-issued by Relapse for all of us longhaired and spiky haired maniacs who grew up loving this shit.

The raw energy that defines Behind The Realms Of Madness makes itself felt in nearly every aspect of the bands presentation - be it the sonic abuses that come from the chuggy guitar riffs or the high powered solos, Sacrilege clearly get it. There is a strange magic to Lynda Simpson's high powered vocals to - she's one of those folks who simply reeks of punk rock majesty and whose pure not-give-a-fuckitude can't help but rub off on the listener. This record is special because it stands as the perfect mixture of a variety of genres and leaves me excited, begging for more, and wondering where the music will take me next. Sacrilege managed to take a stripped back formula and make it into something truly special - a notion that far too few bands would even dare attempt in this modern age.

Sacrilege were for far too long an unturned stone - and I for one am extremely glad that we have a label like Relapse to bring them back into the public eye. It's suff like this that makes the music industry so special and makes it so hard for people like me to deny the kind of power that this music has. Behind The Realms Of Madness in all of its Lord of the Rings derived fervor stands up as an album that you can't help but like. Coming at you from one of the most ferocious underground scenes the world has ever known it would be sacrilege to ignore this release.

Find them on Facebook! 
https://www.facebook.com/sacrilegeofficial

Defeater - Abandoned

Having grown up with punk music and having spent a fair share of my teenage years with hardcore punk, I've always kept a held a close relationship with the genre and its' spirit, more so than with metal music. Out of all of the various scenes, one that has always stuck out for me personally was the Boston scene, home to some of the most gripping, powerful hardcore acts and to some my very favorite bands in the genre, including Defeater, returning here with their 4th full-length album "Abandoned"
Continuing in their tradition of narrative concept albums, "Abandoned" follows the story of an unfrocked catholic priest struggling with his past and his faith. As you might've probably guessed by now, the album certainly does not lack much in the way of ambition this time around, which makes for a fairly promising premise. With this current full-length effort, Defeater also return with a more polished production and a recovered vocalist sounding angrier than ever. While this album doesn't fundamentally change all that much from the bands' exceptional back catalogue, I couldn't help but feel as though the album were somewhat lacking some genuine angst and emotional depth and nuance that helped flesh out their previous narratives so vividly.
Production wise, I also felt as though the vocals were a little too much on the forefront, unfortunately overlooking some of the great passages of the album and keeping us from reaching a full, immersive listening experience. The lyrical leitmotivs present on the album helped glue the album together in a coherent concept, though I couldn't help but feel as though the focus of the album production was misdirected towards the concept rather than the bands' explosive energy and which brings these albums to life.
The album features some left-hooks such as "Unanswered" and the post-hardcore driven "Penance", while other tracks seem to fly by without leaving much of an impression.
Overall, I do admit to expecting more from this release. Nevertheless, while "Abandoned" comes out as a mixed bag of songs, the album is still worth checking out for some of the albums' strongest tracks, and while some of the others didn't do much for me, I trust the bands' lively energy and talent enough to be able to bring out their hidden colours in a live setting.

Defeater
Official Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/defeaterband
Official Website
http://defeater.me/

The Fiend - Greed Power Religion War

I've always loved those 'forgotten bands' acts whose influence was largely ignored and yet who predated some of the kings of their respective genres. The Fiend seems to be one of those bands to me, and perhaps that is what makes their new record Greed Power Religion War one of the angriest punk records I have heard all year. Utterly nihilistic and triumphantly destructive this is the kind of punk rock album that gets to the heart of what the entire thing is about and will speak to the ungodly power the genre holds.

The intro to the record, the unsettling Intro To War leads to the almost Carcass derived title track Greed Power Religion War. The fusion of punk and metal ideas on this record is especially interesting to me. Though Greed Power Religion War is definitely a punk album there are more than a few metal ideas that sneak in and help make this thing even more powerful. The fact of the matter is that The Fiend are still doing it four decades into their career, and if that means bringing in thrash metal ideas here and there so be it. The lyrics are spat out with an almost Tom Araya like precision and the riffs are simmering with rock and roll energy, both things that help keep this record exciting for a jaded old metal dude like me.

The way that The Fiend seem to boil over with hatred, even this late in the game is stunning and it proves to me the eternal power of punk rock. These guys understand what it means to be angry and they have a message behind their music. It makes for easy listening that gets you pumping your fist, but also thinking about larger societal issues. The Fiend are in 2015 still making hardcore punk in the grand old style and for that reason dudes like me will have to be forever grateful. Get fucked up in the pit because these guys won't have it any other way.

Find them on Facebook!
www.facebook.com/pages/The-Fiend

Interview with Jesse and Shane Matthewson of KEN Mode

Band Photo by Brenda Faris, courtesy of Seasons of Mist

With a hefty touring schedule ahead of them and a new album right around the corner, KEN Mode made a stop through Paris last month to headline the first day of this year’s OTB Fest alongside Celeste and to promote their upcoming full length effort Success, with this current date marking the albums’ (pre)release party. I sat down with the Matthewson brothers Jesse (Guitar/Vocals) and Shane (Drums) to discuss their upcoming album (amongst other things).

So this is the 2nd installment of your European tour, right? Last month you were also in Europe.

Jesse: Yes, we seem to be coming over a ridiculous amount lately (giggle). We'll be here in the fall too.

You've also played a set at Roadburn this year. How did that go?

Jesse: It was cool, it went over pretty well. We were definitely a little bit of an oddball thrown in there, since what they like to focus on is more "doomy" stuff I guess? But it was fun, I'm glad we did it.

So this current date marks the pre-release party for your newest album Success.
First off, how would you describe the sound of this upcoming album?

Jesse: For the most part I'd say that a lot of the metal and hardcore influences of our previous records have kind of been stripped away and what you're left with is a much more Rock n' Roll/Noise Rock kind of approach to the way we write music. The songwriting is a lot more stripped-down and it just focuses a lot more on the roots of the types of bands that made us want to start playing music in the first place when we were teenagers.

Was the shift towards a more Noise Rock-oriented sound a conscious move?

Jesse: I think it came naturally, maybe to a certain extent through a bit of an exhaustion of dealing with trying to fit into the metal and hardcore scenes. We've never really fit in anywhere. We did a lot of touring for Entrenched; we were out on the road for 10 out of 12 months from the time that album came out, from march to march. It was very exhausting being the square peg trying to fit into the round hole.

With this album you've also had a chance to work with the legendary producer Steve Albini.

Jesse: Yeah, he engineered it. He sat in on the mastering and helped Bob Weston master it, who's actually a bandmate of his in Shellac too. So yeah, we did it with Steve Albini in Winnipeg, Manitoba, our home town.

Steve Albini

Were there any changes with the recording process this time around? I understand Steve likes to record some stuff live.

Jesse: Yeah, for the most part he prefers all of the instruments to be done live and that's how we did it. It was the first time we've ever really done it that way. Usually, with a lot of engineers, they'll have you do the drums first and the guitars will play along but typically you won't actually track those. You usually do the guitars properly after you have the bed tracks of the drums. With Steve he just sets everyone up so that it's as isolated as it can be and you all play at once... like a live band, go figure.

Was it the noise-rock driven songs you had written that led you to work with Steve Albini or was it the idea of working with him that reinforced the noise-rock aspect of your sound?

Shane: Well we had already written a bunch of the songs before we decided to record with him, so it was already going in that direction. We could've done it with other engineers and it would've still sounded good but I think it was the perfect combination of the songs and the engineer that made it sound the way it did.

 Jesse: If Steve would've done the previous record, who knows if it would've sounded quite as good. It was a little bit more metal and hardcore, some of the songs were faster.. I'm just not sure the feeling of it would've translated as well, but for this record it translated very well.

I know you like to keep your lyrics open to a certain degree of interpretation, but could you maybe touch upon what the album is about?

Jesse: I consider it our first actual concept album. It revolves around the various concepts of success, especially the modern western, "traditional" concept of it and how insanely relative that term is. There's a lot of poking fun at it and what people think it should be and where we, as individuals, fit in to the universe as a grand scheme and how ridiculous THAT all is too. That's kind of where this album jumps all over.

Shane: We also did joke about how funny it would be if we had an album called "Success" that was just a miserable failure (laugh), like if it didn't do well at all but it was called "Success". We thought that that was really funny. That wasn't the only reason why we picked the name, but we did think that it would be a funny joke if the album did really poorly (laugh)

So either way, you're the happy whether the album does well or not? (laugh)

Shane: Yeah. If it does really well, we look like geniuses and if it doesn't we just look like we're jerks again...

Jesse: ... which is nothing new (laughs)

I also understand that this album has a different lyrical approach compared to the previous albums.

Jesse: Yeah, that’s' actually one of the bigger changes. Historically, the lyrics have been very personal to me; things that make me feel strongly about something. With this album, a lot of the songs were written in a format where I take notes all the time. A lot of the time it’s ridiculous phrases or word combinations that I think are funny, a lot of it is mean things HE says (points at Shane, laughing) or that our new bassist Scott says. I'll be writing these things down and I have this journal of ridiculous phrases, and a lot of the songs on this record were pieced together from those ridiculous phrases. I managed to string all of those things together with a general concept, so that it actually has a cohesive idea behind each song. But it's very much like this litany of inside jokes and black comedy, pushing the envelope further from the meaner, more sarcastic tones we've had in the past. This is way out of left field for us, but it was a lot of fun to write. I also do a lot more rhyming on this album. I was kind of making a conscious approach of making these songs a little catchier. Rhyming schemes tend to make everything catchier but I didn't want to do it in a dumb, cliché, "pop" way, because a lot of that is 4th grade rhyming. So I like to think that this is a little bit higher than that. Well...

Shane: 5th grade.

Jesse: Yeah, 5th grade ! (laughs)

Could you give us some insight as to where the amazing song titles from your new album come from?

1. Blessed
   Jesse: "Blessed" is kind of hitting the nail on the head. The whole song itself is kind of about how we don't really feel like we fit in or belong anywhere in the music industry. It's kind of sarcastic in that... we're "Blessed"! (giggle). We also sometimes feel like the fact that anyone pays attention to us at all is funny in itself. We've been through so many years of nobody giving a crap, so that' kind of what that song is all about.
   
2. These Tight Jeans
   Jesse:(Laugh) Oh god. That was just another one of those phrases that I wrote down that I thought was funny. I don't even know where I even came up with that (laugh). When I told my bandmates "this is what I'm calling the song!", everyone just let out a big sigh and were like "why???" (laugh). Basically THAT is why! (laugh).
   
3.  The Owl...
   Jesse:  The Owl was part of a title of a play where the term "Cuckold" came from (The Owl and the Nightingale, which is actually a poem).
   Shane: Jeeesus Christ.
   Jesse: Yeah, and the whole song is a lot about the gray areas in life.
   Shane: …A cuckold play??
   Jesse: (laugh) Yeah it's where the term originated. I didn’t want to hit the nail right on the head with that one so I made it just "The Owl..." with the ellipses.
   
4. I just liked Fire
   Jesse: I just liked fire actually came from a friend of ours in Winnipeg named Alex who was talking about how he used to like to light fires when he was a child, because he just liked fire (choking with laughter). I thought that was really funny, and I ended up spitting it into a song about something else. (Catching his breath).
   So it's not a song about your friend who just liked fire.
   Jesse: No, it's more of a really perverse passion-filled song. I just took the spin of "I just liked fire" and applied it to that, and I thought it was funny. But yeah, the actual origin of it was more litteral (bursting out laughing).
   Shane: A LITTERAL child who LITTERALY was a pyromaniac. (laughs)
   
5. Management control
   Jesse: I think it stemmed from a Matthewson family dinner, where we were talking about something to do with management controls...
   Shane: Oh you mean like a financial system control?
   Jesse: Yeah, the term "management control" came up and I was like "that's a really cool name for a song!"
   Shane: Huh, I don't remember that being said.
   Jesse: I ended up applying it to a song that’s' just about life in general.
   Shane (Laughing): That's going to be the answer to every one of these: "eeh, I took this, and it's basically about life."
   (Everyone bursts out laughing)
   
6. A Passive disaster
   Jesse: The title originally was kind of the concept of what we felt our lives were at when we were touring for 10 months out of the 12 month year. That's kind of what our lives felt like. Not like an active disaster, but a passive one (laugh), even though we were in control. But things just move very quickly. The song itself deals with experiencing the beautiful scenery in life, taking a second to stop and experience it... while also having a sociopath breakdown (laugh).
   
7. Failing at fun since 1981
   Jesse: That's autobiographical, in that everytime I try to have fun I end up screwing it up somehow (laugh).
   So I'm assuming it's referring to your year of birth?
   Jesse (chuckling): Yeah.
   
8. A catalog of small disappointments
   Jesse: That one is a fun one. It was on a small article about Kepler and his love life. There was a line in it that was referring to the process with which he was trying to pick a second wife, and it was "a catalog of small disappointments". The entire song is about that, and how he could've broken it down into a mathematicians' formula that ended up becoming the Secretary Problem (Note: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem ), only applied to his love life. I just thought that the whole thing was really funny and it tied in with the concept of peoples' perception of love, marriage... and how that fits into the way of how a successful life is supposed to be.
   Shane: Kepler was a physicist, right?
   Jesse: Yeah.
   Shane: So it's a physicist who's trying to mathematically break down how to choose a wife.
   Jesse: Yeah.
   Shane: So it was an article on that, and he was describing the process of choosing a partner as a "catalog of small disappointments" (everyone laughs). It was just this insane look at a mathematician trying to take objectivity out of something that is a very personal. It was just ridiculous.
   Jesse: As soon as we'd read that article we were like : "this HAS to be a song!"
   
9. Dead actors
   Jesse: Again, it's one of those bleak yet optimistic outlooks on existing as a conscious being in the universe. It's about how we're both completely unimportant yet at the same time to those around us we're completely relevant and important in every way. I think I came up with the title around the time Robin Williams died.
   Shane: Everybody just lost their minds because they all grew up watching movies that he was in.
   Jesse: Yeah, he was like THE actor in every freakin' family movie for that age group. It was an interesting spin on what that song was about so I felt that it tied in well.
   Shane: That was a weird thing to see though. So many people were basically saying things like : "huh, my childhood killed itself". Goddamn it!
   

Did you come up with the phrases and song titles roughly around the same time period or did you draw from some older stuff in your journal of phrases?

Jesse: Most of the song titles and lyrics are from the past year and a half. I actually constructed all of the lyrics into "song format" from April through august of last year, so it was a pretty condensed period that we put all of the songs together in.

Could you explain how the album art ties in with the seemingly contradictory album title?

Jesse: The album cover itself was really the only overtly miserable picture in the panels that made it up. Our good friend Randy Ortiz did all of the artwork (http://damnthedesign.com/ ). He was very much a part of the actual building of the concept for the album from the ground up. He's actually done a lot of work for us since about 2007, so it's been a long time coming for him to do a proper commercial release for us.

Most of the panels draw from the concept behind the actual words for the album. It's taking western concepts of success and putting it through the viewers' filter. The pictures could either be something that you're striving towards or that makes your horribly depressed. A lot of the people who've been looking at the actual panels have been saying that this album is really depressing. Like one of the panels is a guy mowing his lawn, in shorts and sandals with socks. Another one is a woman looking into an empty crib, holding her stomach and you don't know whether she's lost a baby, if she's expecting a baby... it all depends on how you want to look at it. Most of the people that we know that have seen it immediately go to the BUMMER. The back panel is this couple at a table, the guy is looking at some bills and the woman is looking out the window. You can either say to yourself: "aaaw, that's a couple!" or you could go "Goddamn it, that makes me wanna kill myself. I never want to get married. What life is this?" (Shane laughs).

So I read that you quit your jobs a couple of years ago. What got you to make such a decision, considering that you've said yourself that album sales don't bring in that much money?

Jesse: (laugh) We just never wanted to look back and say "what if?"

Shane: If you want to make a go of it, doing anything, you need to focus all of your time on it. You can't just get up and leave any job for 3 months at a time. We both went to university; we had professional jobs, so we needed to "pick a street". If we had other types of jobs we might have been able to do both at the same time, but in the fields that we were in, it wasn't possible. So we figured we'll take the next couple of years and see how it goes ... if not, there's always office work! That never goes away!
So that was basically why. It wasn't so much like "we're going out into the music world, we're gonna be huge stars now!” It's just that if you're gonna try to do this as best as you can, you've gotta commit all of your time to it, or else you'll never know!

What's the coolest thing about Canada?

Shane: Hockey! (Jesse laughs) ... no, the mountains! The Rocky Mountains! Those are cool!

Jesse:  Nature too, just nature in general.

Shane: Yeah, but the Rocky Mountains are pretty intense, particularly the Canadian Rockies are really, really huge. A lot of people come to Europe and Switzerland to go skiing in the Alps but the Canadian Rockies could go toe-to-toe with any mountain range in the world.

Jesse (proud): The Alps are shrinking and the Rockies keep getting bigger also...

Shane: ... It happens very slowly though (laughs). It's shrinking like a centimeter a year. But yeah, if I had to pick one great thing about Canada I’d say the Rockies. Number 2 is Hockey!

Jesse: (Laugh) oh god...

Shane: ... but nobody gives a shit about hockey... other than Canadians!

It's even on your dollar bills, right?

Jesse: Yeah!

Shane: Yeah well there was a hockey scene on the 5 dollar bill for a while and I think they changed it now

Jesse: Yeah I think they might have changed it to a space satellite or something.

Shane: Yeah they did that thing where the Canadian money is now made of plastic, since the last couple of years. You can't tear it, and it apparently lasts longer BUT if you leave it in your pockets when you put your clothes in the dryer, it MELTS! So it's virtually indestructible, other than heat. Heat will destroy it. (laughs) It will melt your money in your pocket.
Also when you're counting bills they stick together.

Jesse: It's kinda...

Shane: ... dumb. But I'm sure they did it for a reason. It last significantly longer I guess. I don't know other countries that actually have plastic money.

Jesse ­: This is fascinating material!

Shane: Canadian blunders.

During a previous interview you finished off by saying "Don't do as Donny Don't Does"(a reference to the Simpsons)

Shane: Oh God, I think that was something I filled up.

Jesse: Yeah I think you said that (laugh)

Shane: I think that was a European interview.

Jesse: What was the context of that?

Shane: ... I don't know... I was being an asshole

Jesse: Don't do what Donny Don't Does (bursting out laughing)... It was probably in regards to what we were doing with our lives (laughing out loud).

(Laughing) Every goddamn thing you say relates to life itself!

Shane (With Jesse hysterically laughing in the back all throughout): I remember writing that. I think it was the final garbage question, like "Any advice for the kids?" "Fuuck... Don't do what Donny Don't does". I think because it was a European interview, I thought that in translation, it would get completely fucked! (laughs)

Jesse: That is a good advice!

Shane: Kids today won't get that though, it's too old, old-school Simpsons (note: Season 5 Episode 8, Boy-Scoutz N the Hood). That was 20 years ago!

Could you name one of your favorite albums, movies and books?

Jesse: One of my favorite albums would have to be Nirvana, In Utero, because that's the one that just ruined my brain when I was 12. That's why we wanted to work with Albini. It sounded too good.

One of my favorite movies: The Elephant Man by David Lynch, because it's one of the only movies that has made me cry more than once and because it's just... fucked.

For my favorite book:  another life changer,  Get in the Van by Henry Rollins. That's where we got our band name from and a lot of the way we approach doing music. It's got a lot of pearls of wisdom for DIY bands and I think it's worth reading for anyone interested in underground music.

Shane: I'm just gonna back your choice. I think those are all excellent answers. (Laughs)

And to close things off: any final words?

Jesse: I hope people purchase Success to make it a great Success! (laughs)

Shane: And don't do what Donny Don't does!

Interview by Robin Ono

Band Photo by Brenna Faris, courtesy of Seasons of Mist.

Thank you to Gunnar, to Lauren, to the band and everyone who made both this amazing show and this interview possible!

KEN Mode
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