Howdy comrades! As you know, we’re fired up to have turned the lights back on at Dying Scene Headquarters earlier this year. It’s been fun cleaning out the cobwebs and dusting off the bookshelves and trying to restore the place to its former glory. As you’ve probably noticed, a lot of the old content is […]
Howdy comrades! As you know, we’re fired up to have turned the lights back on at Dying Scene Headquarters earlier this year. It’s been fun cleaning out the cobwebs and dusting off the bookshelves and trying to restore the place to its former glory. As you’ve probably noticed, a lot of the old content is still in the Archive, but it doesn’t look right. Missing photos, outdated hyperlinks, etc. So, when we’re so inclined, we’re going to freshen up some of the old content that seems good enough to share.
And with that, here’s the seventh installment of the From The Dying Scene Vault. It’s a story that originally ran ten years ago today – 10/8/13. That was the day on which Dave Hause released his sophomore solo album, Devour. Devour is an album that I’ve loved from the very beginning; a desert island record, if you will. Not only has that not wavered at all in any point over the last decade, but it has only managed to constantly assert itself as one of my favorite records by anybody ever. It’s incredibly well-crafted with a level of attention to detail and narrative arc that is often increasingly overlooked in modern music. It’s an album of transition on myriad levels for Hause, as not only was he dealing with the fallout from his first marriage but he was moving on musically and lyrically as a songwriter. It’s personal, but it’s also intensely relatable; a sobering look in the mirror for a man (or for a generation, really) forced to reckon with the harsh reality that the collective half-truths and bill of goods that we were sold as children of the Reagan era left us ill-prepared to cope with the consequences of a changing world.It was prescient when I was in my mid-thirties and remains so a decade later.
Sometimes I tend to stumble into releases like that a while after they’ve officially come out, so it was fun to look back and realize thatI knew it from the start.So here’s to ten years of Devour!
Allow me a moment to be blunt, if I may: I fucking love this album.
(Okay, I understand that’s an incredibly pedestrian way to start an album review, but this is a punk site, not the Wall Street Journal. But I digress.)
Dave Hause has been refining his craft as a solo artist for the last handful of years. His 2011 debut full-length, Resolutions, proved an excellent introduction to the world of solo artists (though this writer has gone on record before in thinking that the alternate versions of each of Resolutions‘ tracks recorded for a singles project last year were superior to the originals). The success of Resolutions, coupled with Hause’s high-energy performance and ability to connect with crowds of varying backgrounds prompted a seemingly endless touring cycle that found him opening for bands like the Bouncing Souls, the Gaslight Anthem, Social Distortion and Flogging Molly in addition to a lengthy stint on Chuck Ragan’s Revival Tour earlier this year.
Hause’s teeth were no doubt effectively cut on a grand scale during his years in punk bands like Paint It Black and, of course, The Loved Ones. And while Devour contains moments that will sound familiar to those looking for an up-tempo, anthemic sound, it also finds him taking a giant step forward in songwriting style, not unlike the ‘American Songwriter’ set that includes the likes of Cory Branan, Jason Isbell, Justin Towns Earle and that ilk.
Devour plays as a logical, albeit infinitely more melancholy, follow-up to Resolutions. Hause continues his penchant for self-awareness, and a heavy dose of realism looms large in his lyrics. The difference in progression from freshman to sophomore releases lies in the overall tone. Where the bulk of Resolutions contained heavy-hearted, realistic tales of people that had borne witness to more than their fair share of struggles, there still remained an overall theme of hope. On tracks like “Time Will Tell” and “C’mon Kid,” not to mention Resolutions‘ title track, Hause came across as the kind of buddy who would share a beer with you, listen to your troubles, put his arm over your shoulder, and tell you that things were going to be okay.
Devour, however, finds Hause playing the role of the buddy who might need to take the advice he used to give you ever-so eloquently. Devour was written during times that were apparently troubled on myriad levels for Hause, and the change in lyrical content is noticeable. Tracks like “We Could Be Kings” and “Autism Vaccine Blues” made their live debuts months ago, and present angrier takes on material that we found on Resolutions. If there’s a theme to the majority of Devour, it’s that we in post-Generation X America did everything we were supposed to do and we find ourselves, well, fucked anyway. There’s a certain segment of the working-class population, particularly those of us in our mid-thirties (editor’s note: Hause and this writer are a year apart), that feel increasingly as though we were sold a bill of goods by our forefathers. Like every generation in American history, we were supposed to be successful, more successful than the generations that came before us. We took our vitamins, we did our homework, we prayed when they told us to pray and knelt when they told us to kneel. Only, a funny thing happened on the way to Broadway, and Hause hits on these notes with particular vitriol.
The years since Resolutions’ release, however, seem to find Hause continuing to look not only outward into the ways that society may be spiraling down the drain, but further inward, and perhaps liking less and less of what he sees. Were this a Bill Simmons column, here’s where we would discuss the multitudinous ‘stomach punch’ moments contained on Devour; those moments where if you’ve got any sort of a conscience to speak of, you can quite literally feel the air being sucked out of the room given their weight and gravity. (Of course, if this were a Simmons column, we’d then spend 2500 words discussing which member of the Saved By The Bell: The College Years cast each song on Devour is most like and ohmygod please push me in front of a commuter train.) Devour is full of those moments, perhaps no greater than on tracks like “Father’s Son,” “Becoming Secular” and “Bricks.” The latter two tracks are sparse, haunting, angry songs that play like a man who is not afraid to keep his heart on his sleeve while processing the feelings attached to once-great relationships that have somehow turned south.
The first real glimmer of the sort of hope we were used to from Resolutions comes during the chorus of “Bricks,” however, in which the otherwise melancholy Hause first speaks with tempered optimism about starting over. Album closer “Benediction” is a unique way to tie the album together with the same thread, and at long last helps us realize that, while it’s already been sung, it can’t be said enough: all you need is love (editor’s note: a select few of you will get, and appreciate that reference).
With his second full-length (the first on new label home Rise Records), Devour, Hause has solidified his reputation as a solo artist to be reckoned with. It’s probably safe to say at this point that he’s all-but-officially jettisoned the references to his former band from any needed introductions, much like Tim Barry and, of course, Chuck Ragan before him. And like those two, while Hause may be destined for greener pastures, there’ll always be a seat at the punk community Thanksgiving table for him.
We handed over the reins to the DS interview ship to our pal Dan McCool (Warn The Duke, Ruin The Nite) for a fun quick-hitter with James Spooner. For the uninitiated, the multi-talented Spooner is a graphic novelist and tattoo artist and film director (Afro-Punk). Later this month, Spooner will release a brand new book […]
We handed over the reins to the DS interview ship to our pal Dan McCool (Warn The Duke, Ruin The Nite) for a fun quick-hitter with James Spooner. For the uninitiated, the multi-talented Spooner is a graphic novelist and tattoo artist and film director (Afro-Punk). Later this month, Spooner will release a brand new book called Black Punk Now, and he’s also curated an exhibit of the same name at the one-and-only Punk Rock Museum in Las Vegas.
Here’s what the PRM folks said about the exhibit:
The exhibition, Black Punk Now – After Afro-Punk, Beyond Bad Brains, also puts a spotlight on today’s generation of Black punks. Disillusioned by consumer culture, underground BIPOC punk festivals realize the promise of the Afro-Punk documentary. Over twenty photographers contributed hundreds of images to prove once and for all that Black punk has continued, after Afro-Punk and beyond Bad Brains.
Spooner will be on hand in Vegas for the October 20th exhibit opening. The Black Punk Now book is due out October 31st (Halloween!!) on Soft Skull Press and it’s still available for pre-order. Check out the interview below!
Happy Friday, comrades!! We’ve been sitting on a little news for a bit, and now we get to help spread it to the masses. Ladies and gentlemen, meet The Kilograms! They’re a brand-new ska project from Joe Gittleman (yes, THAT Joe Gittleman!) and Sammy Kay (yes, THAT Sammy Kay!) and we couldn’t be more excited. […]
Happy Friday, comrades!!
We’ve been sitting on a little news for a bit, and now we get to help spread it to the masses. Ladies and gentlemen, meet The Kilograms! They’re a brand-new ska project from Joe Gittleman (yes, THAT Joe Gittleman!) and Sammy Kay (yes, THAT Sammy Kay!) and we couldn’t be more excited.
The duo connected recently and talked about writing music for an upcoming compilation to benefit longtime East Coast scene vet Michelle Ska, who has more recently been a resident of Lahaina on the island of Maui, which you probably know was recently completely devastated by wildfires. The very first fruits of their labors is a laid-back groove of a track called “Who Am I.” Check it out!
The compilation itself is called Black Sand Relief: A Benefit For Michelle Ska and the People of Maui, and in addition to the Kilograms track, it features music from Bite Me Bambi and Westbound Train and The Pilfers and The Slackers and more. While we obviously wish there wasn’t a need for a benefit like this, it’s at least comforting to know that, once again, the scene can rally together and produce something inspiring. The compilation is available in a variety of different options which are available now. Check out some sweet music and contribute to a great cause!
Near as I can tell, Jawbreaker first came through Boston as a band in the Summer of 1990 on their “Fuck 90” US Tour. That show took place at the legendary Rat in Kenmore Square (RIP) and found Jawbreaker playing alongside Rise and Chinchilla Whiplash (lol) and Full Nelson Riley (LOL). Here’s the show flier. […]
Near as I can tell, Jawbreaker first came through Boston as a band in the Summer of 1990 on their “Fuck 90” US Tour. That show took place at the legendary Rat in Kenmore Square (RIP) and found Jawbreaker playing alongside Rise and Chinchilla Whiplash (lol) and Full Nelson Riley (LOL). Here’s the show flier. Oh, and no, that is not from my personal collection, sadly, as I was not there, because even though I like to think that I was a cool kid growing up in southern New Hampshire, the reality is that I was not cool, and even if I was, “cool” meant that I had a pretty gnarly rat tail and could do a mean tight roll on my acid washed Bugle Boy jeans and I actually had a Champion pullover sweatshirt and oh by the way I was ten years old.
I didn’t really start making my way to Boston for shows until April of my junior year of high school, which if you’re keeping score at home was 1996. Jawbreaker were on their Dear You tour and I really liked Dear You because I wasn’t old/cool enough to know that you weren’t supposed to like that album if you were “a punk,” but also funds were limited so there was a bit of a coin-flip situation that found me going to the Bad Religion show that month instead of the Jawbreaker one, because the former was during school vacation and the latter was on a school night, and remember I was not what you’d call “cool.” Plus, it was still close enough to 1994 that punk was still in and so punk bands came around semi-regularly and so we’d just catch them next time around. If you’re still reading this, it means you’re probably familiar with Jawbreaker and so you know how that decision to catch them next time would be a colossal tactical decision on my part. (For the uninitiated; they broke up in rather catastrophic fashion the following month and didn’t play together again in public for another twenty-one years. Oops.)
And so fast-forward essentially a generation and a sold-out reunion tour show at Boston’s House Of Blues in 2019 and another on the Dear You 25th anniversary tour last year, both of which I had to miss for what we’ll call “reasons” and we get to last Friday, when the band returned to the Kenmore Square area for a date at the cavernous new MGM Music Hall at Fenway or whatever the official title is. Not only could the House Of Blues fit comfortably inside MGM with plenty of room to spare, I’m pretty sure The Rat (R.I.P.) could fit in the men’s room (which is super conveniently located on the second floor of the 5000-capacity theater but that’s another conversation for another time).
Given that travel to – and parking at – the venue is tricky at best on Red Sox home game days (the MGM shares a common wall with the bleachers at Fenway Park), showgoers were very much still filling in the lower GA bowl when Grumpster got the evening kick-started promptly at 7:00 sharp. If you haven’t seen Grumpster live, you’ve been doing yourself a disservice. The band is fronted by Donnie Walsh, a Massachusetts native who headed west to the Bay Area in search of the sort of melodic pop punk rock sounds that that scene put on the map thirty-plus years ago (so, in the time of Jawbreaker). Walsh is a human pinball on stage, frantically bouncing around the massive expanse of a stage while still maintaining bass and lead vocal duties (at least when he’s not given a reprieve by the band’s newest member, Alex Hernandez, who was officially added to the original three-piece lineup of Walsh, guitarist Lalo Gonzalez Deetz and drummer Noel Agtane over the summer to add depth on guitar and vocals). I can’t really say enough good things about Grumpster and their performance on this show and, I imagine, this whole run. They’re fun, funny, energetic, inspiring, at times painfully honest. They made a large and potentially intimidating setting feel a bit like an Elks Lodge punk rock show in all the best ways. Check out tracks like “Crash” and “Better Than Dead” and “Misery” off their latest record, Fever Dream, and you’ll get it.
The California punk rock party continued with Joyce Manor hitting in the number two spot in the order. Joyce Manor’s history dates back to the very early days of Dying Scene; near as I can tell, they were one of the very first bands we covered pretty extensively a dozen-or-so years ago, and I remember writing a lot about Of All The Things I Will Soon Grow Tired and Cody upon their respective releases, and yet in digging through the annals of DS/JM shared history, I couldn’t find another instance of us shooting them live. Strange!
Appearing as a five-piece on this run (with the one-and-only Neil Hennessy still manning the drum kit!), Joyce Manor tore through a twenty-song set that leaned heavily on their 2011 self-titled record and 2014’s Never Hungover Again. The crowd, which had by now filled to a respectable level, was primed and ready to go from the first notes of set opener “Gotta Let It Go.” We had ourselves not only a circle pit (in fairness, not a California-style circle pit, but still a pit in the shape of a circle so it counts) but enough crowd surfers coming over the abnormally tight barricade that a few backup security guards were called in from the front of the house to serve as backup. If it provides any context to how amped-up the crowd was for Joyce Manor, from my perch in the photo pit before and in between sets, I overheard more than one conversation that centered around showgoers being surprised that Joyce Manor was opening for Jawbreaker and not the other way around and that it must have just been a Jawbreaker show because they were the OGs. Kids these days…
And so finally, at 9:00pm sharp, after a thirty-minute wait for set changeover but really close to a thirty-year wait, it was Jawbreaker time. The foursome (Blake and Adam and Chris plus Mitch Hobbs, longtime guitar tech, on second guitar) hit the stage and dove into “I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both.” Like much of Dear You, it’s a song that resonated in a particular way when it came out the week I turned sixteen. But when you add to it the context that Dear You became the last album before Jawbreaker self-destructed and then when you add to THAT the context that I’m now forty-four, it’s a song that hits like a sledgehammer.
From there, the band plowed through about a dozen-and-a-half songs that leaned heavily on the once-maligned-but-now-adored Dear You, but still managed to cover the duration of the band’s five-year history of recorded material. (Side note: think about that…as influential and genre-defining a band as Jawbreaker was, their entire output of recorded full-length records was released in a five-year span from 1990 to 1995.) It seemed like it took the band a couple of songs to hit their stride, but once they locked in at probably the “Seafoam Green” or “Condition Oakland” part of the set, they were as tight and focused as ever. The gravel and snarl in Blake Schwarzenbach’s voice, which people for years lamented had disappeared, seem to have returned only in a more weary, road-worn fashion.
Bass player Chris Bauermeister stayed pretty well rooted in place in his place at stage right, his focus firmly placed on his Antigua Fender P bass. Fitting, I suppose, since his playing style always served as a pretty solid foundation from which the traditionally single-guitar attack could wander. Adam Pfahler, as always, provided the gas pedal for the whole thing. This is a bit of a rudimentary comment to make, but on more than one occasion, I couldn’t help but think “damn…Adam is a REALLY good drummer.” It’s one thing to hear his playing on recordings that are 25-30 years old, but it’s another thing to see it live circa 2023, and to gain a new respect for the sort of groove and feel created and to see how his influence has carried forward in myriad bands since.
And of course, at the front of the operation, is the inimitable Blake Schwarzenback. Schwarzenbach has always been known for his emotionally honest, drunken poet lyrical style, and his vocal stylings lent authenticity to his words. Thirty-plus years of experiences paint many of those songs – like set-opener “I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both” and “Save Your Generation” and “Unlisted Track,” the latter of which Schwarzenbach performed solo accompanied by only his trademark white late 80s Les Paul Custom which has yellowed with age – in a different light and provide newer, deeper context. What had sounded like high school or college-age scorned love songs take on more gravity with the passing of time and adult relationships and societal dysfunction in the years since the words were first sung. Much of the set felt cathartic in a way a lot of shows haven’t in a while, but the post-“Unlisted Track” three-song closer of “Basilica,” “Kiss The Bottle” and “Accident Prone” was just about perfect. And so do I wish that my first Jawbreaker show occurred on that infamous “Fuck 90” tour? No…I was 10 and it was at The Rat and I probably would have died. And especially no, because I think it means more now that I saw them for the first time after just turning 44 and Blake’s words and the band’s sound have carved such a deep and indelible path in my brain. Thanks, Blake and Adam and Chris (and Mitch!). More than you know.
Check out photo galleries from each band’s set below!
Happy Friday, comrades! In our ongoing effort to bring you the coolest new underground and independent punk rock releases out there, we’re fired up (see what we did there?) to get to spread the word about The Heat today! It’s the brand new album from NYC’s Punt, and it’s their first music in close to […]
Happy Friday, comrades!
In our ongoing effort to bring you the coolest new underground and independent punk rock releases out there, we’re fired up (see what we did there?) to get to spread the word about The Heat today! It’s the brand new album from NYC’s Punt, and it’s their first music in close to a decade!
Following an 8 year break after their last release, Oil, Punt came back together during a brutal heat wave in the Big Apple a couple years back. The resulting album, The Heat, hauls listeners through the grimy underbelly of the city, exploring the “random terrible thoughts” in Frank’s brain and delivering a fuzzed out and riff heavy salute to all things noir.
Here’s what the band had to say about the release:
Punt has always been about music as a spontaneous social expression… hanging out together in a room and deferring to the voltage and the frequencies instead of really inserting yourself with all of your baggage or over-intellectualizing anything. We got together for a week during a heat wave and that’s exactly what we brought, that heat. This album deals with anger, revenge, passion and murder. We’re both extremely passionate and fiery personalities with an uncompromising vision. These songs reflect the more taboo parts of ourselves and helped us put our energy into something we can be proud of.
Happy Friday, comrades! We’ve got another cool new exclusive for your earholes on this first day of Riot Fest Weekend. It’s for a band called Grey Gardens, and if you’re not familiar, here’s a quick rundown. Grey Gardens came together early last year as longtime veterans of the Detroit area punk and hardcore scenes. They […]
Happy Friday, comrades!
We’ve got another cool new exclusive for your earholes on this first day of Riot Fest Weekend. It’s for a band called Grey Gardens, and if you’re not familiar, here’s a quick rundown.
Grey Gardens came together early last year as longtime veterans of the Detroit area punk and hardcore scenes. They fully rounded out their lineup earlier this year, and the five-piece are slated to release their debut album, and EP called Into The Sun, next week on Setterwind Records. In order to get you stoked for the release, we get to bring you the track “The New Normal” today. Check it out, and make sure you get on that pre-order, ya heard?
A week ago Friday, beloved Boston punks Rebuilder finally held the very-long-awaited record release show at Cambridge, MA’s Sinclair for their latest full-length, Local Support. If you read our recent chat with Rebuilder co-frontman (and Local Support‘s primary architect) Sal Ellington, you’re no doubt aware of the trials and tribulations that went into the drawn-out […]
A week ago Friday, beloved Boston punks Rebuilder finally held the very-long-awaited record release show at Cambridge, MA’s Sinclair for their latest full-length, Local Support. If you read our recent chat with Rebuilder co-frontman (and Local Support‘s primary architect) Sal Ellington, you’re no doubt aware of the trials and tribulations that went into the drawn-out making of the album. All of that added up to not just the successful release of a wonderful album, but an extraordinary evening of revelry and celebration that truly exemplified the idea of “local support” in the best ways possible.
The evening was kicked off by a tremendous four-piece known as Trash Rabbit. If you’re not familiar with Trash Rabbit…well, you’re like I was until a couple of days before the show when I decided to familiarize myself with them. The results were tremendous. The original Trash Rabbit trio (Mena Lemos on vocals and guitar, Nick Adams on bass and Gibran Mobarak on drums) have been playing together since their formative years and took their talents to the vaunted Berklee College of Music, adding Gia Flores on guitar to fill out the sound. The sound is up-tempo garage rock, a sort of post-emo cacophony of hooks upon hooks upon hooks. The crowd were infinitely more familiar with Trash Rabbit than I was and were at the ready with their dancing shoes afoot. Adams and Mobarak switched places for set closer “Scuba Queen,” a delightfully weird and interactive singalong.
Speaking of bands who have been together since their formative years, I feel like beloved Boston punk quartet Choke Up have been playing together since they were diapers. They don’t play in Boston – or many other places – much nowadays because life happens; Sam put out pretty great solo record and Harley moved to NYC and plays in a fun band called Sadlands and James plays in like 87 other bands including the super rad Cape Crush for example. And so it’s always a celebration when they do get together and especially when they play on the big stage at Sinclair. Songs like “Blue Moon” will never not turn into glorious, drunken, sweaty-arm-in-sweaty-arm singalongs.
Thanks to the high-energy table-setters on the bill, the mostly-full crowd at the 525-capacity Sinclair was sufficiently warmed up by the time Rebuilder graced the stage. In keeping with the album-release theme, the band took the stage in matching lemon-print Hawaiian-style shirts and in a formation that I don’t think I’d previously seen despite this being my 19th Rebuilder show to date. Choke Up’s Harley Cox did double duty, manning the drum kit for the set’s first couple of songs while normal Rebuilder drummer Brandon Phillips joined co-frontmen Ellington and Craig Stanton in a three-guitar attack, alongside stalwart Daniel Carswell on bass and frequent Rebuilderer Pat Hanlin on keys.
After a few songs as a six-piece, Cox departed and Phillips assumed his throw behind the kit as the band tore through a set that, as you might imagine, leaned heavily on the new material. Because the album was released on time a few weeks prior to the show (thanks Iodine Recordings!) a solid number of showgoers were already singing along to tracks like “Hold On” and “Wedding Day” and “Another Round.” For album closer – and set closer – “Disco Loadout,” Ellington left his guitar to the side and assumed full-on frontman role as the band were joined by a pedal steel player and not-one-but-two horn players to fill out the sound (and/or turn them into the world’s first ska/Americana (would that be Ameriskana or skamericana?) pop-punk band.
And thus it was time for the evening’s headliners, although No Trigger frontman Tom Rheault joked that since the evening was Rebuilder’s record release show, there was essentially no pressure on the antifascist sextet from straight outta the Worcester Hills. Everyone’s favorite discount Strike Anywhere blazed through a super fun set that included crowd-favorites old and new like “No Tattoos” and “Too High To Die” and “Dogs On Acid” and, of course, “Anti Fantasy.” Rheault programmed the digital backdrop to include a mix of No Trigger artwork and logos and scenes from all your favorite sociopolitical documentaries, like “Dumb and Dumber” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret Of The Ooze”.
Head below to check out slideshows from each of the evening’s bands! And Jeff Bridges pooping!
Hear ye, hear ye! Beloved Seattle punks The Subjunctives have got a brand new album due out later this month. It’s called Let’s Try This Again, and it’s being released by Top Drawer Records on September 15th. In order to get you fired up for the release – as though you weren’t already – we […]
Hear ye, hear ye! Beloved Seattle punks The Subjunctives have got a brand new album due out later this month. It’s called Let’s Try This Again, and it’s being released by Top Drawer Records on September 15th.
In order to get you fired up for the release – as though you weren’t already – we get to debut a pretty kick-ass video for the track “Thanks For Driving Me Home, Old Friend.” The clip is hot off the presses – so hot that we’re like 99% sure it’s done, but you’ll have to watch it all to see for yourself! That’s showbiz, baby!
Happy Tuesday, comrades! Another day brings us another killer video that we’re super lucky to get to premiere for you. Today’s offering comes to us from Yawn Mower, who hail from one of my favorite places in the world (at least until gentrification finally does it in)…Asbury Park, New Jersey! The video is for a […]
Happy Tuesday, comrades! Another day brings us another killer video that we’re super lucky to get to premiere for you.
Today’s offering comes to us from Yawn Mower, who hail from one of my favorite places in the world (at least until gentrification finally does it in)…Asbury Park, New Jersey! The video is for a song called “Stagnant Lake” – here’s what the band had to say about it!
“We have 3 old tube televisions in our rehearsal space that always have DVDs rolling on mute in the background. We’re all ADHD enough to need 3 other things to process in the midst of practicing. Usually have a Wes Anderson night, a Tarantino night, once in a while any trilogies on hand are going simultaneously. Movies and shows play an equal part in inspiring us as much as any music does.
This music video was our attempt to try something new visually and in the edit. We’ve mostly been lighthearted and fun in our past videos, so we wanted to overstimulate the viewer with this one. It’s a quick edit, it’s always pushing and pulling, and if we did our jobs right, a bit jarring. I made the paper mache mask, the kale can labels, etc. So it’s still very much DIY and budget-free as always, but through a different lens this time.
Most of it was shot at Prototype 237. It’s an art space with communal living inside of a warehouse in Paterson, NJ. There’s a full stage, soundboard, and lighting rig for events they host, so we’ve made it a habit to perform there whenever the opportunity arises. We believe in their mission statement and support the space 100%, so we knew it would be the perfect spot to shoot this music video. Every nook and cranny of their space is covered in beautiful chaos. You can walk in a circle for hours and spot something new every time. It was such a pleasure to walk around and select which parts of their home we would highlight in each scene. There were no wrong answers!”
“Stagnant Lake” appears on Yawn Mower’s most recent album, To Each Their Own Coat, which came out last year on Mint 400 Records. You can still pick up copies on Bandcamp and wherever else you pick up your music. And now…behold “Stagnant Lake”!
The list of things that can get in the way of a band releasing new music out into the world is a long and winding one. Band member changes, creative lulls, global pandemics, Adele misreading the market and pressing like 500,000 copies of an album that’s destined for thrift store shelves, national social and political […]
The list of things that can get in the way of a band releasing new music out into the world is a long and winding one. Band member changes, creative lulls, global pandemics, Adele misreading the market and pressing like 500,000 copies of an album that’s destined for thrift store shelves, national social and political unrest, record labels going belly-up at the last minute due to the indiscretions of someone in their orbit, etc. Or, if you’re Boston punks Rebuilder, some combination of all of the above.
In what I guess is the interest of full disclosure, I’ve known and been friendly with the foursome (Sal Ellington and Craig Stanton -vocals/guitar, Daniel Carswell – bass, and Brandon Phillips – drums) that is the core of Rebuilder for just about as long as Rebuilder have existed as a band. Their 2015 debut full-length, Rock And Roll In America, is one of my favorite albums that has come out of this area since I started writing for Dying Scene a dozen years ago, and their follow-up EP, 2017’s Sounds From The Massachusetts Turnpike, is even better.
And yet, as wonderful and honest as those records were and as formidable and authentic a live band as Rebuilder have been, there is also the sense that that could have – probably should have – been more successful if not for being seemingly snake-bitten at many turns. The music industry being what it is, the economics involved with being in a band that takes off when you’re closer to 30 than 20 are different now than they were a generation ago, and so when label support is either lackluster or never materializes, or pre-Covid tours fall apart (looking at you, Europe circa 2017), it can test the intestinal fortitude of band members with growing responsibilities and wavering desires to continue the “grind” well into their thirties.
With some of that as a backdrop, Rebuilder set to work on the follow up to …Mass Turnpike several years ago. What eventually turned into Local Support – which was officially released on August 11th on Iodine Recordings – became a labor of love and devotion in the very truest senses of those words. After years of false starts and working through both internal and external issues, the band reconvened and put out what sounds like their most focused collection of songs yet; eleven tracks that are about as honest and soul-bearing as you could ask for, with myriad influences woven through the mix, creating increased color and texture that broaden the scope of their pop punk infused roots. Panic State Records, which released their first two records, has folded, so after an extended period of shopping the record, they finally landed with a new label home, associated with a certain Pittsburgh political punk band. And we all know how that turned out. At what was seemingly the 11:59 hour mark, Iodine Recordings swooped in and saved the proverbial day and the album came out – at least digitally – as expected on August 11th.
Rebuilder plays their long-awaited album release show tonight – September 1st – at the Sinclair in Cambridge, MA, and they’re playing alongside a powerhouse lineup that includes No Trigger, Choke Up, and Trash Rabbit. Tickets are still available. Keep scrolling here, not only to listen to Local Support (seriously, you should do that…it’s great!) but to check out our long and far-reaching interview with Sal Ellington, the band’s one-of-a-kind co-frontman. Sal has been in and around the music industry for most of his adult life – hell he’s even got a degree in music business – and he’s got a very unique take on the state of the industry that he delves into in his periodic #TheBiz Instagram feed. He’s also better known in some circles for his “Salfies,” which grew out of a crude tour joke and ended up becoming a mechanism for helping to tackle years of fear and doubt and insecurity. This was a fun and compelling one…we talk a lot about the various starts and stops that went into the writing and recording process, the state of the band’s various members and their renewed commitment to the cause, the use of songwriting as a way to process mental health struggles, and obviously the snafu with their previous label and trying to find a new one at the very last of possible minutes. Enjoy!
(The following has been edited and condensed for content and clarity’s sake. Yes, really. It also picks up semi-midstream but you’ll catch up pretty quickly.)
Dying Scene (Jay Stone): Well Iodine Recordings is putting the record out. How did that come about so quickly? Obviously, this whole situation has been shitty for everyone involved for the last few weeks.
Sal Ellington (Rebuilder): It has been a fucking nightmare.
So that’s an interesting place to start, and I wasn’t sure how comfortable you were talking about some or all of that…
You can ask me about whatever. Part of (Iodine) taking it over, was for the record to come out on the 11th. I wanted the record to be out before the record release show weekend. The set for that show is heavy on new stuff, and it doesn’t make any sense for us to go out and play a whole bunch of new songs if nobody knows them. When we were originally in talks with A-F, they wanted it to come out on September 1st and I said we needed to move it back a couple weeks so that people have a chance to hear the songs and get to know the songs before the show. So that’s still the plan with Iodine taking over. However, I think the delay will be in getting the pre-orders out for people. The pre-orders were involved in this snafu. The record plant reached out to me and were cool. They said “Hey, we saw everything that happened. Is anything changing with this release?” And we said, “Yeah, is there any way you can take the (A-F Records) logo off?” And they could, so they took the logo off and kept pressing the record, which was awesome. I’m stoked that they did that. However, it delayed when it was going to get in the hands of either A-F or us.
With the logo now off of the record itself, because A-F used to do things piecemeal, we now had to talk to whoever was doing the jackets, and I think the jackets are too late to be redone. I think the jackets are already on their way to us, and I think that I just connected with the people who did the jackets this morning and they said “Send us the new artwork, we’ll see what we can do.” Literally an hour ago I got a notification that said something like “The jackets are being shipped to you, look at your shipping times.” So, we might be too late for that part now. So I said to Iodine, if we need to do new jackets, if that’s the one thing we have left, then we need to find someone to rush order new jackets because we have a tour that we haven’t really announced yet that’s happening in September, so I need records for our release show and I need records for the tour. That’s basically where we’re at for now; trying to make sure that we have records for both of those things, which we will, it’s just a matter of are they going to have an Iodine Recordings logo, or are they going to have a Rebuilder sticker covering up an A-F Records logo…
I was going to say, can’t they print out Iodine stickers that match the same color and slap them over there? I mean, it’s a pain in the ass, but I feel like that’s not super uncommon and it’s less of a pain in the ass than printing all new jackets.
Yeah, I ordered the stickers already, and I think they’ll actually be at my house today, so I have to have my roommate ship those to A-F because there are pre-orders that need to go out. But it’s one of those things where Iodine was like “You’ve worked so hard on this record, we don’t want you to have to put the record out with a sticker over it, making it look haphazard and unprofessional, so if all we have to do is order new sleeves, then let’s just do that.
What a shitty situation but at least you’re rolling with it and making the best of it.
Yeah, I think we’re trying to make the best of it and I think it’s one of those things where none of us wanted to deal with this. This is not what I had planned for the release of something that I’ve spent so long working on. I think that Chris Stowe, who runs A-F Records, certainly never wanted this to happen either, as well as anyone else who is attached to any fallout from Anti-Flag, from the victims to the people who work for the band. There are people who have lost their careers due to this. We didn’t lose our career, so I feel like what we have to go through is annoying for us, but it’s not this life-changing thing.
Oh for sure, you have to compartmentalize that stuff. And it seems like A-F was just gearing up to put out a whole bunch of new things between now and the rest of the year, and so there are a handful of bands who are in similar situations where the gears are already turning and things are too far along.
It would have been one of those things had it just been an announcement that we had signed to A-F and there would be an album in the Fall. We could have just made an announcement like “We’re just not on A-F anymore, we’re going to take some time to figure out who is going to put it out,” and that’s it. Or if it had been a year after our record came out, we could have been like “It’s terrible what happened. We’re not on A-F anymore, any copies that we make going forward from this are just going to be on our own.” Instead, we’re right in the middle. (*both laugh*) Things are literally shipping now, and every single hour of the day for me is spent trying my hardest to basically do chaos control on this thing as well as doing my actual job, and trying to finish doing this tour, and all the stuff that comes with it. Yeah, it’s not what I envisioned for this record.
Seriously, first full-length record in eight years or whatever it is and this is the hand your dealt.
Yeah. I know it’s our second full-length, but I always felt like (Sounds From The) Massachusetts Turnpike was our second real record. It’s not as many songs, but I do always think about that when I think about that record. So then this is our third record, for sure. I think it’s our strongest, and I do really, really love this record a lot, and I hope people do too, which is why I don’t want anything distracting from this record or taking away from it. Behind the scenes, there are a lot of things distracting from this record and it’s like…thank god I don’t post every single minute of every single day what’s going on with it, because I can get mentally fried with it. But I just want people to know that the record is coming out, it’s going to be a bit delayed getting to you, but it will still be out digitally on all the streaming sites anyway. You’ll just have to give it a bit til you get your copy in the mail. I hope that people understand that the delay in getting their copies in the mail is that we now have to deal with all the bullshit that came along with this. What the customer has to deal with is getting the record a little bit later than they would have They’ve had to deal with that with records that didn’t go through anything problematic, they had to go with it just because Taylor Swift put out a record and bumped other people’s.
Oh for sure, everyone is used to that since Covid. I can’t remember a record coming on time. Except maybe the Dave Hause record because I don’t think he announced the record until he had the physical copies or something like that, so that when people pre-ordered it they were just sending it out from Tim’s garage. But that’s a different way of doing it.
It’s funny because Dave was one of the people who early on called me about this record. He knew I was trying to find a home for this record so I sent it to a ton of friends and asked what they thought about it and who should put it out…all those questions you go through every time you put our a record. It’s almost half a year or a year of pitching it to people when you don’t have a home for your record. And I sent it to Dave and he said “Well, what do you want to happen with this record, man? Where do you want it to go?” And I said “Well, these are the labels I was thinking of. This is where I think it should go because I want the most eyes on it, because I think it’s important.” And he was like “Yeah, man, but why don’t you just release it yourself? That’s what I do with my records?” And I was like “Yeah man, but you have a huge audience, you know?” And he was like “Well, how many records did you sell when you did it on your own for the live record.” So I told him and amount, and he was like “Alright, I do probably the same number, just scaled up by X amount. It’s all a matter of how you scale it. I think that you guys could do the same thing. Put out the record on your own, it’s going the mean the most to you anyway. Pay for the PR and do it that way.” And I would have done it that way, for sure. It’s nice to know that we can do that. I just think that we went with A-F because they have a great presence at FEST, and we always do really well at FEST, and Chris Stowe who ran the label is a great friend and has always supported bands who have been on it. We’ve had friends who have been on their label and they did well. It wasn’t going to blow us up, but it’s people that believe in the record, so that’s why we decided to go with them. I think Dave was right, we could put it out ourselves, but having it in the hands of people who believe in it was the way to go. That’s why now, working with Iodine is working with people who believe in it and believe in our band.
Did they reach out to you after the A-F thing or did you hit them up?
They did. They reached out to us.
That’s got to be a good feeling.
For sure. I was like “I’m not going to start reaching out to labels when this is supposed to be out in less than a month.” Like, how do you sell that to anyone? (*both laugh*) Hi! I have this record coming out and now it’s attached to this controversy, do you want to put it out now?”
Right! “Hey, do you want to wade into this shitstorm?”
For sure. But I know that Iodine has worked with Jay Maas who recorded this record, and they talked to him about it and asked if he thought Rebuilder would be interested in having them help put the record out. And the thing is, nobody HAD to come to us to help with our record, so the fact that they did come to us and say “Here’s what we can do, let’s jump on a call immediately and try to make this happen,” I really appreciated that.
Had they heard it at that point?
I think they had. I think Jay had sent it over when we were looking for a label, but I don’t think that we ever had the conversation because I think once they saw that we were talking to A-F, they were like “Yeah, that makes sense.” There are more bands already on that label with our sort of poppier punk sound than there were on Iodine. But I’m glad they had seen a position to help and that’s what they jumped on. So I think they had heard it already, I just didn’t know if they liked it (*both laugh*). I never really know. You always hear things like “Iodine liked your record” and it’s always like, “Well, what does that mean? Does that mean they think it’s a cool thing that we’re creating, or does it mean that they want to be a part of it?” I remember early on, someone was like “Oh, so-and-so at SideOneDummy really likes what you’re doing.” And I was like “Wow, that’s cool!” And then that was the end of the conversation. (*both laugh*) I was like, “Okay, so what do I do with this information?” (*both laugh*) Like, “Oh good, another thing to think about…” I’m pretty sure I did think about it for a solid month straight before I just finally stopped.
I’m really excited for people to hear this record. I’ve finally had a chance to dig into it the last couple of days, and it’s really good. I don’t just say that because I’ve known you guys forever; it’s really a good record. I know that it’s super cliche to say that you hit another level or whatever, but I feel like you really pushed yourselves. It’s really good.
Thanks! Yeah, I do feel like it’s our most diverse record in terms of what we were trying to accomplish on it. I just never know if that’s going to mean anything to an audience or in general. I always feel like we’re a band that’s still growing. We can’t just announce a show and have it sell out right away. And because I think we’re still growing, I get concerned with, like, “Are we allowed to do this? Are we allowed to be weird and different?” I think a band like Turnstile can do that and it’s a home run, you know what I mean?
Yeah, but it wasn’t a home run until they did it. They took some chances and it worked. I like when people do that. Obviously, it’s fine to have a sound or something that keeps you grounded, but I like that people continue to grow. You’re not 20 or 30 anymore, you know?
I think it’s cool when bands take chances. There are definitely times when bands take chances though and you’re like “Well, I wish they hadn’t done that” and I don’t want to be on that side of it, you know?
That last song especially, “Disco Loadout,” it’s got pedal steel on it so obviously it’s an Americana song, and yet it’s got horns on it so obviously it’s a ska song, and yet, it’s very much a Rebuilder song. For some reason, those things fit contextually with that song, but it doesn’t sound like any other Rebuilder song.
What’s funny is we had probably played that song a couple of songs live back when …Mass Turnpike came out. Around that time, anyway. When we were looking at what songs would be on …Mass Turnpike, that was a song we liked a lot, but you need the journey to get to that song. To end an EP on it feels like you didn’t give people enough time to get there and to understand it. In the Rebuilder Venn diagram, it doesn’t fall smack in the middle. But I always had the ambition for how the song should go, with the pedal steel and the horns and everything. It really needed to be recorded and heard for people to listen to it and get it. Craig (Stanton) was like that too. He said, “I really didn’t see this song coming to be the way that it was, and I’m glad that you followed through on it.” I’m super happy with how that song came out. I think it’s super cool. I think it’s a really ambitious song but at the same time, I think that the skeleton of the song is still a good song. I’ve always thought that you know that a song is a good song if you can listen to it as a country version or a punk rock version or a ska version, it’ll sound good however you do it because the songwriting stands up. That’s how I view that song.
Between that one and “Look Down Club,” I think I might have a couple of new favorite Rebuilder songs. That “Look Down Club” is a cool song.
I like that song a lot. I think that was an older one too. I think we at least had the idea of that song around during …Mass Turnpike and it was in the column of “this could be on a full length.” But we didn’t have the key parts written until the end. We always add keys at the very, very end, and I think the keys made that song sound so cool. I think it’s a very cool song to open up Side B.
Yeah, that big intro to it…if it wasn’t going to kick off Side A, it makes sense to have it kick off Side B. Or to kick off a show. Starting that side of the record with “Look Down Club” and ending it with “Disco Loadout” is pretty gnarly.
Yeah, and I think Side A has, I think, so many bangers and so many hooks that we needed Side B to have its own weight, and I think it has its own weight in a different way, for sure. That song could open a set, but I think you could also close a set with it too. It fits so many things. It’s super cool. I like a lot of the guitar work we do on it. In the studio, you cn adjust add more stuff on top of it and keep adding, which is what I love to do. Then it just kinda takes on its own thing.
At least vocally, this is a very “Sal” record. It’s much more you than Craig out in front; I feel like Craig has maybe two that are essentially his, at least vocally.
One of the things that happened with this record was, I think it was right before the pandemic, the end of the year before, we kinda had the idea to record maybe seven of the songs that we had? I think we had been doing a lot and we basically got to a point where everyone in the band was kinda burnt out from having to grind really hard and maybe sometimes not have a lot of reward for it. You can only grind so hard and not get anything for so long before you think “why do I keep doing this?” But I think we’re all friends who love playing with each other and it’s fun for us to do. As much as I wish we made enough money from this band where this was everyone’s full-time job, and then we can focus on this and, yes, life happens but we’re able to provide for our lives because of this…we can’t do that.
So when life is happening, like, for example, around the time that Daniel (Carswell, bass) was newly sober and he wasn’t really super in love with having to be on tour and go into clubs and be around people who are drinking all the time, because he was still trying to figure out how to be sober. And Brandon (Phillips, drums) had taken on a new job and he and his wife had already had talks about having a kid. And then Craig I think around then joined a local hockey thing that he started being a part of and he didn’t really have a lot more songs to contribute to this, and he wanted to do something else. My goal was that I wanted to keep doing Rebuilder and I wanted to do this record, and I was about to have a complete mental breakdown from everyone being like “This is where we are in life, and maybe where we are in life isn’t aligning with where you want things to be with Rebuilder right now.” I was like “Well, let’s go into the studio and record what we have,” and that got cut down from like seven songs to I think five songs. No, it got cut down from eight to five, and I think there were three songs that Craig thought needed more time to develop, but he thought the other five were strong. We did go in and record those five and we got them down and we did that whole session and then the pandemic happened. The record got put on the back burner because we aren’t practicing, we aren’t seeing each other. Everything else takes on precedence ahead of making a record.
So then me and Daniel are living together still at the time and in my mind I still want to finish this record, whatever that means. I don’t even know who we can play with or anything. It was a solid year of making more demos in the house with Daniel and then when the riots happened with Black Lives Matter, after George Floyd, I was like “Well, I don’t want to work on demos for this record anymore because I’m too caught up in what’s happening socially.” So I wrote “Monuments,” and we went in the studio and recorded that. Brandon couldn’t play on that because he was still living in his in-law at the time and we couldn’t really get together, but Harley from Choke Up was free and he had been playing with us at times anyway, so he came in and we recorded it and we put it out and we raised money for Black Lives Matter. Then, during that time, months later, we went back in the studio, and I had some demos of me, Harley and Daniel, and it was kind of the first time I had written songs that I wasn’t bouncing off of Craig, and I didn’t know if I was confident enough in my songwriting ability to just depend on myself. But, at the same time, I kinda had to be, you know? So “Telephone,” “Hold On,” Brokedowns,” those were all songs that came from that session with Harley. So we went in and recorded those, and I think we only recorded basic drums, guitar and bass. I don’t even think we did vocals yet. But then, me, Daniel and Brandon got together months later and worked on the other three that we had cut out of that original five-song session. We worked on those and then went and recorded those.
At this point, it’s like two years later. I had run into Craig and he talked about “Monuments” and how he thought it was a cool song and how he wishes he could have played on that song, and I said “Well, I thought that you didn’t want to” and he felt like time had passed and he felt different about things, and I think by that point we had done that livestream that we did. I had texted everyone like “Hey, me and Daniel want to do this, we don’t know who’s around and it’s pretty ambitious to do, but me and Daniel will do a lot of the heavy lifting but if you want to do it, it could be cool.” Everyone was obviously very into doing it, and I think going forward from that, I think it makes sense to keep running it that way. If there are things that come up that seem cool, whoever is in is in, and whoever has things going on, that’s fine. We’ll either have someone else come help us or we just won’t do it, but we’ll have other cool opportunities for us to do. I think by establishing that idea into the band, it makes people feel like they can participate but they don’t have to make it their whole entire life.
So, once we did that, I told Craig “Well, we’ve gone in and pretty much recorded the basics for the second half of the record and I have these new songs that you haven’t heard yet, so if you want to be on it I would love to have you, because I love your guitar work and I love your ideas and I love what you can bring to the table.” I love Craig’s vocals in the band. I think me and him complement each other well, and I always want him to be there at all times. I can’t force people to be there, and life is always going to happen, especially if this isn’t your full-time job and there is no money to be made on this. You can’t drop things to do this all the time. So we went back in the studio and showed him the skeletons of the songs and told him to add in the parts that he thought were good and he did backup vocals. The result is this record. It’s a weird record in terms of how it got made, but I think how it got made is what makes this record so important to us. So many things have gone on for us to make this happen.
On a lot of different levels, yeah.
On a lot of levels, right. So many! And Harley jumping in and playing drums, JR from Less Than Jake and Chris from Bosstones jumping in and playing horns on it
Or for some of us, it will always be Chris and Pete from Spring Heeled Jack (*both laugh*)
And then Casey Prestwood from Hot Rod Circuit plays lap steel guitar on that track. I remember him from a Drag The River show that I saw over ten years ago, and I was like “He’s so good, I wonder if he still plays…” so I was like “Hey, we don’t really know each other, but I saw you play this legendary show in my mind…do you still play lap steel?” and he was like “Yeah, man, I can do that for you, no problem.” Kailynn West sings on “Wedding Day.” So we reached out to a lot of friends to really make this record happen. I had to trust myself on a lot of decisions and push myself to finish this record, and I’m happy that at the end of it, it’s still the four of us here making this record and contributing however we could. And I feel like Harley is an extension of our band at this point because he has helped us out so much and I love having him there. So the reason there are only two lead-vocal Craig songs on the record is because he wasn’t there for some of the writing on it. So it was important to me that once he was back in the mix, that he sang a lot of the backups on it. I think live, there will be a lot more shared vocal stuff, because live, I can’s sing all those songs all in a row the way they’re written and have a voice by the end of the night. (*both laugh*)
I made note a couple times that you really push your voice on this one.
I’ve been taking vocal lessons for the last two years now. I do a vocal lesson every two weeks, and I started that because I knew that Craig wouldn’t be able to be there for some of the shows and I would have to sing a majority of the songs, because we didn’t have someone else who could sing his parts. And that would be a lot for my voice to take on, especially if the songs weren’t written with the intention of one person singing them. Even a song like “Get Up” or “Anchoring” has some back-and-forth spots that, when we’ve done it live without Criag for the couple of shows that he hasn’t been able to be at, it’s been difficult. So, I reached out to a vocal coach and every two weeks we FaceTime. I still do them, because it’s good to have. But I do remember Jay (Maas) saying when we were recording that “I think your vocals sound better than I’ve ever heard them, and I think the lessons helped a lot.” I was really appreciative of that.
I think I would agree with that. I think with a song like “Hold On,” which is obviously an important song for a lot of reasons, it being the first single from the new record sets that bar, and you really push it in that song especially, to the high end of the register for you. Even though that song is drop-tuned, right?
So that’s the trick! This is so stupid…(*both laugh*)
No, I love this shit!
When we learned the Blink self-titled record, there are a couple songs that are tuned in C#. I think “Violence” is one of them, and I think “Stockholm Syndrome” might be. I remember how cool I thought it sounded, so I thought “Well, maybe I’ll copy Tom DeLonge and write a couple of songs in C#.” Also, “Wrestle Yu to Husker Du” by The Dirty Nil is also tuned down to C#, and I was like “This is why the singer of Dirty Nil can sing so high on that song, because he’s playing drop-tuned, so it’s giving you more of a range to sing over it.” So I was like “Oh, that’s the trick! That’s why it sounds like he’s belting the song out!” So with “Telephone” and “Hold On,” those are the two songs that I wrote in that tuning for that reason.
Oh “Telephone” I don’t think I knew, but “Hold On,” for sure – that big riff at the beginning of it. Is that fun? It seems like you were obviously pretty inspired to write during everything that was going on anyway, but did trying out new tunings like that open up any creative parts of your brain and, like, “Oh, there’s a whole new register of songs I can write!”
Oh yeah, it’s so fun. Everyone knows the Drop-D trick, for sure, but when I tuned down to C#, I retuned the whole entire guitar down a step-and-a-half. I think it sounds really cool
And now you can play Korn covers!
(*both laugh*) For sure! It gets my creative juices flowing a lot more, for sure, to get to think of things in a different way. The cool thing is that Craig bought a guitar pedal that you just hit and it down-tunes you to whatever semi tone you want to. He tried it and didn’t love it, but he thought it would be cool for me because I do a lot of big, open chords. So I tried it and I was like “Damn, for a live setting, this is fucking fine with me!” So when we play live, I have that pedal and I use it for those songs. I don’t have to retune, I just hit the pedal and what you hear from there is drop tuned. Then I can still just have my backup guitar as a backup, because that was the fear. What if you break a string and then you have to go to your back-up guitar, and then you have to figure out how to…
…capo punk rock songs at the third fret or whatever.
Yeah, exactly. It’s a super cool pedal. I think there’s definitely some give-and-take with the tone a little bit, but it’s so negligible that I’m fine with it.
I think the last time we talked like this was maybe right around the George Floyd events. I don’t remember if we talked specifically for “Monuments” or anything like that. But did you stay pretty creative, or did the not really knowing what was going to happen with the band make so that you didn’t even bother writing during that time?
I want to say that I was super creative throughout the whole thing but a lot of it was just very depressing for me, especially around the George Floyd time. I would sit there and try to write something, but I was forcing myself to write when I wasn’t feeling inspired. All I was thinking about was “Do I have a career anymore? Maybe I don’t have a career anymore! Did I make all the wrong choices that led me to this point where I don’t own a career or own a house? Did I set myself up for complete failure? That’s how I felt throughout all of it. And then, when the George Floyd thing happened, I wrote “Monuments” faster than I’ve ever written any other song, and we recorded it faster than we’ve recorded any other song. From inception to recording it, it took about two weeks, which is the fastest Rebuilder has ever done anything! That snapped me back into doing something, because I felt like I wrote because I didn’t know how to…there’s only so many posts you can make (on social media). I don’t know what to say, and I don’t ever know the right things to say at all, really. All I really know is how I feel, and I don’t know if that’s the correct thing. Writing “Monuments” helped me put all of my feelings into one thing and try to do something good with it. I can’t fix it and I can’t make it go away, but I can contribute in some way to making it better. That was when I got a little bit more creative, and then when we went in with Alex-Garcia Rivera to record a Mavis Beacon song for Jeff Poot, because he had a brain aneurysm, we thought it would be fun to cover his song and send him some money. That was another thing where these things seemed so pressing and so much more important than what our band is, that that was when I was like “Oh, I feel like I can be creative now because there’s a purpose.” That made me start doing things again, because otherwise, it didn’t feel like there was ever going to be a purpose other than just being less bored.
I think that if you look at it from 10,000 feet though, I think that a lot of the songs that tackle mental health issues are also a way of sort of doing the same thing. Those songs are written for a purpose and people hear them and hopefully they resonate with them and identify with things in them, and that helps them either call somebody and get help or realize they aren’t alone. And so I feel like some of the more mental health-related songs sort of accomplish the same sort of purpose, at least for me as a listener.
Yeah, I hope so! There was still a record to be worked on and finished, so once I was in the mode of “We’re going to go record and we’re getting in a room together,” even if it was just me and Daniel and Harley, if felt like there were things going on. Especially with tracks like “Wedding Day” and “Staying Alive” that take on a lot of the mental health things. I always say that when you hear songs like “Staying Alive,” you’re like “Is this a big, desperate cry for help?” But Rebuilder takes so long to get anything out into the world (*both laugh*) that whatever was going on, by the time you hear it, that is years and years and years removed. “Staying Alive” is a song that was written on a reflection of a time where I had another complete mental breakdown a little after college, when I was probably 24 or 25. I’m 38 now, so whatever was going on at that time, I’m thankful is way behind me, where I can write a song like “Staying Alive” and have it be really heavy and serious, but it’s not a thing where I can’t play that song because it’s too new or too painful. Like, I can write the song because I can talk about what I was feeling at that time, and what I still sometimes feel now, and have it not be so reactionary to my life at that moment. I can guarantee you that there’s a book somewhere with the lyrics to that song written over and over and over again until I felt it was what it should be.
There are times where I look back on lyrics from my first band where I’m like “Oh my god, I wish this person didn’t put this song out. I wish he thought of different words to put in because it’s so cringy.” I just don’t want it to be that anymore (*both laugh*). So it’s a good thing that it takes a while for this stuff to come out, since it allows me to sit with things even for a year and say “Eh, I don’t know if that’s right.” I’m happy with how “Staying Alive” came out because after revising it so many times, it doesn’t read as corny. I didn’t want it to be too corny or too much like an emo song. I wanted it to be a serious song dealing with serious matters but also feel like by the end of the song you don’t feel like “Oh this situation is terrible.”
When people who know you from Salfies or from #TheBiz or from that side of things hear those songs filled with references to the more mental health-heavy stuff, does that strike them as weird because you don’t always present to them that way publicly?
No one brings it up. I’ve never had anyone be like “that’s weird that you would write this song when you do all these really fucking dumb things on the internet.” I just think that they must think “This is wild. This kid must be the most bipolar kid in the fucking world.” (*both laugh*) I always imagine that they think that. But I have also thought that the funny thing is that it also goes very hand-in-hand. There is a lot of crossover (“Staying Alive”) and Salfies than you would ever, ever imagine.
Really?!
Yeah. The way that I felt in a song like “Staying Alive” and everything I felt in it and all the anxieties and all the times where I just did not want to be alive, is because I had no confidence in myself and I always was very, very concerned with what people think about me. And I still have that. I don’t think that ever goes away. But I remember when I first took a dumb Salfie in a bathroom and sent it on Snapchat to my band members while we were on a tour and thinking it was so funny and seeing the reactions from everybody being like “Oh, what the fuck!?” All it took was somebody saying “I hope you don’t do this the whole tour” for me to be like “Well now I have to.” I was doing it and thinking it was funny but it was still an internal thing and no one knew about. I remember a girl I was dating at the time I had shown that picture to, and they weer so disgusted. It made me feel really bad. They were disgusted in a bad way, like “Please don’t ever take pictures like this, and don’t show anybody this, this is so embarrassing for me and I don’t know why you would do something like this.” I remember thinking to myself “Well, note to self, don’t show your girlfriend these pictures…”
I kept doing them obviously, and during a Bosstones tour, Adam Shaw, the tour manager, had asked about Rebuilder and I sent him that picture and I was like “We just finished a tour, here’s a picture from tour!” and he thought it was hilarious and sent it to all the guys in that band, and they thought it was funny or some of them were disgusted. Dicky was one of the people who loved it. He coined the term. He texted me and was like “No Salfies this weekend, please!” and he was like “You’ve gotta make a Salendar calendar, that would be so funny!” That encouraged me to get more creative with it, because I thought it was so funny. More and more people started finding out about it and bringing it up to me. I remember I was at a restaurant with the girl I was dating at the time and I remember a friend of mine came up to me and said “Oh you must be so proud of the Salfies” and they got fucking pissed! They were so bullshit! They were like “Why do people know about this?! Why is this becoming a thing?!” After we broke up, I think one of the things I did was like “Well, fuck it – now I don’t have anyone standing over me and making me feel self-conscious about doing this, I’m just going to post it on Instagram.” I think I posted the archives that I had on my phone on Instagram like the day after we broke up, and people being like “OH MY FUCKING GOD!”
I remember people seeing it and it becoming a “thing,” like “we need more Salfies!” and thinking it was so funny, to the point that Jimmy Kimmel had seen them. Due to “circumstances,” after a Bosstones show I was out at a dinner with Bob Saget and Jimmy Kimmel. Someone introduced me to Bob Saget and he was like “Who’s this?” and someone said “This is Sal” and Jimmy goes “Yeah, let me show you a picture of him,” and he had a Salfie on his phone and showed it to Saget and he laughed and said “This is amazing, I want to show this to Mary-Kate (Olsen)!” I was sitting there thinking “What the fuck is my life right now?!?” (*both laugh*)
It blew my mind completely, and from that point, I hadn’t felt like I’d described in “Staying Alive.” I hadn’t felt that way in a long time and I remember not feeling that way and thinking “I don’t give a fuck anymore. I don’t care, and I can’t believe that this is the outcome that came from me posting dumb pictures of me naked behind things on Instagram.” But then, the person who felt that way could never post pictures like that, you know? Now it’s a whole thing and I think it’s so stupid, but even now, there’s times when I meet people and they’re like “Oh my god, you have to look at Sal’s Instagram, it’s a whole thing.” I’ve had people say to me “I wish I could do that, I don’t have the fucking balls to do it. That’s crazy.” And I’m just, like, yeah, I don’t know how I got to this point, but I’m glad I did, because I don’t ever want to feel the way I did before. Ever! I never want to feel the way I did in “Staying Alive.” It’s a terrible feeling and you feel like you have no hope and you have nowhere to go and you’re not good enough and you have so much self-doubt. Now, I feel like that isn’t as aggressive in my life anymore, and some of that is thankfully due to thinking it’s fucking hilarious to put a Santa Claus in front of me and stand behind it naked, you know? (*both laugh*)
I think even with #TheBiz stuff, the way that you present to people is that “This kid is smart, and he’s funny, but he also doesn’t really give a fuck and he’ll tell you exactly how things actually work and he’s super confident.” So to know that some of that comes from the place of a person who has overcome so much fear and doubt and insecurity and anxiety is pretty awesome, I think.
I’m glad it comes off that way. With The Biz stuff, I think that the music business is just hte most ridiculous business in the world. It’s such a fucking joke. As someone who has been in it my whole life – who literally has a fucking degree in it – I think it’s funny to point out this stuff. It’s always crazy to me how much the general public doesn’t know about things. When we signed to A-F Records, people were like “Congratulations on A-F!” I got those texts a lot and I didn’t really know how to respond to them. In my head, I was like “Well, it’s not Warner Brothers, you know? What are these congratulations for? It’s not Sony Music, you know? It’s a small label. I’m happy for it, but it’s a small label.” So I responded to a lot of people “Thank you! They gave us a million-dollar advance.” I think nine out of ten people believed it every single time. They were like “Whoa, that’s crazy!” And I’m thinking “Fuck…they really don’t know how this thing works.” I think things like that are funny, and it means so many different things. One, people have no idea what a million-dollar advance means. So let’s say it were true: that would mean that I now owe the record label a million dollars before I ever see any money ever again.
Right, you have to sell a million dollars worth of records.
Yeah, to get that back, or to make any profit after that. And let’s say we did start making that back. Now you have to split it among all of these people. So it would be a nice cushion for a while, but it won’t be forever. So even that statement, there’s so much weight that comes with what it actually means, and people have no idea at all. So it was funny to say and have people say “Wow, that’s crazy!!” (*both laugh*) I love always posting about The Biz with different artists and having them be in on the joke too, or when it comes to merch and a lot of people talk about merch cuts and how they’re bad, and I think that you can’t have “Save Our Stages” and “Fuck The Venues” all at the same time, you know? (*both laugh*) People are like “I don’t want to pay the merch cut, but let’s make sure this venue doesn’t go away!” It’s so contradictory. And I’m not even saying that I think merch cuts are necessarily a good thing. All I’m saying is that they exist and they go to keep the venue open, so maybe you’ve got to think about what you’re arguing for.
I do think there’s a difference when it happens at what’s seen to be an independent venue versus what is seen to be a corporate, LiveNation venue, where it seems like the corporate overlords have their hands in everything and realistically LiveNation could do without your five dollars on that t-shirt and they’re collecting it in the name of profit. Whereas with a locally run place or a smaller venue might not be able to keep the lights on without it. So to me it seems like there’s a distinction to be made.
Oh for sure. Absolutely. I’m all for there not being merch cuts, and I say that as somebody who makes money off there being a merch cut. I literally run a merch vending business where the money I make for a living sometimes is because of a merch cut. I get it, and I would happily give that up for there to just be no merch cuts across the board, because I don’t think a venue should share in 20% of merch sales. People get really emotional about it because it has to do with music, whereas if you just thought about it like a business thing, then it’s totally different. If you go to set up at the flea market, you’ve got to pay a flat fee to have your table set up or sometimes you have to pay a percentage to have your things set up, so for me, it’s the cost of doing business. And for me, if you’re a band that agrees to it and you sign a contract that says you agree to hand over that money to the venue, you shouldn’t put up a fight at the end of the night with the person who is still in college and is an hourly, paid employee who is just going to you to settle up. Don’t be a dickhead to that person. That’s basically you being a dickhead to your Amazon driver because you don’t like Jeff Bezos, you know? Why are you yelling at the Amazon driver, he’s not the one getting the Jeff Bezos money, he’s just getting his hourly rate and doing his fucking job. Go yell at your agent who said “yeah, that fee is fine.” Go yell at him!
I think you have to look out for your fans above all. Take a look at a band like Dropkick Murphys. They have always kept prices of t-shirts relatively affordable for people going to a show. Dropkick have played small clubs and they have played huge arenas. Their cost of a shirt is usually between $20 at the cheapest and $30-35 at the most expensive. I think if you went and saw them at Fenway Park opening up for the Foo Fighters or whatever, the price of a t-shirt was still a $30 t-shirt, rather than them being like “Well, it’s Fenway Park, and Fenway Park is going to take a lot, and we don’t even get to sell it, and the cut is like 25-75 or 30-70. It sucks. It definitely sucks. But at the end of the day, you have to worry about your customer. You shouldn’t give a fuck about the venue. It sucks that they’re taking that much, but you have to think about your fan. It sucks as a fan, when your only option of seeing you where you are is at a big place because that’s the only place you’re playing, and I have to pay $50 to buy a shirt when the kid in the next state that saw you at a smaller place got to pay $20 when it’s the same exact fucking shirt and I didn’t have the option of seeing them at the smaller place. I have no idea what a merch cut even is. All I know is that Rebuilder got a million dollar advance and now I’m paying fifty dollars for a t-shirt (*both laugh*).” People don’t know. You’ve got to care about your fanbase and do what’s best for them, because at the end of the day, you’re the one that is going to look like a dickhead and create more of a problem.”
I’m going to tell you the only time I’ve used my degree. (*both laugh*) I went to Berklee College of Music for this moment right here. This is what the college set me up for. I was selling merch for Dinosaur Jr. at Roadrunner. This guy came up to me and said “Do you work for the band or the venue?” And I said “Both, why?” And he was like “I just want to know.” So I said Okay, I’m going to entertain this for now. Both.” And he was like “How does that work?” And I said “Well, the band hired me. Sometimes you work for the band. I tour for a living working for acts. But I also live here and I need a place to work when I’m home. This is a venue I work at. And sometimes, both of those things happen at the same time.” And he goes “Well, you know, I’m just asking because venues really screw over artists all the time!” And I was like “Excuse me?!” And he goes “You know, the venues just take money from bands now, and they don’t let bands make money.” I’m like this guy read a post from his favorite band saying “fuck these venues taking merch cuts” or whatever and doesn’t even understand what that means.
So I said “That’s such a general statement and it’s not exactly true.” And he goes, “Yeah it is, I know! I’ve been going to shows for twenty years.” And I said “I have a music business degree, and this is how I make all my money and I literally went to school for this.” And he’s like “You went to school for this? Where did you go?” And I said “Berklee. Years ago. I’m fucking 38.” And he’s like “Oh, well, you have a degree in it, so I guess you know. Sorry.” And he walked away. And I was like “Well, that’s the one moment, that one guy right there, is the one time I’ve used this degree.” And yes, there are things that suck for bands. If you’re a small band on an opening tour, you’re getting paid $100 to $200 a night for that opening slot and then you have to pay the merch cut on top of that, it sucks for you. I suggest you lie to the venue, but be extremely nice and kind and respectful and like “Well, this is what we made tonight. We made $100.” I hope that they feel bad for you and don’t take anything, and I hope that you can do a good job playing that part every night to do what you need to do as a band. That’s just the way I look at it.