“AYA is a new imprint of ZZK Records focused on contemporary Latin American musical expressions. Our focus is to provide a solid platform for exciting new sounds to be seen and heard. We may even throw in a couple surprises in the mix just to keep things interesting.”
Artists: Son Rompe Pera
NYC hardcore act MAAFA are releasing their debut full length album Because We Are this coming Juneteenth on Fuzz Therapy Records and to get you hyped for that impending release, the bad-ass Brooklynites sent over a track-by-track breakdown, giving insight into their writing process and the inspiration for each song. Read through this exclusive ‘peek […]
NYC hardcore act MAAFA are releasing their debut full length album Because We Are this coming Juneteenth on Fuzz Therapy Records and to get you hyped for that impending release, the bad-ass Brooklynites sent over a track-by-track breakdown, giving insight into their writing process and the inspiration for each song. Read through this exclusive ‘peek behind the curtain’ provided by lead vocalist and lyricist Flora Lucini whilst enjoying their latest Single ‘Welfare’ and remember to snag the LP on Tuesday!
1. “Origém (Intro)
The word “origém” translates to “Origin” in Portuguese and it is also the name of my father, Leonardo Lucini’s (Bassist/Composer) Brazilian Jazz band which he shares with my Uncle Alejandro Lucini (Drums/Composer.) For their album, they used their grandmother, Dora Muniz’s, painting (she was a painter) as their album cover. She thankfully lived long enough for me to spend time and live with her before her passing when I was a kid. Every morning before school I would sit next to her while she painted at our breakfast table. So, the artwork in the album for the page dedicated to this song is of one of her original paintings.
When I started MAAFA, I knew that I wanted to incorporate/reference these influences on the record and tribute my paternal family, but I also wanted to tribute my maternal family as well which leads to the music.
Originally the song had a sample of this style of music called “Tambor De Crioula” from my mother’s hometown in the northeast of Brazil São Luis, Maranhão. Which both myself and all the women in my family grew up dancing and participating in. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get permissions for that sample in time for this release. It was going to start with that sample from Brazil into the intro with Batá that you hear on the track now, to showcase the similarities and connection of the traditions through its African origins.
The Batá drums and rhythm on this track reminds me of the instrumentation and even some of the drum patterns found in Tambor de crioula. It’s very similar in the sense that both traditions use 3 double headed drums, “small, medium and large” that are all assigned different functions and both traditions are African Traditions brought through “THE MAAFA” to Brazil and Cuba (then to other parts of the diaspora later) and used traditionally in African traditional religious ceremonies. This was one of the ways to incorporate a tribute to my mother’s hometown as well. All the references from the album art to the actual musical styles point to my “Origins” in some way.
I also split playing the bass on this track with my Bassist Ray Russell. He plays the majority of the bass lines on the intro and I play the Tumbão Groove in the second half of the “Batá” section in the intro.
2. Welfare
This was the first song I ever wrote specifically for MAAFA. The lyrics really embodied where I was/still am politically and in terms of what I wanted the message of this first record to convey.
I wrote all the songs on this album on classical/acoustic guitar because I couldn’t afford an electric one at the time. I also just write everything on acoustic LOL.
Welfare was not intended to be an “anthem” like song but it has definitely grown to that. I was trying moreso to mash up some of the more traditional styles of Hardcore and Punk into one song while the lyrics ushered in a perspective that called out a lot of the more problematic ideologies that plagued/continue to plague both our scene and our society, seeing as how music is a reflection of culture.
3. Deficit
The intro to Deficit was written before the song was. I had this idea for the intro after being inspired by a call and response pattern I had heard in an African Drum and Dance class in 2008. I slowed it waaaay down and translated the inspo from it into a heavier style. I had always heard Kora in the intro too and am so glad it worked out where the professor of the class, Amadou Kouyaté, who is also my friend of almost 20 years and is one of the original members of MAAFA is playing Kora in the intro. He is also playing a series of drums such as 2 Djembes, Dudunba, Sangban, Segesege and more. This same Djembe pattern repeats in the outro and slows down even more as it transitions to a more typical “beatdown hardcore” feel which is when the gang vocals start screaming “Reclaiming my time.”
I wrote the lyrics after a frustrating experience with a former colleague who kept abusing their access to me by constantly bombarding me with requests to correct their problematic behavior, specifically around racism and homophobia. They never asked me, they demanded, they never offered to pay me for my intellectual labor, they never gave me credit for said labor and the entire interaction was transactional and unwarranted. Just kind of kept messaging me over and over again until finally I had to block them.
This led me to reflect on the history of QTBIPOC interactions with folks like that, especially sense this happned during the height of social unrest around the murdering of unarmed Black folk. It remonded me of how often we all are constantly being put in positions like this to do all this labor and are expected to do it for free.
This song was written in 2017/2018, around the time that U.S. Representative Maxine Waters (a Black Woman) went viral for standing up to her problematic colleagues in government by “Reclaiming Her Time” during a house committee meeting. She was coined #AuntieMaxine shortly after. The visual of a Black Woman in power stating “I’m Reclaiming My Time” from problematic “colleagues” fit perfectly with the messaging of this song. It’s really about paying BIPOC for their labor, self-advocacy, boundaries and self-care.
3. Libation
There is a theme about water here: cleansing, ritual, baptism, sacrifice, rebirth, death, legacy, tribute and worship. Libation is a reflection on the legacy of what our ancestors have left for us and what we are responsible to build moving forward as the descendants/survivors of Chattel Slavery. It’s about ancestral worship, ancestral memory, a moment to reflect on our loved ones who have passed.
It is part poem, part prayer, part ritual and of course, part call to action.
I wanted to give myself space to write a song both musically and lyrically where I can depart from the typical lyrical styles and song structures we find in Hardcore but while still pulling from influences like Spoken word, Reggae and Hip-Hop influenced-Hardcore. For example, Lyrics like “Black is the river now. So much flesh in the waters, the waters have changed.” Was inspired by a statistic I read that said so many African bodies were thrown overboard into the Atlantic Ocean during the middle passages/ The Maafa, that it changed the temperature of the water forever.
Naming the song “Libation” was inspired by the history of the Black American ritual that some of us do when one of our loved ones passes away i.e. “Pour one out for our homies” and the fact that some in the States who practice that and learned that from Hip-Hop didn’t or don’t know that pouring Libation is African Ancestral Memory, it can be traced back to many of our ancestral nations on the continent as an important ritual across many religions and cultures it is also not exclusive to Indigenous African Nations but also to Indigenous Nations in the West. It has been said that for many Africans & her descendants “Nothing important happens without Libation.”
I am of Yoruba (Nigerian) descent, and a lot of the lyrics reference ritual/aesthetics still present throughout my family and that can be found in some African Traditional Religions (ATR’s for short) such as Black American Hoodoo/Brazilian Candomblé, Cuban Lucumí/Lukumi etc. But also Black American Christianity/Southern Baptist + Pentecostal references.
I wanted the overall feel to take the listener on a journey and for it to be like spoken word meets hip hop influenced hardcore in the verses then the Reggae part allows you to meditate then finally resolving on a metal/opera like ceremonial vibe that centers hope in the end.
It was important to me to make a moment for meditation that musically centered the real, Black African tradition of Reggae. The whole song touches on the connection of the spiritual and the political being in balance for true resistance. Which we see in historical victories such as The Haitian revolution, for ex. Very rarely do I hear true stories about uprisings and revolts of enslaved Africans where we did not seek the guidance of our ancestors and the spirit world/our religions to see them through.
All the way to the civil rights movement and how a lot of organizing happened in the church, (regardless if everyone was actually Christian or not.) So many of our diasporic African religions are practiced under the guise of Abrahamic Religions because we were forced to hide our practices during enslavement. Take the saints of Catholicism for example (i.e. where “santeria” came from and that many feel should not be the appropriate term to use) in order to avoid being murdered by slave owners because our religions were considered “savage, primitive and of the white Judeo-Christian Devil.” Our political resistance and our god(s) have always and to this day remain connected for many of us (with all due respect to our very powerful atheist siblings who fight very hard on the frontlines and some even while trying to heal from religious trauma) and this song sheds light on that. Which is what “Libation” is really about: how the spiritual and political are connected when it comes to our living, our afterlife and our fight here on earth against systemic oppression and religious (ATR) prosecution.
The breakdown pays tribute to the traditional Rastafari community I grew up around in D.C that are responsible for some of my earliest exposure to Pan-Africanism and Militant Black Liberation Politics very early on in life.
The end of the song is an extension of the meditative reggae break, but the vibe changes into a more metal influenced, almost operatic style to evoke the feeling of a ceremony/ritual chant for the hope of where we are headed as a people and that the deaths of our ancestors were not in vain, instead their legacies fuel our resistance and our “big dreams” to this day. One that factors in the entirety of our history and “The Legacy They Left Here for Us” (the very last line of the song) a lot of our traditions teach us that when we die we then are promoted to “ancestor” and have to begin our duties as an ancestors over our descendants that are still here on earth. The overall feel is about hope and how we must carry on to a better world, which is a great segue into the next song “A Luta Continua.”
5. A Luta Continua (Interlude)
“A Luta Continua” translates to “The fight goes on” in Portuguese. This interlude was an instrumental bass and percussion duet I wrote and am performing on. It is a duet featuring me playing the bass (everything you hear on this track that is not vocals or percussion is the bass. There are no guitars) and me singing/harmonizing with myself. The only other musical instruments are Traditional Brazilian percussion played by my friend Everton Isidoro who is also from Brasil. The style of music is a mix of Traditional Capoeira percussion & rhythm and the lead Bass lines were inspired by a style called Baião .
Overlayed is a sample of Councilwoman Marielle Franco’s speech (SPEECH HERE) at a hearing on violence against women in the Favelas, given about a week before she was assassinated. This interlude is to usher in the song “Filha Da Luta” that also features Afro-Brazilian Musical elements.
6. Filha Da Luta
“Filha da luta” translates to “Daughter of the fight” in Portuguese and is a saying I saw become popular on protest signs during uprising against Bolsonaro’s election and when Marielle was assassinated. “Filha da luta” is a play on words for the insult “Filha da puta” (which translates to what in the U.S. we would say “son (Filho) of a bitch” but in this case it’s daughter(filha) of a bitch lol) activists changed it from the cuss word “Puta” to “Luta” which means fight. “Puta” is also a misogynistic slur in Portuguese for Slut/Whore.
The song’s intro features a rhythm called “Samba-Reggae” that is very popular in Brazil during carnival especially in the northeast of Brazil so places like my mommy’s hometown and Bahia, considered the “Black state of Brazil” which has similarities we can find in some Afro-Caribbean cultures.
My friend Everton recorded the Brazilian percussion for this song as well, he played a bunch of the traditional instruments that go along with this style like the surdo, agogo, pandeiro, atabaque and more.
The choruses and the breakdown at the end features a rhythm that is very dear to my heart called “Afoxé” (Here’s a video of my cover of that Afoxé song I arranged, choreographed and sang for Harry Belafonte at my Almer Mater, Berklee College of Music) which is an African-Brazilian Rhythm that my dad uses a lot in his songwriting and which has a long history with Black resistance and enslaved African uprising during the Maafa. It is also a rhythm that primarily is used in religious ceremonies and rituals in the ATR- candomblé. (Video of my uncle and friends back home in DC playing Afoxé)
I dedicate this song to Marielle every time we play it live and to all Black/Brown, Non-Cishet male activists globally that we’ve lost and whom are still here fighting and organizing.
7. Not Your Exotic (CW: Sexual Assault)
The inspiration for this song’s title and for some of its lyrics is the poem “Not your erotic, Not your exotic” by Palestenian-New Yorker poet, Suheir Hammad. She and I have become really good friends after I wrote this song when one of her homies happened to come to one of our shows and connected us. This poem changed my life and finally made me feel “seen” and most importantly she found the words I had such a hard time formulating over the years. It unlocked my voice about this issue, and I owe it all to her.
The song is simple, straight to the point heavy punk rock. I wanted to write a groovy, still “Maafa” style punk song, that emphasized the lyrics more than anything else.
The lyrics are about the violence that Women/Femme identified and presenting Black and Brown people like me face from being hypersexualized/fetishized/Other’ed etc.
Hypersexualized for being a Black Woman, A Brazilian woman, lightskinned/mixed race presenting Woman/ for my body type etc. You name it! We’ve heard all the gross and highly offensive things “Spicy, Sassy, pretty for a Black girl, Pretty for a fat girl etc.” my darkskinned siblings have to then add colorism on top of that like “Pretty for a Darkskinned girl” or fetishized statements like “You’re the Only/first Black/Fat/Brazilian etc. Girl I’ve ever been with/liked” etc. or “why are you so Angry/Emotional/Hysterical/Crazy/Irrational/Sensitive/Moody” etc…AND the FAVORITE one they use for Black Women: “You have an attitude.”
The album art for this song features the song title super imposed over a picture of one of the signs used to announce the auction/arrival of an enslaved Black Woman named Sarah Baartman aka Venus Hottentot who was enslaved and treated by her capturers as like a zoo animal they paraded around the world naked, on display like a circus freak show/side show so that white people can come and stare and violate at her “exotic” body. (This is a gross over simplification of her life and legacy, due to the sake of time.)
It’s wild to think this actually happened and that a body type that is extremely common amongst Black and some Brown folk (and that she and I both share similarities with) is somehow “exotic” and “freak-ish” “abnormal” or a “deformation/illness” that it needed to be literally caged and put on display.
DISGUSTED is the first word that should come to mind, which is exactly how I feel and how many folks like me feel regularly. Sexual harassment is part of my everyday life. My safety is something I have to factor in when I get dressed, what time I leave my house, what kind of clothes I want to wear or go shopping for etc. Shopping is a lot of “Damn, I shouldn’t wear that, I COULD GET HURT.” I have been assaulted more times than I can count, I haven’t taken the subway alone in 6 years because I was sexually assaulted on the train 3 times in broad daylight.
I, like many BIPOC femmes, have survived sexual assault, being followed to my house, to my car, to public bathrooms, physically sexually assaulted at shows, cat-called on the street, etc. My friends have to literally make sure I make it home all the way in the door when dropping me off in an Uber. I’m required to check in via messages with my homies as soon as I’m in the house just so they know I’m ok and they are also required to do the same. None of us drive off until everyone is inside their homes with the doors locked and accounted for in the group chat. If one of us forgets to check in, we can absolutely expect several missed calls the next morning.
In fact some of my girlfriends and I have a group chat that we all send “I’m home” or “I’m on so and so street, with so and so, his/her/their license is…and I’m wearing…. etc.” even though we all live in different states. We all have access to our parent’s/spouses’ information, address, emergency contacts etc. and we all carry emergency contact and information cards with info like “I’m allergic to penicillin.”
Having to live like this since I was little which was taught to us by our mothers/sisters/elders/community and theirs to them and so on for survival, is absolutely normalized. And this song feels like a collective “exhale” for 2 minutes and some change that we can all take and scream all the pain and frustration we feel that is constantly being dismissed.
NOTE: Most CisHet masculine Men and Boys NOT having to ever think about stuff like this is a type of privilege I speak about in “Welfare”: “To Inhabit your skin without fear (white privilege) / To inhabit your body without shame (Fatphobia/skinny privilege/Masculine body privilege) / To love who you want (Hetereosexual Privilege) / TO WALK AT NIGHT ALONE (that part) / To be standing on the outside looking in / THAT’S PRIVILEGE!”
8. For The Culture
My hometown here in the states is Washington, DC. And D.C. has its own original style of music called GO-GO that I grew up on. Go-Go and D.C. Hardcore have a lot of history together and sometimes , many many moons ago traditional Go-Go bands would play Hardcore shows.
So this song musically is a love letter to my hometown. Go-Go, like Hardcore, has also evolved tremendously; for example, THIS is one example of what modern Go-Go can sound like with more rock influences. I love everything about Go-Go, especially all the obvious ancestral memory you see in every element, down to its own dance called “BEAT YA FEET.”
The artwork on the album for this song depicts the Bucket drummers that perform at the metro stations in DC that I also grew up listening and dancing to – also another example of ancestral memory.
“For The Culture” is a phrase some Black folks use when we are acknowledging something that is being done strictly for the sake and the betterment of Black culture and Black people.
The lyrics are calling out gentrification, posers and people that want to exploit how “trendy” being Black and “punk” or “alternative” is now a days all of a sudden. When most of us grew up getting beat up or harassed for listening to “White people music” and it was actually dangerous for us to “dress punk” back in the day. Oftentimes the violence came from our own people as well as racists that we faced at shows, so we caught it from both ends. But now a lot of those same people want to dress like us and study what we’re doing in our scenes cuz they think it’s “cool and trendy.”
The song was inspired from my rage against corporate “alternative music” festivals that exploit the word PUNK and the people in the community in order to chase “clout” and be trendy, when their festivals have absolutely nothing to do with our communities and do nothing but erase actual Black punks and Hardcore kids like Maafa and our sibling bands.
9. Dichotomy
This is my break up song, but you know I can’t do a break up song without making it political lol. Relationships bring out things in you in a way that only they can, because of the unique things it forces us to face when having to deal with other people in a romantic way, like during talks about the future, children, expectations etc. It will bring up your own traumas and sometimes your partner can treat you so badly that they become a trauma themselves that you’re forced to heal from. Which is in part what happened here as well: this was written after I got out of an abusive relationship.
Things like infidelity & betrayal trauma are also experiences that inspired this song. It’s my most vulnerable song & most personal.
Basically, the inspo for this song is how a break up was the catalyst to my journey with mental health that saved my life and how during that journey the issue of mental health in the Black community came up i.e. still not having a therapist or the right meds because they’re low income; how HR from Bad Brains is/was treated/talked about during his battle with mental health; and the stigma in the Black community around mental illness and seeking help, especially amongst Black men.
My experience with depression and anxiety during this period felt like I was possessed by a demon or something really dark that had more control over me than I did so there are moments in the lyrics that reflect that down to the very last line that says, “Release Me, Please,” as if pleading with the demon to exorcise itself from my mind/body. But the song is also about healing and about taking control and responsibility for my healing which is how I reclaimed my power over the “demon.” Which is also reflected in the lyrics and in the aesthetic of the album art depicting items one would find in an apothecary to symbolize healing with medicine and healing with spiritual/religious ritual.
My parents and I are best friends and my father is my guide post in all things “life.” So to tribute him and how much he supported me during that time I made the song’s intro my interpretation of the intro and outro of my dad’s song “PEGA” – the sample is from the outro of the video in that link, so the Jazz sample at the end of the song is actually my dad and his band playing.
10. Blindspot
White boys get to make angry chugga chugga music to “bitch” about the things they hate all the time and they get praised for it, even though 99.99999% of the time the things they sing about hating are people and ideas that are different than them. They also love to gatekeep Hardcore for white straight men who are hyper masculine and violent. Well, this is MY angry chugga chugga song about the things I hate the most which are problematic white boys who make chugga chugga Hardcore and are put in a position of power to control the entire narrative of who and what Hardcore is and looks like and then, being true to their nature, they cry victim and get defensive when someone calls them out on how they protect and perpetuate harmful ideologies and behaviours in our scene. Hence: DECOLONIZE HARDCORE.
Now, I absolutely love and grew up on chugga chugga hardcore MUSIC* ( i.e. Beatdown Hardcore/ Traditional NYHC/ or my favorite as I like to call it “That Castle Heights shit” lol) so I’m not coming at the music, I’m critiquing SOME of the bands and their content, who are really the minority in the scene but because of privilege and supremacy are glamourized as not only the majority, when they’re not, but as the only “true” definition of Hardcore. As I often say, it’s “bullshiterious.” (I got that from a Black Feminist FB group)
Decolonizing Hardcore is also about reminding Black people in our scene and those who are new to our scene that they should NEVER have to negate their Blackness to be here. Manipulate their appearnce or the way they “talk” just to “assimilate.” That it’s about re-educating my own people about the Black history of Hardcore and Punk, that everything hardcore is and stands on comes from Black people who invented rock n roll, call and response, oral history keeping, communicating through dance without words, singalongs and pile-ups and spinkicks.
OUR FOOTPRINTS AND EXCELLENCE ARE EVERYWHERE and in EVERY INCH OF THIS CULTURE.
This is a house our ancestors built for us too, we are not guests here, this is part of our birthright and if anything, like any other subculture, it’s usually the descendants of our colonizers and the ones who benefit from white privilege who are the “guests.”
Decolonizing Hardcore is about centering the QTBIPOC presence visibly and loudly and unapologetically reclaiming not just our time but our rhythms, our dances, our styles, our languages, our lands, our spaces and our scene.
NOTES
Batá Drums, Yoruba Tradition, Babalawo, Lucumi religion (aka Santeria, we do not Call it Santeria because that term is a colonial term and can be seen as offensive. The actual name of the tradition is called “Lucumi”or “Lukumi” Loo-koo-me)
The Batá drum is a double-headed drum shaped like an hourglass[1] with one end larger than the other. The percussion instrument is still used for its original purpose as it is one of the most important drums in the yoruba land and used for traditional and religious activities among the Yoruba.[2][3] Batá drums have been used in the religion known as Santería in Cuba since the 1800s, and in Puerto Rico and the United States since the 1950s.[4][5] Today, they are also used for semi-religious musical entertainment in Nigeria and in secular, popular music. The early function of the batá was as a drum of different gods, of royalty, of ancestors and a drum of politicians, impacting all spheres of life in Yoruba land.[6][7]
The drummers on Batá and Djembe for the intro song. One of them is Jabari Exum. He and our Friend Amadou Kouyate who is not only my former mentor but my former professor and one of my best friends and is an original and current member of MAAFA, he is on this album, they both were best friends with Chadwick Boseman from The Black Panther Movies (Wakanda Forever) so when it came time to make those movies Chadwick hired Jabari as choreographer, Lead Djembefola and to be his right hand man meaning every time he was on set, at a red carpet etc. Jabari, who is on this album, was playing Djembe next to Chadwick. Jabari was also in both movies in several Djembe scenes and as an extra in a few scenes in the second movie.
Tijuana, BC, Mexico
“Bruses is a producer, composer, and singer. Her sound has been called a “new alternative pop,” with a mixture of pop, electronic, and rock styles combined with deep, poetic, and raw lyrics.”
Femina Furens is the latest full-length from Chicago noise-rock duo Djunah. Pre-order it here, but don’t dilly-dally because the cool physical copies are selling pretty quickly.
Here’s the band’s write-up: “Femina Furens” fuses influences from poetry (Gerard Manley Hopkins, Sylvia Plath, John Donne) and heavy music to tell the story of diagnosis and continuing recovery from complex post-traumatic stress disorder, or C-PTSD. The album’s title comes from the Latin for “furious woman.” The artwork is inspired by representations of the divine feminine in 1970s sci-fi metal artwork.
Happy Friday, friends! There’s a lot of awesome new releases out today, but I’ve made the executive decision to shine the spotlight – the Dying Scene Band Spotlight, that is 😉 – on one record in particular. That record is Hurry Up and Wait! This is the third full-length entry in Canadian pop-punk band Wasting […]
Happy Friday, friends! There’s a lot of awesome new releases out today, but I’ve made the executive decision to shine the spotlight – the Dying Scene Band Spotlight, that is 😉 – on one record in particular. That record is Hurry Up and Wait! This is the third full-length entry in Canadian pop-punk band Wasting Time‘s growing discography.
Here’s what the band had to say about their brand new record, which just came out today on People of Punk Rock Records:
“Hurry Up And Wait is a melodic journey encapsulating many moments throughout our lives with reflective, ambiguous and occasional dark lyrics. These 11 songs reflect a modern spin on our favourite pop-punk bands from the 90s while also displaying an expansion of our sonic palette as a band. We’re happy to have it released today and hope listeners can take in how much fun we had writing, arranging and recording these songs.”
If you are a fan of MxPx, The Ataris, No Use For A Name, etc. you’ll like these guys for sure. But hey, don’t take my word for it, check out the record! You can listen to right below, or on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music (do people use that shit?), etc. by clicking this link. And my fellow physical media appreciators can get the album blue colored vinyl and/or compact disc right here.
Also! And this is the last thing, I promise. If you happen to reside in the Greater Toronto Area, consider attending Wasting Time’s album release show tomorrow, April 13th at the Bovine Sex Club. More details here!
This Dying Scene Featured Release™ / Band Spotlight© is brought to you in part by our friends at Punk Rock Radar®. To stay up to date on all the awesome new punk records coming out every week, look no further than PRR’s Release Calendar and New Music Friday Spotify Playlist!
Sweetie is a Chicago-based lipstick-punk band with a femme fatale ferocity and a French influence. Voted a Top 5 Punk Band in the Chicago Reader two years in a row, Sweetie has found a niche in playing shows in the punk scene and drag shows alike, including venues such as the Metro, Green Mill, The […]
Bass
Guitar and vocals
Drums
Sweetie is a Chicago-based lipstick-punk band with a femme fatale ferocity and a French influence. Voted a Top 5 Punk Band in the Chicago Reader two years in a row, Sweetie has found a niche in playing shows in the punk scene and drag shows alike, including venues such as the Metro, Green Mill, The Egyptian Theatre, Reggie’s, Cobra Lounge, Last Rites and Liar’s Club.
Dying Scene is thrilled to interview this local band and talk about drag queens, the queer community, new music releases and some hard-hitting questions that you do not want to miss.
What do you love most about being in Sweetie?
Joe: Honestly, I enjoy the spectacle of our live show. The band is always pushing ourselves to perform our very best and engage with our audience. So many rock songs are pretty simple 3 or 4-chord progressions, but it’s all about the raw power that you play those chords. And raw power is something that Sweetie brings to the table in spades!
Ryan: All the fantastic folks! Making friends with all these incredible bands, venues, and not to mention Birdy and Joe has been an absolute pleasure.
Birdy: I love the wide variety of opportunities to express myself creatively. Writing music is one of my favorite creative outlets, and it is an even bigger high when you take that song you wrote and perform it with your bandmates for the first time. The feeling of that tiny idea turning into such a big sound gives me goosebumps! Also, I ADORE performing. I really love being on stage and interacting with the crowd.
I also love finding new and creative ways for Sweetie to perform. We often perform in spaces that can be considered atypical for a punk band. We’re the house band for the Rocky Horror Picture Show in Dekalb and have performed at countless drag shows. I really like to find ways to take the idea of the typical punk show and elevate it: collaborating with a different variety of artists and performers and giving it that variety show feel.
I also love the connections I have made with people in the scene! I have made some really wonderful friendships with other musicians and performers in the scene, many of whom have been so supportive in so many ways. Sweetie would not exist today without the care and support of these people. AND I LOVE connecting with new people at our shows. I am a huge people-person and love to meet new folks.
How would you describe the music you typically create?
B: If Edith Piaf was reborn as a punk musician, that would be Sweetie. Our music is hyper-emotive, almost to a fault, and is often about love and longing through a female lens, with nods to subculture, queer culture, and the underworld nightlife. All just completely smeared in red lipstick.
Ryan, you were a music major with a heavy background in jazz music…did you ever picture you’d be playing in a glam lipstick punk band?
R: Well, I knew some type of rock band was inevitable, as that’s what came first in my life. I’ve been a jazz guy since high school, and I think that’s really influenced the way I play all styles of music in terms of style, phrasing, improvisation, etc.; so as far as the punk aspect goes, I see the jazz background as an asset to my playing. As far as the “glam lipstick” aspect goes, that’s a new one for me but I’m diggin’ it!
Birdy, you spearheaded the amazing local music fest Hands Off Our Fest (H.O.O.F.), can you tell me more about it, and will we expect it to come back in 2024?
B: Hands Off Our Fest is a music festival celebrating the women, femmes, and thems of the Chicago punk scene, featuring a drag show consisting of some of the area’s finest drag queens, kings, and things. I created this festival to help the women, femmes, thems, and queer folks in the local punk scene to bond with one another, network, and to create space. I have often felt stifled and uncomfortable as a woman in the punk scene, and the feeling can be very isolating. Also, there are so many local femme and queer acts locally that so often get overlooked and replaced with these cis-male fronted bands. I wanted to create a fest to celebrate these amazing talents and voices, while also just having as much fun as possible. The festival was such a success and every time I bump into a fellow HOOF performer when out and about, it’s always such a treat! I’ve definitely made many new friends as a result, and I ABSOLUTELY want to keep this festival going in the years to come. You can DEFINITELY expect HOOF to return in 2024.
Joe, you use an electric bass for your other bands but an upright bass for Sweetie. Any reason why?
J: One of the most important things that I have learned as a hired-gun/studio musician is that you should always serve the song. While there is definitely a level of flash to showing up to a rock gig with an instrument almost matching the size of the drum set, my intention is not to draw away from the songs and compliment them the best I can. I originally joined the group as a “fill in” for a few gigs for the band. When I was sent over demos and videos to learn the songs for these upcoming shows, Birdy was playing a 335/semi-hollow style guitar. This sound instantly brought me back to the classic rockabilly and Elvis records that I loved as a kid, while still being punk rock!
Of course, I showed up to the first band rehearsal/audition with all the songs learned on the electric bass, but I asked about what Birdy thought about me playing upright the next time we got together. I’m pretty sure that her response was, “I’ve never thought about how that would sound, but sure”. I fully believe that she was thinking that I was planning this only for the upcoming show to make it a large surprise spectacle, not that I was dead serious about taking the bass role on this instrument. I also don’t think this instrumental change took too much convincing after hearing it in application and has absolutely shaped some of our own Sweetie sound (even if Birdy changed over to her Flying V guitar).
At your show at The Metro with The Lawrence Arms, you brought out a drag performer (who was fantastic!) and I’ve noticed Sweetie does a lot of stuff related with drag performers. Any reason why?
B: That was my drag mother, Sindy Vicious! Since really early on, Sweetie has been collaborating with drag performers as often as we can. It all started out when we had a residency at a queer comedy variety show called T-Time at the Comedy Shrine (Rest in Peace Comedy Shrine). This was run by Penelope Torres and was a quarterly variety show that featured queer stand-up comedy, drag performances, and music by Sweetie, the resident band for this event. At our very first show, we met drag performer Sindy Vicious, who later approached me with an idea for a music video for our song ‘Devil Girl’. Her and I immediately began working together and this formed a creative collaboration and friendship that has persisted ever since. I am actually in the Haus of Vicious now (a Haus being a drag family in the community) and Vicious is where the Vee in Birdy Vee originates! She directed and edited the video for Devil Girl, Mamma, as well as the music video for our new single, Showgirl. The video also features drag performer and my dear pal, Kai Valentine. I love performing and collaborating with the drag community and hope to continue to do so in the years to come!
You are about to release a new single! What’s the inspiration behind the song?
B: The new single is called ‘Showgirl’, and there is so much inspiration behind this song. Firstly, the title is a nod to the movie Showgirls (1995) which is one of my favorite cult films of all time (after the Rocky Horror Picture Show, of course). At the time that I wrote the song, I was starting to feel the isolation and frustration that can come with being a performer. You are putting your whole heart and all of your energy into this thing, pouring your guts out on stage, and then when it’s all over, what’s left? The song also parallels a relationship that is in the same vein- something that you are pouring your heart into and from which you are getting very little back. But in the song, there’s also that tone of resilience, with a focus on women in the music industry. The stress that women in the music industry are under, and well as the constant criticism that they face can be shattering. The statement of ‘this will not break me’, which a lot of times is easier said than done, helps the song end on a high note. Ultimately, ‘Showgirl’ makes it through and comes out stronger in the end.
When can we expect the next album?
B: The new album is called La Vie en Rouge (which means Life in Red), which is a reference to Edith Piaf’s ‘La Vie en Rose’. The song La Vie en Rose is about being in love and seeing ‘life in pink’. The idea of La Vie en Rouge takes that idea but intensifies it. When you’re seeing life in red, there is passion, there is rage, there is fire. That is what I’m trying to channel in this album. Also, Sweetie’s most recognizable color is red, so the album title is a nod to that as well. We are so proud of this album and it is projected to come out in June 2024.
Now for the hard-hitting questions…would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses?
J: While I would ideally not like to cause any harm to these proposed majestical creatures. My gut instinct would be to choose the 100 duck-sized horses to see if we may be able to reach some sort of diplomatic resolution without violence. But on the other hand, a horse-sized duck head would look pretty sweet mounted over a fireplace mantle…
R: Horse-sized duck is out of the question. I’m already afraid of geese and they’re not much larger than ducks. On the other hand, what’s a duck-sized horse gonna do? Kick me? Okay.
B: Do I get some sort of weapon? I’m pretty sure I could fight off 100 duck-sized horses with a broom or a hammer or something. But one horse-sized duck? They’ve got all those little teeth and they can fly and hunt you down… But then the 100 duck-horses could kick you to death with their little hooves. If I get a weapon, I’ll choose the little duck-sized horses.
Lastly, if you went on a national tour, how many pairs of pants would you bring with you?
J: My serious answer would probably be 3 to have a solid rotation, but I would be an advocate for shorts (weather dependent) to require less fabric to dirty up and for a higher level of comfort.
R: We don’t believe in that sort of thing.
B: No.
Anything else you want us to know?
B: Women, femmes, thems, and queer folks in the punk and alternative communities need to take up more space in our scene. Keep punk rock queer.
Check out the gallery below for more live photos of Sweetie and be on the look out for their new song release and album!
Story and Photography by Meredith Goldberg Back on July 25th, La Armada kicked off a mini tour in Chicago at The Burlington in support of its most recent record, Anti-Colonial Vol. 2. I caught up with founding member, and guitarist, Paúl Rivera, after the show to discuss, influences, legacies, and what drives them musically and otherwise. La […]
Story and Photography by Meredith Goldberg
Back on July 25th, La Armada kicked off a mini tour in Chicago at The Burlington in support of its most recent record, Anti-Colonial Vol. 2. I caught up with founding member, and guitarist, Paúl Rivera, after the show to discuss, influences, legacies, and what drives them musically and otherwise.
La Armada was first formed in 2001 by grade school friends in the Dominican Republic: guitarist Jonathan Salazar, guitarist Paúl Rivera, bassist Mani Marte, and drummer Eric Urrea. Casper Torres has been on vocals for the group for a decade and is from Puerto Rico. “We have been going to play shows in Puerto Rico pretty much since we were 14 or 15 years old, so we all knew each other and grew up as friends,” says guitarist Paúl Rivera.
“We discovered punk, hardcore and metal pretty much in the mid 90’s when internet service became available in the Dominican Republic. Metal is more known in the DR, and we enjoyed it but never really identified with the lyrics and imagery.”
Rivera continues, “Punk came more natural because we were feeling a lot of the same discontent they would be singing about, especially because during that time we were on the tail end of a dictatorship state and on route to a Neo-liberal pseudo dictatorship.”
Growing up in the DR, the band members were exposed to music at very young ages. “Music is always around in the Caribbean. Our first form of musical love was what was around, merengue, salsa, and Bachata. But once we discovered Spanish punk, American metal, and so on that’s when it became an obsession. “
However, that obsession did not cause the band to entirely separate from the music of its native region. Rather, it fused the multiple genres to create its own unique sound.
“When you are young and on the island you kinda rebel against the music your parents listened to, when you grow up and become an immigrant there is a yearning for it and those are the rhythms we try and incorporate into the heavy genres we participate in.”
While La Armada has always had much to say with its music, Rivera notes the group has one strong, recurring theme, “Anti-Colonialism. Which we explain is just not in the historical context of large nations extracting the wealth of the global south. We also lump up what we call “neocolonialism” into this motto, which we define as all external forces that have an influence over masses of people, like news, information, social media, ads, product placements, etc.
Rivera adds: “A lot of these things are destroying our sense of worth, the environment and each other, but we consume it daily because it’s wrapped up as entertainment. It’s hard to know right now what is more dangerous, the physical or the digital sword.”
I also asked Rivera what are some of the bands and sounds most influential, to La Armada. “Musically it’s all over the place. Spanish Punk rock like La Polla, Escuela de Odio, and more. American Hardcore like Bad Brains and Sick of it All, the island music we grew up with like merengue and bachata. Canadian, melodic Punk like Propagandhi, classic metal bands. And on and on.”
Turning to the way the band operates, Rivera says, “As a band model, we take a lot from the DIY hip hop scene. Limited Merch drops, live sampling, owning your own masters, etc.”
From Burlington Bar’s stage, band members spoke repeatedly about pursuing your art and how artists need to really go after it. Rivera expanded on that post-show.
“We’re just at point where we’ve been doing this for so long and are now in our mid and late 30’s that anything other than being the absolute best version of the band wouldn’t be worth it.”
He also noted, “As a small, DIY band that literally carves out any traction or momentum against all odds, we have made our peace with just putting the work in and trusting that the rest will take care of itself.”
Rivera explains, “Basically, if we’re going to do something, we are really going to go for it. Otherwise, none of us really have time for hobbies. For example, our album roll out consisted of 6 singles, 5 music videos and different pieces of visual art. All made in collaboration with artists from the Caribbean diaspora across the world. That was a big effort, but that was the only way we were going to do it. All or nothing.”
Of course, La Armada found itself affected by the pandemic. Rivera addresses this:
“First off, we were lucky that everyone remained healthy, employed and nobody had immediate family affected by it. However, artistically it was rough. We were used to being on tour for 3 to 4 months out of the year and all of a sudden that was taken away from us. It felt like you lost your identity.”
He continues, “We were also planning on heading back out on some tours that coincided when COVID first hit so, we got left holding a bill for goods we had purchased for tour, which also completely sucked.”
Rivera recognizes that despite difficulties, the group members might have been luckier than many others.
“A lot of bands and artists went through the same and much worse situations. Somehow, we made it to the other side and are now able to look at things differently, as in, simply doing the work is the reward.”
That work includes the new La Armada record.
“Our new record is Anti-Colonial Vol. 2 – It is the follow up to 2017’s Vol. 1. We wrote it and recorded it during the pandemic in 3 different spurts at the studio because things kept getting canceled because of Covid protocols.”
Still, Rivera stresses the importance of remaining positive:
“It was a difficult time to do art, but it was the only way to keep the band going and maintain some sense of inspiration going.”
The band has played sporadically thus far in 2022. “This year we had our Chicago release show in February, a weekend in the Midwest in March and now are now touring again in longer spurts.”
The “longer spurts“ began with this particular night at Burlington Bar, where family, friends and fans wished them safe travels and hopes for a good time out on the road.
That road will take them across North America. “We are first doing the eastern US and Canada for 3 weeks during August, then we take a 3-week break and follow that up with 3 more weeks out west for shows with Propagandhi, Tørsö, and headliners of our own.”
La Armada is represented by: Thousand Islands Records for Canadian distribution, Lockjaw! Records for UK and EU distribution and our own Mal De Ojo Records for the US and Latin America.
More photos below!
Anime Magic is a convention that takes place at the Donald E Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont during August. I found myself at Magic with the band Rebel and Cleric as they were getting ready to perform on Saturday night. I have had the pleasure of seeing them perform before at Colossal Con North which […]
Anime Magic is a convention that takes place at the Donald E Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont during August. I found myself at Magic with the band Rebel and Cleric as they were getting ready to perform on Saturday night. I have had the pleasure of seeing them perform before at Colossal Con North which takes place in the Wisconsin Dells.
Rebel and Cleric is a two-piece band consisting of members Sai and Kiwi who enjoy performing a variety of music such as punk and emo. They are known for their spunky covers of anime openings, cartoon tunes such as the “Campfire Song Song” from Spongebob, and even their own original works such as “Diet Dr. Kelp.”
Through their artistry, they prove to be a unique addition to the Midwestern alternative music scene while also catering to pop culture conventions. Their fast-paced and melodic thrills ring through everyone’s ears as they launch a full frontal assault on the unsuspecting con-goer. They are a force to be reckoned with and one that has been welcomed into the anime community for their fresh and invigorating style of music. What follows is the pleasant conversation I was privileged to have with both members prior to them setting the stage for the night life at Anime Magic. (Content is cut down from the original interview)
What are some of your musical influences?
Sai: In terms of musical influences I grew up with System Of A Down, Fall Of Troy, basically everything I played on Guitar Hero. Newer influences that I have taken to are Origami Angel, Kaonashi, stuff kind of all over. I tend to revolve more around the emo crowd of bands.
Kiwi: My musical influences drummer-wise would be John Bonham, Steve Gadd, Casiopea, a lot of my earlier drumming and musical influences were a lot of very rhythmic, very polyrhythm heavy like Ginger Baker.
When did you guys start as a band?
Sai: Kiwi started drumming for our band and that’s when it really kicked off. That started about last year when we met during Anime Central, the next Con after that is when we recruited him, so it’s been a little over a year now doing it as a duo.
Have you played in other bands before?
Sai: I’ve been playing tons of basement shows and garage shows and small venue shows in another band called The Tear Garden Collective. When we started playing as Rebel and Cleric it was here at Anime Magic but that was in 2022. That was the first show we played a full set for. Deep lore here, the first show had 5 members in the band. Now it’s a two-piece band.
Kiwi: I’ve been in music and bands a long time, partaking in a certain popular music school. There were a few bands I was in growing up to play at school events, I even put a group together with other students back around 2013. That sort of stopped in 2019 for me, I took a break from music and ventured into other interests, then in 2023 I started to venture off into the music space of Chicago. I went to Anime Central last year and ran into this guy (Sai) and we started talking about music.
Do you guys post your music online anywhere?
Sai: You can catch us pretty much anywhere like Bandcamp, Amazon Music, Spotify, even the ones people probably don’t use anymore, we’re probably on there.
Do you feel like you fit in with the Midwestern alternative music scene?
Kiwi: With our sound and our music, absolutely but personally no, I don’t fit into the scene at all. My technicality, energy and skill fit in, but at least in my personality and the way I present myself, that’s not really my sort of home. But I feel like that sort of music connects to me a lot.
Sai: I’ve been pretty deep in the scene like when I dabbled in the band Mendicant Bias. I got a couple different perspectives and saw a lot of different people who were passionate about their music. I still have a lot of friends in the scene. I’ve also seen some ugliness which is why I wanted to make something from the bottom here such as anime cons. It’s inconspicuous and something you wouldn’t expect.
Do you feel like the anime con scene has been accepting of you?
Kiwi: I love it
Sai: I’ve been loving it too, that’s one thing that we’ve collectively been loving.
What are some of your favorite anime?
Sai: Let me start from the first anime that I watched and the second one which will be a 180 flip. The first anime I fell in love with was Naruto. I was a Naruto kid and that’s easily one of my favorites. Even with the filler I still loved it and grew up with Naruto. We aged together and literally got older together so Naruto holds a special place in my heart. In terms of the second anime I watched, I’d say Elfen Lied. I watched that when I was still in grade school, Netflix back then was crazy and didn’t care what shows they’d let you watch. The story was phenomenal and as a kid I didn’t even register in my head that anime could be for adults. So when I saw a naked girl decapitating a dude’s head I thought to myself, this is very different from Naruto!
Kiwi: Number one would probably have to be Hunter x Hunter along with Erased, Gungrave, Sword Art Online, Gun Gale Online, Fruits Basket, Gabriel Dropout.
Sai: Sword Art Online? I think I’ll have to look for a different drummer.
My Chemical Romance or Panic At The Disco?
Sai: Assuming at their peak for both of them, MCR since they have more than one good album because even Panic at their peak only had two good albums like A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out and Pretty. Odd. The moment Ryan Ross left the band there kinda was no point listening to panic. Hopefully that doesn’t get my head on a stick.
Kiwi: I really like Panic’s newer stuff but only in its own thing, it’s not emo.
Sai: One of my favorite live shows I vehemently come back to is Panic’s live performance in Denver with the burlesque show. Ryan Ross on vocals. I’m so pissed he’s not recorded in studio for the album because wow that voice. I love Ryan Ross, the antithesis to Brendon Urie, because I don’t like Urie anymore.
Kiwi: That’s definitely getting your head on a stick with those fiery opinions.
Where’s everyone from?
Sai: Born in Waukegan, grew up right over the border in Camp Lake, Wisconsin. Once I landed my tattoo apprenticeship I moved down to the Antioch/Grayslake area so that’s where I’m currently at.
Kiwi: I was grown in a lab, test tube under the ocean in a vat of toxic waste, upside down. That’s where I’m from, that’s my origin story
Do you play all of the Midwest, more Chicago, more Wisconsin?
Sai: We play pretty much everywhere, farthest down we’ve gone is Peoria, farthest north is Minneapolis. Most of our shows do revolve in the Chicago area but we are open to playing in Wisconsin.
Kiwi: if it’s going to be fun then I’m down to play anywhere.
I saw you play at 2 am last year at Colossal Con North, how did that go?
Sai: It sucked because we were playing outside all day. Funny thing they didn’t expect a full band for that and thought “oh animal crossing it will only be one guy on an acoustic guitar!” Then we have this insane drummer and amped up guitars with scream vocalists, they sort of had to tell us to pipe down but the drums only have one volume. But we did have a lot of people come to the 2 am show and didn’t know how many would get our music but it interested enough people to fill the room much more than I thought at 2 am.
How does that make you feel knowing people picked you over the rave?
Sai: It was an honor, I felt like the live band was lacking and I wanted to be that insane band that had people dancing and moshing. I grew up with hardcore, punk, emo, metal, prog and those areas are filled with people. That’s the kind of “magic” I want to bring. That has been my mission and we have original music. I don’t care if it’s original music or covers of silly songs like from Spongebob, it doesn’t matter to me as long as people love us or hate us. If the people there get it and enjoy it, and bring more people into that tight culture, I feel like I have accomplished something.
What are your future prospects for the band?
Sai: It’s hard to say because my future prospects. I had a lot of before I started the band. Now that I started the band I’m here. I feel like I already accomplished a lot of things that I can’t really think of what to do better. I’m already proud of what I’ve been able to do now. There’s always room for improvement and you can always aim higher. If I’m thinking back to where I was a little over a year ago, everything I thought that I wanted I have now. For future prospects it’s just mainly exposure, more people knowing the culture. Sure people can know our band but it’s mostly the love for the music we play and the culture, people participating in that culture and people listening to music like that at anime conventions. Us becoming more well-known is a facet of that but it’s not my priority.
One Piece or Dragon Ball?
Kiwi: I haven’t seen either. Don’t put my head on a stick. It’s mainly people who grew up with it and caught up with it. Both are very dedicated and not sure if I have a preference.
Sai: I haven’t seen it either but both are long as shit. Both of those shows you have to grow up with, like watching shows before going to school.
Kiwi: I feel like an outcast in that sense because I grew up with pokemon and beyblade.
What was the last concert you went to?
Sai: Last time I went to a concert it was underwhelming because they didn’t play any of the songs I knew. This was Thrice playing with Bayside. They even stated “we hear a lot of people shouting out names for our old songs but you guys kinda have to like our new things for us to play”. I’m not shitting on them, I just feel bad for them. In terms of the last show I watched and loved, it was a year and a half ago when I saw Fall Of Troy headlining with Strawberry Girls and Kaonashi. Now they (Kaonashi) are a big influence on me, they became a huge influence for me as they were very in your face. Kaonashi was a breath of fresh air and that threw me into a music dive where I could capture some of that magic myself if I tried.
What’s the farthest you’ve gone to play?
Sai: AniMinneapolis was the furthest con we played. 5 and half hour drive.
What are your favorite music venues in the midwest?
Sai: The Concord Music Hall holds a very special place in my heart because that’s where I first saw The Fall Of Troy. I love it mainly because it’s a nice stage and setup, the balcony is awesome
Kiwi: I love the Subterranean
Sai: The Concord is awesome it’s just right and that’s why I love sort of smaller venues
How did you start playing at conventions?
Sai: I had an old roommate that sort of introduced me to the owner of Anime Magic for our very first show. He had an opening for us on the idol stage which is a small stage meant for idol dancing and lip syncs. To a guy who’s never played on a stage, I’ll play wherever. I can’t bring myself to delete the footage of the first concert we played even though none of the members playing there are still with the band besides myself. It does hold a very special place in my heart and I might re-list the video.
Kiwi: You can just put the link somewhere and hide it
Sai: So if anyone wants to do a deep dive, don’t be surprised if you listen and you’re like damn this shit’s kind of ass.
Are you into ska?
Sai: We’re about to do a cover of “Take On Me” following the Reel Big Fish version and Cap’n Jazz version. I took what I liked from them and made our own cover of it.
Kiwi: I was introduced to ska by a bassist of a band I had been invited to sub for, I do enjoy it a lot.
Black Flag or Descendents?
Sai: In terms of encapsulating the crazy-in-your-face-I-will-literally-kill-you vibe, definitely Black Flag. Henry Rollins carries that, he was the perfect face for a punk band. Punk consists of outcasts and he was an outcast among outcasts. The band as a whole have so many classics, I even covered “Nervous Breakdown” when I was in Mendicant Bias as a drummer. I even wanted to cover “Rise Above” on my own since I heard it on Tony Hawk’s Underground. That’s another game I credit to my music taste.
Misfits or The Damned?
Sai: Misifts because I love the horror theme like Teenagers From Mars. Astro Zombies is one of my favorites by them. I just really love that he (Danzig) has a tinge of Elvis in him when he sings it. It’s hilarious to me to think there’s an alternate-reality version of Elvis with crazier hair and a six-pack.
What are your dream venues or dream conventions to play?
Kiwi: Madison Square Garden, watching the live video of Vulfpeck, the energy of the crowd of that show, it’s a wide-open area, nice room on stage, it would be really fun to play there. In terms of conventions, Fan Expo or San Diego Comic Con would be crazy.
Sai: Dream convention would be Colossal Con Prime or Colossal Con Cruise because I’d love to play on a cruise ship. Most of the venues I love are small. A good dream venue would be Mall Of America, that would be so cool and dope!
Kiwi: After Minneapolis we went to Mall Of America and saw this big area with a fountain and stage with tons of chairs set up. We thought, dude we could play here that would be sick!
Sai: People moshing each other off the balcony just dropping! In terms of venues totally attainable, I would really like to play this stage at the Gurnee Mills mall which is far in the back next to Staples in a place where you wouldn’t expect anyone to play a punk concert. It’s right next to 95.5 Rock, the radio station with one of their offices in the mall. I already contacted one of the people that run it, we would just need a plan. It’s a mall not an actual venue but it would make me really happy because I remember seeing that stage when I was a toddler and wondered, when is someone going to play there?
Kiwi: What if we tried to revive these dying malls by performing in them?
Sai: It would be hilarious because we would be helping big corporations in the most ironic way possible by inciting punk crowds to throw the cafeteria tables around. It would be poetic in a way which is why it always stuck in my mind. Gurnee isn’t the first place you would think of.
Why Animal Crossing?
Sai: I thought it would be hilarious if i made a cosplay themed punk band have their first cosplay be of a quiet laid-back dog with an acoustic guitar who gives out this music for free. In the original game KK would give you whatever music you requested for free because he didn’t care about the money and I really liked that mentality, but I also really love punk. What if we could take some aspects from this funny dog in my favorite video game, merge it with some pushing and shoving, and let’s figure it out from there. It is a really good cosplay theme that I originally said we would rotate by year but people really loved the animal crossing theme. The band’s first love, Animal Crossing!
Any messages for fans old and new?
Kiwi: Stand up and get in front of the stage, just don’t be afraid.
Sai: Don’t be afraid to scream even if you’re the only one, dancing, spinning, doing flips. If I see you do it, I’m going to get right next to you and do it with you. Above all else, the most important thing to me is to spread the word. There’s people that have never seen it that would love to be a part of it. People have told us we’re their first punk show. Even people that are in the scene already but don’t know us are also welcome. So above all else spread the word, come see us if you can, share us even if by name or video. Not everyone is able to see us live, but we want to be heard and spread our message.
Dying Scene interviewed Brian Amalfitano of Deaf Club before their show at Thalia Hall in Chicago. Other bands on the bill included Meth, See You Next Tuesday, Usurp Synapse, and DJ Speedsick. Dying Scene: Tell me about yourself and Deaf Club. Brian Amalfitano: My name is Brian Amalfitano. It’s very Italian. I’m the guitarist. This interview has been edited for length and […]
Dying Scene interviewed Brian Amalfitano of Deaf Club before their show at Thalia Hall in Chicago. Other bands on the bill included Meth, See You Next Tuesday, Usurp Synapse, and DJ Speedsick.
Dying Scene: Tell me about yourself and Deaf Club.
Brian Amalfitano: My name is Brian Amalfitano. It’s very Italian. I’m the guitarist.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
BA: I started this band with Justin Pearson. Originally, we played in our former bands. He used to be in Retox and I toured with him. We played three or four shows, and I was a huge fan of his projects, The Locust in particular. Six months later, I was in San Diego, which is stomping grounds for Three One G Records, Justin, and everybody, we saw a band called Metz from Canada, and he was like, “Look, what are you doing? And “I’ve been on hiatus for a little bit.” So, he said, “Hey, let’s start a project.” And I thought he was joking. He had a lot of projects going on and I thought, well, this guy is Justin Pearson, what’s he going to do with me? But essentially, we met again, and he started sending me drummers. He was touring with Dead Cross at that time. And so, Jon Syverson from the band Daughters at the time had recommended Scott Osmond, who is our drummer, and he said, yeah, why don’t you try jamming out with this guy? And that kind of became the nucleus of the band. Scott and I sort of wrote all the riffs and guitars and drums together. So, after we sort of wrote all that, we sent it to Justin, he put vocals on everything, and that became our first demo of five songs. I think it was six minutes. It was quick, and we’ve been sort of fleshing it out from there. That’s how Deaf Club started.
DS: So, this is my first time seeing Deaf Club. What can you tell someone like me about your band?
BA: Well, it’s a little bit of…Justin had this one lyric, “highbrow caveman,” so it’s a little bit neanderthally, very abrasive, but a little bit highbrow. We’re trying to be a little bit smarter about what we do. It’s chaos, but it’s controlled chaos. We try to turn on a dime and it’s just very fast, but also very weird. We’ve always been influenced by the weirder aspects of music, so we use a lot of pedals and stuff like that. Obviously, he did that in The Locust, but he’s not playing anything. So, when we started this, I asked him if I could play pedals in this band and he said, “yeah, absolutely!” The weirder the better. So, I think it’s a little bit weird, but aggressive in a positive way. We’re not trying to scare people. We don’t want to be a hardcore band that’s a beatdown band, a macho band. Some people obviously throw elbows and kicks in the pit, but we’re not trying to send anyone to the dentist the next day. We’re trying to be nice and sort of be a community band.
“Some people obviously throw elbows and kicks in the pit, but we’re not trying to send anyone to the dentist the next day. We’re trying to be nice and sort of be a community band”.
– Brian Amalfitano
DS: Tell me about the bands you are touring with today.
BA: Meth, See You Next Tuesday, and Usurp Synapse. Seb Alvarez of Meth put together the tour. He’s friends with our drummer, Scott, for many years. Scott was in Meth for a little bit. He was playing drums with them; he plays drums with Glassing. So, he kind of knew Seb already, and Seb wanted us to come out here to play. So, between Scott and Seb, they just kind of emailed everybody and we’re like, let’s do this. It’s more of a DIY network sort of thing. We do have booking agents and things like that, but sometimes we just reach out to our friends, and we say, hey, let’s do this, and whatever route we could do. So, just the camaraderie of bands and communities in little pockets of America is kind of cool.
DS: How’s the tour going?
BA: It is fresh. It’s the second day. We’ve only had one show. The first show we blew out a tire on the van, which is kind of what happens, and we deal with what comes to us, so it’s all good now. We were on tour with Converge I think the first day out of California or out of Los Angeles we also blew a tire. And then we also blew three hoses on that entire tour, which was kind of wild. Our tour has van has 420,000 miles on it, so it’s been beat to shreds. The Locust used it. Retox used it. A bunch of bands used it, it’s a historical piece. Everyone’s great people, so that makes it better.
DS: So, it’s early in the year. What does 2024 look like for you?
BA: Personally, I think it’s great for Deaf Club. We have a couple tours coming up including a European tour. I’m not quite sure if they’re panning out and I don’t want to say anything before they’re confirmed. We’ve been writing material. I think we have a good amount almost for a full length, so hopefully a full length. We have some stuff for a split that we’re doing. We have the tour with Fuck Money, which are our label mates on Three One G. They’re also from Austin, Texas. They’re a phenomenal band. Austin’s kind of like our third home. It’s like LA, San Diego, and Austin. They treat us well and all the bands there are great. It’s looking good this year.
DS: What accomplishments do you see yourself achieving in the next five years as a band?
BA: Honestly, the hardest part of a band is just surviving the money situation of anything. If anyone cares enough in five years for us to be writing what we’re doing, that’d be great. We’re always trying to push the envelope and create new things, sort of carve out our sound a little bit better. I think even now for the next year, we’ve been writing songs that are a little bit lengthier. Our first album maybe had a song that was like 48 seconds. So, now it’s like, oh, it’s the two-minute mark and that seems reasonable. So, we’re writing better songs. Yeah, so for the next five years I hope we keep doing that and progressing as a band.
DS: Can you tell me a little bit about Three One G Records?
BA: Three One G is Justin’s label. It’s been around 25 years now. I remember, probably about 25 years ago, I started listening to Three One G and listening to the Locust and Gold Standard Labs and other labels from around that time from San Diego and sort of being in awe of the DIY aspect of it, the community aspect of it. And they were not tough guy hardcore. They were sort of skinny dudes doing things and getting essentially beat up by being what people would call them, effeminate, weird, nerdy or whatever. So, it gave me hope, it’s like punk can be weird. Punk cannot be a clique. San Diego created its own DIY community. It didn’t have to go to LA. It didn’t have to be a part of something. So, it kind of helped me think of those things where you could be an outlier even in an outlier subculture like punk and still find a little niche for yourself. And Three One G sort of has always done that. I think they’ve released a lot of great records, a lot of seminal records of just bands that were a little bit askew, a little bit weirder than your normal punk. And yeah, I think Justin has good taste in that regard, trying to find new things.
DS: Tell me about how you all keep the momentum going, especially with all your other projects.
BA: I think it’s just, it’s a lifer thing. It’s something that you don’t really think about. I own a record store. During the pandemic, we couldn’t tour. So, we were like, what do we do? And we opened a record store like, well, music is the one thing that keeps us all going and saves us and lets us have creative outlets and positive outlets. I think my first conversation with Justin in San Diego about creating Deaf Club was, I’m a big Sonic Youth guy and I was like, I’d rather be an underground band for 25 years or 30 years rather than this huge band that just breaks up after a couple of years. I’d rather have the longevity of creating good solid things and keeping it going. I think because we are all dedicated to that concept it helps us go, okay, yeah, maybe we don’t get all the love or the accolades or whatever for a couple years, but eventually someone might be listening, and you want to help that one person. We do get some people that say, “listening to you guys made my year,” or “saved me” helped us. And that’s some positive reinforcement that you just can’t buy it. So, it’s cool.
DS: You mentioned you have a record store. Tell me about it.
BA: We started it a year into the pandemic. It’s called Spinning Plate Records and we do a little bit of everything. I’m from Argentina, so the demographic is very much Latino. We started bringing in Rock En Espanõl, hip hop, Three One G records, music that I grew up listening to, and things that I, through the DIY community, was like, Hey, I’m going to sell my friends’ records. I started just creating a community based around that. That kind of transferred into Spinning Plate Records. It’s been cool. It’s been a good three years.
DS: So, tell me about your favorite performance as a band.
BA: One of my favorite performances we’ve played was at Elysium in Austin, Texas. We played at Oblivion Access Fest, which was a DIY and the first year of the festival. It was this young kid had thrown it, a friend of Scott’s. So, they invited us to play, and we played with Metz, which is again how Deaf Club sort of started, but I love Metz and so we were kind of honored to play with them. Three One G put out a seven-inch for them and that was just a good show and we did an after party. We’ve done SXSW where we played four shows in one day. But Metz for sure, that was a great show at Oblivion Access. I think Roskilde Festival was maybe our top show ever. That was in Denmark with a thousand-plus people. It was a whole festival. It was just phenomenal to get out of the States and be treated like…these people are like, oh, we just want to have you here. It was cool.
DS: So, are there any musicians who inspire you? Who would you like to collaborate with?
BA: I’m was huge Nirvana fan. Kurt Cobain is the reason that I play. I was eight or nine years old when he passed away. I bought Bleach and it said, this is Nirvana’s first record. So, I thought this must be the good one and it was super heavy. Then I started playing guitar soon after and we did a Nirvana cover for this band and a live set. If I could collaborate with anyone, Kurt Cobain. I know the other guys; we have different tastes.
DS: So, what song did you cover?
BA: “Tourettes.” So, we were on tour, and I think we’re like, oh, let’s do this cover song. We figured, I mean it has lyrics, but it’s just kind of yelling them. And so, we’re like, well, Justin, you don’t have to learn the lyrics, so you could just yell this rhythm and we could play it. At the time, the fill-in bass player, Collin Smith, played in a band called Se Vende, and was on tour with us, he’s a big Nirvana guy, too. so, we bonded over that. We’re like, let’s do it. Justin kind of makes fun of me. He’s good.
DS: What four bands should we be listening to?
BA: Fuck Money for sure. Fuck Money is a phenomenal band from Austin, Texas. I think Snooper is great. Meth is a phenomenal band. There’s Scott’s other band, Glassing. Just so many of our friends’ bands are doing such cool things. Sometimes it’s cool to see your own band members in those bands. Then you see what they could do or how creative they are in different aspects. You’re like, oh, I didn’t know that you could do that. So, Fuck Money, Meth, Glassing, and Snooper are really good bands.
DS: What bands are you listening to this week?
BA: I love Gilla Band, they’re Irish noise kind of post-punk weird. I love Metz. I love Tropical Fuck Storm, Australian band they’re more rock, but a little bit skewed and weird. I don’t necessarily listen to a lot of hardcore. I feel like you just start getting those ideas and those riffs. So, I like chiller bands. We listen to a lot of chill stuff in the band, even a lot of indie dream pop. Scott likes a lot of chill stuff, even though he’s a brutal drummer. I love Amyl and the Sniffers, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, The Murder Capital, and Crows. Yeah, it’s a little bit everywhere for me. There are so many good bands.
DS: What advice do you have for musicians and others in the music industry?
BA: I think you must do what you love. It’s a risk and rewarding, if you’re just looking to make money or just looking to do these things, you’re not going to do it. We all have our jobs. Justin has been running a record label for a long time, Jason works for Fender, and I have a record store. We get to go out on tour and do what we love. I retired young and started going on tour playing in cover bands and played in friends’ bands. If you’re a lifer and you really love it, maybe something will happen.
DS: We have a mutual friend, Martin Atkins. Tell me about your experience meeting him and visiting his museum, the Museum of Post Punk & Industrial Music.
BA: First, I’m amazed at the wit and the sharpness that Martin Atkins has. The number of stories and jokes that he has. His quick sense of humor and his dry wit and the way that he delivers things was just mesmerizing. It’s almost like he’s a comedian. He could do standup if he wanted to. But then the collection that he has. The things with PIL and John Lydon. Gabe Serbian’s Locust uniform. And just seeing that, because I knew Gabe and I went to a lot of Locust shows and I helped them, and it felt really at home as well. This person cares about these things and it’s nice to see. And so yeah, just Nine Inch Nails and Ministry, all these historical things. People not only visit his museum, but they also send him things. That just reinforces that even a person of this level can be part of this DIY community. So, last time we stayed for two days at the museum. He allows bands to stay there as well, which to me is crazy. If you allow, I mean a punk rock band…I’m like, wait, you’re going to just allow a bunch of punk rockers around all these priceless artifacts? I’m like, what if they pocket something? So, it was kind of amazing that he just allowed us to stay there. He just gave us a key and was very welcoming to us. We went downstairs and listened to some secret tracks of the Johnny Lydon singing over The Beatles and this and that. I was like, this is blowing my mind. I love his merchandise, the Pigface stuff. I bought this “Eat Shit You Fucking Redneck” shirt and I wore that in Texas. So, yeah, just the sweetest guy. This reinforces the belief that even weirdos are nice, goth industrial people…that people think are scary, they wear all black or whatever. And it really helps you mentally to go somewhere like that. Sometimes you just stay in the flea bag hotel, and we have and there’s bugs or something that get me, and you’re like, no, no, no, we’re leaving. But just for someone to offer that, it is very welcoming, open. It’s nice. We couldn’t stay this time. We had planned it, but he was out of town, and he had to do an open house and all these things.
DS: Yeah, we’ve been to several events there and enjoyed it.
BA: There’s always things that you miss. It’s like going shopping at an antique mall and you’re just looking at everything and what am I going to see? And then he’s like, look at that little ticket stub. Look at that little thing. He has so many stories about that little thing and that little thing and that little thing. How do you remember that? Especially back in those days, I imagine the partying and the drinking or whatever. I’m like, I can’t remember what happened last week and I’m not even doing anything. There’s too much mayhem now.
DS: You’ve got some pretty incredible tattoos there, especially that Daniel Johnson one. Obviously, these things are important to you, so tell me about that and what they mean.
BA: So, on my upper right arm, I have all my novelists and stuff. So, I have Albert Camus, Tolkien, and George Orwell. I have the K Records because Kurt Cobain had a K Records tattoo but also K Records is a label from Olympia, Washington. But my twin brother, Sergio, and I got this for our birthday just for Kurt, and it’s the only one that I have on my left arm. But these are all musicians, Iggy Pop, Radiohead, Sub Pop, which was the first label that I really loved. Sub Pop and Three One G were sort of the things like grunge and punk and weirdo punk. And yeah, it got me into Nirvana, Soundgarden, and got me into playing.
“Daniel Johnson’s not the best singer, but because he does it and he loves it earnestly, he gained a following”.
– Brian Amalfitano
BA: Daniel personally for me, I love him as far as, he had a lot of mental health issues. For him to sort of overcome them enough to write love songs and to write by himself on a little pump organ piano. And his guitar and sort of show you in a different context…maybe Bob Dylan‘s not the best singer, or John Lennon‘s not the best singer or Daniel Johnson’s not the best singer, but because he does it and he loves it earnestly, he gained a following. He also sat there and dubbed his own cassettes, drew his own drawings, and handed them out to people. If that’s not one of those penultimate DIY ethics, maybe even not knowing that that’s part of DIY and punk rock, just having that mindset of I just need to get this out of my brain and I need to hand it to people to see if they relate. I doubt he ever thought he was going to be famous or anything. I got to see him before he passed. And even just listening to his voice and still having that same refrain, that same sort of childlike voice. And even though he kind of would shake in the middle of the songs when he was singing, he was very calm. His body was very calm. I thought that that sort of spoke to the power of music. And so Lo-fi, DIY, Daniel, maybe it’s not what a hardcore kid would do or not but it’s very much wearing your heart on your sleeve. A little bit of innocence is necessary in music.
DS: The great Wayne Kramer recently passed away. I know you’re a fan. You’ve spoken about losing Kurt Cobain and Daniel Johnston. How do we survive losing our heroes?
BA: I think for me personally, I grew up an atheist. My grandfather gave me a lot of books on atheism growing up and sort of the reverence of life to realize that people are human and frail and maybe they’re not going to be here the same way that none of us are going to be here, but to enjoy them, to enjoy their influence. Some of these books, music, film, they stay with us for a very long time, and they stay here longer than us. Nick Cave, I think said it, “I’m creating these things that are going to outlive me and hopefully will influence someone and help them live a better life.” And I think Wayne particularly as well, I got to see him recently when he did the shows with Kim Thayil (Soundgarden) and the MC5 stuff, the reunions, for him to have lost all his band members prior and for him to have been in jail but to still come out and do Jail Guitar Doors and to help people come out of that, just giving back to the community, I think he did a lot more than people give credit. Sure. Kick Out The Jams. But these heroes, especially because I was very young when Kurt died, it was an impressionable sort of thing. I remember them playing, I was in Argentina at the time. I was living there with my family. They’re from Argentina, and they played unplugged in New York nonstop on MTV Three. It was, and it sort of made me fall in love with the soft side of it as well, the melodic side of things, and to sort of listen to these words and listen to what these people care about and your heroes are sometimes flawed but they also teach you about beautiful things. If you could take that with you, then I think they’ve done their job. And that’s really all we could do for each other as far as humans.
DS: Do you have any other thoughts for the Dying Scene’s readers?
BA: Yeah. Just do what you love. Be as weird as you are. Just be yourself. It seems hard when you’re young because there are scenes. Everyone says punk is just for the outsiders. And sometimes within punk, you’re like, I’m a crusty, I’m hardcore. You can’t be part of our clique because you don’t dress a certain way. I think that the youth seem to be open to not only gender fluid, but genre fluid and sort of just being fluid in general. Just being able to go from hip hop to punk rock to this. Hopefully, being less judgmental of each other but also being less judgmental on yourself. There’s a lot of growing up in your youth where you just doubt yourself and you could cause harm to yourself. We all find something. It’ll be good the longer you stay in the game, it’ll be good for you.
DS: Thank you.
BA: Yeah. Absolutely.
Once upon a time, there was a relatively predictable template that bands would adhere to fairly strictly in the life cycle of an album. There were exceptions to the rule for sure, but it generally went something like: write, record, do press, play live; write, record, do press, play live; lather, rinse, repeat ad infinitum […]
Once upon a time, there was a relatively predictable template that bands would adhere to fairly strictly in the life cycle of an album. There were exceptions to the rule for sure, but it generally went something like: write, record, do press, play live; write, record, do press, play live; lather, rinse, repeat ad infinitum if you’re lucky. That cycle could span anywhere from, say, nine months (Ramones releasing S/T, Leave Home, Rocket To Russia and Road To Ruin between April ‘76 and September ‘78 for example) to, say, two years (Ramones releasing Halfway to Sanity, Brain Drain, Mondo Bizarro, Acid Eaters and Adios Amigos between September ‘87 and July ‘95 for example).
For myriad complex reasons including but certainly not limited to production delays, the changing habits of the music consumer, the proliferation of cell phone-carrying showgoers and their corresponding social media accounts, the cycle has become much more of a fluid situation. Case in point: The Gaslight Anthem toured the US fairly extensively during the Spring of 2023, essentially serving as a second leg of their reunion tour that kicked off the year prior. October 2023 brought with it History Books, the band’s first new studio album since 2014’s brilliant Get Hurt. That was followed, at least initially, by radio silence from a US touring perspective, until the official kickoff of the US History Books tour in Denver a couple of weeks ago. Tour kickoff coincided with a pair of uncommon moves in this day and age; the digital-only release of a remixed version of History Books, and Dying Scene catching up with Gaslight Anthem’s affable timekeeper Benny Horowitz.
Let’s start at the end and work backwards, specifically with the reissue of the band’s sixth studio album, History Books, officially referred to on digital platforms as History Books: Expanded Edition. The new version includes the four-song EP Short Stories that the band put out a few months back (which features a stellar version of Billie Eilish’s “Ocean Eyes”) and a new version of “Little Fires” that features the one-and-only Bully. But the real meat and potatoes is an entirely remixed version of the original album. If you’re like me, you saw the initial announcement about the Expanded Edition and thought “well, huh, that’s weird, I really like the original record, so I’m not sure why they’d remix it.” (Side note: based on Reddit comments, many of you are not, as it turns out, like me in that regard.) But if you’re still like me, you put the Expanded Edition on in your headphones and from the opening moments of “Spider Bites” on, you thought “ohhhhhh I get it now.” And that’s exactly by design.
“The only way it was going to come out,” Horowitz explains, “is if we heard it and kind of had the same reaction you did, which was like “oh okay, this sounds different and pretty good, and it’s kind of making certain things pop in a certain way, and things we weren’t hearing before kind of pop out.” That’s not to say the original mix – which still sounds great on vinyl – has fallen out of favor with the band. Far from it. “We were going for something. Us and Peter (Katis, producer) were going for something that I think we achieved, and I think it’s vibey as fuck and super cool.” Still, that doesn’t mean they couldn’t approach some of the feedback they heard with open ears. “People were like “I like these songs, but it just doesn’t sound like Gaslight,” says Horowitz. “The thing that I didn’t kind of realize – and even as a music fan I empathize with more now – it’s just like there’s a consistency in production and sound for a band. And it’s not just the songs but you kind of expect a band you like to sound a certain way to a point, you know?”
I suppose it’s worth reiterating that the album is not remastered, as is often the case with reissues, anniversary editions, etc. It is, in fact, entirely remixed and yes that’s an important distinction and if you’re a Luddite like me, Benny does a good job of explaining that distinction in the Q&A down below. The band decided to give the original stems to the History Books tracks to Chris Dugan for a fresh set of ears, though that still wasn’t a guarantee that the results would be different enough to release into the wild. It was a bit of a risky proposition. “I don’t like making decisions in this business without historical precedent, and there was not a lot of historical precedent for this. Not a lot of bands have done it,” he explains. “We didn’t know if it was going to be good or bad,” says Horowitz. “It wasn’t like a certainty that we were going to hear it and be like “this has to come out.” So I think on our level – on a creative level – it was fun hearing it like that…I think it sounds cool.”
So armed with a retooled version of History Books under their collective belts, the band partook on their first US album release tour in a decade. If you’re headed out to any of the shows – (like Boston – come say hi!) you’ll hear a high-voltage, two-hour set chock full of songs from across the six-plus album catalog. “We try not to harass the crowd by doing more than like three or four (new songs) in one set,” Horowitz laughs. “I’m not far off from being just a normal ass music fan, and I remember what it’s like going to shows of a band you really like. Maybe or maybe not you love the new record but you don’t want to hear like eight of them.” Who knows, you might even catch the band taking a hard left and opening a set with a cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” as they did in Dallas a few nights back. “That’s either really funny and bold or just, like, stupid,” he exclaims. “It was the one time I was like “you know what? I don’t get to say this too often but I’ve been practicing my whole life for this moment!” I learned this song when I was like 12 fucking years old!”
It was a moment that, like so many others in a live setting circa 2024, was captured on an infinite number of smartphones and uploaded far and wide within minutes. Hell, it’s why I knew about it the night it happened despite living 1800 miles away, thanks to a certain Andy Diamond and his Church Street Choir. The times, they have a-changed. “That is an exact case of like out of nowhere faces turn into phones, you know what I mean?” he asks. “I look out and all I see is, like, a sea of flashlights and phones now instead of faces. I’m not saying it’s like bad or good, I’m not going to be the old Luddite on here, but it is different.” Gone are the days when a band could work out unfinished versions of new songs live on stage, sometimes resulting in tracks that either never appear in final form, or end up radically different than they started by the time there’s an “official” version.
Since they’re a band that was born in the age of cell phones, it’s a phenomenon that Gaslight haven’t dealt with extensively “I think by the time we really started gaining any like real interest in this industry, where people would actually like give a shit about us having a new song, it had already co-opted into “phone time.” Still, it’s not exactly a foreign concept to the New Jersey quartet. “I remember we kind of had a lesson actually in this where we played a song – the earliest version of the song “Biloxi Parish” – we played on an Australian tour before we put out Handwritten, and then the song wound up on YouTube and was up there for quite a while by the time we got around to actually doing the record. And a lot of people like you know the changes we decided to make on that song were resented by the people who had already listened to YouTube.”
While the shows have certainly grown in scale in all the possible ways since a young Benny Horowitz was booking shows in northern New Jersey Elks Lodges (editors note: there’s a sweet anecdote about young Benny at the end of the Q&A below, but you’ll have to keep reading to get to it) thirty years ago, but that doesn’t mean they don’t carry the same weight. It’s just most of us on our side of the barricade are all older, heavier, less limber, and sometimes have to work in the morning. “I’ve actually had to train myself to not judge a show’s quality on that inert physical quality of a show,” he laughs. “Because they’re not necessarily the same thing anymore. A good show – especially in the US or England – kind of used to be dictated by how many people are going nuts…if you happened to get into us when you were like 25, you’re in your mid-40s these days. You might have retired moshing and crowd-surfing by now!“
Check out where you can find Gaslight on the road in the States the rest of this year (including not one but two dates on their home turf in Asbury Park). And keep scrolling to check out History Books: Expanded Edition and our full Q&A with the great Benny Horowitz. Maybe check out his awesome podcast, Going Off Track, while you’re at it.
The Q & A below has been edited and condensed for the sake of content and clarity. We pick up our conversation partway through, after some trading of snack time and parenting style stories…
Jay Stone (Dying Scene): Anyway, so thanks for doing this. We have chatted a few times in passing at shows over the last 10 or 12 years, but never done the actual interview thing, so I appreciate this.
Benny Horowitz (Gaslight Anthem, etc) Oh it’s sick. I’m always reading Dying Scene periodically. It’s cool.
It always floors me when people say that. Because I like to live in a bubble and not pretend it’s as big a deal as some people think it is. So it always warms my heart when people say that they have actually read it before. It means we’re not doing it for nothing.
Oh yeah, as an underground heavy music fan, it’s one of the stops, for sure.
So long story short, the site crashed entirely for a few years. And so since having it rebuilt we’ve tried to do a lot less in the way of just regurgitating press releases and stuff like that. And more on focusing on original content and actually talking to people, taking pictures at shows, publicizing smaller bands, stuff like that. We’re trying.
That’s great. And it’s smart too. I mean just this day and age you gotta own some of your own content or else you’re fucked. (*both laugh*) Like all the photos and all that. That’s the only way to drive it at this point. AI is going to take the other job of regurgitating press releases. (*both laugh*) I’m pretty sure AI is actually writing press releases already! Press releases have always kind of sounded like AI in a way, right?
Yeah. I quite literally got one this morning…not to go off track…I quite literally got one this morning with the band’s name spelled wrong.
Noooo, really? Oh no!
I’ve seen it happen periodically but I quite literally saw it today. And it seemed like maybe somebody was dictating because it was a funky-spelled name. It seems like somebody was dictating and then didn’t check. And I went oh no. That’s horrible.
That’s horrible! That’s proofreading 101. (*both laugh)
Although it got me to notice the email I guess.
Yeah that’s true. (*both laugh*)
ANYWAY, we will talk a bit about History Books because I think that the album and the History Books tour were the prompt for this, but in sort of checking the calendar I realized that this week is anniversary week for both Get Hurt which was 10 years yesterday and I think 59 Sound is 16 years old this weekend. Which to me is amazing because I keep track of anniversaries like that. That’s how my brain works. Is that a thing that you guys are mindful of? Or the longer that you’ve been a band, does it become like every day at some point is an anniversary of something, so does that stuff does not mean the same thing as it used to?
Yes and yes honestly. We heard about Get Hurt being 10 years and that was one of those dates that was a little jarring to us. We’re like “wow really? 10???” But the ones like 59 Sound being 16, I have no idea because if we played that game…we have six records now, so, you know, at some point every year each record turns something and it does get a little much. I think it works the same way as birthdays now. It’s like if it’s not based on like 10, 15, 20, you know one of the major marker kind of things, then probably we don’t pay too much attention to it.
Like when something is like “oh it’s like eight years old”…Like I’m 43 now right? With kids. I don’t expect to get another real birthday party until I’m like 50. (*both laugh*) And I think records kind of work the same way. Like you hit 10, you hit 20, 25, you know, you start doing something.
I feel like with 59 Sound, I noticed because it’s one of those albums to me. But also like my kid was born in 2008 so my kid is 16. That record and that second Loved Ones record, Build & Burn, they both came out in 2008. And so to me like those lined up with when my kid was born.
So that one has always stuck with me because that album will always be as old as my kid was. Plus those two records, Get Hurt and 59 Sound are probably desert island records for me. Like if you only got to bring five records to the desert island, I think two of them are Gaslight Anthem and they’re those records.
And we also opened for The Loved Ones on the Build & Burn tour. It’s kinda funny.
Oh, I remember. And it’s wild to think that was that long ago and the arcs you’ve taken since
So anyway, back on track. Where are you today? You’re in Atlanta, yeah?
Yeah, I’m in the back of our truck right now in Atlanta, Georgia. The only quiet place, because there’s a soundcheck going on inside.
These are the first real US dates since History Books came out right? Because there was the tour before the album came out, but I feel like in my brain – which is half mush at this point – but that there wasn’t an awful lot of touring here after the album came out. So is this really kind of the first run that a lot of these songs have had for US audiences anyway?
Yeah for the most part it is. You know it was kind of a bizarre thing the way the album rolled out and the fact that we didn’t have a tour when it did come out. You know that seems like kind of music industry 101. So it wasn’t the best way to do this. But yeah technically this is. We’ve been to Europe twice since it’s been out. But haven’t done a proper US run yet.
I’m assuming that most of the songs translate pretty well? What’s the sort of feedback you get now that people have had a chance to sort of hear them live or check them out on YouTube if they haven’t gone on to shows or whatever yet? How do the new songs translate live? What gets the kids sort of as excited as the old days?
Well to say “as excited as the old days” you know…Speaking of all these dates, you know, if you happened to get into us when you were like 25, you’re in your mid-40s these days…
Yeah, I’m 44.
Yeah, you might have retired moshing and crowd-surfing by now. (*both laugh*) So by default I’ve actually had to train myself to not judge a show’s quality on that like inert physical quality of a show. Because they’re not necessarily the same thing anymore. Like, a good show – especially in the US or England – kind of used to be dictated by how many people are going nuts. You know as time goes on and maybe even songs like start taking on some new shapes, it’s not necessarily the way to gauge it anymore. I mean it’s always an interesting thing playing songs off a new record, because you know you write them you play them together and then you record them and certain things flush out in certain ways. When you start playing them live again, it is literally the first time you’re playing these versions of these songs. And when you start translating it to live some stuff works some stuff doesn’t work, and you kind of have to adapt some things. It takes a little time sometimes to settle in and know what that’s like.
We’ve been actively (playing) “Positive Charge” most nights, “Weatherman” most nights, “Michigan 1975” most nights. And then you know “History Books” and “Spider Bites” and “Live in the Room Above” are all peppered in. We try not to harass the crowd by doing more than like three or four in one set. (*both laugh*) You know like I’m not far off from being just a normal ass music fan, and I remember what it’s like going to shows of a band you really like. Maybe or maybe not you love the new record but you don’t want to hear like eight of them. That’s just crazy. So we do try to limit it and still kind of represent every record too in each setlist.
Did you play any of the History Books songs live on that US tour before the album came out, whenever it was, like a year ago I guess?
I think we had like the ones… you know the way this weird industry works now, they like start rolling out songs in the record much prior to the record coming out and all that stuff. So I do believe we were definitely playing “Positive Charge” I think, because that was definitely out. And maybe “History Books” too. So you know those songs that were actually released as like singles we could play. But we couldn’t play any of the album tracks yet.
Is that different? Do you miss the days of being able to play things before people had sort of heard it? Or has YouTube and TikTok or however people consume music nowadays has that sort of ruined that “we’re going to test music out live” thing? I mean thinking back to the music of when I was growing up. That was the way that you found out about new music is you heard like maybe a bootleg. Like, I was a big Pearl Jam fan as a kid, so you would hear all the working versions of like random songs that would end up coming out two or three albums later sometimes. Do you miss sort of like being able to do that? Or is that not really even a thing anymore?
I do miss it. I mean I think by the time we really started gaining any real interest in this industry, where people would actually like give a shit about us having a new song, it had already co-opted into “phone time.” I remember we kind of had a lesson actually in this where we played a song – the earliest version of the song “Biloxi Parish” – we played on an Australian tour before we put out Handwritten, and then the song wound up on YouTube and was up there for quite a while by the time we got around to actually doing the record. And a lot of people like you know the changes we decided to make on that song were resented by the people who had already listened to YouTube a lot. And fans can fall victim to the same thing that artists can. Like, demo-itis is an extremely real thing, and once you just get used to hearing something a certain way, anything else is going to fall short. You know like you just fall in love with some weird version of it for whatever reason, and any other version of it is going to be lesser, you know?
So yeah I think it is totally taken out of the pantheon now essentially, unless you have a song that’s just like so worked out already, that you know 100,000% there’s not going to be any changes or anything. But I think that’s the whole point of testing it out live and doing the thing is like seeing how it sounds and seeing how it goes. So yeah I think the long-winded answer to that is yes, I think that concept is basically totally dead now.
I feel like and I can’t remember specific Gaslight examples, but I know that like Tim Barry for example, there’s a few Tim Barry songs like “Walk 500 Miles.” There’s like a live bootleg that came out, I don’t know seven or eight years ago now, that because of the way that song got performed on that bootleg, that’s the way people started to hear it and then do that call and response thing that isn’t in the original song. So that now the live version is different than it used to be just based on like a one-off live recording that happened to circulate at the right time. It’s really sort of interesting when that works.
I know it’s kind of cool. I also think someone would probably start giving you shit too for, like, you know…it is something that after that “Biloxi” experience, it’s not something we tinker around with anymore. For now! It’ll be a cool way to do it again, I hope.
Yeah, and EVERYBODY does have their phones out.
So it’s just a matter of the second we do anything even remotely like that…I see it, you know? I look out in the crowd a lot when I play I kind of see what’s going on. And if we play a song we haven’t played in a long time or a cover or something like that that people weren’t expecting, I mean…
Or you open a set with “Smells Like Teen Spirit” for example.
Exactly! And that is an exact case of like out of nowhere faces turn into fucking phones, you know what I mean? I look out and all I see is, like, a sea of flashlights and phones now instead of faces. I’m not saying it’s bad or good, I’m not going to be the old Luddite on here, but it is different.
There’s probably multiple videos of that going around from wherever, I guess it was Dallas the other night, and I watched one and I sent it to my wife. I was like “holy shit look what they opened the set with! That’s wild!” And she said “yeah look, once you can see that that’s what’s happening, you can see from the audience perspective all the phones going up too.” So it’s interesting to hear you say like that’s obviously what you see because you can see it on the video too.
Well I realized too…that version in Dallas was literally the third time we’d ever played that song as a unit. Like, we just thought about doing it, we ran it a couple of times in soundcheck and we’re like “fuck it let’s play it!” We were like “yo, it would be funny to open with it!”
Oh, it was amazing!
And we’re like, you know people are going to think we’re just doing like the intro for fun, we got to do just the whole fucking thing. But there was actually a bit of a backstory to that because one time we played a very, very ridiculously corny radio festival in Dallas, I believe at the MLS stadium. It was just one of those really strange, awkward radio events with other bands that you would never play with and stuff. And in order to have some fun and not hate our lives that day we played a cover set. We just played like six cover songs we knew in the 25 minutes we had. So there was kind of like a ‘spirit of Dallas’ thing going on, where if we’re going to do that, we’re going to do it in Dallas I guess.
Yeah and I think that’s still a way to hold on to like the old-school punk rock sort of sentimentality too. I think that’s fun.
Yeah I mean that’s it. That’s the conversation I had with Brian beforehand. I’m like “well, is it fun to play?” We’re like “yeah.” And I’m like “well let’s have fun and play it!” It wasn’t about “let’s try to cook the audience” or something like that, it was just kind of a whim. I had another funny element of that too. I do get some general anxiety and jitters before I play shows. I still get it. And I had a bunch that night because I was like “Jesus we’ve played this song fucking twice, and we’re coming out with one of the greatest songs in rock and roll history. That’s either really funny and bold or just, like, stupid.” And then it was the one time I was like “you know what? I don’t get to say this too often but I’ve been practicing my whole life for this moment!” (*both laugh*) I learned this song when I was like 12 fucking years old. I’ve known it and periodically played it from then till now. So it’s like if there’s any song I could walk up and actually get through and know all the changes and the parts, that’s one of them for sure.
That’s what I was going to say, between the I guess five of you including Ian, you’ve probably played that song 7,000 times over the last 30 years. Maybe not together.
Yeah, just with someone or on your own or something.
I’ve probably played it a thousand times on my couch just for the hell of it.
But that can be dangerous too because sometimes when you play a song a million times, you completely lose sense of the fact that you’re playing it wrong. You’re just like doing something like close to it, and like you said in this fucking internet age, I’m not trying to fuck up “Smells Like Teen Spirit” drum parts. (*both laugh*) That’ll get called out. It’s like “oh he’s not doing the double hits in this thing” or something.
Especially to open a set too, because I feel like you would know if you got a part wrong or if you flipped something around or whatever, and I feel like that would just like rent space if you let it. \
Yeah, yeah! I mean that’s why it’s bold, because it can definitely go wrong. Pretty easily!
Well good on you guys for doing it. That made my day or week or whatever. (*both laugh*) So, History Books, now that you’re on the road for it, it did just get sort of are we calling it a reissue or extended-release or whatever. But the newly remastered version is out now. And that feels like a thing that I didn’t realize…like I’ve liked the album from first listen, I thought it was great (and I reviewed it here) and I was super glad that you guys are back and made it. And I said oh I don’t really feel like they need to remaster that album, it seems fine. And then I listened to (the new version) once, and I was like “oh, I get it!” Granted I’m a complete Luddite when it comes to like music technology and barely know what mastering is, particularly as compared to mixing and whatever. But where did that idea come from? And was that something you talked about doing before?
No, no. And to be clear, it’s not a remaster, it is remixed.
Oh okay. See, I told you I don’t understand the difference!
Yeah, so mastering is what happens at the very end of a record. Like, a record is mixed, and mastering kind of puts an overall compression on it. It like takes all the instruments essentially and is supposed to put them together into one thing in a relatable package while keeping everything separate but compressing it into an audio-friendly type of thing. It also works with sequencing. Like mastering will be, okay “two seconds between each song” and things like that. But the actual mixing mixing is done prior to that. So when you see the old reissues and stuff that are remastered, they’re kind of just tweaking sounds but they’re probably not changing volumes and stuff on the original mixes. So we actually gave the original stems of the songs and the mixes to a different mixing engineer, and we didn’t know if it was going to be good or bad. Like, it wasn’t like a certainty that we were going to hear it and be like “this has to come out.” The only way it was going to come out is if we heard it and kind of had the same reaction you did, which was like “oh okay, this sounds different and pretty good, and it’s kind of making certain things pop in a certain way, and things we weren’t hearing before kind of pop out.” So I think on our level – on a creative level – it was fun hearing it like that. And then you know I think, you know, one of the things was like the original way it was mixed was not a mistake, you know? Like we were going for something. Us and Peter (Katis, producer of History Books) were going for something that I think we achieved, and I think it’s vibey as fuck and super cool. The thing that I didn’t kind of realize, and even as a music fan I empathize with more now, it’s just like there’s a consistency in production and sound for a band. And it’s not just the songs but you kind of expect a band you like to sound a certain way to a point, you know? And I think that’s where it kind of really was bumming out fans. People were like “I like these songs but it just doesn’t sound like Gaslight.” That seemed to be kind of the effect of it. And when we had somebody awesome take a look at it and heard it, it was like “all right like let’s put this out.”
You know, we won’t change the vinyl; we’ll keep that like that nice, original thing we were going for, but now there’s this kind of polished digital version. It was crucial to me that people who already bought the record didn’t have to buy it again. You know, like some of the logistical stuff. And then also just like adding some elements to it just to make it worth people’s time, like you know adding the like the EP at the end of it and the thing we did with Bully. You know just so it’s like “oh okay, there’s something different here to listen to.” And then we just went for it. It was a strange thing because I had a hard time finding like…I don’t like making decisions in this business without historical precedent, and there was not a lot of historical precedent for this. Not a lot of bands have done it, so I was like “I don’t know if this is gonna be a terrible idea or a good idea.” But I think it sounds cool. You know let’s go for it. And I don’t read too much of the Internet but it seems fairly positive.
Yeah the people on Reddit and whatever seem to like it. Not that I am a big Reddit person but I tend to follow along and they tend to like it.
I read everything from Reddit. I check it every day and I base my mental well-being on whatever I read. (*both laugh*)
That’s a terrible decision. (*both laugh*) Yeah the people seem to like it. And you’re right, there aren’t I don’t think of many examples of bands doing it this early, or this close to the release of an album. We were talking about before like a “20th anniversary, we remixed a record.” Like Pearl Jam did with Ten and a couple other records.
Yeah, we try to not be afraid you know?
Yeah right! Okay, one more! So I’m gonna steal one of your own questions. I happened to be listening back to a Going Off Track episode that you did with Dave Hause because Dave’s been a buddy of mine forever, and you asked him something about – I’m paraphrasing a little – but would 15-year-old you like 45-year-old you. And talking about the sort of ethos and the mentality and where he ended up (in his career). And I was sort of thinking about that in the context of like 15-year-old Benny booking shows in basements in Jersey and whatever, and now like – I’m in the Boston area and this weekend you’re at MGM and you get to play like essentially the back door of Fenway Park. And so would 15-year-old Benny think that stuff like that, or playing the Winter Classic and whatever is cool, or would 15-year-old Benny be like “fuck that guy”?.
You know it’s one of those things, I think, that’s almost like hard to come to terms with.
And I’m kind of thinking about it as you ask it. And it’s hard to frame now, because of the fact that like I’m an adult who tries to be easy on myself, you know, especially if there’s space in the game. But if I’m completely honest with who I remember that 15-year-old to be, he was a pretty sweet kid. He had a good heart. He was nice to people. But he hated fucking bands that got too big. (*both laugh*) So, I don’t know man. I think the 15-year-old version of me would have probably had a “fuck Gaslight” period. Especially if I started on like Sink Or Swim or something. I probably would have had, you know, almost just that punk rock way of like. “Oh everyone likes The 59 Sound, I’m going to go like something else. Because too many people like this fucking record. Too many people are hyping it up for me to like this.” And that’s kind of the way I was if I’m honest.
Sure! Like a lot of us!
So yeah, I think 15-year-old me probably would have thought I was a bit of a fucking herb.
But it’s also got to be pretty cool. I mean maybe Fenway isn’t Yankee Stadium to you...
Yeah, see I do also remember that kid as reasonable and sweet, so I think if I like got his ear for about half an hour, I’d be able to explain it in a way that he’d be like “Oh all right, I got you.” But right off the bat? Yeah no totally “fuck Gaslight”. (*both laugh*)
I appreciate your honesty. I do.
Yeah. No problem…just having a stark look at my own childhood. (*both laugh*)
Right! I’ve looked in that mirror many a time.
I was doing fucking Elks Lodge shows. I mean the kind of shit I thought was corporate then, was literally like baseline industry standard.