What can you say about Dan Yemin that hasn’t already been said? The man is a legend. He might not say it. Actually, I know he’d never say it, but it’s true. Few other people have had the impact on the punk and hardcore scene of the past 15 years that Yeems has had. Nothing he does, in terms of music, is anything less than amazing. LIFETIME. KID DYNAMITE. PAINT IT BLACK. That’s one hell of a resume, isn’t it? He’s responsible for the guitar work on some of the most acclaimed punk and hardcore albums of all time, and has now become one of the most acclaimed lyricists as well, now with his third release as the front man. Never one to bite his tongue, an interview with Dan is guaranteed to be two things: enlightening and long-winded. The man can talk, and if you get him going on a topic he’s passionate about (and trust me, there are few that he isn’t), get ready to listen. And listen. And if you’re smart you’ll listen well, because you’re bound to learn something and if you aren’t dead, you’ll be motivated by his belief and his passion. The man is a legend.
Back with their third full-length, PAINT IT BLACK have once again set the bar a step higher for everyone else in the hardcore scene, creating a true masterpiece in ‘New Lexicon.’ It truly is a new language, a new set of rules to play by, and a new landmark release for the one and only, Dr. Dan Yemin.
So ‘New Lexicon’ marks PAINT IT BLACK’s third full-length, something you never managed to do with KID DYNAMITE, and something it took LIFETIME over a decade to do. How fulfilling is it to you, as an artist, to reach this level of production?
It’s really awesome. You know, it’s like you said, since I’ve been doing this – putting out records for like 16 years, I guess? And I’ve never even – because really, LIFETIME, I don’t even count as a third LP because it took us so long, you know? I’ve always been kind of embarrassed that I’ve never been able to make it to the third LP mark, so to be able to get here is actually really exciting for me.
One thing I remember you saying when you started PAINT IT BLACK was that you didn’t want anyone else to be able to break up this band, so you made yourself the singer. Since then, you’ve had somewhere in the vicinity of 5 member changes, if not more. How nice is it to be able to weather these changes and continue on?
It’s awesome, and I always end up eating my words because I make these kinds of sweeping, declarative statements. And I think, you know, at this point, I mean it’s true that PAINT IT BLACK was kind of designed so that I would never again be put in that kind of heartbreaking situation of having someone else leave and it functionally ending the band. So I figured if I’m writing all of the songs and I’m the voice, everyone else can be replaced. And it wasn’t intended to make people feel disposable, and it wasn’t intended to make everyone feel like it was my band and everyone else was just doing what I told them, but I think it inadvertently had that effect. And I’m at the point now where I think if anybody quit – and I mean, barring some unforeseen circumstances, if anyone quit I’d probably just stop and do something else. I’m really, really into this lineup. It’s the healthiest, most functional working lineup in a band I’ve been in ever. And I feel with Andy, the bass player I’ve been with since the beginning – if he left, I wouldn’t even want to continue.
Speaking to that same point, New Lexicon is the first time recording with Jared on drums and Josh on guitar. What did they bring to the table, as far as writing goes, that maybe was missing before, or at least was a little different?
They’re both great and so easy to work with and so eager to really dig in, and to get in the trenches and work. And this lineup practiced so much for this record, we were like ten times more prepared when we got to the studio than we were before. They actually practiced a lot without me, because 2007 was such a busy year. I got married and LIFETIME put out a record, so I was away a bunch doing LIFEITME stuff and planning for getting married, and we went away to Portugal for a couple weeks after the wedding. So they practiced a lot without me. I’d demo all the songs at home and then send them to everybody, and I feel like this time it’s really a PAINT IT BLACK record for the first time, instead of a bunch of friends playing my songs. The arraignments are sometimes so different from what I initially had envisioned. For the credits, I always say all songs by PAIN TIT BLACK, but in reality they were 95% me, and the rest of the band tightening it all up, but this time it really was the whole band. I wrote the skeletons for all the songs, but some of them are so radically different than what I brought to the table, I have to give credit where credit is due. Even some of the vocal arrangements are different. The guys said ‘now what about this,’ and I’ve never really let anybody fuck with my vocal arrangements before. So just the work ethic has been amazing. They were just really committed to the band, and to the songwriting process, and to getting things right.
So while the sound on ‘New Lexicon’ is certainly a sound that will leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that they’re listening to a PAINT IT BLACK record, it’s also a bit different. How do you feel this record compares to ‘Paradise,’ or even ‘CVA?’
I think it’s just another step in the same direction we were heading when we did ‘Paradise.’ I think ‘Paradise’ was a deviation from CVA, and we’re just progressing in that same direction. We took some chances with the production, and just the overall presentation, and we’re happy with it. I think it’s the most punk thing we’ve done in the terms of speed and viciousness. It’s just really, really vicious, and in terms of beats per minute, it’s the fastest. And the slow stuff, it’s just kind of grimier and more brutal. So I just think it’s like PAINT IT BLACK, but more intense.
Being that in the past, the sound of PAINT IT BLACK was definitely a fairly straight-up, traditional old school hardcore punk sound, mixing in elements of electronics will probably come as a pretty big surprise to the listeners. How did that all come together?
It sounds a little arrogant to say I wanted to stretch the boundaries of hardcore, and I don’t want to come off that way, but I do feel a responsibility to challenge…you know, hardcore and punk kind of live comfortably within its own set of rules of how thing are done and how things should sound. And I think that there are things, in terms of my taste, things that should stay traditional. Like, I’m not a fan of metal-core, and I don’t understand metal-core. And lot of stuff that is hardcore just sounds like SLAYER. And that’s cool if you want to play metal, but I don’t know if that’s hardcore. But some of the rules need to be challenged. We need to challenge the way things are done, and the way things are supposed to be, just in order to keep it fresh and to keep it interesting. Some of the songs are really traditional, and some of the songs have elements that are really non-traditional. I wanted the production to be kind of new and kind and vintage at the same time. I also wanted to look at what makes records heavy. You know, since the 90s, the idea of heavy has been recording guitar tracks six times and layering them to make it heavy. But when I listen to the early BLACK FLAG singles, or the first BAD BRAINS records, that wasn’t what made them heavy. It’s the bass, and the interaction between the bass and the drums, and the electric guitar just sounds kind of scratchy and just filthy, and that to me is what heavy is. But I wanted to incorporate a kind of hip-hop sensibility, in terms that they really push the low end, and that’s what gets my head moving, not so much fifty guitar tracks.
Now the title of the album itself, ‘New Lexicon,’ implies that this is an entirely new language, a new way of speaking, something along those lines. What does the title mean to you guys?
Coming up with a title is the most annoying thing in the world. I think the only thing more annoying is coming up with a name for the band.
Or answering questions about the title you came up with…
Hahahaha yeah! But that’s a little easier. We had a lot of trouble with the title, and it’s kind of funny. We had a title, and this is funny to admit, but we had a title, and it was ‘Gravity Wins’ after that song. And in a lot of ways it reflected what the record was about, sort of the inevitability of things, but also in terms of gravity in terms of substance. It’s like okay, this is a hardcore album that actually has meaning, that is about something, instead of just like being a moshing soundtrack. And so George, the singer from BLACKLISTED ran into our drummer on tour and was like ‘you know, you shouldn’t call your record ‘Gravity Wins.’ And Jared was just like ‘well, why not?’ and he said ‘because that is just dumb.’ BLACKLISTED is from Philly and I have crazy respect for them, and I don’t know George that well but he’s an amazing front man and I respect his opinion and his point of view, and so if he says that it’s not a good title…I want people to call me out on my bullshit, so I owe him a vote of thanks for that. ‘New Lexicon’ is a part of a line from a song towards the end of the record called Saccharine, that’s just about the problems I see facing the music industry, or punk and hardcore in general as a scene or an idea. We were going to do a mini West Coast tour with BLACKLISTED, actually, and the CD had been recorded but we were waiting on the artwork and stuff. So Andy was like ‘Why don’t we print a lyric sheet for the new songs and we’ll just call it ‘The New Lexicon?’ because we were playing some of the new songs in California. And we never ended up doing the lyric sheets because I was lazy, but calling it the New Lexicon just really stuck in my head. It means a lot of things in terms of being a new language or a new set of parameters, but it’s meaning in the song is coming from the fact that big business has…and this has been happening since the SEX PISTOLS in the 70s, so it’s not like a new problem. But in order to market rebellion to sell it to a lot of people, they take the most superficial aspect of our sub-culture and they blow them up and airbrush them and put them in an ad. So when they’ve taken all these kinds of elements of our language and use them as a marketing tool, they’ve lost their meaning to us. Even punk and hardcore – a lot of the stuff that is marketed as hardcore, I listen to it and I’m like ‘that’s not hardcore!’ I mean, UNDEROATH? Get the FUCK outta here! That’s not hardcore! So it’s kind of like, well, if they’ve stolen our language, we have to come up with a new one.
One very cool thing about the record is the inclusion of Jeff Pezzati from NAKED RAYGUN as a guest vocalist. Was that part of the song written with Jeff’s ‘woah-oh’s’ in mind, or did it just work out?
Well let’s be clear – anytime I write anything with woah-oh’s in it – and there’s a few on each record - it’s ALWAYS with NAKED RAYGUN in mind. I don’t generally try to sound like anyone else when I write, but when it comes to writing a kind of uplifting anthem kind of woah-oh part, I’m like ok, how can we make this sound as much like NAKED RAYGUN and 7 SECONDS as possible? NAKED RAYGUN is one of my favorite bands, because they were like so cool and had these huge anthems that would get everybody singing. And they could have just been the hugest band in America by just being, like, the American STIFF LITTLE FINGERS, but instead they’d write one huge anthem, and then write like 5 really dark, weird dissonant songs about stuff like snipers and advertising and shit like that. And they’re just really weird, and their albums were always like that and they didn’t take any shortcuts, and they were always really creative and I love his voice. There are a few voices that whenever I hear them, in whatever context I hear them in, I get chills. One of them is Ian MacKaye, and the other is Jeff Pezzati. I’m always thinking of NAKED RAYGUN when I write a part like that, but I never had the concept that we’d actually be able to get him to come sing it. We were joking in practice for months ‘Oh, when Pezzati sings this, it’ll be awesome!’ And one day, I was like, well maybe this doesn’t have to be a joke. Maybe we can actually get him to sing it. And we have some connections to them. Jeff’s in another band called THE BOMB, and J Robbins produced their record, and I actually know their guitar player from a long time ago. I met him like 16 years ago on tour. So we just reached out, J and I, and he was totally stoked to do it. And when I heard it I lost my mind. I just can’t believe that I wrote a part that Jeff sang and it sounds awesome.
Lyrically, ‘Paradise’ was very angry and very political, but this time around the lyrics seem to be a bit more varied, from general political overtones to more personal issues. What inspired you, lyrically, on this record?
I couldn’t write a whole record about the war again. Well, actually, the last record was about a lot of other things, too. But I think I’m always searching for a way to write and feel successful as a lyricist and I do. I did on ‘Paradise’ too, but I didn’t on the first record at all. I was still figuring out how to do it, and what my identity as a singer was. But I always kind of strived to be able to write political songs that are personal and personal songs that are political. Because a, I think it’s more interesting and more honest, and b, I’m constantly thinking about how private space and political space interact. Every political act has repercussions for private people, and I think every political act has repercussions for private people.
Political actions have far-reaching implications for lots of people in their personal life. And I do believe our individual personal acts have political implications always. I always thought it was a joke when people were like ‘oh, I’m not political, I’m not into politics.’ It’s like well, you can not be into politics, but your life is still political. It’s unavoidable. Ever your decision not to vote is a political act. Or your decision not to pay attention to the stuff on the news that’s horrifying. That’s a political act, and that’s buying into what the people in power want from you. They benefit from us being disenfranchised and apathetic. That allows them to keep carrying on with their bullshit. So even saying I’m gong to disengage from politics is a deeply political act. So I dunno, the lyrics…the cool thing on this album is a lot of times when I thought I was writing about the war, some major traumatic activities in my life over the past five or six years would always leak in, too. So I’d be writing about the war and the failure of modern capitalism to provide for the citizenry, and I’d look back at the set of lyrics and realize I was also writing about my divorce, and about getting sick, and about dealing with mortality at a young age. And that was cool to see, all those other themes kind of creeping in without me realizing it. But then I’d be writing a personal song about trusting people again after my divorce, and becoming comfortable with relationships again, and I’d look back over the lyrics and realize some stuff about the war had kind of crept in there too. I also wrote about Philly, and wrote about hardcore, for the first times. Well, maybe not the first time, but I wrote about Philly directly for the first time on this record. And I wrote a little bit about some of the challenges of making underground music that’s relevant in an internet age. But the song ‘So Much For Honor Among Thieves’ is basically about reading the shit that people write about you on the internet. And it’s fair. You make music, and you put yourself out there people are going to talk about it, and it’s not always going to be only nice things. But with the anonymity you have on the internet, lambs become lions and people can be really cruel and make sweeping accusations and assumptions about your motivations. I don’t think that being able to hide behind a screen name absolves you of the responsibility of having to think about the shit you say before you say it or be responsible to be decent.
Sounds like kids talking about LIFTIME.
Yeah, a bit about LIFETIME, but also with PAINT IT BLACK, too. It’s just the whole experience of reading about yourself and not wanting to read it because most of the stuff is stupid and I just shouldn’t read it, but also not being able to look away from it.
You guys already played two shows in Philly in celebration of the new record, both of which sold out pretty quickly. How were those shows, and how has the home town crowd reacted to this new release?
Man, those shows were some of the most inspiring moments I’ve had as a musician and as a punk in my entire life. And it’s been a long run. So it was really amazing. People were so receptive of the new stuff. The song we’ve had up on MySpace for a couple months, we opened with that the second night and people went crazy. We gave away the record on the first night, and people came back the second night and knew the words to the new songs, and that was just awesome. We really just wanted to create this event that would draw people to Philly to just celebrate with us, and also just show people what we’ve got here, what a great scene we’ve got. You know, Philly’s got a bit of a bad rap, and people think of it as a violent place, at least in terms of hardcore, and it’s really not true. I mean, if you only go to shows that are like CRO-MAGS / MADBALL influenced hardcore, then Philly might be…you might see some violence. But I don’t think of it as something we need to deal with at our shows very much. I mean, if it happens, we deal with it. But things were way worse when KID DYNAMITE was around. And I think we had this weekend that was totally drama-free and totally attitude-free. Andy organized it, and he’s a fucking genius. He did like 95% of the work, and we played these two shows at the church, but there was an after-party and a pre-party, too. So between the whole thing, it was like 4 shows, 20 bands, 3 venues. And he organized the whole thing. And like 3 DJs too. The label was really helpful because we wanted to give stuff away. So they helped us offset some of the cost, and they helped us get the 7” taken care of. We gave a 7” away the second day. And all the bands came together, our friends, long standing friends, newer friends. The lineups were really diverse. We flew a band in from Texas, THE MARKED MEN, one of our favorite bands. The shows at the church both sold out so there was like 600 kids at the church, and it was just really inspiring and it felt like we built something really cool, and something worth sharing with people and something worth fighting for. It was just really inspiring. So it wasn’t just like ‘here’s our record release show and here’s some merch for you to buy.’ We gave people shit, and it totally took the attention off of commerce. The other thing that was cool was that it felt like a really original way to deal with the whole leaking issue. It’s like, we spent like 2 years making a record and you wanted to get it done early and you want to send it out so people can write about it and do reviews and interviews and have them all come out at the same time when the record’s out, but as soon as you send the promos out to the people who are writing about your music, somebody leaks it. Like it’s inevitable. So it leaks like 2 months before it comes out and everybody is yapping about it, and by the time it actually comes out, people are done with it and have moved on to something else. So we were like, you know, instead of it getting leaked, I guess we’re just going to leak it ourselves. So we did the shows that weekend, and didn’t send promos out until the Monday after. So, I felt like we kind of took the control back. I hate being in that passive situation where you spend so much time working on something and just sitting back and waiting to see how and when it surfaces. And I just liked the idea of taking that control back, giving it to people on our terms.
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Paint It Black’s New Lexicon
An Interview Dan Yemin
by: Matthew Cote
Posted on Apr 06, 2008 - 5:49 pm | Comments (0)
What can you say about Dan Yemin that hasn’t already been said? The man is a legend. He might not say it. Actually, I know he’d never say it, but it’s true. Few other people have had the impact on the punk and hardcore scene of the past 15 years that Yeems has had. Nothing he does, in terms of music, is anything less than amazing. LIFETIME. KID DYNAMITE. PAINT IT BLACK. That’s one hell of a resume, isn’t it? He’s responsible for the guitar work on some of the most acclaimed punk and hardcore albums of all time, and has now become one of the most acclaimed lyricists as well, now with his third release as the front man. Never one to bite his tongue, an interview with Dan is guaranteed to be two things: enlightening and long-winded. The man can talk, and if you get him going on a topic he’s passionate about (and trust me, there are few that he isn’t), get ready to listen. And listen. And if you’re smart you’ll listen well, because you’re bound to learn something and if you aren’t dead, you’ll be motivated by his belief and his passion. The man is a legend.
Back with their third full-length, PAINT IT BLACK have once again set the bar a step higher for everyone else in the hardcore scene, creating a true masterpiece in ‘New Lexicon.’ It truly is a new language, a new set of rules to play by, and a new landmark release for the one and only, Dr. Dan Yemin.
So ‘New Lexicon’ marks PAINT IT BLACK’s third full-length, something you never managed to do with KID DYNAMITE, and something it took LIFETIME over a decade to do. How fulfilling is it to you, as an artist, to reach this level of production?
It’s really awesome. You know, it’s like you said, since I’ve been doing this – putting out records for like 16 years, I guess? And I’ve never even – because really, LIFETIME, I don’t even count as a third LP because it took us so long, you know? I’ve always been kind of embarrassed that I’ve never been able to make it to the third LP mark, so to be able to get here is actually really exciting for me.
One thing I remember you saying when you started PAINT IT BLACK was that you didn’t want anyone else to be able to break up this band, so you made yourself the singer. Since then, you’ve had somewhere in the vicinity of 5 member changes, if not more. How nice is it to be able to weather these changes and continue on?
It’s awesome, and I always end up eating my words because I make these kinds of sweeping, declarative statements. And I think, you know, at this point, I mean it’s true that PAINT IT BLACK was kind of designed so that I would never again be put in that kind of heartbreaking situation of having someone else leave and it functionally ending the band. So I figured if I’m writing all of the songs and I’m the voice, everyone else can be replaced. And it wasn’t intended to make people feel disposable, and it wasn’t intended to make everyone feel like it was my band and everyone else was just doing what I told them, but I think it inadvertently had that effect. And I’m at the point now where I think if anybody quit – and I mean, barring some unforeseen circumstances, if anyone quit I’d probably just stop and do something else. I’m really, really into this lineup. It’s the healthiest, most functional working lineup in a band I’ve been in ever. And I feel with Andy, the bass player I’ve been with since the beginning – if he left, I wouldn’t even want to continue.
Speaking to that same point, New Lexicon is the first time recording with Jared on drums and Josh on guitar. What did they bring to the table, as far as writing goes, that maybe was missing before, or at least was a little different?
They’re both great and so easy to work with and so eager to really dig in, and to get in the trenches and work. And this lineup practiced so much for this record, we were like ten times more prepared when we got to the studio than we were before. They actually practiced a lot without me, because 2007 was such a busy year. I got married and LIFETIME put out a record, so I was away a bunch doing LIFEITME stuff and planning for getting married, and we went away to Portugal for a couple weeks after the wedding. So they practiced a lot without me. I’d demo all the songs at home and then send them to everybody, and I feel like this time it’s really a PAINT IT BLACK record for the first time, instead of a bunch of friends playing my songs. The arraignments are sometimes so different from what I initially had envisioned. For the credits, I always say all songs by PAIN TIT BLACK, but in reality they were 95% me, and the rest of the band tightening it all up, but this time it really was the whole band. I wrote the skeletons for all the songs, but some of them are so radically different than what I brought to the table, I have to give credit where credit is due. Even some of the vocal arrangements are different. The guys said ‘now what about this,’ and I’ve never really let anybody fuck with my vocal arrangements before. So just the work ethic has been amazing. They were just really committed to the band, and to the songwriting process, and to getting things right.
So while the sound on ‘New Lexicon’ is certainly a sound that will leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that they’re listening to a PAINT IT BLACK record, it’s also a bit different. How do you feel this record compares to ‘Paradise,’ or even ‘CVA?’
I think it’s just another step in the same direction we were heading when we did ‘Paradise.’ I think ‘Paradise’ was a deviation from CVA, and we’re just progressing in that same direction. We took some chances with the production, and just the overall presentation, and we’re happy with it. I think it’s the most punk thing we’ve done in the terms of speed and viciousness. It’s just really, really vicious, and in terms of beats per minute, it’s the fastest. And the slow stuff, it’s just kind of grimier and more brutal. So I just think it’s like PAINT IT BLACK, but more intense.
Being that in the past, the sound of PAINT IT BLACK was definitely a fairly straight-up, traditional old school hardcore punk sound, mixing in elements of electronics will probably come as a pretty big surprise to the listeners. How did that all come together?
It sounds a little arrogant to say I wanted to stretch the boundaries of hardcore, and I don’t want to come off that way, but I do feel a responsibility to challenge…you know, hardcore and punk kind of live comfortably within its own set of rules of how thing are done and how things should sound. And I think that there are things, in terms of my taste, things that should stay traditional. Like, I’m not a fan of metal-core, and I don’t understand metal-core. And lot of stuff that is hardcore just sounds like SLAYER. And that’s cool if you want to play metal, but I don’t know if that’s hardcore. But some of the rules need to be challenged. We need to challenge the way things are done, and the way things are supposed to be, just in order to keep it fresh and to keep it interesting. Some of the songs are really traditional, and some of the songs have elements that are really non-traditional. I wanted the production to be kind of new and kind and vintage at the same time. I also wanted to look at what makes records heavy. You know, since the 90s, the idea of heavy has been recording guitar tracks six times and layering them to make it heavy. But when I listen to the early BLACK FLAG singles, or the first BAD BRAINS records, that wasn’t what made them heavy. It’s the bass, and the interaction between the bass and the drums, and the electric guitar just sounds kind of scratchy and just filthy, and that to me is what heavy is. But I wanted to incorporate a kind of hip-hop sensibility, in terms that they really push the low end, and that’s what gets my head moving, not so much fifty guitar tracks.
Now the title of the album itself, ‘New Lexicon,’ implies that this is an entirely new language, a new way of speaking, something along those lines. What does the title mean to you guys?
Coming up with a title is the most annoying thing in the world. I think the only thing more annoying is coming up with a name for the band.
Or answering questions about the title you came up with…
Hahahaha yeah! But that’s a little easier. We had a lot of trouble with the title, and it’s kind of funny. We had a title, and this is funny to admit, but we had a title, and it was ‘Gravity Wins’ after that song. And in a lot of ways it reflected what the record was about, sort of the inevitability of things, but also in terms of gravity in terms of substance. It’s like okay, this is a hardcore album that actually has meaning, that is about something, instead of just like being a moshing soundtrack. And so George, the singer from BLACKLISTED ran into our drummer on tour and was like ‘you know, you shouldn’t call your record ‘Gravity Wins.’ And Jared was just like ‘well, why not?’ and he said ‘because that is just dumb.’ BLACKLISTED is from Philly and I have crazy respect for them, and I don’t know George that well but he’s an amazing front man and I respect his opinion and his point of view, and so if he says that it’s not a good title…I want people to call me out on my bullshit, so I owe him a vote of thanks for that. ‘New Lexicon’ is a part of a line from a song towards the end of the record called Saccharine, that’s just about the problems I see facing the music industry, or punk and hardcore in general as a scene or an idea. We were going to do a mini West Coast tour with BLACKLISTED, actually, and the CD had been recorded but we were waiting on the artwork and stuff. So Andy was like ‘Why don’t we print a lyric sheet for the new songs and we’ll just call it ‘The New Lexicon?’ because we were playing some of the new songs in California. And we never ended up doing the lyric sheets because I was lazy, but calling it the New Lexicon just really stuck in my head. It means a lot of things in terms of being a new language or a new set of parameters, but it’s meaning in the song is coming from the fact that big business has…and this has been happening since the SEX PISTOLS in the 70s, so it’s not like a new problem. But in order to market rebellion to sell it to a lot of people, they take the most superficial aspect of our sub-culture and they blow them up and airbrush them and put them in an ad. So when they’ve taken all these kinds of elements of our language and use them as a marketing tool, they’ve lost their meaning to us. Even punk and hardcore – a lot of the stuff that is marketed as hardcore, I listen to it and I’m like ‘that’s not hardcore!’ I mean, UNDEROATH? Get the FUCK outta here! That’s not hardcore! So it’s kind of like, well, if they’ve stolen our language, we have to come up with a new one.
One very cool thing about the record is the inclusion of Jeff Pezzati from NAKED RAYGUN as a guest vocalist. Was that part of the song written with Jeff’s ‘woah-oh’s’ in mind, or did it just work out?
Well let’s be clear – anytime I write anything with woah-oh’s in it – and there’s a few on each record - it’s ALWAYS with NAKED RAYGUN in mind. I don’t generally try to sound like anyone else when I write, but when it comes to writing a kind of uplifting anthem kind of woah-oh part, I’m like ok, how can we make this sound as much like NAKED RAYGUN and 7 SECONDS as possible? NAKED RAYGUN is one of my favorite bands, because they were like so cool and had these huge anthems that would get everybody singing. And they could have just been the hugest band in America by just being, like, the American STIFF LITTLE FINGERS, but instead they’d write one huge anthem, and then write like 5 really dark, weird dissonant songs about stuff like snipers and advertising and shit like that. And they’re just really weird, and their albums were always like that and they didn’t take any shortcuts, and they were always really creative and I love his voice. There are a few voices that whenever I hear them, in whatever context I hear them in, I get chills. One of them is Ian MacKaye, and the other is Jeff Pezzati. I’m always thinking of NAKED RAYGUN when I write a part like that, but I never had the concept that we’d actually be able to get him to come sing it. We were joking in practice for months ‘Oh, when Pezzati sings this, it’ll be awesome!’ And one day, I was like, well maybe this doesn’t have to be a joke. Maybe we can actually get him to sing it. And we have some connections to them. Jeff’s in another band called THE BOMB, and J Robbins produced their record, and I actually know their guitar player from a long time ago. I met him like 16 years ago on tour. So we just reached out, J and I, and he was totally stoked to do it. And when I heard it I lost my mind. I just can’t believe that I wrote a part that Jeff sang and it sounds awesome.
Lyrically, ‘Paradise’ was very angry and very political, but this time around the lyrics seem to be a bit more varied, from general political overtones to more personal issues. What inspired you, lyrically, on this record?
I couldn’t write a whole record about the war again. Well, actually, the last record was about a lot of other things, too. But I think I’m always searching for a way to write and feel successful as a lyricist and I do. I did on ‘Paradise’ too, but I didn’t on the first record at all. I was still figuring out how to do it, and what my identity as a singer was. But I always kind of strived to be able to write political songs that are personal and personal songs that are political. Because a, I think it’s more interesting and more honest, and b, I’m constantly thinking about how private space and political space interact. Every political act has repercussions for private people, and I think every political act has repercussions for private people.
Political actions have far-reaching implications for lots of people in their personal life. And I do believe our individual personal acts have political implications always. I always thought it was a joke when people were like ‘oh, I’m not political, I’m not into politics.’ It’s like well, you can not be into politics, but your life is still political. It’s unavoidable. Ever your decision not to vote is a political act. Or your decision not to pay attention to the stuff on the news that’s horrifying. That’s a political act, and that’s buying into what the people in power want from you. They benefit from us being disenfranchised and apathetic. That allows them to keep carrying on with their bullshit. So even saying I’m gong to disengage from politics is a deeply political act. So I dunno, the lyrics…the cool thing on this album is a lot of times when I thought I was writing about the war, some major traumatic activities in my life over the past five or six years would always leak in, too. So I’d be writing about the war and the failure of modern capitalism to provide for the citizenry, and I’d look back at the set of lyrics and realize I was also writing about my divorce, and about getting sick, and about dealing with mortality at a young age. And that was cool to see, all those other themes kind of creeping in without me realizing it. But then I’d be writing a personal song about trusting people again after my divorce, and becoming comfortable with relationships again, and I’d look back over the lyrics and realize some stuff about the war had kind of crept in there too. I also wrote about Philly, and wrote about hardcore, for the first times. Well, maybe not the first time, but I wrote about Philly directly for the first time on this record. And I wrote a little bit about some of the challenges of making underground music that’s relevant in an internet age. But the song ‘So Much For Honor Among Thieves’ is basically about reading the shit that people write about you on the internet. And it’s fair. You make music, and you put yourself out there people are going to talk about it, and it’s not always going to be only nice things. But with the anonymity you have on the internet, lambs become lions and people can be really cruel and make sweeping accusations and assumptions about your motivations. I don’t think that being able to hide behind a screen name absolves you of the responsibility of having to think about the shit you say before you say it or be responsible to be decent.
Sounds like kids talking about LIFTIME.
Yeah, a bit about LIFETIME, but also with PAINT IT BLACK, too. It’s just the whole experience of reading about yourself and not wanting to read it because most of the stuff is stupid and I just shouldn’t read it, but also not being able to look away from it.
You guys already played two shows in Philly in celebration of the new record, both of which sold out pretty quickly. How were those shows, and how has the home town crowd reacted to this new release?
Man, those shows were some of the most inspiring moments I’ve had as a musician and as a punk in my entire life. And it’s been a long run. So it was really amazing. People were so receptive of the new stuff. The song we’ve had up on MySpace for a couple months, we opened with that the second night and people went crazy. We gave away the record on the first night, and people came back the second night and knew the words to the new songs, and that was just awesome. We really just wanted to create this event that would draw people to Philly to just celebrate with us, and also just show people what we’ve got here, what a great scene we’ve got. You know, Philly’s got a bit of a bad rap, and people think of it as a violent place, at least in terms of hardcore, and it’s really not true. I mean, if you only go to shows that are like CRO-MAGS / MADBALL influenced hardcore, then Philly might be…you might see some violence. But I don’t think of it as something we need to deal with at our shows very much. I mean, if it happens, we deal with it. But things were way worse when KID DYNAMITE was around. And I think we had this weekend that was totally drama-free and totally attitude-free. Andy organized it, and he’s a fucking genius. He did like 95% of the work, and we played these two shows at the church, but there was an after-party and a pre-party, too. So between the whole thing, it was like 4 shows, 20 bands, 3 venues. And he organized the whole thing. And like 3 DJs too. The label was really helpful because we wanted to give stuff away. So they helped us offset some of the cost, and they helped us get the 7” taken care of. We gave a 7” away the second day. And all the bands came together, our friends, long standing friends, newer friends. The lineups were really diverse. We flew a band in from Texas, THE MARKED MEN, one of our favorite bands. The shows at the church both sold out so there was like 600 kids at the church, and it was just really inspiring and it felt like we built something really cool, and something worth sharing with people and something worth fighting for. It was just really inspiring. So it wasn’t just like ‘here’s our record release show and here’s some merch for you to buy.’ We gave people shit, and it totally took the attention off of commerce. The other thing that was cool was that it felt like a really original way to deal with the whole leaking issue. It’s like, we spent like 2 years making a record and you wanted to get it done early and you want to send it out so people can write about it and do reviews and interviews and have them all come out at the same time when the record’s out, but as soon as you send the promos out to the people who are writing about your music, somebody leaks it. Like it’s inevitable. So it leaks like 2 months before it comes out and everybody is yapping about it, and by the time it actually comes out, people are done with it and have moved on to something else. So we were like, you know, instead of it getting leaked, I guess we’re just going to leak it ourselves. So we did the shows that weekend, and didn’t send promos out until the Monday after. So, I felt like we kind of took the control back. I hate being in that passive situation where you spend so much time working on something and just sitting back and waiting to see how and when it surfaces. And I just liked the idea of taking that control back, giving it to people on our terms.
That’s a great idea.
Thanks dude!