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All Photos By Taylor Monica Help! I interviewed the Lemon Twigs and all I got was this shirt! It says “The greatest thing in power-pop since those plastic hamburger telephones” with a photo of Nixon and Elvis shaking hands but the D’Addario brothers’ faces are crudely airbrushed over theirs. Wait that’s actually awesome. PRESS THAT! Anyways, I sat down with the Lemon Twigs because the back door was unlocked and they were too nice to refuse a man with clearly nothing to lose in this godforsaken world. Here’s as far as we got before a bunch of huge guys with unbelievably tight ponytails pulled me off them: ******************************* It seems as the world becomes a crazier place The Lemon Twigs find themselves in their most mellow form. Can you speak to this observation? Brian: Well, we kind of had been wanting to go that way for a while, just because songs started to pile up that were ballads and really harmony driven, and they were kind of our best songs for a while, I think. But we wanted to do a more energetic record when it was time to do our third 4AD record. So some of the songs, like “Corner of My Eye” were from around that time, but just didn't fit on the last one. Michael: Our albums are generally kind of compilatory. Probably a lot of people are that way. You know, some songs have been hanging around for a long time, and some songs are brand new. So we just kind of put the ones together that sound the same. Obviously you’ve delved headfirst into conceptual music with 2018’s Go To School, but I don’t think that means every Twigs album is without a concept. Could you talk on the concept for Everything Harmony and what went into its reality? Michael: Just taking the melodicism and song writing craft seriously. I don't mean taking ourselves seriously or anything like that, but just working really hard. And not just throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks, you know? We worked hard on the structure of every song. And the structure is solid. Brian: It's kind of reflective of our overall mood at a certain time. I mean, it's definitely reflective of our mood like two years ago, when we probably wrote most of the songs. And it's just a very bored time. Also kind of more looking outside of ourselves and taking in the overall vibe of that period of time, at least on my songs. Would you say power-pop and fashion are harmonious? How is the music you listen to and play translated through your wardrobe and vice versa? Michael: I think the music is all like the album cover. It's all the same things, like everything has to match. We kind of go through different periods and different phases, but usually things match. Brian: When we’re wanting to do a real rocking, heavy show, I think we probably wanna dress the part for that. This show that we're doing is such a combination of mellow and rock, and it's interesting. There's so many more harmonies than we've really ever done before, and more structured playing. It's more upbeat-more consistently upbeat than the other shows that we've done. So we're kind of into more colorful stuff right now. Michael: Typically people can only do, like, one thing well at a time. We have four guys in the band right now who can play songs in an arranged style with a lot of harmonies. That's what we're excelling at. We had other bands where they excelled at improvisation, and we exploited that. We had bands where the main thing was spontaneity, and the way that everybody is acting and stuff. So this is what we're doing really well. The way it connects is that the style is basically dictated by whatever is around or whatever is inspiring. And anytime you try to do something else, it always comes off not inspired. It's really… Brian: Forced. Michael: I was gonna say inauthentic. It’s no secret y’all were involved with the film industry and thus associated in Hollywood for some time. How are the film and music industries alike and different, and what made you trade in acting for musicianship? Michael: Well, we were always really musicians. We just happen to act. It was like a sport or something. Brian: With SAG you have to make a certain amount of money if you do this sort of thing. The rules are more set in stone I think within that industry. I didn't ever do much. We did this TV show that was through SAG a couple years ago, and coming out of doing a bunch of music stuff over the years, It was so organized. Michael: I imagine the world of indie, like what we're doing, the way that we're in music is more akin to an indie film world. When we were acting, we were acting on a high level. We were acting in broadway stuff, and that’s all very official. None of the music stuff we do is that official. Everybody's just, like, calling their friends. Brian: It's just more Lucy Goosey. Michael: It's gotta be different for, like, Beck And people like that. People who use musicians all the time. They're on the clock and everything. How have those skills helped you as performers on stage? Do you think there’s a certain truth in theatre that couldn’t be intimated any way else? Brian: I think the sort of head space that I'd like to get into more is the kind of head space I was in when I was in theater. Which almost feels like autopilot, but it doesn't really feel like autopilot. It's like a very real focus. But you know what you're doing on such a level where as long as you just don't break your concentration, you're doing stuff without thinking about it. You're acting without thinking about it. And you're present always. But that was musicals. I almost felt no emotion but we would do it really well rather than doing something serious where you actually have to feel those emotions. I definitely wouldn't wanna act out my songs with the kind of music that we do. It's more like hitting every note with precision rather than trying to really sell it. Michael: All of our stuff that we use is from-for me at least-just when we were playing constantly. When we were kids we did like a million shows just as our band, just as a little kids show. I think often the morbidity in the subject matter of your songs is overlooked. What purpose does tragedy serve for your creative output? Michael: For me competitiveness and anxiety and depression are probably my main-specifically anxiety really, not depression so much. But anxiety is typically what spurs my creativity. Like that I haven't written enough songs or something. I have a lot of songs, but we can't put them out or whatever because they're not finished. Or the label won't let us put out as much as we want to put out, or they won't do it fast enough. So I'm the I'm always like, ‘Ah! I gotta finish something!’ Brian: And then maybe lyrics that come out of that emotion tend to be a little bit more crazy. It’s usually you’re trying to work your way through to get to a singular idea. Lyrically you have some little idea, part of an idea that comes through in the improvised lyrics that come with the melody and then through the verses. I think you're kind of trying to work it out. Michael: It's so much harder to think of an interesting idea that is not already taken that’s a super positive spin on anything. My dad said, ‘You should make it “Everyday is the First Day of my Life”'. And it could have been that, but it wasn’t. And that’s already taken not as a song, but it’s a slogan. So this was kind of a spin on that. It's not really meant to be taken so heavy. Going back to the point where you were talking about how your lyric formations stem from a certain anxiety: Do you think that anxiety at its core is maybe a fear of being forgotten generations from now and not making enough of impact on society? Michael: No, I think it's like a youth thing. I think I haven't done enough. I'd like to be able to have done a lot of material so that then if I'm like 60 or something I can just play, pick from these things. And anybody who likes it would know those things, because they don't seem to care after a certain point. What did y’all think of the last Bob Dylan album Rough and Rowdy Ways? Brian: That was really inspiring For Everything Harmony? Brian: Oh sure. It's totally all natural sounds, as all of his albums are. It was recorded immaculately with no real studio wizardry. I would say probably the arrangements on it, Sinatra albums probably had more of a subconscious impact. Just because hearing those kind of chords, it's really inspiring. And songs from the twenties and thirties. How do you keep your personalities separate when creating music? Is it an active process? Brian: I feel like we try to make them more unified. Michael: We struggled with how to not make them so separate. Specifically on this new album? Michael: On the last record [Songs for the General Public]. My songs are a lot different from Brian's on that. Now we’re like, ‘Oh, let's do the same textures on both of these so that they have the same effects so we can trick people into thinking this is the same album.’ But the cover does a lot of work, stuff like that. People then associate the album cover with the songs and the color of the album cover. Brian: But we sang together on the same mic for a lot of the songs. Like we tried to make it almost like you couldn't tell whose song was whose. I put the same amount of care intothe arrangements for both people's songs. And what do you hope for the future of Lemon Twigs albums? Brian: That they come at a rapid pace. That's really the idea. But we can't lose the quality of the recordings, you know. And that's the tricky thing. Michael: That's the tricky thing about doing all this, this touring that's coming up-which we wanted to do-and wanting to play a lot more. And it's really fun, but it's just more time away. Brian: If we can get someone else involved with that recording aspect- Michael: Particularly with the mixing aspect, which we think we might have a guy now who we love. It's our friend Paul Slug Bug, who opened for us a few times. He's just a great mixing engineer. Brian: -and someone we've been collaborating with on all sorts of stuff, like he co-directed our video for "In My Head". He’s like a jack of all trades. He knows how to do everything. Michael: He could really, probably help us a lot. And our new band member Reza is really good. And Danny is good. We're just kind of getting a little bit more open to having help. Because it was always like, ‘Oh, I love that guy, but I don't really want him to do anything. I don’t really trust him.’ Brian: Also, it's like we can be so mean to each other in an effort to get to what's right. Or very direct. Michael: We're not very good at that with other people. Brian: We get a little cagey, and don't say what we really feel until after. Michael: Sometimes we perceive things to be worse than they are just because they're coming from the other one. And then we realize after: ‘Oh, you were right about that.’ *************************** Speaking of cages: it turns out there’s a little holding cell at Terminal West in Atlanta where the boys played. The sound was muffled from the cell but it still sounded like a real kick of a show. Good on you boys! I used my one call to the editor of RPM so we could get this hot piece on the shelves posthaste! Thanks Bruce (obviously one of the ponytailed henchmen of Terminal West) for making nice and letting me use your phone. We’re all just doing our job. To Be Published In Print By Record Plug Magazine

Photo By Chiara D’Anzieri Ron Gallo is concentrating everything down to his own weird science through plausible characterization and crying-out-loud riffage. Upon that cranium through the quintessential afro lies a little Ron Gallo with big ideas. He plugs that brain into an Orange amp and out comes music you could play in the middle of nowhere and still feel someone else getting you. And after the fact you will realize how oft you find yourself in Ron Gallo-ian situations. That’s any twee quirk juxtaposed with existential mania in a holistically familiar setting. Like contemplating your outer-space levels of loneliness and parallelism with Emma Stone at a Marshall’s in Yucca Valley. You could try to write that off as foreign but be there the next business day. The pictures that Ron paints in his music are odd until they’re relatable. Plus you can eat them. Ron has his finger on the dead pulse of a globalized society turned into fad-istic cretins from imploding technological advancements and too many shirts. He raises questions and doesn’t care if he gets answers because he knows they’ve been buried deep beneath the collective excess. But as long as that question is ringing off the walls of venues and through pricked ears taking siestas within snug headphones then it isn’t all lost. And fuck I can’t even write this joint without checking emails and dipping my jowls in Twitter or googling to find out why people go missing in Joshua Tree but Ron forgives me because he’s curious and sometimes distracted too. And he grins in knowing if we are so weak we will be killed and replaced by better animals. So that’s why Ron Gallo has returned to the stone age carrying a catalytic converter and his newest album FOREGROUND MUSIC. FOREGROUND MUSIC does for music what typewriters do for alcoholics. We’re finding our way back to basics with the knowledge we have of the abstract. The basics themselves felt so far gone and you can’t quite tell if you’re remembering them the same way because the you that experienced them is not the edition of the present. That’s why Ron Gallo’s FOREGROUND MUSIC took a shit load of elbow grease. Physical exertion was required to build this collection of songs so that they may preserve an idea in silly putty. Ron has taken many computations and penciled them down or else they would float off into some jag-off’s back yard. This was no stationary process dear friend. Ron went many places without knowing why, and he had to trust something of a process to make something of a result. FOREGROUND MUSIC is the dust on an old mask, full of bunnies and blinding to the eye but reminiscent of time as a collection. You can shake it off and put the mask on, even do a little dance but that dust will settle and you will be reminded of how you inevitably moved on. But your discovery of old faces flushed together in a shadow box adds a new expression. And with that you can offer a new experience that may be shared. FOREGROUND MUSIC is the findings of Ron Gallo through the entirety of his creative life from debut realizations that birthed HEAVY META widely to the proportionally infinite and collapsing now. What bones he must have! Ron Gallo and company capped off one rooting tour in East Atlanta at the great and powerful Earl for a night of ultimate pleasantry. Beforehand I demanded Ron talk to me over sushi burritos a block away. We went for a good while, talking about the unrivaled greatness of the sketch comedy show “I Think You Should Leave” and whether violence was a necessary component for revolution. We were also joined by the illustrious bassist for the collective Ron Gallo, Chiara D’Anzieri. She’s a squeaky clean producer with a tasteful ear and a thoughtful voice. She is also Ron Gallo’s wedded wife. Here lies the breath of a conversation: Photo by Taylor Monica *********************************** Did you ever do stand up? Ron: Well, before I moved to Nashville and was in Philly I used to host a variety show every Wednesday night. There was a mixture of music and comedy. I got really involved with the Philly comedy scene and I would host, so I kind of got used to doing improv things and what not. Was this pre-Ron Gallo? Ron: Yeah it was like the beginning/pre- and then the very beginning. And then I kind of retired that show after about a year, like 50-something consecutive weeks. Every Wednesday. And you were in a band called Toy Soldiers right? Ron: Yeah, that's like lifetimes ago. It's funny when people even bring it up or know about it, because we really didn't do anything. You have an Audiotree session right? Ron: We had an Audiotree session. That was about it. Chiara: It's still around on the internet. I think that's what happens. Ron: It's like six lifetimes ago. Do you feel like you have a need to reinvent yourself? Or do you think it happens naturally? Ron: Quite more natural I think. Because there's a natural tendency to just always be chasing whatever I'm into at the time. Chiara: And that's your need. Ron: So, yeah, it's both. It's not forced, so it's just always following. Chiara: It happens, and then you're in a knowledge. I mean at least from outside, since I’ve known you, that's always what happened. Ron: Yeah, I think it's the only way to keep going. Because if you start a band and you have a sound and you're like, ‘We're a band that sounds like this’, and you just have to force yourself to keep doing the same thing, that's like death. That's why I went off on my own. Because I think you always need to be free and able to just go with wherever you need to go with. It's the only way, the only genuine thing. I'm not one who can be a template. Like ‘This is what we're supposed to do. So we're just phone in and do the thing that we do.’ So you're back in Philly now? Ron: Yeah. How's that? You liking it? You planning another move? Ron: Yeah, I think we're over it again already. I'm from there. I lived there for a long time, and I already left once, went to Nashville for six years, came back, and now I think I'm ready to go for good. You have any places in mind? *They laugh Chiara: Going back to Nashville, I’ll tell you what. Ron: Well, these are the things: she loves Nashville because when she moved to the US a few years ago, that was like her first American home. But it's probably somewhere between if we were to go back there, but also eventually just gravitating towards moving to Italy, because, you know, she's tried the States. Chiara: And I failed. No, never mind, cancel it: THEY failed. I did try very hard. I mean, I don't mind. I will go back to Nashville. I know that we’re always gonna have a house, a place there. Because, as you know, we have to split ourselves into two because that's what happens when you're an international family. But it would be great to to be able to do a little bit of both in a more equal time, because right now it's more here and then a little bit there in the summer. And I feel like now that we're he's getting used to it, he's actually liking it and feeling comfortable to live there. Picking up a little bit of Italian, you can exist. When initially he was feeling a little bit alienated because of the language, the barrier there. Ron: But now I kind of like that about it. I like the option to not have to talk. Chiara: Nobody knows that he can understand. So he can pretend to not understand. Ron: There’s no social anxiety when there's a language barrier. You know, I can just stand there and there's no obligation for me to say anything, and I can plead that I don't know, and it's great. Chiara: I also feel like we have much less social anxiety in general over there. Ron: And much less anxiety in general. Everybody's just chilling. Very eye-opening, my time spent there. Would you say it's affected the music at all? Living there? Ron: Taking myself out of America to see another perspective, and then coming back in and then seeing more dramatically how fucked up it is here. You kind of step out of the picture and then step back in, you're like, ‘Whoa, this is all wrong.’ That's what I feel this record is like. That change in perspective. To really evaluate the way that we do things. Like everyone here is stressed and anxious overwork and burn out. Everything's a hustle. And a lot of it could be filled by Philadelphia too, which is like a super dirty, gritty, grimy city, and there's lots of chaos and crime and violence, all of it. But just in general when you go to another place and you see how people live and what they prioritize, it doesn't have to be this 24/7 grind for productivity. And the neglect of some simple, important things in life that are just so easily lost here. Why has stuff just been looking the same and crumbling? Because nobody cares. Everyone's too burned out to actually care. And I think that's the way that it's all structured. [In Italy] there’s an attention to beauty there. You know, people care about stuff. Everything's made with love. And things are closed for like four hours in the middle of the day so people can have a break. It's different. It's very different. So I wasn't used to that. Chiara: I remember the first time he was like, ‘Why are a restaurants not open it’s 3pm?’ Ron: Yeah, ‘People should be killing themselves at all hours so that I have access to anything!’ Chiara: I would say, ‘It's 3pm. Nobody goes to restaurants right now. You go to restaurants at 7, or you go to restaurant until 12. You close your your shop, and you go pick up your son, and then you have two hours and then you go back to work. And that, at least, that's what we're used to. He was not used to that. He likes it now. Photo by Chiara D’Anzieri Let’s talk about FOREGROUND MUSIC. How is it a new chapter of Ron Gallo and also a circling back to the HEAVY META days? Like a revolution that created a new layer to rediscover the past through. Ron: Yes. After HEAVY META I sort of did all of these sharp left turn experiments from record to record. And while I think it was necessary, I think with this record, after doing that for literally three albums of experimentation, I realized that it was a reckoning. It’s really important to stay in tune with what you're naturally inclined to do, and to remember why you started making music. And I think FOREGROUND MUSIC is that. It's like a return to the head space of the first record, using music as more of a vehicle for the message, which is where HEAVY META from. I'm just feeling a lot closer to the way I felt when I made that record. And it had to be genuine, because I guess I didn't feel it for all those in between. So it was full circle in that sense. Maybe it’s a good idea to get back to the basics. And it also feels like the most genuine thing to do. But then also using some of the palate that I explored with the other stuff, using the base to be grounded in that same space from when made the first record. And so then I think it kind of ties it all together, in a way. At least when I perform. It's like all of them tied up. What would you say then are the main contentions you’re trying to make through your music on stage, as you’re compiling a setlist from different albums to present like a culmination of your being at this given time? Ron: I guess it's been leaning pretty heavy on the new stuff. Because it's new, it's the most exciting stuff to play. I also think it's most relevant to now, because that's kind of what this record is to me. It's about now. So most of it being about FOREGROUND MUSIC. And then kind of lining it with in my opinion what are like the greatest hits of the previous. One thing that I'm also adopting is not being completely hard-headed. I have a tendency in the past to be pretty confrontational with the audience. I’ll intentionally self-sabotage or do things because I know that's what's expected. But I'm also trying to realize people come to the show: don't not play the songs that they like. So it's also taking that into an account. You know, after playing “Young Lady, You’re Scaring Me” like a million times, you get burned out on it. But with this tour I’m like, ‘No. People like that song. That song probably reaches more people than all the others. Just fucking like it for what it is. Love it for it is. Don't have a bitterness around playing the song.’ So it's just about getting out of my own way a little bit. But I feel good about it. I think the show is also getting back to the basics of, like, putting on an intense, in-your-face show. But it's all the songs across the catalog, with quiet moments too, but I think even then those are lyrically intense. And is there a message throughout it all as these songs come together in that space? Ron: I guess I'm always trying to reflect. I’m always trying to cause some sort of self-reflection with people by using myself. Especially with the new records. I know that I'm kind of talking about my perspective, but the reason I'm doing that is because I think it's probably a lot of people's perspective. And so I think the intention of wanting people to come to the show and see themselves in some of it might be a big, common-thread goal. Especially with the ways people have felt over the last few years. Any of that existential crisis, anxious, depressed, discouraged stuff. Focusing on that not as a downer thing, but more making it fun to talk about this. And then people in the show, maybe they'll find something in there. Like, ‘This is how I felt a lot over the last few years.’ That's what I feel is probably the goal of it all through each song. Your stage presence can go from ripping tunes to getting ripped on steak in an instant, with some segments of the live show bordering on performance art. What is the importance of saving room for absurdity in your performances? Ron: Very important. It feels a little bit more balanced. I feel like there were some points like a few years back where the bits were almost a little too much, where it was almost like the show was more of a joke. But reeling it back now I feel like it's a little bit more focused. If there's one or two moments where we break down that wall, people laugh, or something weird happens, it feels good. And then we can go back to intensity. My favorite bit that we've done on this tour so far is in Brooklyn. I bought an Amazon delivery person vest off of of eBay, and I had our friend Jake from the band Post Animal deliver us a package mid-set. And I just get a lot of joy out of it. Yeah. It's like if you're in the audience and you see a guy in an Amazon vest with a big Amazon package disrupt the show and like, stand back and do the photo that they do. The whole thing. I just like that confusion. Or like a super loud, chaotic, noisy solo section. I just really like that shit. I don't know, Chiara: Somebody came up to me at the end of the show was like, ‘Was that an ad?’ I was like, ‘No, that was almost the opposite. What do you mean? we also had moments during this tour where it was a lot. Like the Nashville show at some points people were like, ‘What's going on?’ But yeah, I guess they enjoy it. Ron: There are some times where it just gets really loose. Like some shows on this tour there's been more dialogue between band and audience than I've ever seen. And so there would just be like 5 minutes between songs where we're like talking to this person. And then somebody yells out a song, like a song that we haven't played and we don't even remember how to play, and we just, like, see far we get. And when that stuff happens organically, I think it's cool. I don't know how people perceive it, but it's fun for us. And I think it just kind of breaks down that barrier. It just makes it personal. There's just something exciting about it. Somebody yells out a song, and it's one that you don't really even remember, and you're like, ‘Let’s just ruin this on stage right now.’ Photo by Taylor Monica You’ve offered your critiques on American society including the backwardness of some of our inhabitants and our unhealthy relationship to consumerism. How has living abroad and then returning to America given you a more revolved sense of us? And can you add something positive or something you changed your mind about for the better? Ron: When you land back in JFK airport, you like, feel the America again. It's like ‘Oh my God, this feels like a thing.’ And then you settle back into it, you're used to it again. But that was jarring. But in terms of a positive… *Silence permeates the conversation. All that can be heard is enormous street traffic and a store owner in a shouting match with a homeless woman that's nearing physicality* Chiara: It's taking too long. Ron: Well, there's something to say about your comforts and having your stuff and your things that you're used to. Like the first few days back I like our house and the places that we like and the people that we like and all those things, which is kind of universal no matter where you are. But yeah, I think it's really just that. An embracing of the comforts that I have here is sort of enhanced, like when you are removed from the picture. Even with the language barrier. As annoying as it is to come back and hear Americans speak again. It's not big things. It's like being able to go get, like, a giant coffee. Chiara: I don't even know if I have a positive… there is one thing. I have a very Western passion. Like, in Italy I would not be able to walk around this. *Chiara gestures to her fringe western jacket and cowboy boots* And that's the stupidest thing. But that is probably one of the only few things that I can really enjoy from here, because we don't have it there. The Spaghetti Westerns have been shot all in Italy, and that's why Italians have that thing around Westerns. And I was never America-fascinated. Like, when I first met Ron, I was hoping he wasn't American. And then he starts speaking. I was like, ‘This is definitely not British.’ And I've never thought about coming here, but when I came, the whole country thing with the boots and fringe, that was the only thing that I really enjoyed. And when I'm in Italy I have my cowboy hat there, but I don’t wear it. Ron: Music is better here. It's better to tour and make music. It's more of a musical place. The music industry is very antiquated and sketchy in Italy. Chiara: Generally in Europe I think. Ron: You can't really have a livelihood of music over there. It's pretty difficult. Whereas that's one thing that's actually a good thing about here. You did a tour of just Italy at one point didn’t you? Chiara: We did and it was a pain in the ass. Ron: It's very sketchy, notoriously. And I guess that’s another one of the positives here. You know what you're signing up for. You're not gonna not get paid for like six weeks. And even then a guy's gonna have to drive over a border to like wire money. It’s just weird. Stuff that you don't run into here. If anything America has right it's financial organization. Everything is clear. Chiara: The transactions here are very like ‘It is what it is. It might suck but this is it.’ Ron: Like EVERY time you play a show in Italy, you get shorted on your pay. They’re just like, ‘We told you this, but here's less than we told you.’ And then it's like, where did it go? Chiara: Also now they do this very funny thing because of me. they kind of go around Ron and they just come to me. And that makes it to where they feel entitled to be a little bit more sketchy, because they're like, ‘Come on, we’re the same kind. Help me out.’ Ron: So that’s a positive view, I guess. What are some things you think we should be moving towards as a society? On both the national and global level. Ron: I don't think the awareness about everything happening all the time everywhere is healthy. It's too overwhelming. It makes it feel like the world is ending all the time, but then you go outside and everything's actually fine. I think that there should be more of an attention to the community. Because the truth is if everyone focused on their community, their block, and built those communities on things like common-decency, goodness, whatever. If everybody did that, then it would be good everywhere. But it's like this, this dread that comes from social media, and like hearing about what's happening here just paints this very dark picture in the world. And it overwhelms people, and then it makes people feel like they're helpless. At least it happens for me. And so I think, again, attention to to your immediate surroundings, and people putting effort into their community is probably a good start. More locally-minded, I should say. Probably just less time in general on the phone. I don't know about you guys, maybe you’re anomalies, but we're all addicted to it in some way. I just think it's way more problematic than we think it is. Because things become normal, and everybody's doing it. It wasn't always like that, where you wake up and you're like, filling your brain with things that are happening. It has to be damaging. I don't know, just like the competitiveness over here, whatever the capitalistic structure. Like everyone being in constant competition, which is why everyone's burn out and grinding all the time. That's not helping either. So probably a more balanced work-life. That would probably benefit everybody's to to not be exhausted and miserable and at their wit’s end all the time. Also less polarizing, more empathy. That would really benefit here. In a world of lies and deception, is music the best source for Information? Chiara: Yes! Ron: Wow. I guess it is one of the few good things that people do. Chiara: If they can keep doing it though. Ron: I mean, yeah. I find a lot of times music and arts in general are the only things that maintain a sense of integrity in terms of talking about what's going on, bringing joy to people, all that stuff. Yeah. It’s vital. It's not treated as such, but yeah. Even like, if you're making music for TikTok. I just think music in general, it's just like a generally positive, harmless thing that humans do that is pretty much always good, no matter how bad it is. I feel like it's pretty important in general. Photo by Taylor Monica Do you think violence is a necessary component to revolution? Chiara: This guy is good! Ron: I think it's gotten to a point where I just think some people need to have the shit beat out of them. You know, like you can be cool and peaceful-protesting, but like, with some of the people that you're dealing with nowadays, these just psychos. I just think they all need to be slapped at this point. And I ultimately don't think that it's ever really the best answer, but I don't know, some people are just too far gone. People that are just like, perpetuating terrible shit in this country. You just need to get your ass beat. But how do you do it? You know? Cause I, I'm assuming the people you're talking about are the ones with the guns. So how do you, as Ron Gallo, form a militia? Through music? Ron: I might be completely overly optimistic, but some of the ways that I write about this stuff, there's like a deep-down goal. Maybe you can hit people in between the eyes with ideas, make them see themselves and not like what they see. And then they can have a little moment where they’re like, ‘What's wrong with me?’ Yeah, I don't know. I like to try to do that because I do think that's probably more effective than physical violence. You can try to use wit, but at the same time it's so frustrating because they're so far gone in their concept, so there's really nothing that you can say. But I like to believe that there is. Chiara: We made the song “Big Truck Energy”, and he didn't even wanna put it on the record. And this is the best song. It's gonna hurt in the right way. So many people over the internet share so much hate. Ron: So what she's talking about is the label washed to try out this TikTok thing where they share that song and then try to just blast it out to the truck community and just see if it can reach. So they did, and it did. But the the beauty of it-and it's kind of an answer to your question-is that there's nothing in that song that directly addresses a specific person. It's just telling a story. It’s in a story format, yet all of these people felt attacked. It wasn't about them, but they felt like it was. And that I think there's something there. Where if you can make something that's not confrontational, but disguise and then make somebody see themselves in it, yeah, maybe there's some magic there. If they're smart enough to be like, ‘Wait, why does this bother me? Because I’m a fucking idiot. What’s my fucking problem?’ That's where I feel like maybe there's something. And that's what I always like striving for, but it's just difficult. At one point I was like, ‘Let's just stop doing this.’ because there’s death-threats and really scary shit. Chiara: Somebody tagged me in a comment saying, ‘I wish I could drive you over multiple times.’ With a truck, right? Ron & Chiara: Yeah. Ron: And this is where I go back to some people just need to be slapped. They just need a wake up call in some way. But until then, we try with words. ****************************** Ron and Chiara went on to disintegrate notions and expectations with a strident set that toppled from jest to noise to concentration to even vulnerability. And a message of both Ron’s and the music’s own was made clear throughout. I laughed during the “Audience Solo” I stood perfectly still during the lamentations, and I balled up a tight fist in righteous victory when the last chord was struck. Ron Gallo is back from a strange trip and he’s better than ever. Look him in the eyes and you’ll see more than a quaint individual, you’ll see a man who’s traded coconut water for the fountain of youth; not fearing death nor seeking immortality but enjoying the health of life in those strange beats they come traveling in. (To be published in Record Plug Magazine)

Photo by Ky Vollmar The Slaps are the Midwest's biggest smile. Real sharp and kind-like, sweet with tobacco and cola. They’re young and they possess a Golden Corral appetite for their craft and its explorations. The Slaps truly don’t consider things that might attach to limits. And for that they can fly. The Slap boys; Rand Kelly (gtr), Ramsey Bell (bass), and Josh Resing (drums) that is, come from many places and they take and leave many parts of themselves along the way. From Kentucky to Chicago and back, with some even laying stead in Atlanta. That makes them local boys in my book, at least till that lease runs out in October. There’s a perfect blend of Midwest stock and southern charm to The Slaps. The music started some point a ways back and it doesn’t ever stop. From pop-adjacent indie to post punk with all the starts and stops to life-considering journeys of frozen still balladry: The Slaps are fishing for every human emotion, attempting to build a lodge and sweat it out of ya then and there. The music is now growing new limbs with far reaches in improvisation and avant-garde fencing. And that’s all there is to it, a world of opportunities Slapping like waves against the napes of three imaginations. Hear it come crashing down. The Slaps joined great friends Lunar Vacation for the last of their two shows of 2022. 'Twas a great double feature run at The Masquerade. Both sets were incendiary, and it’s times like these that I miss from times like now. The Slaps boyos were nice enough to gather after the shows for a little bull-shoot. We talked about gardens and bodies and mourning and the military. About what the audience is owed and the blood of Mick Jagger. Borat would say it was very nice. This interview was very prophetic. Things kept being right on track. There was some telepathy going on. It was a real good jam. Made us all real giddy. ——————————————————————— I wanna talk about this almost militant dedication to craft y’all have when it comes to rehearsals and sonic exploration. Where did this stem from? Kelly: Josh comes from a practiced, thing. Resing: Militant. Militant for sure. I come from drum lines, which is military. When we practice, I have been conditioned to approach it in that way. It’s serious, but in the same stroke the music can be silly. Kelly: It matters that the song is performed correctly. Even though we do a fair amount of improvisation, it’s good to project the song how it sounds in your head and get as close to that as you can. Do you find it all sounds the same in your heads from the beginning or do you have to work to find a common path? Bell: It’s never graspable, but it’s never a let down. Kelly: We do compromise. Just because when we play together, that’s not just three frequencies, but three instruments playing all these frequencies that are colliding. Something that you never expected to hear is gonna happen in that space, physically. We work on songs in hundreds of different ways. Bell: I feel that our practices have been less like: “Let’s nail this song”. We practice more with writing, jamming different structures, seeing what works, and then playing that a few times to lock it in. I feel like our practices are more like a show. It’s definitely not intense. How are slaps songs a different body from the bodies who create them? Resing: I was actually talking to my parents a little bit about this. And something I didn’t come through on was this continuous idea of disassociation in our generation. Which is that you can still be yourself without being completely on track with your history. That’s liberation within our age group, writing songs that aren’t necessarily you, but they live within a different space. Because if you look at things as a single root coming from a tree, you can have different branches and stuff, but fuck, maybe I’ll just grow a different plant. It’s more about a garden than it is one rose bush. Bell: With the songs being their own entities, for me there will be a demo, and then we’ll all try and play it and it’ll inherently change be that now there’s two other parts. Or the whole feeling of the song will change. Like the last song we played tonight. There’s a transition period of months or years where you know it’s not right and you’re hunting for the right way to do it. In that way the song feels like it’s own thing and you’re trying to crack the code of what it actually is. Resing: The essence. Do you think the essence is something that is always there? Before the song has even been conceived? Resing: It’s already alive. We’re giving it a full life. I think that’s the truth. A lot of times a song gets invented and you wanna make sure it runs its course. And that’s kind of our job. I have a verse that I like. I have a structure of music that I like. Now how do I make it live? Our job is to make it live over a period time. Our general progress comes from time and patience. Honestly there haven’t been a lot of songs where we sit down and go “This is what we’re doing”. It hasn’t happened honestly. Kelly: It’s a timestamp really. The song is a place you were feeling in the moment, and even though you’re still playing those songs, you may not feel that way anymore. It doesn’t have to be part of you anymore necessarily. Everyone changes every day, every second. Do you ever find yourself mourning past iterations or decisions you’ve made sonically? Resing: For a fact. I sing songs and I’m like: “I don’t feel that way anymore”. But I know the crowd may feel that way. That’s when songs have a life outside of us. Kelly: I know Josh does. Because people wanna hear “Being Around” all the time. Maybe it’s not for me to speak of lyrically. But I just know that we can’t reach for that energy. Everyone wants to hear “Being Around” because it’s a great song, but that’s a lot of emotional effort and stuff you gotta dig up. You can try to look at it objectively, but that’s hard to do as an artist. Perhaps you have to relive some parts. Does any part of you feel like you owe it to the crowd to relive these certain things for the sake of playing the song to them? Even if it’s painful for you? Bell: We talk about that a lot. Like what is the audience owed? When people yell “Oh we wanna hear this song” do we owe it to them? They paid to be here. They paid to see us. We wanna play new songs obviously, because it’s fun and exciting to still try and work them out. Sometimes it feels good, even if we don’t wanna do it, to play the songs they wanna hear. But sometimes if it’s not there, then we’re dead on stage. Kelly: I think that’s how you claim agency as an artist. It’s about balancing pleasing the fans that have supported you and taking charge and trying something new. Every band has to play a song live for the first time, try to break that ice. That’s how you get better as a band. And sometimes it doesn’t hit. It could not hit in Atlanta and then we go play it in Utah and people go off. It’s risky. Bell: It’s also a unique position we’re in because when these old songs that are popular and people really like came out, we were touring and playing them live all the time. And now we’ll tour a bunch and we have twenty new songs. And damn, you shoulda seen us three years ago if you wanted to hear that song. Which is no fault to them, they probably didn’t know about us three years ago. But we did play those songs a bunch. In that sense it feels like we laid our ground work on it and those people got to experience it. But I always wonder about those legacy bands like The Rolling Stones, like how many times are those people going to see The Rolling Stones play the same set? Obviously a bunch. I mean I wouldn’t really wanna see a band play the same set two years apart. Resing: If you see Journey and they don’t play “Don’t Stop Believing” did you really see Journey? That’s the culture we live in. Kelly: If you see Buckcherry and they don’t play “Crazy Bitch” did you really see Buckcherry? Now that Charlie Watts is dead are you really seeing The Stones? Kelly: And Mick Jagger’s had his blood fully replaced. Bell: but I think it’s cool with The Dead, those songs always lived. Kelly: And you saw it because it was different every night. Resing: They set it up like that. They had the foresight. Kelly: I think that’s what it’s all about. They planter the perennials dude. Bell: I think you just gotta hope people are excited about the band in its current state and what they’re playing live. If they get to see the song that they really like live, that’s special, but hopefully they’re really excited about seeing anything live. Like us as artists and not as a song. Kelly: We’re not a machine. Photo by Asa Harding

This and all subsequent professional photos by Taylor Bonin Brooks Nielsen was in The Growlers. There I said it. Now the rest of this piece is to be about everything Brooks Nielsen is beyond The Growlers, which is, as you’ll find, a whole hell of a lot. Now here’s a history lesson: Brooks Nielsen announced a solo career in the lingering days of the year of our lord 2021. He then proceeded to churn out singles like butter, totaling eight songs in anticipation of his debut album One Match Left, a 20-song odyssey through the life and times of the man himself. With this release came many a revelation. Brooks assumed agency and pulled back the curtain himself, giving us a carnivalesque look at the naked forms in all their truth. Brooks is one full heck of a great businessman who after everything still has a core team of people surrounding him who look out for his interests, even protecting him from anything with potential for nefariousness. He’s found an intense love from family and friends to envelope himself in, and one morning he woke up and told himself it was time for that love to be shared with you. Brooks Nielsen began building the band again. Brooks saw himself in a very unique position that can be found on fond eyes if gazed upon in the right light. He has the opportunity to rough it out. He’s taken a do-over and turned it into a do-different, going through the process of a new artist with the knowledge of a seasoned scene veteran. He’s using his opportunities and imagination to craft an entirely fresh and exciting perspective to his repertoire. He held some tryouts and got himself a gold bar of talent. The Brooks Nielsen outfit is composed of Jazz musicians and kids who don’t remember 9/11. The band has a competitive nature and to witness it live is to see an entirely new landscape occurring right in front of you. There’s hills and rocks and water and fucking grass and everybody’s a newborn baby and we’re digging it and making sandcastles just to give them up to the tide a moment later. The world and all its goddam time is fleeting and this band braves the layers of all continuum for a sound that taffies the ears with delicious melody. Brooks Nielsen’s name may be on the marquee but it’s never been more about the music. Many a time he just takes a step back and lets them go for it, whatever that may be. No one knows and it shows real nice-like. When it was announced that Brooks was leaving California and taking this troupe all over the country I knew I was going to the nearest date. That turned out to be Asheville, North Carolina at Salvage Station, a former junkyard where the weirdos still show up from time to time for swap meets. That night I saw Brooks Nielsen for what felt like the first time, even though I’d seen him in past incarnations many times throughout the years. He both had the spectacle of a star and the earth-while nature of a fellow human being capable of approach and understanding. I’d observed Brooks and his company for the entire day. Through sound checks, talking with him and the team here and there, all the way up until the show, which I confidently say was the greatest performance I’ve ever seen of Brooks Nielsen. The setlist seamlessly glides from new and old material with the constant sensation that this shit can go anywhere, even off the rails if it wants to. The unpredictable feel is quenched by the sweat of dedication and fueled by a useful fear. There’s an intense desire within all of the players. A desire to take these songs to a justice like never before. Throughout it all is a reverence for all involved before and after the last note is struck and those lights turn down and the night grows old and you with it. When it’s over there’s still the chance at a ring in your ears and a new sense of your self and those you love. When the show ended I asked Brooks if he wanted to talk on the record. He hadn’t given words to anyone since his former band became the old band. He later told me he felt comfortable enough with me to take a leap of faith and tell me his story. He fought the urge to assume something ill and he allowed himself to trust a stranger. The second we sat down, before I could press record he was already going. Brooks really needed to let it all flow and it did so continuously. I only asked a few questions. He was ready and had been waiting for me to come along for a long while. Brooks was ready to talk. I feel it is my responsibility to tell Brooks Nielsen’s story to the very best of my ability. Now that I’ve done and will continue to fight for that, Here is Brooks Nielsen, in his own words, with as few interruptions as possible: It's alright tell them how it is Even though it don't make you popular Sometimes you gotta be a dick You don't have to roll over Brooks began with talking about his fans and their proclamations of his music’s often life-saving effects: “Most people have a story. ‘I wanted to kill myself and then I heard your record’. And it’s hard for me to say the right things all the time. I wanna be helpful, but I’m not a pro. I hope it’s been good. I’ve said the wrong thing, I’m sure. Part of it is I get off stage and I’m high from being on stage and I hope I’m saying the right thing. It’s been some real shit. They recognize, ‘Oh you’ve been through some shit. You can help me’” I asked him if he thought the shit’s over or if he’s still in it. “I would say the shit’s over because I made a choice. It was only one guy in my band, and I was like, ‘You’re not a good person and I don’t wanna be with you anymore’. And that was my choice to make. And you know I’m not gonna sit and wait for one person to grow up. I have a family and I need to take care of them. And I need to find out if I want to do it? Do I like doing it? There’s so many times when I’m watching another band that’s just so lame. And I’m like, ‘Is that what I am?’ ‘Do I wanna do this?’ ‘Am I a tool?’ And I decided I’m just gonna start writing and I’m gonna call people I know that just love music entirely. Not like they’re the best writer or they’ve had success. Just a couple of my friends that I know they love making music everyday, that attitude. I want to write again. Before that was me alone, playing piano, writing, trying to play guitar, embarrassed. Like ‘What? I can’t believe I don’t know how to do this.’ Hitting the pavement everyday, trying to write. I had to do that to get that shit off my chest. To let out dark thoughts and dark feelings and stuff I wouldn’t want to put on a record. And then I finally hit two boys of mine I just knew loved making music. And it was like gangbusters. BOOM! Taking off. "Where I was being daddy all day: good night, tuck you in, smooch, and then going downstairs and being by myself. You know, your vocabulary is like hanging out with a toddler all day. And then you go downstairs and you’re like: how do I do this? I light a candle, say a prayer basically, and I pay attention to myself, I start thinking again. And it was rapid fire. It was like oh my god! You know what it is? I like writing songs! I enjoy it. I love it. There’s a passion. And the next day is like, I gotta get up and take the kids to school and give a bit of a report to my wife. And sometimes you fail, you don’t make anything out of it. And that’s not a good report, ‘Ah I just sat in front of my desk and didn’t do anything’. Well that’s how I am. You have to go every night, hit it, and see what you can get. Like a diver or something, scan it and see what you get, show up every night. And it started to pay off. "I loved mining through my mind. At a certain point it got from like 30 songs to 40, 50, 60. And like, I could hit a hundred. And that was my goal. Believe me it lost quality, but that was a goal I had. And there were people believing in me. That I could do it. That I could do it with anybody. That feeling, you know? And through the record-making and at the end of the record the next thing was like: we should just go and play! Otherwise, what are you thinking about? I’m not looking for help or people to amp me up or whatever. The only world I know is just go and play and share and be yourself, as much as you can on the road. So it’s been that way. This whole time. …And you haven’t even asked one question.” I prompted him to tell me who Brooks Nielsen is if he can’t tour, if he can’t release music. “A really happy, chill person. I’m getting to relive shit through my kids. My son is taking it on. I’m not forcing it, I would never do that. We skateboard, we surf, we make music. He’s a natural musician. It’s all good. I love being alone with my wife. Because I’ve been with her this whole time. And I’ve been leaving her, you know? So it was a breath of fresh air to be home with my family. So there’s no complaint there. But at some point I realized, well, what am I doing with my life? I need to find out if I like this. And goddam I just love making something from scratch with people that you love. It’s a very happy thing. To be honest, family life is very hard work compared to the road. The road is easy.” I asked him about how now, in his very own solo project, he’s putting more emphasis on the band than ever before. I compelled him to speak to that effect. “That was a goal immediately. It was something that felt like suffering for me, to be the only one that was serious and always cared, always thinking about the audience and knowing what I do for a living. I’m here to perform. To entertain. It goes both ways. The reason my old band was cool was because we didn’t know what we were doing. At the same time, fear will stop you in your tracks. You cannot improve. You can’t do better. If you’re afraid to go on stage and know your thing, know what you’re doing, then you start to self-medicate. I’m now in the mindset to not be surrounded by people like that. We made that conscious choice. At what point are we rock and rollers or jazz players? I wanted people that were more confident in what they do, and so jazz players just sort of naturally happened. It makes a massive difference. If you go up on that stage scared, it’s going to affect everything. How to have a good time, how to make that hit the audience in the front row and the last and the next row. There was some planning to that, and I can’t believe how good it worked out. Because I have a whole new love for people that care about what they’re doing. They came here for a reason. They wanna play. They wanna perform. They want to entertain. That’s very special.” I asked Brooks Nielsen how he’s able to turn fear into a motivator. “I first learned about fear from the ocean. And the ocean is terrifying. And there is a group, and you want to trust people. You can be good at some things, you can be good at riding a wave. But you might not be good when the swell rises up so high it’s death-defying. There’s that pressure, and I just kinda went with it. I would ride waves I didn’t want to ride. If shit gets scary, you gotta put one foot in front of the other. You gotta go. It’s also hard to talk about because that’s long gone for me. There was no talking about it. People were scared and they made life decisions that had nothing to do with me. Now the fear is gone and there’s a natural and immediate conversation that makes music quickly on stage translate to an audience. It’s a shame. I loved things early on, hiring people that have no idea how to play an instrument just cus I liked them. But they actually suffered. Because I didn’t realize they were going through hell. And they had to self-medicate and things to deal with that. Now I know I don’t wanna put someone in that place. This band worked hard to be in this position to where they don’t think about it. And so they don’t stress me out either. I get to come up with this confidence that I’m being supported. And I enjoy it. I really enjoy it. We got this rhythm that I never knew. I feel like I earned it. Because it was not fun for a long time. They were like ‘Can I see the setlist? Are there any surprises?’ Surprises? We checked all our shit. These guys are like ‘Should we do something new?’ It’s huge. It’s huge musically to approach it that way. I made this band because I wanna be the weakest link. I wanted all these guys to be really good, and to make me rise up. And it’s definitely been that way, but it’s just much more loving.” Now the conversation and with it our piece was reaching a conclusion. I asked Brooks if he had anything he would like to say to end the page. He felt the culmination of his time with old bands and the events which surrounded them in the wavering public eye. He had been honest with me and we’d built a trust in such a short time. He could see a point of closure in himself and the past with our conversation. Upon this realization he wrapped up our time together with this: “So I’m back out here, starting over. And I like starting over. I remember starting from nothing, and I want to start from nothing. I don’t wanna do anything but play. And I think I’m old school but can we maybe just play shows? If you build it, they will come. But I’ve been a little untrusting to do any type of interview because we fell into some circumstance that was out of my control. I met you earlier. I saw you in the crowd. I’m gonna be trusting again. I don’t wanna be some weird, dark, antisocial person. I’m not like that. But I’m glad you’re cool and thank you.” This is it, the tail end of the beginning for Brooks Nielsen. He’s juggled the fear and trust onto terms he can understand, those that which are his own. This first tour was a trial, a way of seeing if this ship can float. Well, he has now embarked on his second tour, the ship’s even going overseas. The flag is flying real high now. Now’s the middle of the road. Less fearful but uncomfortable and uncertain in its own way. There’s a clear fork in it and it's up to you which way it takes him. Brooks Nielsen finds his comfort in you, performing his music on stage. He’ll be here on Friday, April 14th at Terminal West. Come hear what he has to say. Published by Record Plug Magazine April 2023

This and all subsequent photos by Julia Khoroshilov Mattiel is keeping Atlanta weird. And the best kind of weird unfortunately is the kind that brings discomfort. The best kind of weird is something that doesn’t bounce back or play along. It doesn’t have a cadence that you can follow. The best kind of weird leaves you with a feeling of dissonance. This was a weird interview. When I got up to leave it, suddenly my left leg was three quarters of an inch longer than my right. I ended up posted against a mail bin with my arms extended, begging for someone to pick me up and carry me to my Buick. It threw my cute equilibrium off and now I can’t listen to the news because it all sounds like shit. And now I walk with a limp. But you know what? That’s what I get for trying to put weird in a box. I thought I had Mattiel pegged man. I mean Bullseye. I’d seen Mattiel pretty early on and again throughout her career. When she takes to that stage she catwalks all over it. It felt like watching a pearl from an oyster. She radiates kasbah confidence through snapping black eyes. She’ll turn any viewer into a subterranean homesick foot fetishist with the wave of her neon wand. I was hooked. I mean line and sinker. But as I found out that day outside Aurora Coffee, Mattiel has a twin. They are identical to the untrained eye, but one only comes out at night. I’d never seen the Mattiel that quietly approached me like a straight-A sweater vest called to the Principal’s office. This Mattiel was different. You might mistake her for a dandelion. My mind immediately racked and tried to make the necessary computations. I tried to backtrack, rethinking the prepared questions I cling to for dear breath in favor of some more tame ones. If only I’d asked her where her favorite steak was in the city. I could do three thousand words on Mattiel’s favorite steak in the city. But woe was me. I’d fucked up. I mean big time. All the quirky Wes Anderson pastel questions seemed like tea time prostitution now. And I had to ask them anyway. Had I known to insist on a Mattiel interview after a show then this piece would have gone a lot different. That’s because I would have been interviewing a different person. And it’s not their fault. It’s mine. It’s mine because I did what every journalist does but seldom gets caught for. I had made up my mind about the subject before the interview was even written. And when the questions you prepared for the prince of Persia are suddenly asked to the Martian ambassador you get a shit soufflé. So please forgive me for this piece’s lack of pastiche. I’m sure Creative Loafing will help you out of that ditch if you cup your hands under the right ass. *************************************** Mattiel Brown and Jonah Swilley sat at Aurora Coffee. I believe Jonah had some sort of pastry or breakfast sandwich along with what I can only assume was an iced coffee. They were gone upon my arrival. Do you ever find yourself worrying about how people will interpret something you’ve written? “No.” Mattiel and Jonah have been the team since her genesis as an unstoppable force. Mattiel would felt-pen the lyrics while Jonah and company would dig in the tunes. People have came and went. But Jonah and Mattiel have remained strong. “You described it recently as being like Seinfeld”, Mattiel says, looking to Jonah with a quaint eagerness. Jonah elaborates, “I look at it like, if Mattiel is Seinfeld, then I’m the Larry David of the thing.” They want to express that though the band shares the name of its singer, they’ve always operated as a group. And where the group may have started as more of a professional collaboration between Brown and Swilley, it has blossomed into a tightly bonded friendship. This new album is particularly indicative of this friendship. Just look at the cover, where Mattiel and Jonah embrace the kudzu as red leather-clad takes on the famous Grant Wood painting American Gothic. This is Georgia Gothic, and its stateliness works on more levels than one. “It was exclusively us, this record,” says Mattiel of her and Swilley when asked about the process leading to Georgia Gothic’s creation, “Just the two of us in a cabin in North Georgia that we rented for a week.” From there I pictured what weird ritual that might have been. Mattiel helped me out, saying, “[Georgia Gothic] exists because we didn’t get to tour in 2020. And we figured a lot of shit out. Jonah Built the studio. We recorded it in an old Dialysis center.” (Georgia Gothic: a love letter to Kidneys). Mattiel talks about “How the chips fell into place” and this album would not have happened had the touring of their second album (2019’s Satis-Factory) not been cancelled. And when the world sits you down in your chair like an angry parent to a restless tyke, you look around and appreciate the stillness. Mattiel did this, and they liked what they saw. They realized that now more than ever was the time to write about home. Do you think Bob Dylan will outlive us all? “No.” I asked her if there was a concept or an idea from Georgia Gothic that debut-album Mattiel wasn’t conscious of. I was again surprised when she told me that the mindset of debut album Mattiel is something she tries to harken back to. “I don’t want to be writing about anything based on what has happened thus far, as far as notoriety goes. Whatever that is. I want to remain in that childlike mindset, the same way I was when I wrote that debut record” (2017’s Mattiel). She did talk about how she’s grown lyrically within her own internal musings. And we can hear the product of all growth between these two through the new singles alone. They’re saying more through less. They speak volumes plainly. Anything y’all wanna plug for the record? “March 18th, Georgia Gothic out. Buy the fucking record.” ************************** Published in Record Plug Magazine April 2022

Photo by Hudson Mcneese Yeah, I’m getting older. I’ve come upon this moment of space and it’s like sitting on the floor with my knees pulled in. It always feels like morning. It’s kind of cold here and I can’t find reassurance. I look outside and I see the same thing across the way. The blinds are split like a gap in my teeth and I can see another cold soul mouthing the words of a song. It’s about kicking yourself for not appreciating this space you’re in. There’s a verse about how you thought this is what you were waiting for but once you got there you found that it meant starting over. And the hook is about clenching your teeth at the fact that you’re so much younger than everyone and asking yourself what right do you have to feel old in a land of deserted oceans and exploding quasars and Joy Division. And the bridge is clouded with walls you can’t see o’er. But all the while the chorus is going along. I can’t make the lyrics but I’d like to think it’s about harmony. The blinds drop and close their gap, and the door opens across the way. I see the cold soul with jangling keys and visible breath. I fancy a walk myself. As I’m putting my father’s jacket on and stepping out to greet my neighbor I see that we’re not alone. The block is full of cold souls with jangling keys and visible breath and knees pulled in and tacky dinnerware and nicotine and dead house plants and bad haircuts and pit-bulls and infinite jest. We’re all headed down the block and down that block is a way that takes you far the fuck away from the slow cold and the doubt. I ask one of the souls warming up next to me where we’re headed. And they respond with some smart ass remark like: “I think we’re all in need of a vacation.“ So fly me to the moon. Drop me on the sun through a pez dispenser. Buy me a one way ticket to Kearny, Nebraska. It don’t matter anyhow. Just make sure it goes fast and has heat. And Lunar Vacation is: Grace Repasky: Guitar/Vocals Maggie Geeslin: Guitar Matteo De Lurgio: Keys Ben Wulkan: Bass Connor Dowd: Drums Photo by Violet Teegardin *********************************************** How does time and space affect an album? That is to say-how does the moment in which you’re creating an album and the setting that you’re occupying affect the creation of the music? Maggie: I feel like, for this album, both time and space did a lot. We made it in July of 2020. Everyone was in lockdown mode so physically it felt very limited and the environment of the whole world confined us to sit down and make something. And the studio itself was pretty small too-Big Trouble in Atlanta. It almost squeezed us to get things out. Would you agree Grace? Grace: I think so. Also compared to our past recordings, the two EP’s were recorded in small houses or a really stinky room and that’s not really ideal. I mean, it kind of is but it wasn’t really ideal in the momo. Maggie: We never sat down to be like ‘this is the record. And we’re gonna spend this amount of time on the record.’ So I feel like all of the limitations definitely lent us to hone in more on particular themes and sounds and textures. And also push ourselves. Since we were relocating ourselves to an actual studio and working with and actual producer and an engineer instead if doing it all ourselves on our own time, I feel like it was an unfamiliar environment which made us more comfortable in taking risks. Grace: And working on a time restraint that wasn’t self-imposed was really cool. It was a complete one-eighty from what we’ve done. We were definitely a little nervous going into it because it’s very daunting. Even though we’ve been playing a long time and writing music, we still are very new to the album recording process. Which is pretty funny because we’re like six years old. It’s kinda fun, like learning to ride a bike. Do you believe your creative space, be it mentally or physically, needs to be cleansed in order for you to create or can you thrive on a chaotic mindset and environment? Grace: I think that we’ve grown to be able to wrote in chaos. We’ve written with different people and also different settings and there’s always some kind of beneficial outcome, whether that’s a finished song or just the experience. But I think when it comes down to refining and honing in on the lyrics and stuff, that’s more of a cleansing thing. I usually have to be in my own personal vibe or go somewhere like my room or my closet and sort it out there. That’s the only thing I can’t do-yet-in chaos. Maggie: So much of this record was pieced together. The songs were bits and pieces sown together from the five years we’ve been a band. And some were created in the studio. And I feel like those bits that were birthed were probably from a more cleansed and calm environment. And then orchestrating it all together can feel a little chaotic, in a good way though. We really like working with a lot of people. At some points we had like six or seven people in the studio and we really trusted each other and we really trusted just throwing out ideas and seeing what stuck. I don’t think it was a streamlined process. But with Grace I feel like the lyrics were kind of the last thing that were finished for every song. Grace had to go get in the zone, which I think is really good. Grace: Even though I trust everyone and am comfortable around people, I still get nervous to be super vulnerable and lyrically creative, because I don’t think that I’m that good with words. So I usually like to go off by myself and spit out whatever, then refine and bring it to everyone and be like ‘What do you think about that?’. Do you feel the need to create in familiar places? Maggie: I personally like making stuff in my room, which is a very familiar place. I feel like that’s where a lot of my ideas are birthed. And also I always have a journal with me. That’s a familiar place even though I can write in it from anywhere. Having all of my ideas in one place is nice. I think because we’ve been in high school and college the whole time we’ve been in this band, we’ve kind of been tied to Atlanta. We could never really go off for months and write in other places. So I feel like we’ve always been in a familiar place. Grace: I find that whenever I move back to my parents house after living somewhere for a few months or a year I always can write pretty well. I think the whole record was started and finished in my childhood bedroom. Even though we were living in two different spaces. We’ve lived in dorms and a house and now we live in an apartment. I also went on this one week thing to go write and it kind of worked but not that well. But when I have an empty house and it’s just my childhood room, I feel pretty safe. Maggie: I feel like every time you’ve moved back home you always send me bangers. Grace: Maybe there’s an energy there. Maggie: That’s where Lunar started. Grace: That is where Lunar started, but I have to channel that energy inside me rather than in the space. That’s for down the road How would you go about that? Grace: Honestly just making more music in more spaces to get out of my comfort zone. It’s a process of learning how to be vulnerable from the genesis of your ideas. It’s not about going off and getting the stupid ideas out by yourself then coming back with something acceptable. It’s about trusting whoever with the first thing that comes out of your mouth. Violet Teegardin Inside every fig is a dead wasp; this is your debut album. I’d like you to speak to it’s creation. And now that’s it’s had time to breath I’d like your honest feelings about it, no matter how simple or complex. Maggie: I think with the creation part, it changed the way that I approach things and the way I make music with people. It really helped all of us to wholly collaborate with each other. Not just meaning that we sit down and contribute equally every time, but knowing each other intimately enough to really give and take from each other and acting as a unit instead of just playing. That’s how we operated before. It taught us how to feel while making things. We were very much a live band before. Our studio time was fragmented that the process didn’t feel as sacred until we made this album. Grace: I agree with what you said. Probably because we talk about it all the time. I think we all grew a lot as people, friends and musicians. It helped me sort out a lot of loose ends that I had for the past couple years. In a weird way it feel like a big weight has been taken off my shoulders. It was like a chip I’ve been carrying of bitterness and sadness got released into this record in a good way. It holds a lot of feelings from everyone. It’s like a big pot of feeling… a big cauldron… soup…. But now that it’s out [gestures camera to Science Breakfast, One of the greatest cats of our time] WE are really proud, and we’re kind of ready to go be a band again. I have like one week left of college I’m ready to graduate and get my life started. Do more band stuff. Maggie: It’s definitely weird releasing it now. The only feedback we’ve gotten has been in the digital world. We’ve played two release shows, but we’re not really in band mode yet. We’ve been doing school and working. I think there will be some laden excitement. Because right now I have to fit in interviews between writing papers. Or a show after I finish class. So I think it will be really nice to go out into the world and play it. You’ve been releasing wide as an outfit since 2017. With two much-loved EPs to show for it. Did you maybe feel like your music was meant for more concise releases in the forms of singles and EPs? And now with Inside Every Fig being the first full length after creating for five years, what has changed in the music for it to deserve a full offering? Maggie: I think the band dynamic changed. We’ve had some member changes. And I honestly think we didn’t feel secure enough as a unit to put out a debut album and say ‘This is us’. Obviously one album doesn’t define people but we’ve always cherished albums growing up and we wanted to wait until everything felt strong to release a debut album. And we put out EP’s and stuff just because we were scraping for material to keep playing shows. But we never sat aside the time to craft a whole album. Grace: We tried to make our first album in early 2019 and it was a DISASTER. It really boils down to us as people and how our group interacted. We never really talked about it until we made this record, how we had not-the-best band dynamic. Now we’re all besties, would die for them. We’ve reached a whole new level of love appreciation. I think partly because we were so young and unsure if ourselves as people and musicians. It was really hard to make stuff because it was so personal and self-serving. We didn’t really have the one goal of what’s the best for the song, what’s the best for Lunar. All of us are here. Lunar’s up there. What are we doing to serve the song? None of us had that mindset. We just didn’t know and we were trying to figure it out. So it made trying to make a record so difficult and taxing. I remember we went to this one AirBNB in Richmond somewhere on a farm and we wanted to book three days and make the album and record. And it was so awful. It was not fun and it was hostile and it sucked. We weren’t listening to each other’s ideas and I honestly think it was a big ego thing for all of us. We were just young. I don’t know. That was it. Maggie: We didn’t have any friends making albums. We didn’t know how to go about it. Grace: Over time when we met the right people and we really solidified our dynamic it felt right to make a record. Before it didn’t feel right yet because we’re all very feelings based. As you can tell we use the word ‘feel’ or ‘vibe’ or whatever it’s all about ‘How does this feel?’. The music just didn’t feel right. It was disappointing and not really us. But then we took a year-long break and all went back to school and figured our life out. And then we got back and made the record. Now it’s smooth sailing. That was a really long answer. Maggie: Short answer: we were young and didn’t know. You once donned your music as swimming pool pop? Do I have that correct? This is no-doubt a subgenre of bedroom pop. Do you believe this is a sound that the artist grows and matures from? This is not to discount the genre nor the music that comes from it-which I value greatly- but would you say it’s a jumping off point for artists who have more to give? Grace: Oh yeah. I think it’s definitely a starting point, but it gets a little muddy if you stay in that world. If it’s just continually like jangly guitar and synth and reverb vocals for like five years, seven years, ten years; it kinda gets old. But I think a lot of people start off that way and get their foot in the door with shows and genres and even just meeting other friends who make music. I think that’s when you really find-not your sound, because that’s really definitive to say-but I think it’s good to go outside and explore. There’s a lot of good music in that world, but I don’t think we’re in that anymore. We’re trying go more into rock. Maggie: I feel like when that boom really happened-which I feel like it’s not really happening anymore or maybe we don’t really care about it-it showed who the cool songwriters were. You could make a song with such limited resources. It’s a good starting point but it’s never really the music we ever looked up to. Grace: I feel like it’s past it’s time. It had a moment. Now it’s all singer-songwriter solo artist. I don’t know what the next moment is gonna be but it’s gonna be exciting to find out. Maggie: I feel like all of the good songwriters sort of cut through any genre. Running along the same lines, is the scene that birthed you something you will inevitably grow beyond as your musical career progresses or is there way to keep a perspective and presence in the scene irreverent of your present sound? Maggie: I feel like the term ‘Scene’ is kinda hard because it makes me think of the Atlanta scene, but we were also playing in other states so young that I feel like other bands from other scenes influenced us. Obviously we have friends in the Atlanta music scene, but to be honest we ever really felt tied to it. We didn’t really grow up and even know there was a scene until after we’d been playing for a while. Because no one in our high school played in a band. We had to discover it after the fact. It was so nice to play with the same people and there’s definitely some influence in your environment. But we never felt tied to any particular scene. Grace: And when we first started playing shows it was usually with other men, which is fine, but there was a very limited amount of young women playing shows. So it was always Maggie and I that were the token two girls on the bill. And we were sixteen and getting shit from the door people. I feel like that also has something to do with it because there was not a lot of people that I could really relate to. People like to discount you when you make music and you’re a girl. I just think, when we were playing shows, there weren’t a lot of bands or musicians that had girls in them. Which I think could have been very vital for us being tied to. But also we could have just been not in the same scene as other women playing shows. Is there anything y’all would like to end with? Anyone to shout out or anything you wanna plug? Maggie: Make sure you eat today. Drink some water today. Look up. Look down. Look all around. Grace: Everyone stay safe and happy and healthy. What’s another mom-send-off thing to say? Science Breakfast: Meow *********************************************** Can you get to that? We’re all trying to in this new year. I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for. I’m searching for a haystack in a landfill. If I don’t die and my favorite pair of jeans are still in tact maybe I’ll give you a call and we can talk about it. Or maybe we can just sit around and do nothing. Just like last year. And the goddamned year before that! We’re just kids after all. Hudson Mcneese Published in Record Plug Magazine January 2022

Photo by Andy White Few bands are worth traveling up to Asheville to see hours before a deadline. This is one of those few. I had to haul ass back home after the show and type this up while our editor-in-chief jammed his forearm into the printing press to prevent the new issue from running away from this piece. I can hear his inked screams from my house. The arm is surely breaking now so I better make this quick. Or maybe the damage has been done and I can take my time thanks to Kip’s Herculean sacrifice. Tonstartssbandht (Say the name however you fucking want. It’s a word that the two brothers from Orlando, Andy and Edwin White, made up. Though it usually goes one of two ways: Tahn-Starts-Bandit or the equally valid Tahn-Starts-Band. There you have it. Now you can quit having a stroke.) are one of the greatest things going on right now, and they’re a secret kept far too well. Consider this a tell-all. The music is more of a moment. It’s a shifting particle that expands into a ribbon with no beginnings and surely no means of an end. It’s like watching an hourglass in zero gravity. Time stands still. And you may never leave it. Good riddance I say. I’m happy here. Well-to-do. When I first heard their last album Sorcerer I think I could remember my birth. I was a rainbow coming out of a dark cloud. I turned around and waved goodbye to the storm. You sit back and slap your knee thinking worriedly that this band can’t just be two brothers. And maybe it’s not. It’s one thing. An entity that controls the weather and translates space to song. And it has all our souls in cradled orbit. Now they have a new record out called Petunia. They played it all last night in Asheville at The Grey Eagle. I don’t remember a roof or a floor to the place now that I think about it. Really unbelievable stuff. Like riding the pyramids of Giza through the sky like the flying ace. After their set we arranged their equipment in a nice pile and watched it from a picnic table as I asked them some questions for RP. Here are a few of those now… This and all subsequent photos by Z Staehling *************************************************************************** Andy White: Guitar Edwin White: Drums I understand that Petunia-Which is out now off Mexican Summer and available on all streaming platforms and for physical purchase through the website- is the first Tonstartssbandht album that was created in one place at one time. How was this conventional method of recording music unconventional for Tonstartssbandht? Andy: I feel like over the years when we were recording, at first we were living apart- different cities, different countries- and we would meet in either Montreal or New York to to write and record at our respective apartments. Then after a while we would record on the road or in between tours in whatever space was available to record in. And from all those recordings we would put together a record. There’s no record of ours where every song was recorded in the same space or in one chunk of time, right? Edwin: Yeah it was Patchwork. Quilt. Hodgepodge; whenever we were visiting each other. Or record it separately and email Logic project files back and forth dozens of times and it was a mess. Andy: Petunia is singular to this process because we knew we had a bunch of material we were wanting to record in maybe the fall of 2020 when we could hunker down and do it. And then when everything shut down in March 2020 we knew we had a bunch of time on our hands and we’d spent a while sort of cleaning up and prepping our home studio. Edwin: I took to the garden and your project was getting the recording space ready. Andy: Yeah, and I took my time because what was the fucking rush? The music has this undeniable symbiosis between the two of you. The way y’all play off each other, it seems at times the band breaks away from roles and occupies a single consciousness. How does being blood brothers lend to this phenomenon? Edwin: I’d assume it’s a key component but it’s the only reality I know, being his brother. We have spent our entire lives together. Even when we weren’t living together or in the same city we talk everyday. Everything is very relatable because we are brothers in a truer sense of the word than just by blood we’re brothers in a shared perspective on life. It’s easy to share a feeling and a vibe with him on stage and in sound, to kinda know what we wanted to sound like next. It’s intuitive. Andy: It’s kind of easy to expect the next step from him because I kind of know what Ed likes or what he’d be stoked on. Edwin: And it’s not that you’re acquiescing to what you think they’ll like, it’s what you know we’ll both like. Because if a songs falling apart we know when to kill-switch. But we know when to press the gas pedal too. There’s been a clear shift in the last few years in y’all’s sound. Where you once started as a vocal-heavy and loop-laden noise pop band, you are now this entity that seems to create these shifting musical moments in time and space. Can you speak to this evolution? Edwin: For me I would say when it started those were the equipment pieces we had because, hell, when the band started I was in school. I didn’t have a drum kit. Andy was also in school. Andy: We both lived in dormitories. At the time the stuff we were writing and jamming on was stuff you could do in headphones. Edwin: Or even later just in small apartments still with not enough money to afford even the cheap monthly rental spaces in New York where you share with a bunch of people, not even knowing enough people because you’re still really young. You don’t have a big enough social network. And dude we had no money for many years. Andy: And with the earlier recordings there was still a little bit of guitar and drum stuff because when we did have an opportunity to record we always had stuff we wanted to write on that, but most of the stuff is just plugging your headphones in and singing into a mic. And whoever’s in your apartment just hears you going, ‘WAAAA OHH AHHHH’. Edwin: We had looping pedals and effects pedals and a sampler. Andy: That’s what we were writing and expressing ourselves on. I would always love to go back one day and have a set where it’s the old school shit. ‘Black Country’, ‘Andy Summers’, ‘5ft7’. Edwin: I had daydream in the shower the other day and it was like, ‘We’re doing a tour, and it’s just a sampler tour.’ And it says on the billboard poster, ‘Tonstartssbandht Performs An When and Dick Nights’. You never know it could happen. Later we moved into this space in Brooklyn-The Wallet-where the living room was gigantic. You could play music there pretty much anytime, and everyone there was musicians. So we all were allowed to practice. We could leave the drums set up and play the amps loud so that kind if started the Overseas era of the band. And playing way more guitar and drums and wanting to continue with that, push ourselves above the instruments. Andy’s always had this level if guitar playing, I wanted to push my drumming a little more and I think I’ve progressed with it bit by bit. I don’t consider myself a fully-trained drummer, I’ve just kind of learned on the fly playing with Tonstartssbandht for the last decade plus. Usually just playing live, making mistakes live. I don’t really like to practice. I’ve noticed an almost gospel or sermon like delivery to your music, and some of the songs are even seen as hymns to you. Are you religious at all? How does the spiritual world relate to music? Andy: I wouldn’t say I’m religious, in a religion sense. I’ve definitely been opening up my head to spirituality lately. Maybe it was more intuitive or unidentified through most of my childhood and into my 20’s. Edwin: I’ve had spiritual experiences with universal consciousness-very personal experiences-but nothing religious. It’s a thing I didn’t have until later in life. It’s funny, it’s a cliche, but there’s a lot if things that connect every single human and every single thing, and yeah, it affects my life, but I don’t have a religion or even like a God. Andy: Let’s say like a homie that walked up tonight was like ‘This one record speaks to me like this’ and they’ll say something that was not explicitly on the record and I’m like ‘That’s exactly what I was trying to say with that record. That’s fucking insane. How did you know that?’ And they’re just like ‘I listened to it’. Okay. Something is there. I’m not saying a record is a spiritual object but yeah somehow we’re all connected in someway and in that sense music is the same form of spirituality that makes people feel like there’s a presence among them that isn’t explicit or physical. Edwin: If it can bring you to a higher state of consciousness then it’s a religious experience. Weren’t you guys choir boys growing up? Edwin: We were! We traveled singing in churches. We were in a choir that was tied to a Episcopalian church but we didn’t go to church growing up. I joined it because in third grade my friend’s older brother was in it and they traveled and I wanted to travel so I tried out for the choir. And we had always been singers, singing to the radio and just singing to music at home. It probably helped train our voices on how to sing and the proper techniques. Boy choir helped hone our skills. And we’ve definitely used that. I mean, you’ve heard us, we sound like choir boys. We sing really high because we still have that range. Where do you think the subconscious mind belongs when it comes to the creation of music? Edwin: For me it’s essential for quality things that you feel good about. When you make something and you’re not vibing with it and you scrap it, maybe it’s because it wasn’t tapping into something deep like that. And if it’s powerful and you know it, when you love it then you wanna share it. So anything we release is something we’re proud of and like, and we think we did what we were trying to do with it and we connect with it-if we can listen to it and get psyched-that’ll be on the record. I feel like that comes from the subconscious, that well. Andy: Fishing into the well. On your last album Sorcerer and this new album Petunia I see this theme of ascension and maybe even the welcoming of death on songs like “Pass Away”. If I’m not misreading this, is Tonstartssbandht eulogizing something here? Andy: Honestly I feel like there have been some heavy losses in our lives. I try not to get too explicit or personally identifying in the lyrics, but I feel it’s cathartic in a way to sing about the losses in people around us. And on a personal level I have for many years struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts and stuff like that. Sometimes I feel like our lyrics are one hair away from being ‘THIS SONG IS ABOUT SUICIDE’ but there’s something kind of tacky or gauche about that I think. But ask any number of people you walk up to if you can get them feeling unguarded and being honest people think about that shit all the time man. I don’t think there’s anything wrong or exploitative about just being like ‘Yo what’s up, sometimes I feel like this’. Edwin: It’s honesty. If you can stand behind the message you can say whatever it is you need to say when it comes to art. Your music catches the fancy of countries most bands seem to miss on the map. Your band will hit the crannies of eastern Europe and even Asia because there are dedicated fans there. How are these spots different than the usual suspects of an American tour as far as the relationship between audience and musician and environment? Edwin: Our eastern Europe and Russia fan base is an integral part of the story of this band and it’s pretty freaking amazing and it’s been a beautiful ride meeting these people who’ve become some of our closest friends and it all started from them discovering us. I don’t know how, on the internet some way. Andy: To get us over there, like, to be fair we’re not a big band and they paid out pocket. The experiences for a small band like us playing in a far flung place like Eastern Europe or southeast Asia. If you’re there and you’re a small band that doesn’t have a big promo push or a lot of money behind you you’re probably there because somebody cares a lot about it. So I don’t know if it’s necessarily reflective of Eastern European culture or southeast Asian culture as much as it is a crew of people that are invested in bringing you- a broke band-somewhere and showing you a good time. And they put in money for it trying to throw great shows for people in town for a band that no one knows. Edwin: And we played the game because they also were like, ‘We can do it, but we’re gonna ride the crowded public trains overnight where you sleep with a bunch of strangers’. There’s no glitz to it. It was really hard. We didn’t have money for cabs so we’re talking about loading all your gear around on the subway. Andy: When you enter the country do not tell the police you’re playing shows. Edwin: But we were that broke too, that’s how we do it at home. So it was instant friends. Somehow the music they heard of ours told them something about us that they knew they had to see us and had to meet us. And I guess we filled their expectations and they blew our expectations out of the water because we had no idea what to expect. We were half-jokingly like ‘We’ll see if these tickets even work, if they let us on the plane.’ Are you kidding me? We’re going to Russian? We haven’t even played in Europe before and we’re going straight to Moscow. Andy: We did it three years in a row. Edwin: And I think playing over there helped establish a little bit of credibility to what we were trying to do as a serious band and helped to us get shows in Europe the following year so we were finally going to play Western Europe, places that people usually play first. So it was even easier this time. It was like a feedback loop. And it’s crazy that these kids from Russia that were like 20 years old had to take the first risk. Andy: And a lot of those folks when we met them were always insanely talented and now they’re like successful fucking artists. That whole crew, they’ve all gone off to do such incredible things. And I could walk into a fucking record store in Asheville and hear them playing. I know you spent a good portion your young adult years in Montreal where you met and became friends with people like Mac Demarco and Grimes. Edwin: We lived at the wallet for about three and a half years and Mac lived there for one of those years in the middle. But people lived there about four years before we moved in and about four years after. Some people thought it was our house or Mac’s house, we were just passers through. That place existed long before we got there and long after we all left. Andy: I remember the house bands being PC Worhsip, Ashcan Orchestra, The Dreebs, Guerilla Toss. A lot of people passed through there. People lived on our couch for years at a time, not even kidding. We had mushrooms growing out of a wall. It was basically a punk shit house and Edwin had his own bathroom and bedroom because of the way the rooms were cut out. Edwin: When we met Claire did she even make music? She was just an interesting artist girl, she wasn’t Grimes yet. Andy: Montreal is a big hub for young people in Canada. So you’d meet other kids from Vancouver and you’d meet Claire through them or you’d meet the people that ran Arbutus Records. Or just like all the writers and painters and shit. And Mac and the Edmonton kids: I remember hearing about Mac from his Edmonton friends before he ever moved there. Edwin: Montreal for Canada is like a New York City as a hub for drawing creative types but the rent is Baltimore rent. Because the rent laws have been really pro-tenant. It’s also beautiful, it’s like a European city in this weird fucked up way. It’s a great place to live but it’s cold as shit so you have to be ready for that. Andy I know you actually toured with Mac Demarco for a spell. And that period was known for being of some of his best live material. How did this come about? And how was riding shotgun different from taking the wheel on a tour? Andy: Awesome. It fucking ruled. Edwin: I’ve ridden in the van with them and it’s like a vacation. Andy: we’re all old friends so it’s always easy to tour with a homie. It was a great paying gig, a very equitable share. The way that band works financially, I really respected that a lot. I got to play with my closest friends and travel the world. It felt like there was less emotional heft. I didn’t have any of the feeling like I had tonight where one’s mind races. They’re there to see music you wrote. With Mac we were just his side band. The only thing you have to do is try to pull it off exactly how the head honcho wants and stay safe and have a blast. But it was very different than with Edwin. It was very fun and exciting but it wasn’t as rewarding in any of the same ways as playing with Edwin is. Edwin: Good save. Andy: And I also like Mac’s music. It wasn’t like I was a hired gun. I got to play music I dug, that I didn’t have any sort if attachment to. I just loved playing with these guys. What will become of the songs from Petunia along this tour? With they expand at all! Andy: I certainly feel like they will. The vocals will get tighter. And as they get tighter at the same time you’ll feel us grooving a little more and being a little more relaxed. Probably a bit of medley work. We tried out some stuff in rehearsal that we were stoked on but we were mostly focused on relearning the music we recorded almost a year and a half ago at this point. Edwin: and also we have to get used to playing on a stage again. The way it sounds to us on stage, it doesn’t sound like anything, it’s very different. And it’s about getting into that feeling where ‘this is what it sounds like, now how do I adjust to that?’ And that’ll take a little bit of time. Things will polish up with every gig. That’s just the way it is. Is there anything in particular you would like to end with? Anything or anyone you wanna shout out? Edwin: Very grateful to Mexican Summer for all the work they’ve done for us and with us the last two releases. Everyone that we work with there is so nice to work with and they put so much heart and soul into the music we make and getting it out to everyone. And leading from that: thanks to everyone that listens and is coming out to see us and is just supporting us even when we’re not doing anything for a year or two. Thank you for being there when we come back. Just know that we’re always very thankful for that. Andy: It means quite a lot. ********** This band is on the tip of Einstein’s stuck-out tongue, licks from relatively. So do yourself a favor and learn to stop worrying and love the bomb. Feast your eyes as I know they’re hungry. Published in Record Plug Magazine as part of the November 2021 issue

All photos by Carol Padgett @carolscaptures The last show I attended before we all went underwater was Black Lips at the Earl. I spit through those doors expecting to spend the next forty five minutes before the Lips went on nursing a Pabst and calculatingly shifting my weight to alternating legs, maybe with or without a polite expression. On quite the contrary I ended up thrashing around to a growing crowd and making it clear that the moth light geezers in the back wanted no part of this. The future was then apparently, because that was the first time I laid eyes on Upchuck, a beautiful siren with glazed tendrils that rip you into their midsts but never spit you out. Instead you slam around in a pitch black mouth covered head to toe in your higher power. The future is now once more as the first show I’ve seen treading water is twice again the fervent Upchuck. With the pandemic behind us I caught them behind Star Bar for the Neon Christ reunion show. I immediately went to the front as it looked like there was some sort of ascending age mandate for the crowd. I was a little queasy in the brain as this had been my first show since the bat craze swept the nation and so on. I feared that they would begin to play and I’d come to find I had forgotten how to hang. Then the other young punks I’d thought I could run with would cast me three paces back to the hospice section. Luckily moshing is just like riding a bike or committing arson. The set was a self-explanatory display of prison break folly. An asphalt taste test paired with an elbow waltz. Rowdy and good to say so the least. When they finished I tripped out of that pit in sated fulfillment. That was when I noticed a short school bus yay ways back from the stage. On it was a growing group of punks from the Upchuck pit. They sat from the top of that bus and watched the old people take over with wry smiles and underdog victory. I made my way over there to talk to the band. There I found lead singer K.T and the braided baron lead guitarist Mikey. As the inquiry went on more members would shift in and out, never once with the full band together and answering a question individually. That is likely because they are not many but one. Scrugg. What follows is an account of what will some day be considered an interview, but for now it’s an encore that matched the set in chaos and beers with wings. Was it a conscious decision to have other forms of media and entertainment coinciding with the band like the videography and art or did it come together naturally? We’re family. We just happened. It just synced up. Why come up by ourselves? How did y’all meet? Did you go to high school together? Some of us worked together. Some of us went to high school. We didn’t plan anything it just happened. Honestly we’re family. That’s the only answer. We’re family. We knew each other before we knew each other. Where at? What High school? Doesn’t matter. We don’t mention it. Some of us got kicked out in tenth grade. We don’t talk about that. What were some of y’all’s influences growing up? Are y’all into punk music? Did your parents encourage this type of music? I don’t even like punk music. I like reggae. Country’s my shit. I hate punk music. Then why do you play it? Do you play it because you hate it? I play it because I’m bad at instruments. We play it because it’s raw emotion. So would you say there’s any specific formula to Upchuck? No, we don’t even write songs. We kinda just show up to band practice. These guys do a little thing, then I do a little thing. Our songs are just freestyle pretty much, or a good bit. Can you explain the meaning and mythos behind Scrugg? For scruggs only. That’s one question I never want to answer. We can skip over that one. I saw y’all were in the studio. Is there an official release date for an album? Yeah, well, we’re working with the label right now, we can’t really talk about it. But stuff is coming. There’s definitely something coming, something in the works. Is the music industry something you want to be a part of or exist outside of? Hell no. They want to be a part of us. Is there any particular community you seek to be a part of or even a community you seek to create yourself and exist in? Our community. Our friends. Scrugg. If you know it you know it. Does that sound douchy? Actually that does sound douchy. IT’S FAMILY! IT’S FAMILY! FAMILY! COMMUNITY! OUR COMMUNITY IS FAMILY! AND IT’S A BIG ASS FUCKING FAMILY! (This is when another Upchuck member comes into play spilling cervezas and taking over my recording device for a sponsored message entirely in Spanish which I can undoubtedly approve for its approach though I can’t read a word of it. I sit patiently and wait for the smoke to die down before I resume the scheduled deprogramming.) How do you explain the relationship between s kateboarding and punk music? We all enjoy pain. Armondo fell off stage. Mikey rolls his ankle every other day. KT’s bleeding out her eye. I don’t know. (One of the upchucks seems to be meddling with something before saying) Pain equals punk. (The others jeer) Don’t get too deep! When we get too deep we can’t swim out! (Beers clinking in cheers) Are there things that offend Upchuck? You asking me questions. What are you investigating me? KT, you are a black woman in punk. This is an undeniably uncommon fixture. Is this aspect of the band something you think should be acknowledged or do you prefer for the music to speak for itself? No, I don’t give a fuck. Don’t accentuate the fact that I’m a black woman because it almost seems like you’re tokenizing me. Don’t token me please! People love to do that shit. (Just then one of the Upchucks grabs my phone and begins to read the next question in Spanish for our bilingual audience.) ¿Cuál es el objetivo final de upchuck? ¿Qué ves para el futuro? Exactly. What are some local bands and artists you can recommend? Shoutout Psychic Death. Rude Dude & The Creek Freaks. Playytime. Fuck everybody. Anything y’all wanna end with? Anything y’all wanna say? Ay, always check your bags, test ‘em. Be safe. Don’t take interviews seriously. Shoutout my Scruggs. Every Scrugg. Everyone who helps us do this shit. Daniel Lane, Pat Phillips, Carson, Digital Dan, and All the homies who move our equipment and cuddle us when we’re on molly. Published by Record Plug Magazine in the debut July issue 2021