The Thermals' "When I Died"

Hutch Harris on rage, cynicism and the difference

13 MAY 2009 • by Bryan Reed

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After releasing something of a mini-landmark with 2006's bitter, enraged The Body, The Blood, The Machine, Portland trio The Thermals found itself at a crossroads. Ultimately, they pursued in a new direction: It meant a switch from one stalwart indie label (Sub Pop) to another (Kill Rock Stars), and a transition from the vitriol of The Body, The Blood, The Machine, to a somewhat more hopeful tone on Now We Can See. A political parallel, perhaps?

"When I Died," the first cut from the new record, sets the stage for the band's rebirth, even as its speaker sleeps with the fishes. Elemental imagery and frontman Hutch Harris' rhythmic vocals are indeed holdovers from previous efforts, but the band sounds almost triumphant here, even as it launches into a chorus beginning with the phrase "When I died."

We caught up with Harris as he and his bandmates traveled by train through New York for an MTV filming in the midst of an East Coast tour.

INDEPENDENT WEEKLY: How did the song come to be?

HUTCH HARRIS: When I wrote The Body, The Blood, The Machine, I wrote "Here's Your Future" first, and that kind of opened this door where we said there are so many other places we could go with this. And then, I wrote "When We Were Alive" first, it seemed like a really good place to start writing from the perspective of people who are dead, or writing about life and the end of life. I just started writing most of the songs from that point of view.

Then, I guess on "When I Died" I was really thinking it's kind of a sequel to "Back To The Sea," from The Body, The Blood, The Machine, where you have the narrator who's sort of embarrassed to be part of the human race. He doesn't want to be a human anymore, so he sort of wants to de-evolve.

You have a narrator in "When I Died" who's the same as the one who wants to go back to the sea, but the arrogant side is that he thinks that that's something he can do. He doesn't think about the fact that you can't survive under the water and you can't just de-evolve into a fish because you want to. So you have someone that drowns to death.

It does seem that the band's imagery has been somewhat consistent. You talk a lot about the elements: air, earth, water. Did that start with The Body, The Blood, The Machine and just keep going?

Kathy and I go to the Oregon coast to write. We take all our gear up to this house and set up to write and record. It's a house on the coast, so we're near water and there's an influence.

With water there are always connotations of life, or with religious imagery—baptism and rebirth. And in this song there's a point where the narrator is sort of yanked back from the ocean. Is that some kind of resurrection, or a denial of his ability to, as you said, just devolve because he wants to?

I forget how we really got to that point in the story. It's not really a resurrection because it's more a way to show that the narrator was actually dying and not going to be able to actually be revived.

I've read a lot about this album having a more optimistic or hopeful outlook, especially when compared to The Body, The Blood, The Machine. I think the press materials used the term "cautious optimism."

Well, that's just what a lot of people have been saying about Obama. I mean, it is more optimistic than the last record, but I don't think it's so optimistic. I think it's still cynical, too.

Maybe more cynical than enraged?

Yeah, definitely. I think there's a healthy does of cynicism in everything that we do.

Do you think within punk rock, which is so often a very enraged genre, you seem to be broadening the emotional palate a little bit? Is that a deliberate thing?

A lot of what we do is very deliberate. And a lot of that is trying to get away from being just a punk band. It's very limiting. We hope with this record, people will think of it more of like a power-pop band.

It's been interesting because it's punk, but it doesn't fit a Warped Tour mold, which I guess could be a blessing and a curse when you're trying to sell records.

I guess. I mean, we've always thought of ourselves as a really simple rock band. I think the record's got a way in which the songs are more complex and the lyrics are more complex.

I think, too, you have a very distinctive vocal cadence, where when you hear a Thermals song you can recognize that immediately. It has that same sort of rhythmic bounce.

It's really recognizable, which is pretty much what bands try to do, just trying to find something that makes it new, and something that people can recognize instantly as being you.

Going back to the song, Thermals songs have always had an anthemic quality, but it seemed ironic to me to turn the phrase "When I Died" into this big triumphant chorus.

That's really funny to us. A lot of the point of the record is conquering your fear. And of course, death is big for so many people. "I Let It Go" is very similar, too, a lot of the songs are very similar, even "You Dissolve." It's just about celebrating death, or celebrating not being angry or afraid of it.

You're listening to the song, and there are all these images of death and the body being broken down, but it doesn't really sound, necessarily, like a bad thing.

At that point, it was just kind of funny to us, I think. Just to think about it.

With the label switch from Sub Pop to Kill Rock Stars, and this new record, it seems like there's a new outlook—even beyond what the songs are explicitly saying. It feels like The Thermals have been re-energized.

I would say so. I don't think we ever lost our energy, but we're definitely stoked right now.

Comparing this record with the one before it and with that rage turning into cynicism, the outlook's a little brighter, even if nothing's perfect. With the political climate meshing with the story of the band, how much of that was on your mind when writing this record?

Well, the world looks like a much better place right now. We're definitely glad to have Obama, but you know all the music and lyrics were written before Obama was elected. We knew we wouldn't have Bush, which was great, but we were thinking we might have McCain. So there was some hope, but it's very cynical, as well. We didn't know what we would be getting into.

So I guess maybe it's more that there's an opportunity for hope, but the outcome isn't clear?

Yeah, I guess so.

The Thermals plays Local 506 Thursday, May 14, at 9 p.m. Tickets are $10-$12, and Shaky Hands and Point Juncture, WA open.

Independent Weekly, 5/13/09

Holidays For Quince throws a block party

Summer days

13 MAY 2009 • by Bryan Reed

Holidays For Quince Records—founded by record store clerks Jenks Miller, left, and Heather McEntire in 2005—outlasted the setting for this photo, the Chapel Hill location of Schoolkids Records. Photo by David Winton

More than any other season, summer in the South demands activity. Spring's break pales to summer's vacation—sweating and swimming, planting and playing. And then there are the block parties of summer, community gatherings that pause to celebrate the bustle.

Chapel Hill record label Holidays For Quince has been summertime-active since its inception. In just two years, the label has released eight records, gathering a wide range of Triangle sounds, from The Curtains of Night's heavy metal to Violet Vector & the Lovely Lovelies' day-glo pop.

"It's definitely aimed at somehow fostering a very broad and rich identity for this region, musically," says Jenks Miller, one of two HFQ co-owners and a local musician who plays in a half-dozen area bands, including In the Year of the Pig and Horseback. "In order to do that, we're trying not to get hung up on genres and concentrating more on working with people that we know or we like, or music that seems important."

For Miller and co-founder Heather McEntire, this summer seemed like the perfect opportunity to pause and celebrate many of the forces that have driven the label. So, of course, they're throwing a summer block party that encapsulates a trifecta of accomplishment.

First, the Nightlight—the Rosemary Street venue that hosts the three-night affair, and at which both McEntire and Miller work—just earned its liquor license. Second, the label landed an exclusive distribution deal with Chicago Independent Distribution last month, making the label's catalog available nationwide. Third, HFQ has spread its roster to Richmond, signing singer/ songwriter Liza Kate and releasing her album, Don't Let the Dogs, at the block party. It's the label's eighth disc and first from an artist outside the Triangle. It only seemed appropriate to welcome her to the neighborhood, so to speak.

Kate actually isn't too far outside of the community the label has already built up. She and McEntire have been friends since sharing a house show in Virginia half a decade ago. Kate opened the show, playing her spare folk songs on a "little blue guitar" in front of a stack of loud rock bands. "It kind of took me aback how she could captivate that crowd," remembers McEntire, who was there with her own rock band, Bellafea.

The two kept in touch. McEntire encouraged Kate to put a second collection of songs to tape. Holidays For Quince wanted to release it. "I believe in her music so incredibly much, and it just seemed like a good fit," says McEntire. "And she's my friend so we didn't think too much about it."

Working through personal relationships has been HFQ's early calling card. "We definitely want to work local outward," says Miller, meaning the goal is to start as close to home as possible, and let their records and rosters grow slowly. To wit, the first HFQ release was an EP from Un Deux Trois, the pop band formed by McEntire and Miller. The label then issued releases by the heavy Caltrop and the monolithic Curtains of Night as well as the Technicolor pop-act Violet Vector and the Lovely Lovelies, all Chapel Hill acts.

"We've tried to focus on regional artists, and Liza is from Richmond," says Miller. "And while we'd still consider it regional, she hasn't had a lot of exposure here in Chapel Hill."

The Block Party is an effort to change that, and it's a reciprocal approach for the label: Just as Kate could benefit from exposure in the Triangle, its local artists could benefit by having a labelmate in another state.

That idea has paid off for some HFQ affiliates, who have already begun moving beyond their neighborhood niche. Miller's solo efforts, both under his own name and as Horseback, have sported an HFQ imprint, but the next Horseback LP, The Invisible Mountain, will be released by notable Wisconsin-based experimental label Utech Records. (Disclosure: The first record, Horseback's Impale Golden Horn, was co-released by Indy music editor Grayson Currin.) McEntire's Bellafea released its LP, Cavalcade, through Chicago-based indie label Southern Records. Violet Vector recently inked a deal with Kentucky's Colorwheel Records.

That its members have begun to spread out only makes it more important for the Block Party to serve as a reminder of the circle of friends a music scene can create. "[The bands] want to feel like they're a part of a supportive community," says Miller. "This is a way to demonstrate what we have. I think that's really important. It's sort of a positive feedback mechanism. It feels more whole when you can see what everyone's doing at once."

But the Block Party is far from a self-congratulatory showcase of Holidays For Quince's growth. Screaming Females, who play the last night, are from New Jersey and aren't part of HFQ's chattel. The same goes for Max Indian, Wizzerds of Rhyme and Embarrassing Fruits', locals who don't call HFQ home. Next month, though, HFQ's Liza Kate and Mount Moriah will play TRKFest, a day-long festival held in Pittsboro and curated by Trekky Records, Embarrassing Fruits' longtime label.

Trekky co-founder Will Hackney says the plan was to have Holidays For Quince bands on the TRKFest bill, regardless. That HFQ asked a Trekky band to play its Block Party is simply a bonus.

"We're all allies in that we're all basically going through the same process of putting out cool records and putting together good shows," Hackney says.

"It's important to not be competitive with [other] small labels, but encourage each other and give each other a pat on the back," agrees McEntire. "One small label can't put out all the bands here."

Holidays For Quince curates the HFQ Block Party at Nightlight Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights (May 15-17). Performing acts include HFQ's newest signing, Liza Kate, plus The Moaners, Caltrop, Bellafea, The Curtains of Night, Mount Moriah, Screaming Females, Max Indian and more. The shows start at 9:30 p.m. and cost $6 per night or $15 for a three-night pass.

Independent Weekly, 5/13/2009

The Grappling Hook's ...And Those Who Would Keep Us Safe

(Blastco Records)

29 APR 2009 • by Bryan Reed

With its precise balance of complex song structures and swift, fluid changes in tone and time, Durham's Grappling Hook is a band for a live audience. Fantastical battle hymns reforge power-metal glory with noisy indie rock and tough-guy blues-metal. Onstage, the tunes inspire high theatricality and comic-book suspense.

That has a lot to do with the shape-shifting way they're built: Just when the band settles into the mathy opening of "I Judge You Not O Juggernaut," for instance, it morphs into dry-throated hollering and sharp proto-metal riffs. But it'd be hard to place Grappling Hook reductively alongside metal revivalist peers in the local scene (Valient Thorr and Colossus being the most fitting comparisons). No, this is different and divergent, which is to be expected from Hook frontman Dave Bjorkback, who recently retired his superhero alter-ego The Torch Marauder. The Marauder's comedic, operatic songs were an oddball local favorite, but his propensity for grandiose vocals and dramatic rock flair aren't lost in this new Grappling Hook oeuvre.

"A Closing Fist Can Crush Your Heart" begins with the sort of belted-out proclamation ("Shadows form a deadly circle/ A closing fist can crush your heart/ Destroying all you know") one might expect to give way to a breakneck verse and a gigantic, Maiden-fashioned chorus. But it doesn't—at least not instantly. Instead, the intro leans into a gauzy verse, with humming organ and restrained drumming abetted by tinkling glockenspiel and muted guitars. But a minute and a quarter in, Bjorkback unleashes a piercing howl, a harbinger of the change that sweeps in to gratify the glorious metal tension that's been building.

Normally, such toying with structural expectations is a means for a band to move beyond its genre's trappings. But Grappling Hook never seems to be working within or without any given category, so much as it seems to be directing its energy toward an imagined roomful of people with beer cans clutched in their raised hands. These people are listening to Grappling Hook simply because it sounds good. Rightly so.

Grappling Hook plays with The Travesties and Monsonia at The Reservoir in Carrboro Friday, May 1. The 10 p.m. show is free. Grappling Hook also plays Saturday, May 9, at The Pinhook in Durham. Minor Stars and Le Weekend open.

Independent Weekly, 4/29/2009

Snoop Dogg preview

Staff Pick Snoop Dogg w/ Knaan, The Hustle Boyz
When: Sat., May 16 Phone: (843) 853-3276
Price: (sold out)
www.snoopdogg.com

Since making his debut with a prominent role on Dr. Dre’s watershed The Chronic in 1992, and following that with his own Doggystyle in 1993, Snoop (Doggy) Dogg has been a marquee rapper. Beginning as the embodiment of West Coast gangsta rap’s second wave, sporting a Death Row imprint on his records, and marrying his syrupy (resin-y?) flow to Dre’s G-funk production, Snoop managed to make party records from tales of murder, mayhem, and misanthropy. But as his career has advanced, Snoop has ridden his pimpin’ aesthetic from fierce-but-funky to charmingly self-parodic roles (Huggy Bear in 2004’s Starsky & Hutch) and carefree detours in his music (the semi-ironic sex jam “Sensual Seduction” wound up a hit). Snoop, perhaps more than any other rapper, has stretched his longevity, turning the thug life, authentic and exaggerated, into a lucrative career as a bona fide (no pun intended?) pop star. Fo’ shizzle. 8 p.m. —Bryan Reed

Charleston City Paper 5/12/09

Metal legend Wino's silver lining

Metal legend Wino's silver lining
Opportunity in the midst of tragedy
by Bryan Reed

A veteran figure in the world of underground metal, singer/guitarist Scott "Wino" Weinrich has slung his six-string for, most notably, the Obsessed and St. Vitus, but until early 2009, had never recorded under his own name. Then came Punctuated Equilibrium.

Flanked by Clutch drummer Jean-Paul Gaster and bassist Jon Blank (of Rezin), Wino assembled the stunning debut LP this year. It spotlights effortless musicianship, recasting '70s proto-metal as something new and exciting. It's heavy without being brutal, and smooth without being wimpy. It's the type of record that would sound at home on any classic rock station, sharing airtime with Black Sabbath, Blue Öyster Cult, and Led Zeppelin. Wino's leads cut ornate pathways through a hefty rhythm section, while his riffs stay simply effective and momentous.

During a recent stint in Europe, tragedy struck Wino's band. Wino described the sad situation like this: "With great sadness, I mourn the death of my brother and fellow bandmate Jon Blank who passed away unexpectedly this weekend. He will be greatly missed. I will continue as support for Clutch acoustic [as a solo acoustic act]."

Blank's death, of an apparent overdose, not only snuffed out his burgeoning talent, but cuts a big piece from Wino's band's musical mass. But it doesn't take away from the songs. Augmented greatly by their electric accoutrements, they're blues songs at their core. With Wino performing as a solo act, audiences could expect a new focus on the songs' simplicity and construction, less on the dazzle of Wino's dazzling electric leads and his rhythm section's barrel-chested heave-ho.

Even in the face of tragedy, Blank's untimely departure creates an opportunity for an even more intimate showcase of Wino's formidable talents, as well as providing a chance both for the musician and his audience to reconsider what it is that makes a good rock song. Stripped of their original context, the songs will have to stand on their own structure and conviction. Something they are entirely capable of doing. —Bryan Reed

Scott "Wino" Weinrich performs with Clutch and Maylene and the Sons of Disaster at the Music Farm (32 Ann St., 843-853-3276) on Tues. May 19. Doors open at 7 p.m. Tickets are available for $23, $20 (advance). Visit musicfarm.com and southernlord.com for more.

Charleston City Paper, 5/13/09

Alkaline Trio

Alkaline Trio: 10 years to 'Agony'
Making Pop-punk Last
by Bryan Reed

Punk rarely rewards longevity. Many influential bands' entire careers — Operation Ivy, Minor Threat, and Rites of Spring, for example — can be condensed to one disc. It's not uncommon for a punk band to release one revered album, and for each subsequent release to be greeted with backlash from longtime fans demanding the purity of the early stuff.

Chicago's Alkaline Trio is no exception. The Trio's 1998 debut, Goddamnit, released on indie label Asian Man, is a lasting favorite, built on youthful (need we say, "punk?") abandon, clever songwriting, and a general bitterness that bridges the maturity gap with anti-cop rants ("Cop"), heavy crushes ("Clavicle"), and heavier drinking ("San Francisco"). Suffice it to say, it's the type of record people grew up to — the type of record that inspires kids to start bands, helps them deal with heartbreaks, and enhances the nursing of hangovers.

The same can't really be said of the Trio's latest, last year's Epic Records debut, Agony and Irony. Nor could it really be said that the latest is a departure for the band, whose particular brand of clever, dark pop-punk has grown ever smoother over the past decade.

Through a three-album stint on Vagrant Records, the band's focus shifted from rough-and-ready drunken pop-punk to a tighter, more melodically refined act newly obsessed with mortality. The blood-and-guts imagery that ran through the earliest songs stayed mostly intact, but was less blackout drunk messes and more Misfits-y murder and mayhem. With Crimson, the Trio's final indie-label LP, the band took an even denser approach to its arrangements, adding keys and strings for texture and donning a suit-and-tie aesthetic like fashion-forward undertakers. By all accounts the band was ready for its close-up.

The Alkaline Trio on tour now is a polished rock band with sharp hooks and a refined sensibility to its approach. Indeed, this is major-label rock, tight and bouncy, not unlike Green Day — another underground pop-punk band turned marquee act, thanks to embracing a bigger, more approachable sound. So maybe Alkaline Trio will be that rare once-punk band to last beyond the genre's built-in sell-by date.

Alkaline Trio plays with Saves the Day and Nightmare of You on Fri. May 8 at the Music Farm (32 Ann St., 843-577-6989). Doors open at 7 p.m. Admission is $21 ($18 in advance). See www.musicfarm.com and www.alkalinetrio.com for more.

Charleston Cty Paper, 5/6/2009

Againt Me! (again)

Against Me!
New Brookland Tavern: Friday, May 1
BY BRYAN REED

Gainesville, Fla., punk outfit Against Me! begins its major-label debut, New Wave (released on Sire Records), with a declaration embedded in its title track: “We can be the bands we wanna hear / We can define our own generation.”

More than 30 years of punk rock is condensed to one couplet.

It’s that kind of thoughtful attention to lyrical songwriting that has proved constant through the band’s career.

“The lyrics have always been the most important part of music,” opines Against Me! frontman Tom Gabel, and fitting the sentiment espoused by “New Wave,” Gabel sets out to write the songs he wants to hear — or at least to avoid the type of songs he can’t stand.

“I don’t want to listen to something that’s mindless,” he says.

And mindless is hardly a valid descriptor for the Gainesville band, the songs of which have bridged the space between the personal and the political, meshing the narrative bent of folk with a political outspokenness born of both folk and punk.

New Wave, the band’s fourth studio full-length, covers the life of an unrepentant junkie (“Thrash Unreal”), the paradox of protest songs (“White People For Peace”) and globalization (“Americans Abroad”). But where a lesser songwriter would resort to bumper-sticker slogans, Gabel mines big-ticket themes from individual observations.

“At this point, doing this full-time, you kinda gotta be open to whatever inspiration comes your way and taking in everything you see,” Gabel says.

But his songwriting bent might be the only constant in Against Me!’s career. To date, (and counting only full-lengths) the band has moved from its ramshackle folk-punk debut, Reinventing Axl Rose, released by punk label No Idea Records, to two increasingly accessible LPs on NOFX’s Fat Wreck Chords (As the Eternal Cowboy and Searching For A Former Clarity). And then from the Fat Wreck days to the sonically condensed and rock-centric sound of New Wave on major label Sire (which punker-than-thou naysayers should be reminded was the imprint on all the Ramones records).

As is custom of beloved indie bands moving to bigger deals, Against Me!’s major-label jump (like those of The Replacements and Hüsker Dü) was greeted with some backlash.

But, says Gabel, it’s been a natural and organic transition in the band’s still-ascendant career.

“The labels we’ve worked with over the years have been the right labels for the size we were at the time,” he says. “[Working with Sire] afforded us a lot of opportunities that I don’t think we would have gotten elsewhere.”

Label politics aside, Against Me!’s ultimate goal, Gabel says, is as it has always been: “to keep improving and put on the best shows we can and make the best records we can.”

The sonic transition, though, has been perhaps more fluid than many long-time fans would be willing to admit. And with the same voice as its foundation, Against Me! is undeniably the same band whose early recordings helped it became the de facto figurehead of the early-‘00s folk-punk scene.

So even as Against Me! prepares its second major-label release (again enlisting Nirvana/Smashing Pumpkins producer Butch Vig to man the boards), the old adage stands true: the more things change the more they stay the same. Against Me! is still the band its members want to hear. As they’ve grown older, maybe the tastes have changed a little, but the philosophy is the same. And the band’s career arc has been decided as much by the legions of fans that have filled ever-growing venues across America and abroad as the band itself.

So, as Gabel nonchalantly asks, “If life took you to that place, why would you not want it? I’d just be happy if I were able to play music and support myself doing it.”

The New Brookland Tavern is located at 122 State St. in West Columbia. Off With Their Heads and Of Angels and Lions open. Doors open at 7 p.m.; admission is $10. Call 791-4413 or visit newbrooklandtavern.com for more information.

Free Times, 4/29/2009