Alice Rezende wants you to enter Olivia’s World. Inside this world, you’ll find that almost anything goes, and you’ll also encounter multiple characters embodying traits of complete debauchery, where people react on their most primitive self-destructive instincts that come off as either crude or cringeworthy, but also fighting your damnest to retrieve your sense of self while battling the obstacles that life has to offer.
As a native Australian, Rezende is a part of the Dolewave music scene that is heavily popular down under. Dolewave can be best described as Australia’s response to jangle pop with more of an edgy twist with some tongue-in-cheek sarcasm thrown in for good measure. It’s a scene that birthed bands the likes of the Twerps, The Goon Sax, and Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever. Rezende’s rendition is part Dolewave, part romantic pop punk with a twinge of garage rock thrown in for good measure.
Rezende’s debut record Greedy & Gorgeous is a loosely based concept album about self-discovery. The themes are further illustrated as the record progresses on topics of self-care, inferiority, and authenticity. Rezende’s ingredients are put through a blender of angsty lyrics mixed with a bubblegum-sweet delivery that is engaging in a way that keeps getting better with every listen. I am reminded of another concept album TotallyCrushed Out! by That Dog, which is a mid-90s cult classic that is a supremely underrated collection of songs that is ever rarely mentioned.
The new supporting characters entering Oliva’s World are drummer Daan Steffens and lead guitarist Jordan Rodger who greatly contribute to the lively and crunchy sounds that live in Greedy & Gorgeous. They make themselves heard loud and clear on the punchy lead single “Sourgum” which flies out the gates at breakneck speed with pop punk-charged guitars that would have kept even Jason Statham’s adrenaline flowing at an all-time high in the film, Crank. Rezende’s sugary-sweet chorus matches the energy of the riffs to a tee, creating pure unadulterated entertainment.
“Empresario” is a song about an imaginary Brazilian band manager who’s not quite the best at his job; the manager should probably be headed to the unemployment line for their negligence. The song is fun as hell, with a groovy riff that I imagine Herman Monster doing the twist while wearing Bermuda shorts. The guitars have a proper 90s fuzz that gives the song a vintage sound. As the song comes to a close, Rezende has a conversation in Portuguese, and as a fellow speaker of the language, I felt like the Leonardo DiCaprio meme pointing at the television during the outro.
There are moments sprinkled throughout the album that remind me of another Dolewave superstar Tell Me How You Feel era Courtney Barnett. Most specifically on “Baby’s Bathwater” and “Chemlab,” with the former turned up with wailing, forceful guitars and the latter being a breezy, careful sonic experience. Both songs display a richly diverse, yet colorful array of sounds Rezende is capable of delivering. But also her quirky vocal style sticks out similarly to that of Barnett’s at her best.
“Healthy & wealthy” has a sonic influence that makes me think about what if The Breeders somehow got a hold of a Slanted & Enchanted Pavement era demo. The song has a fun-loving melodic chorus with a guitar sound that lies in the middle of the Venn diagram where slacker and garage rock merge. Rezende’s witty lyrics center on that adage of people preaching “just say no” and all will be cured, and is one to think about as she sings, “they say to level up don’t drink to get a buzz/all the while the morale is seriously low.”
The final two songs deal with internal and external social destruction. “Weird guy” is laden with noisy guitar riffs on the creepy male adults ruining the vibes of the surrounding women who just want to enjoy the simpler things in life. While “Beauty bar” is the slowed-down closer that vacillates between self-loathing and despair being around high-ranking people in the industry, singing “climbing to some lofty heights/giving off some awkward vibes/am I just a peasant here.”
After listening to Greedy & Gorgeous it’s easy tovisualize a scenariowhere your cool older sibling has just come back home from their freshman year away at college to nonchalantly bestow upon you an awe-inspiring album they found tucked away in a vintage record store. This is Alice Rezende’s world and we all are just living in it.
James Keegan, known under the moniker Kitchen, slowly comes to a quiet realization as he sings the haunting outro of his newest single “Real Estate Agent.” “There is no place of perfect connection, no light on the water sweeping the waves.” His voice, embedded with an aching sense of acceptance, reveals his gradual understanding that the pursuit of an idealized, perfect experience is futile. Through each line of the outro his hesitant sense of acceptance starts to wear down as he acknowledges the impermanence of seeking something that doesn’t truly exist.
A song that starts off with the image of a real estate agent’s headshot on a “for sale” sign and a fake ocean breeze blowing back her hair effortlessly turns into a reflection on indifference and apathy in the face of catastrophe as he challenges himself to sit with the uncomfortable feeling and see if it will force him to “stop sleeping.” After paralleling the disconnect between an image of the natural world disrupted by the commodification of space, Keegan cleverly comments on the way we jokingly process the decimation of our world, “calling disaster like sides of a quarter, unlucky enough to never get bored.”
“This isn’t a concept album but one of the main recurring concerns of the lyrics is the destruction of the natural world and climate change. There is a lot of nature imagery but it’s juxtaposed with imagery of the post-industrial human world,” Keegan says.
Over the past two months Keegan has been sporadically releasing singles on Bandcamp and YouTube leading up to the announcement of his newest album, Blue Heeler in Ugly Snowlight Grey on Gray on Gray on White. Keegan cited the simplicity and directness of Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush as an influence while also finding freedom in the loose and unpredictable nature of Pavement’s Wowee Zowee when pacing his longest record yet, a 20-song double record.
“I haven’t made something this long before and I always operated under the assumption that I would be better off cutting a larger project down to a more direct, more easily digestible scale. But most of these songs are not as emotionally direct as the songs on my past albums. There’s not really a simple emotional arc to these songs in the same way as the songs on Breath too Long.”
While Keegan’s newest material might lack a clear, concise storyline, and the themes feel less deliberate than his previous work, as the influences of each song jump from straightforward rock songs, to lengthy layered and droney pieces, each single desperately deals with the struggle of trying to hold onto what is left of our decaying world.
On “Bike Uphill” he sings helplessly, “I wanna be the one to live outside the world” creating an eerie almost apocalyptic feeling while contemplating a world in flux, where cities “melt away” and familiar spaces shift into surreal, dreamlike landscapes. Keegan reflects a sense of waiting, as though he is unsure whether he will be consumed by the unraveling of the world or find a way to belong within it. He imagines a world of isolation and loss, “is there a dream that i have not let pass through my hands” creating a sense of foreboding as the absence of certainty about our world and his place within it creates a dystopian feeling of being adrift in an unknown, shifting reality.
Keegan builds upon feelings he started to uncover and work through on his previous album, like on the lead single “Fall” where he sings “when the bombs go off, will I be with you.” There’s a cryptic sense of inevitability that led to the budding themes on these four new singles. Through very few words on “Ugly Snow in Ugly Moonlight” Keegan poignantly reflects on disillusionment, as if the purity and wonder of snow and moonlight have not only been tarnished by time and growing up but also tarnished by the post-industrial human world. There’s a feeling of longing for something that can’t be recaptured, a quiet surrender to the inevitability of change and the fading of youthful wonder and naivety.
The first single from the album “Sali” calls upon childish imagery by personifying the Finnish liquorice, Salmiakki, which is flavored with a type of salt that’s a byproduct of a chemical reaction according to Keegan. While it remains a spacious song, the use of textural layering and droning parts creates an overwhelming feeling that connects each of the singles.
“Before I could write songs I was even remotely happy with, I was making noise music and doing little recording experiments on audacity on the family computer and on a little digital four track I had, so making more abstract music is just part of what I do. I definitely think carefully about how ambient and drone pieces fit alongside the songs on things I make that are song oriented. In the case of the last album, Breath too Long, the ambient pieces served a structural purpose and helped to elaborate on the emotional content of the songs. The songs approached emotions in a semi-direct way and the ambient sections took them a little further into abstraction. I felt with this album that there was less of a straightforward arc than with past albums, so there wasn’t really a structural justification for ambient sections.”
Salmiakki’s unique taste might evoke a similar bittersweet nostalgia, where something initially foreign or uncomfortable becomes familiar, even a part of us. Something that may seem innocent and natural to us as children can later be revealed to be harmful and unhealthy. Keegan builds upon this feeling of escapability and a looming omnipresent fear of the future. The salty nature of Salmiakki serves as a metaphor for the bitterness that comes with growing up, where the world transforms from the innocent, carefree days of childhood into something more complex, painful, and ultimately decaying. The “salty swell” could symbolize the encroaching weight of reality, coming in waves — first subtle, then overwhelming.
“Writing lyrics that I’m happy with is hard. At the same time I try not to agonize over them. Usually the lyrics that I’m happiest with didn’t have a lot of conscious thought put into them. I’ll realize a couple weeks or months later what I was getting at. That’s sort of rare though. Mostly I try to be honest and to make sure the words sing. If the words technically work or are cool in writing but they don’t sing naturally I rewrite them. Really good lyrics feel like they arrived with the melody as a unified whole.”
Keegan has an unbelievable ability to craft stillness within his songs, a stillness that lingers even amidst the most driving rhythms. In “Real Estate Agent,” this is particularly evident as he delivers the plantitive second-to-last-line, “I learn how to live as my body decays.” Here he suggests that meaning and understanding are gleaned not in some perfect, transcendent moment but through accepting the slow process of decay and imperfection. It’s in this acceptance of time’s passage and the fragility of life that Keegan’s songs come alive in an almost meditative way.
As he repeatedly asks, “Do I know you?” on the outro, Keegan invites listeners into a reflective space, where the urgency of life slows down. Time seems to stop as his vulnerable voice hangs in the air, allowing listeners to pause and consider their own sense of connection and understanding. It’s this rare ability to create a sense of stillness, even amidst movement, that makes Keegan’s work so powerful. His vulnerability, paired with his ceaseless search for meaning and connection, creates an atmosphere where listeners can feel safe to take their time with their own reflection. Keegan’s music becomes a space in which time stops, and introspection takes precedence, offering a quiet sanctuary for those willing to sit with it.
“Overall the album ended up dwelling a lot on the feeling that I don’t know what to do about the horrible things that are happening in the world. I tried to put a few hopeful things in there but unfortunately it ended up kind of a bummer in some ways,” Keegan said. “One song on the album ‘Song for You’ was previously on a compilation by Bee Sides benefiting the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund. I wrote the words intending for it to be a sort of hopeful song about trying to do good in the world rather than getting stuck in shame and guilt and fear and all that.”
Blue Heeler in Ugly Snowlight Grey on Gray on Gray on White will be self-released on April 4, 2025. Preorders of the album can be found on Kitchen’s bandcamp, including cassette tapes.
Written by Eilee Centeno | Featured Photo by Steven Coleman
As a small music journal, we rely heavily on the work of independent tape labels to discover and share the incredible artists that we have dedicated this site to. Whether through press lists, recommendations, artist connections, social media support or supplying physicals, these homemade labels are the often-unsung heroes of the industry. Today, the ugly hug is highlighting the work of our friends over at Trash Tape Records.
Originally formed in the Chappell Hill and Durham area when they were in high school, Trash Tape Records was founded by Nathan McMurray and Evren and Eilee Centeno. The vision was simple; to put out their friend’s music that they loved so much. Building off of that youthful excitement with a sheer DIY ethos, Trash Tape became a home to many artists with similar mindsets, by making their art accessible, exciting and incredibly endearing. Consisting of US-based acts covering the South and Midwest, such as Memory Card, Gabbit, Tombstone Poetry, Hill View #73, Hippie Love Party and Deerest Friends, the connective tissue of the label even expands to acts like Quite Commotion and Rain Recordings from Sweden and Gluepot from Australia, proving that a community doesn’t have boundaries.
We recently sat down with our friends at Trash Tape Records to discuss starting a label with trial and error, going on tour, high school jobs and their favorite label memories.
Nathan, Evren and Eilee at Kobabi in Chicago 2025 | Photo by Shea Roney
This interview has been edited for length and purposes.
Shea Roney: So, Evren and Nathan, you two started this label at a pretty young age with a basis of just wanting to make music together. How did Trash Tape initially form and what were your intentions in the beginning?
Evren Centeno: We were buds already, and we had been playing music at that point for half a year. We would go to my place or Nathan’s sometimes, because Nathan had a really bad sort of, like, what was that recorder that you had?
Nathan McMurray: I found in the attic my mom’s old multi-medium stereo, like CD player, cassette player, record player. There was this function on it to make mixtapes, but if you input a microphone and tricked the machine into thinking that it was the other cassette tape you were copying, then you could record on it. But it was one track and awful, awful quality.
Evren: But we were messing with that because we were interested in tapes. We liked, you know, indie music, Elephant 6 and all that stuff, and we thought, ‘wouldn’t it be cool if we had something like that in our community?’ And then COVID hit, but we knew a bunch of people online through just talking about music, and friends of ours were putting out music, so we were like, let’s just put this music on streaming, and then we can hand-make some tapes. I had a tape-dubbing machine, my dad had one, just like a stereo, and you could dub tapes on it. And we also had a four-track, so we made a first run of tapes using that, and then we went from there. It was kind of loose. We just wanted to put our friends’ music out on it.
Shea: So it primarily started with friends’ music? Did you ever want to put out your own music?
Evren: Yeah, it kind of started with friends’ music. We didn’t put any of our own stuff out on the label until years after.
Nathan: Yeah, I think it was two, three years after. I remember the first, and I apologize if this isn’t something you want to print [to Evren], but Evren texted me and a few other people, something like, ‘we’re starting elephant 69’ [laughs].
Evren: Yeah, I did say that. I was 15. It’s okay to be 15 and cringy.
Nathan: We were all quite young, and it came from a good place. And then, that tape label started when we had put out a record and figured out how to dub it. We were doing it with an aux cable coming from a phone or, like, a computer straight into the Tascam onto the tape. Initially, when I first tried to do it using that shitty one track, it sounded bad, so then we took it to Evren’s dad’s tape deck and dubbed using an aux cable from my phone into that, and we just dubbed them all in real time while we watched TV or something.
Evren: And that was during quarantine, so we had no class. So Nathan would just come over to my house, and that’s what we would do. We would just write and record and dub and fold and cut paper. And it was all bad. We were all still very much 15.
Awsaf, Nathan, Evren Eilee at Local 506 Chappell Hill 2022
Shea: So, it was a lot of learning as you went for the tape production. Did you know how you wanted to record music when it came to that?
Nathan: The way I started recording music, at least me personally, was that my mom had this bad Dell laptop that was on the way out. I started doing freelance work in Photoshop when I was 12 because my dad’s friend came and pirated all the Adobe programs, so I had Adobe Audition on this laptop. And there’s this place in Durham called Hunky Dory that’s a record store slash vape shop, and in the dollar record section, they had this whole wall of used stereo equipment and everything was $5 untested. I would buy, like, RadioShack mixers and weird RCA cable adapters, and eventually, I had accumulated enough stuff that I could get a signal to pass through a microphone through this RadioShack mixer into Adobe Audition. It sounded awful. It sounded worse than if I would have just used the laptop mic. But I felt special doing it.
Shea: So, you get the initial first few releases out, did that solidify the thought that this could be an actual label for you?
Evren: I mean, I think we believed in it really heavily as it started, but we were just young and excited about something. And all our friends online would just shitpost about it, which I think was what made us think that it was interesting, or something cool at least.
Shea: Wait, what? Why?
Evren: I don’t know, actually. It was like this really insulated, but intense community. Even though it was literally only a few people who were even aware of Trash Tape Records, because all of our friends were just lurking online all day during quarantine making and spreading Trash Tape related shitposts, we felt a semblance of momentum. But really it was just a bunch of kids online making insidious jokes with one another, but then those jokes became part of the labels public image.
Nathan: It would get posted on music meme pages that, like, just shitpost about general online music. And I think that’s probably how it started to spread. It was so bizarre. But it really is such an echo chamber because you feel so much more significant when you’re in a group of 20 people and there’s pockets of three or four people in each city and you just play Minecraft and talk about music all day.
Evren: But no one was really buying the tapes still. I mean, some people were, but it was a very small scale. There weren’t repeat sellers or anything like that. We were doing small runs. But I think we just believed in it. We would pick up followers and we would see people talking about it, maybe posting about the music, listening to it. Nathan was just excited about making tapes and getting into printing and things like that. And then came the idea of wanting to tour and we wanted to play with our bands.
Tape Dubbing in North Carolina 2021
Shea: You know, that youthful excitement is so prominent when you’re 15, 16. And it’s really transferred into the way you run this label. It’s very visible and really exciting to watch. Eilee, when did you start to get involved?
Eilee Centeno: I actually don’t know.
Evren: Well, Eilee really initially started because Eilee was in college and she was past 18 and Nathan and I weren’t, so she could sign up for things that we couldn’t, like PayPal and DistroKid. We needed Eilee, but then it was also, like, Eilee was also just into what we were doing.
Nathan: I remember because I had made the email and I was trying to set up a bandcamp and a DistroKid, and at that point, we were dividing up the tasks, and I was like ‘oh, god’. So, I texted everyone, like, ‘I tried to make the PayPal, but I’m not old enough’. And then Eilee entered.
Evren: Yeah, it was all kind of very freeform. I mean, the way the name came about was just the first name someone said, and everyone was just like, ‘oh, yeah, that’s cool’. And then somebody made the logo and just drew it, and it just stuck. Put it up on Instagram, that’s our thing now.
Vending at Psychic Hotline Noth Carolina 2022
Shea: So did you guys find your generalized roles by circumstance?
Evren: Yeah, Nathan, you were into the physical stuff and took the ropes on that.
Nathan: Yeah, and I’m not very good at Instagram and large-scale communication with the public, so other people picked up on that.
Evren: I like looking for music and stuff online, so I try to find people to put out their music. We would find all sorts of stuff online at that time. I’m not as keen anymore as far as to what’s going on online, but there were all sorts of young people doing stuff that we would put out.
Shea: I mean, you guys have a pretty expansive curation of artists covering a lot of ground that goes outside of your North Carolina origins. How did you first start searching for these artists? And what drew you into the people that you decided to work with?
Evren: Some of them are really haphazard. We always had open demo, well we did for a while, not anymore. Sorry to be a bad guy. We got so much crazy shit sent to our email that was kind of really obnoxious to deal with sometimes.
Eilee: But we did get lucky. Like, Awsaf sent us demos. The stuff that they sent, they didn’t even put out until later, but it was some of their best stuff. Like, ‘all the time’ was the first song they ever sent. And then Memory Card was just a friend of Awsaf’s.
Nathan: I have a very funny story about the Memory Card beginning. Henry had released his first album as a Google Drive exclusive. Do you remember that? He emailed us like, ‘I just released my album as a Google Drive exclusive’. And that’s the type of thing that we were like, ‘oh, I gotta see what this is’.
Evren: I used to use Rate Your Music a lot, and that’s how I found a bunch of stuff, like this guy Josef who we ended up making music as Rain Recordings together. He was from Sweden, and his stuff was awesome. And then Quiet Promotion, another young Swedish artist I found through Bandcamp and Rate Your Music. But then other people were just friends of friends. There is a tape label called 9733 and they also had a forum online. That’s where we would hear of S. Rabbit, who we ended up working with. And then they ended up doing Gabbit with Gavin Fretless who was on our label, basically finding each other’s music through our label.
Nathan: It feels like the culmination and dream of everything that we had hoped to possibly create.
Evren: That was our initial hope that people would just collab on each other’s records and stuff. That there would be a network of people that can record certain things and play certain instruments and whatnot.
Hill View #73, Welcome to Berlin, Memory Card and Old Star in Atlanta 2022
Shea: You do have this expansive online community. How has that defined the way that you approach what community can be for you guys?
Nathan: It feels like a modern idea of the more classic DIY indie thing. Where it’s kind of updated for a global age, because when the whole world goes global, I think music and art communities have to go global with it. Otherwise, you just kind of get trampled. And the internet happens to be the way that that goes now. I think there’s other ways that it could be done, maybe better. But that’s where we’re at.
Evren: But when you’re planning a tour, or when someone’s planning a tour, they reach out to you, and they’re either staying at your house, or you’re staying at their house, you’re seeing each other, you’re playing a show. Even though we have bands where we’re from in North Carolina, then we’re playing a show in Virginia Beach with bands like Hippie Love Party and whatnot. And then we would go to Atlanta and play with Hillview and do tours with these bands. So, it almost became like a touring circuit in a way.
Eilee: I think because a lot of our artists have toured so much too and toured together. We’ve made a lot of connections all over the east and the south mainly. Where like, Knoxville feels like a second home to us just because of the community there that we wouldn’t have found otherwise. We’ve never even spent more than a day there, but everybody we know there is really special. And it’s nice because we can help our friends book shows there too. The community just keeps growing and growing.
Nathan: Yeah, because now touring feels like a big road trip where you see all your friends and you also don’t lose money. And you’re still just constantly creating anywhere. It’s really nice being inspired by different people and places. Touring in that circuit and in that manner feels so much more sustainable than just touring in places where you’ve never met anybody. It’s nice to have that kind of stability in what is a very unstable lifestyle.
Hippie Love Party with Handmade Trash Tape Merch on the “Minions Tour”
Shea: Yeah, I guess with that sustainability, as you guys get older and have different responsibilities, how do you maintain that stability with all the aspects of running a label?
Evren: It’s hard. We’re a pretty unstable label. But we’re working on it. You know, now that we’re all in Chicago, we’re trying to do more stuff locally. We did that festival, Eilee honestly did a really great job of putting that all together and really had the vision for doing more stuff locally. And I think that went really well. It seemed like something people were into.
Eilee: When I first moved here, I immediately had Evren and Nathan over and we had a day where we would just make tapes and buttons and all that stuff together. Now we do that together a lot more where it used to be super separated and it was just like, ‘oh wow, Nathan did the tapes, how awesome’. And I made Tombstone koozies, and now, somehow, they have to get to each other, so they can get to the people who bought them. And now it’s just really easy. It’s just hard too to talk about releases and stuff online or over the phone. We don’t even get to really hear each other’s honest and true opinions on music that’s sent to us or ideas we have for promotion. We’re all just like, ‘yeah, sure, let’s do it’. But then when we’re in person, we actually get to flesh it out more and really talk about our ideas because things can get jumbled.
Evren: It’s definitely a lot sometimes. We’re all also trying to make music and make other things. Eilee does a really good job of doing zine interviews and posting that on the account, just so we have stuff to put out there, stuff for people to read and get to know our artists. We’re going to try to also get more consistent with getting together and planning things out and whatnot. It’s just been a busy time. Nathan and I are doing school, Eilee’s been working, and then we’re going down to North Carolina soon for this big Pop Fest thing, and then Nathan’s going to Atlanta to help record Hill View #73 and play shows. Honestly, a lot of the way in which we support the label is just by playing for the bands on our label. I played for Hill View, Memory Card, and then did other stuff for bands that were on the label.
Nathan: It’s almost become a thing where me and Evren are the house rhythm section for the label. It almost feels like, okay, we’re helping the bands out by getting them out on the road and by backing them.
Scroll through for some Trash Tape show posters through the years
Shea: I mean, you guys do create such an engaging way to explore and appreciate new artists. Going from your zine interviews to touring and supporting your artists, what’s so important about crafting these stories, these little relatable nuggets about your artists?
Eilee: I think it’s just that our artists are small, so, people don’t know a lot about them, but all of them have really special stories that have meant a lot to us. Especially somebody like Gabbit or Tombstone Poetry, who mean a lot to us being based in North Carolina and introducing us to an amazing community. And I want their story to be shared. Even if a lot of people aren’t reading it, it’s just nice to take the time to actually really get to talk to them, for me, personally, and then to share that and hope people feel some sort of attachment or relate to something and then want to check it out.
Evren: And the thing about those digital zine stuff is it takes time with its presentation. We try to do fun stuff with it, like a little mini review or we ask them fun questions, and then we try to diversify the pages and whatnot. A lot of times when I’m trying to find new music, reading features and things like that, that’s a big way for me to get into a record because I can see where an artist’s headspace is at. I’m like, ‘oh, wow, their process sounds really interesting. Let me give it a spin.’
Nathan: I think that that’s a thing that’s died a lot in the current realm of music production. Whereas if you go back even 20 years and look at small magazines, I was just looking at an old issue of Roller Derby, and all the interviews in this issue were compelling and funny and very interesting and they motivate you to listen to the artist. And I think taking that sentiment and still giving it digitally and free and everywhere kind of gives you the benefits of genuine engagement while not being limited by buying a zine or knowing who to mail order.
Memory Card Practice at Nathan’s Apartment Winter 2025
Shea: And Eilee, you made a tour documentary too.
Eilee: Yeah, a long time ago. I have wanted to make a more updated one because I feel like we’re all just different now and it’s a different time. I was supposed to film a lot this summer on our tour. That didn’t happen and it was just… oh, my God. We might have gotten an actual TV show probably.
Nathan: There would have been a scene of me and Awsaf, just like, wordlessly using a toothbrush to scrape throw-up out of the inside of the window of their parents’ car for like an hour and a half in Homewood, Illinois, while all these guys would pull up into the gas station, look at us weird, and then drive away. It would have been one hell of a documentary.
Eilee: I was thinking of filming the Pop Fest. That would be cool.
Shea: Can you tell me a bit about Pop Fest?
Nathan: It’s like a bunch of bands who are all playing at Duke Coffeehouse in Durham, North Carolina on March 22nd and 23rd. I think it’s Saturday and Sunday.
Evren: Yeah, but a lot of trash tape artists are playing. Memory card is playing, Eilee and I are doing a set, a lot of friends are going to be there. I’m really excited. A lot of Chicago bands and North Carolina bands.
Eilee: Nathan also had a big hand in putting it together.
Nathan: It’s been a long process of planning and it’s crazy that it’s actually working out. It’s all done with university funding, so there’s a lot of proposal writing and mission statements. You gotta seem like an intelligent person with a vision to some degree. It’s going to be scary though, because it’s going to be all of the people any of us have ever known.
Eilee: Like every single world of ours is combining.
Nathan: Like my parents will be there. There might be deadbeats from when I went to high school.
Evren: Eilee’s 50-year-old co-worker is going to be there, because he’s playing a set at the festival, and we’re playing like sets back-to-back. It’s so beautiful. It’s crazy.
Nathan: Do you think we can get Mike from the cafe to come? Was it Mike or Mark, the crazy guy who ran the co-worker cafe? Oh my God. We were working as line cooks in a public park, in the cafe, but it was like a winter wonderland public park event, so we would just be there all night, and Eilee would make hot dogs and french fries and I made pizzas and sandwiches.
Evren: Yeah and then Nathan and I worked at Party City for like half a year together.
Nathan: I worked at Party City for damn near a year. You were there for like 10 months, right?
Shea: Are you guys sad to see it go?
Nathan: We went together like a week before it closed. We stole Mario figures. It was really surreal.
Evren: I was kind of like, ‘let me see what I can get here, what’s on clearance’, and there’s nothing worth buying there. There’s nothing you would ever fucking want there.
Nathan: That was the cool thing about working there, there was no incentive to steal things from work to get in trouble. The only thing would be I would go to the snack aisle, and I would steal combos if I hadn’t had dinner, and I’d eat cheese pizza combos. And that was the extent of my workplace theft. But you would get a lot of balloons. You get 12 free balloons a day. So, if I felt down, I would make a balloon.
Evren: Nathan figured out what the biggest balloon in the entire store was, and it was a life-size Stormtrooper. And we really wanted to see it, because like, that’s crazy [laughs]. So he just convinced our manager to let us blow it up.
Nathan: For promotion! But then within a week of that, we weren’t allowed within 10 feet of each other, because we would talk to each other too much.
Evren: Because it was so understaffed, we were all working like three jobs at the same time. You were the cashier, and then had to go blow up everybody’s balloons.
Nathan: I remember when we got in trouble, because there was like a huge order, like 50 or 100 balloons, something obscene. We were making them together because there was no one in the store. We’re not going to finish this if it’s just one of us, and we’re talking while we do it, because the store is empty, and that’s so sad to just blow up 100 balloons in silence. And then our manager comes over, and she’s like, ‘why are you guys talking?’ And then she made me go stand at the cashier in silence while there was nobody in the store, and Evren just had to blow up all the balloons by themselves.
Evren: At that time, we got to see each other all the time, because it was like, we would go to work, and we’d do trash tape stuff, and it was that time, like we were doing Welcome to Berlin, and then we did our first tour that summer, which was all trash tape bands. It was Hill View #73, Koudi, and then Welcome to Berlin. I drummed for all three bands and we had no fucking clue what we were doing.
Nathan taping the front bumper of his parents car – Tour 2022
Shea: What was it like figuring out how to book shows and tour?
Nathan: The thing is, it’s hard if you’re from a place, and you’ve got no music, no clout, it’s impossible to book. But if you’re from a place, no music, no clout, and you want to book a show four hours from you, it’s easy. You’re just like, ‘hey, I’m from out of town’.
Evren: The first show we booked was in Chesapeake, Virginia. I was with this band Hippie Love Party, who are on the label, at a venue called The Riff House, like a trailer in a gravel lot. It was a great show, but we went like three hours to play it, and it was great. It was worth it. And we were like, ‘oh, we can do this’. But that first tour, we were playing with three unknown bands, only two of them had music out. Koudi was releasing a record, but no one knew who they were. Hill View had just released their first EP. We played like eight shows, so what we would do was we would play where everyone was from. We went to Atlanta where Hillview is from, and then we went up north from there. But then in Asheville, no one showed up.
Eilee: We were supposed to be playing with Melaina Kol, but he had to drop the day of.
Evren: But no one showed up to that show because it was like, three bands no one’s ever heard of, ever, that have never played live, ever [laughs].
Eilee: Which is so awesome and funny too, because now we know so many people in Asheville, and it’s just like, we made such a beautiful community there three years later. It just takes time.
Evren and Nathan with shirts made by Eilee for Tombstone Poetry Promo Video
Shea: Trash Tapes recently celebrated 5 years of being a label. Looking back on your catalog now, broadly speaking, what are some releases that have stuck with you? Whether that be from just the sheer joy it brought, something you learned about the process of running a label or putting out music, etc.?
Eilee: For me, I think the last Rain Recordings album Turns in Idle, that was a really special release. Josef is from Sweden, so he came to stay with us for like three weeks. Evren and him worked out the album and then we all went to Drop of Sun in Asheville for the recording, and they were there for like a week. Nathan and I came up halfway through and we got to do some stuff on the record, but also just watching that whole process was really beautiful, and we all just got super close during that time. I mean, it took a long time for the album to come out, but when it was getting ready, I had asked Evren if I could help with the release and they kind of just let me do whatever I wanted. That was really nice because I wanted to get into video editing and making little promo videos with animation and stuff. Josef is a good artist and makes his own drawings, I got to work with him too, and being part of that process and then making all their shirts and merch for tour and stuff, was just really special to me. It did cause a lot of tension between Evren and I, but I feel like our relationship got stronger throughout it. My relationship with everybody just got stronger through that release and I learned a lot about the creative process and myself.
Evren: I think when the first Hill View EP came out, Songs I wrote Skipping Classes, was a big thing, because I was just graduating high school and it was like the first time Hill View released something. I’d known Awsaf for a while, I mean it still shows how good of a songwriter they are, and how good they were at that age and whatnot, but when that came out it felt like things were going places. That was a really exciting feeling, being a part of that and then playing their first shows live with them and making the tapes and selling them. There was something that felt really special about that.
Hippie Love Party x Welcome to Berlin Pool Party Show Summer 2022
Nathan: I have two answers. The first is the Memory Card album As the Deer. I flew out to Alabama, and I spent a couple weeks in Demopolis, Alabama with Henry where I thought we were going to just practice for tour, but then I got to his house and he was like, ‘okay are you ready to finish the album?’ He had more songs he had to record, and then we touched up mixing and did all of the album art in between Alabama and North Carolina. At points, his mom would stop by where we were staying and just kind of not question what was going on. And then when we were in Durham, we would stay up for days making scary music that was supposed to allegedly be a live show on the radio, and working on the album cover, and my mom would walk into the kitchen at five in the morning when she’s leaving for work and just side eye and not say anything [laughs]. Just the whole process of that album was very special, but also just because Henry is one of the people that was really, really influential in my life. It was also just a point in my life where I was kind of losing my mind and felt trapped, and then I ran away to Alabama for a month. Listening back to it, I love that album and I love every song. I think it’s my personal favorite thing that we put out, and it means so much to me to have been able to play a small part in bringing it through the finish line.
Then the other one is the second thing we put out, Take Me to the Moon and Back by Pig Democracy. That album was the first time I ever really got adventurous with my end of the production side of things. It was a box set, so I had made a print template for how to print out everything on cardstock that could then be cut and folded into a box that you could put all the tapes in. And then it also came with a zine. My dad works in this light factory, setting up lights for design, and I went up to his work and printed them all on the printers there, and he helped me lay it out using the computers there. At the end, it was a very personally important process to learn how to do all of that, and to do it for an album that means a lot to me, for a person who means a lot to me. It felt like both of those things, I think in the scheme of our label and for all of us, felt like big steps.
Along with this series, our friends over at Trash Tape Records are offering a merch bundle giveaway, which includes tapes of Terns in Idle (2023) by Rain Recordings and Field Recordings (2022) by A Patchwork, a Trash Tape pennant and buttons, as well as stickers and a tote bag from the ugly hug.
To enter the giveaway, follow these easy steps below!
“Is there anything that came into this shop that you had to turn away because it was too fucked up?”, Chaepter asked the employee behind the desk of Chicago’s Woolly Mammoth Antiques and Oddities, the location we chose to photograph in – and one that left us grotesquely curious as to the collectables for sale. The taxidermied cow named “Meatball the Freak”, John Wayne Gacey original paintings, an old, preserved chicken nugget or a gun holster made from a squirrel, there was humor in both the disbelief and surrealism of it all that just barley cut the tension of how dark some of this stuff really was. “Hmmm,” she says, taking the time to give us an answer that would leave us satisfied in our inquiry. “I mean, people will bring in murder memorabilia all the time, stuff used in murders and crimes. But it feels weird putting monetary value to those kinds of things, so we often just trade for it.”
Chaepter Negro is a Chicago-based artist who performs under his first name, marking ground in his own unique and challenging ways with engaging and tactful sounds. Chaepter grew up in Central Illinois, rearing a large Irish-Catholic Midwest upbringing to show for it, where he was first exposed to music through classical training in cello and piano. But with the release of 2024’s Naked Era, a bold, brutalist post-punk album riddled with acute punctuation, searing guitar tones and strict melodic orders that carved out a new vision for the project and a trajectory that Chaepter and co. have fully launched into. Accompanying him are players John Golden on drums, Ayethaw Tun on bass, who have played with Chaepter for years, as well as the newest addition of Shane Morris on lead guitar.
Today, Chaepter shares a new EP called Empire Anthems, a brief and poignant collection of songs that areunwilling to mince words directed towards the fearful, and rather stupid, timeline that we are currently residing. Although gripping tightly to our being, blending punk antiquity and rage against the system with the absolute fear of what is unfolding in front of our own eyes, Empire Anthems plays out with urgency and condemnation, of course, but the purpose of its creation is a remnant of preservation. The kind of preservation you get from making art with the people you care about. The kind of preservation you get from engaging with and looking out for the community that you are a part of. The kind of self-preservation you get when you choose what has monetary value in your life, no matter how fucked up it is. Chaepter isn’t searching for fix-all answers here, but rather ways in which we can all push back when the things that matter the most are exploited.
We recently spent the day with Chaepter, first taking photos in the Woolly Mammoth before we got to discuss Empire Anthems, having creative freedom in community and suffering from choice-poison.
This interview as been edited for length and clarity.
Shea Roney: So, you have an EP coming out soon called Empire Anthems.
Chaepter: Yes, we’re doing this EP with Pleasure Tapes. Honestly, it was kind of weird, the past year we’ve been touring the Naked Era record, and then I’ve been writing this other album and we just spent the last four months rehearsing and recording it – different from the EP. I just had a bunch of songs that didn’t really fit that, so we just spent a couple days in our practice space pushing through these songs. It’s like what would be the B-sides of an album or something, but we’re going to release it first while we search for a home for the bigger record.
SR: This EP is a continuation of that raw and bold sound that Naked Era fully embraced. As you venture more into this genre, exploring the techniques and sounds, what did you gravitate towards when fleshing out these songs?
C: I think for me it was just writing on guitar, and in this way, electric guitar. At the end of the day, I used to always write songs on piano, so I was always writing songs like that. It wasn’t until a couple years ago that I started structuring songs on guitar, and then also experimenting with pedals and stuff. I’ve always been doing quieter stuff, a lot of folk songs and stuff like that, but for whatever reason, it just kind of felt right to be part of a band. I’ve been in other bands, but I think what kind of led to that shift is I really like playing like this, where we can get loud and get aggressive, but also have those soft moments and have the dynamics, which we really try to do.
SR: Wanting to play louder, did you feel like you knew how to go into it, or was there trial and error?
C: Oh, definitely trial and error. I don’t actually even know guitar chords. I’ve just been doing my own tunings and my own chords, and just writing songs that way. I don’t know a C chord. I don’t know any of that shit. Everything’s been self-taught with guitar, and I think that’s been kind of nice because it’s forced me to do things a little differently. We were joking about that, because me and the band were at a show last night, and we were looking back at old videos of us playing and were like, ‘what the hell were we doing? What the fuck was that?’ [laughs] When I first started playing frontman and then playing guitar at the same time, I had just never done that, so it was a lot of trial and error, but we’re starting to kind of get to know each other a bit.
SR: When you bring a song to the group, how do you translate it to them? If you’re not referring to old music theory and stuff like that?
C: It really depends. We’re more collaborative now than when we first started. The Chaepter project was just kind of a solo project, and then I had friends that were playing with me, and we’ve gone through some iterations. But now we’re pretty much locked in as a band, and there’s a lot more collaboration. So I’ll bring in a song idea, and sometimes I’ll have a bass part written, sometimes not, sometimes I’ll have half of it. It’s just things like that. Oftentimes we’ll just do it as a three-piece. We’ll start fleshing it out, and my drummer, John, writes all his drum parts and helps with structuring. Unless we’re collaborating with someone who’s doing lead, we keep it pretty open. Sometimes I’ll come in with a song and it’s pretty much all done. Sometimes I’ll just have a riff, and we’ll see where that goes. It’s just been really good for my brain, and just us as a unit to push and pull.
SR: Do you feel like this freedom in your abilities, and lack of quote-unquote musical structure, has helped you explore and start writing in different ways?
C: Yeah, for guitar music at least. I was raised playing classically on cello and piano since I was six. I have that experience in theory and stuff, but in terms of guitar, just not knowing what I’m doing has been honestly really cool. Anytime I kind of figure something out, it feels very fresh to me, or naive in a way that I feel comfortable in. I would naturally play this way for whatever reason as opposed to feeling like I have to do something because someone taught me since I was a little kid to do it like that.
SR: So now as you gear up to release Empire Anthems, referring to these songs as almost B-sides to an album, was there a connective tissue or theme that runs throughout them all?
C: They were kind of just existing in their own kind of space. I’m also working on another record, too, so I’ve kind of had three or four records, or at least collections of songs, working off in different places. These songs were just in their own sort of world – its own darker kind of space. I was in a weird spot post-album. Whenever I’m done making a record, I get a little depressed, so I was just kind of thinking a lot about the relevance and utility of making art in a fading empire that we are currently residing in, and how that intersects with our cultural identity, and this idea of ‘Empire Anthems’ being these cultural signifiers that kind of lulls us into complacency and reaffirms the dominant American culture and rationalizes irrational American terror. You know, you turn on the radio and some pop song that’s making you not really think about something, but allowing you to continue to sleepwalk through life. How does art exist in that kind of way? These anthems just keep pulling you back into the Matrix or wherever the fuck we’re in [laughs].
SR: Yeah, I was very intrigued by the word ‘anthem’ in the title, because there is such a notable heaviness to the word. But also repeating the word ‘signifier’, can you talk about these songs as signifiers and this plane that you created?
C: The idea of art as a cultural signifier in general, being something that in music’s case, if you’re living in a certain culture, you’re going to produce certain cultural products that reaffirm what it means to live in American culture, which is this blood-sucking empire that’s on its last legs. How dominant art might be shifting, just to keep the dream alive even though it’s not there anymore, that’s just what I was thinking about. Art is obviously what I’m doing, it’s my life, and sometimes it’s the most important thing in the world to me. And other times, I gotta focus on my family. It’s this sort of oscillation back and forth of being a ‘god-like’ thing in my life pulling me towards something, but also something I’m just doing. It can feel kind of silly just writing songs in the state it is right now, but it is deeply important at the same time. I guess that’s all things.
SR: I would argue it’s always important, especially with all that comes with it, especially community, which is something that you are very vocal on. This was huge for you with Naked Era and that press, you’re very keen on giving your surroundings voice and appreciation. Thank you. What bits of this relation and respect for your surroundings sticks with you when making art?
C: I feel like in my brain, what comes out is pretty much a debris, just kind of an after. So if making art is a fabric, it’s that community that comes with it that I think matters the most. It’s kind of reflexive – it’s a mirror. So if you’re involved in a really active art scene, you’re inherently going to be injecting that into what you’re making. Whether you’re doing it explicitly or tacitly, it’s always going to be part of it. That’s something my band and I try to focus on, that process and journey mattering more than the song that comes out of it. Because at the end of the day, as artists and creatives, that’s what you have. Once you let that song go, it’s out there, but you have that journey with you forever. So inserting yourself in something and allowing yourself to be part of a scene or some sort of artistic collective fabric is the best part of doing all this shit. I spent so many years of my life making songs alone in a bedroom. It was fine, but you get out what you put in. There’s nothing wrong with writing in an isolated manner at all, but nowadays, I’ve been feeling so good about being around other people that are making stuff, and part of this greater thing.
SR: Even to the stories you tell in your songs, there is this level of presence and characterization regardless of if it’s told from your eyes or not. There is always this presence. So when it comes to dealing with conflicting imagery, you know, with this failing empire, what kind of emotions went in and came out of these songs in the process?
C: Yeah, I mean, post-album with these songs, I felt like I was just steering a ship in the dark, into the fog. It’s getting foggier and it’s very confusing – I get overstimulated. I was kind of in that space where I was just like, ‘what the fuck am I doing?’ Not in any way that’s rooted in that much reality, but I was getting very existential. I think that’s where these leftover songs and how they kind of form into this EP. It’s a weird thing, once you’ve given life to a new project. For me, it’s kind of an obsession. I’m obsessed with something for a long time, and then you finally put it to tape, and then, ‘dang, here it is’. That’s kind of the headspace I was in putting this record together. And then, you know, watching all the systems around us degrade at an even more accelerated rate than they have been doing so previously – there’s a lot going on to say the least. And again, it can seem so silly to be writing a little song, but it’s serious. And I think being able to balance both is important.
SR: Sorry, are you blinded? This window is brutal.
C: I am cooking. Part 2 on the bench out there?
*change of scenery
SR: I can’t remember what we were talking about
C: I was saying anything I needed to. I was in survival mode [laughs].
SR: [laughs] How long have you lived in the city for?
C: Since October of 2019. I moved here after I was in Madison for a little bit after college working and then moved here. Then COVID happened.
SR: Hell yeah. You have described your project in the terms of Midwest Gothic, which I really appreciate having lived here all my life. I feel like in a way that really helps make this Empire Anthems a little bit more credible, growing up in the heart of America with a big classic big family. Looking at the world you grew up in and then the world you are in now, does that live in these songs at all?
C: I feel like everyone who grows up in the Midwest has this sense of space because we are just in this plane. When I’m writing songs, I do try to channel that a lot. I grew up in Central Illinois in the country. It was really lovely being able to grow up around nature and be exposed to animals and having that big family, but there is sort of a Midwest existentialism, I guess I will call it, that feeling of living sort of nowhere all the time. Illinois in particular, and what happened to this state and what it looks like now with industrial agriculture and losing the prairie, is something I’m always thinking about and trying to channel into the music. There’s a big history of lost connection to our land here in Illinois and the Midwest in general because of industrial agriculture and what that’s done to farming communities. There’s a lot of ruins around here. You can go over to Michigan, or go to Gary, Indiana you know, an hour from here, and see with your own eyes what that looks like when people just get left behind. I was thinking about that a lot with these songs, just that expansiveness that we’re looking across. We can see everything in front of us in the Midwest.
SR: Did you find any hope buried within these songs? Or are we.. are we pre-hope?
C: [laughs] I feel like these were probably my least hopeful in a minute. These songs were kind of like a shot, you know, these five songs, just like an injection. I don’t know what’s going to happen after the injection. Whereas with a full record, I feel like I tend to be able to have emotional arcs with them and I’ve never been a huge fan of writing EPs. I’ve always felt I’ve struggled with encapsulating a full concept in them that I can do in a record. But that’s why I kind of view it as a shot, it’s just one big injection. There’s maybe not the catharsis that a full record has.
SR: I mean, to call back to before we were recording, we were talking about exposure therapy, and it’s kind of ripping off the bandaid in all aspects. Do you find yourself taking too much on at times?
C: These songs, and just a lot of the music I have been kind of consuming as of late, fall into that sort of ‘rattle ya a little bit’ category. Not in one particular sort of ideology, but just like this idea of like, things are not right per se, and if you’re feeling like something’s off, that’s not probably innate to just you, you know, it’s a fully human thing. It’s like, if you’re ill, you’re mentally ill because of this or, you know, the sort of individualized blame that it’s really easy for us to go into and to sink into that shame, you’ve got to give yourself a little bit of grace, you know? Recognize that to some degree we’re doing what we can, don’t be so hard on yourself. Maybe it’s growing up with Catholic guilt, I find myself doing so much, and I’m trying to be better about it. I don’t think we should have to be able to keep up with everything that’s going on, especially, in terms of new technology and productivism and feeling like we have to be this well-oiled, perfect little production machine as a human. It’s like, ‘nah, man, this shit is so confusing’. It’s hard to keep up and it’s not normal for the human brain to have all this fucking stupidness all the time
SR: What constitutes a break for you?
C: Oh, I’m so bad at trying to just chill out. I have a lot of family stuff that’s always going on. Eight siblings, very dysfunctional, and trying to balance that with making money and doing music, booking tours and doing this music thing, it’s just so much work. I love it, it’s an obsession, but it’s a lot of unpaid work, so it’s hard to do and balance a job. I’m reading more, which has been good. I deleted Instagram from my phone last week, I was like, ‘this shouldn’t be that big of a deal’, but it was. It’s really difficult because I use it to book tours, so I’ll message a band, and then like an hour later, I’m like watching fucking videos of AI squids being cleaned off. That’s why I deleted my Instagram. I saw this AI video of someone washing off a giant squid in a boat and I couldn’t tell if it was real or not. I was like, ‘this is fucked up. I got to get rid of this’. I was sleeping better and when I wake up, I felt just a little bit better about how much time I’m spending consuming things that don’t affect me. Obviously, we’re veering towards absurdism, but at some point, I just need to disconnect and be like, ‘okay, I’ve got friends in front of me, family, people I love that I talk to and talk back to me’. I also got rid of streaming, which has been fine, but I don’t have a lot of money to buy records so I’ve been doing YouTube and bandcamp and buying friends stuff that I really, really love.
SR: How has that been? Did it bring out anything with your relationship to listening or something?
C: I’m trying to find a balance with music because we’ve kind of been conditioned to view it all as free. Even as someone who makes stuff, I grew up with CDs – I first fell in love with music with CDs; buying CDs, getting CDs from the library, burning them, getting them from friends – it was a little more precious back then at least. I got streaming in 2018, and whether you think about it explicitly or not, it does reshape how we interact with and appreciate art, you know? I’ve just been trying to make some small changes where it’ll force me to go a little slower with stuff. Because otherwise I can be kind of overstimulating myself. Something I always think about is choice. I think historically, humans aren’t actually that good with choice, which is why I think the capitalist idea of choice in terms of products and things you consume is like a mirage. We’re good at looking back and rationalizing stuff, but when I have all these choices in front of me, I just get choice-poison – I just don’t know what to do. So I feel like limiting myself a little bit and being like, ‘okay, I can listen to this today’. I remember one summer driving my mom’s car, she had a Feist CD, and you know, I was like, ‘I don’t know what this is’, but I fell in love with it. For that whole summer, that’s the only CD I had in the car, and every song I got to love.
Scroll for more photos with Chaepter
You can listen to Empire Anthems out everywhere now via Pleasure Tapes. Chaepter will be playing an EP release show this Thursday 3/20 at Empty Bliss in Chicago and then will embark on a short tour working their way out east. Look for dates and cities here.
Every Wednesday, the ugly hug shares a playlist personally curated by an artist/band that we have been enjoying. This week we have a collection of songs put together by Sabrina Nichols of the Rochester-based project, shep treasure.
The music that Nichols writes under shep treasure builds out from soft landscapes, lingering with haunting chord progressions and delicate melodies as the tunes become embedded into any environment that they are introduced to. Releasing music since 2018, shep treasure’s latest LP, 2023’s 500 Dead or Alive is both an organic and fragile experience, offering comfort to both our most primitive instincts and the view of the unknown ahead, encouraging us to take that first step in.
Listen to Nichols’ playlist here
You can listen to all shep treasure releases as well as order a cassette tape of 500 Dead or Alive on their bandcamp.
Written by Shea Roney | Photo Courtesy of shep treasure
“The thing is, part of the reason why I picked bowling as an activity that I was going to get into is because you look like an absolute fool if you are having a bad day and start crying out on the fucking bowling alley that looks like it is 1994,” Park says, wavering between the need for a joke and a contempt for understanding. “It’s just too goofy to be visibly upset here. Especially alone. You cannot do that. So, it does kind of force a cheeriness into you.”
Victoria Park is a Chicago-based songwriter, who for the past few years has been performing under the moniker Pictoria Vark. With just a slight shift in the nomenclature, there is a differentiation there that even Park herself has set out to understand since the project’s initial founding. Now gearing up for her sophomore record Nothing Sticks via Get Better Records out on March 21st, this album has been a part of a longtime-coming-esque journey. After going through life changes and embarking on a tour that lasted 150 days, Park’s demeanor became ill fitted, relying on the ability to be present when she knew she couldn’t be.
Nothing Sticks is as vivid as it needs to be, rearing an earnest delivery that dares to challenge the fronts that become habit to us all. But where Nothing Sticks becomes most poignant is in Park’s focus in her own sense of self through her experience within the music industry, navigating the relentless expectations and learning how easy it is to lose yourself along the way. But in the end, Park has proven herself to be emboldened by it, embracing a rigorous, empathetic and more in-depth approach to writing these songs. And as they trickle out with each single, rearing with sincere melodies and indie rock bliss that PV and co. have brought to life, there is a sentiment built around momentary lapses of reflection that Park makes so vulnerable and engaging throughout.
We recently took to the Waveland Bowling Lanes on a below freezing day in Chicago to talk with Park about balancing expectations, breaking habits and the making of Nothing Sticks.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity purposes.
Shea Roney: I am very intrigued about this 150 days of touring, and this is kind of where the generalized theme of the record came from. What was that experience like and what sticks with you now as you have taken time off?
Pictoria Vark: I was enjoying being on tour for that long, but it was also because I was running away from myself and my life. I didn’t want to confront the lack I felt at my home because I didn’t have the time to put energy into making it feel like home, to building friends and making it a real place I wanted to be. And so, instead, I would be like, ‘okay, when am I going back on tour?’ I just kept running away, being like, ‘I want to be here as little as possible.’ I haven’t really toured that much where it felt like I was running towards something. And I think the toughest part of walking away from that, or what the album is about, is when you spend time developing experiences when you spend time and money, the experience comes and goes. It just becomes a memory. So, it was just me kind of building memories and not anything material with it. I’m kind of just taking away the memories, and sometimes I call looking back on that time as “remembering the horrors” [laughs]. Which is partially me being dramatic about it and partially kind of real. Other people have different horrors they remember in their life, just like, ‘oh, that was a fucked up time’, and when you’re looking back on it, that’s remembering the horrors. So, because I have “the horrors” to remember, I’ve been trying to help my friends who are just starting to tour for the first time or want to know more about that to impart that wisdom so that they don’t crash and burn in the same way I did. I also didn’t have a lot of people at that time that I could talk to about these experiences because I didn’t have a lot of peers that were doing that much or were touring to that degree at all. So, it’s nice to be able to be that for other people, or try to be.
SR: You have mentioned in the past that there is a Victoria Park and there is a Pictoria Vark. Where do you draw the line between these two and has one taught the other anything?
PV: I think with the second record, something that I was thinking about is that I have these opportunities to be on stage, to share my music and some people will listen to it. Rather than think about the songs that I’m writing as like, I need this diary, I need to put my demons somewhere on a page and then I share that, but more like, if you were on a microphone in front of an audience of people, what would you want to say? What is the thing that I actually want to share with other people? What is something that I think is a useful message or something? So, it was made kind of intentionally and I think that’s something anybody can do or think about. All those crazy YouTube interviews of just like, ‘we’re just talking to ordinary people’ – that’s kind of like the same thing as that. If you were stopped on the street, what would you say?
With Victoria and Pictoria, I’m trying to do a better job at drawing a line between the two. Online, it’s honestly been really tough because I feel like I am only really using my social media to promote my music. And then it becomes a skewed image of like, ‘wow, you’re really busy’ or like, ‘how’s the music stuff?’ People don’t really know what’s going on in my personal life. One thing I am trying to do for the new record is have a stage costume so that it’s like when I’m on stage, I am in my persona, and then when I take that off, that’s like a different person – to create more of that delineation in a physical realm.
SR: Wow, that’s a great idea! What do you have in mind for the stage costume?
PV: Okay, early drafts, I wore these angel wings at Outset and I kind of want to keep sticking with them for the new record. It’s both a play on the like the halo effect, which is kind of a type of bias that I think happens to a lot of musicians. It’s like you literally put them on a pedestal. So I think that’s funny, angel wings, halo effect, yeah. And also because I love Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders. What if I was just like an angel on earth? That sounds so fun and it’s also, you know, kind of about forever.
SR: You say that these are just better songs in many aspects from writing and recording than your previous release. What did you find yourself focusing on more this time around? Anything out of your comfort zone?
PV: Yeah, I really wanted to push myself as a songwriter to make my craft better, to make stronger choruses or make stuff with more than three chords. When we got to the studio, the biggest challenge was working on a lot of the vocals, because we didn’t do a ton of vocal takes and there was like a whole eight hour day where it’s like Brad and I were just running through vocals and just being like, ‘oh, did we like how I said this word better?’ So by the end of that day, we were so fried. But overall, the studio time went really smoothly I think because we had so much preparation going into it. We were making really complex demos. I felt so bad, I was asking so much of Gavin and Tori because in my head I was like, ‘we don’t have time to like mess up.’ But I think it was like that initial thought and working out that way allowed us to have a smoother experience in the studio. It set a precedent, if I work with these same people for the next record, we can keep things a little bit more relaxed. I don’t really know how much we expected to go wrong, you know, but it was really exciting. It was just so many more people and so fun to watch it happen. There were some times where it’s like Brad and Gavin and Tori were just kind of like cooking and I was like, ‘I’m here’ [laughs]. It was really cool to just let them take the reins a little bit. My main job is assembling the task force.
SR: Do you think next time you will be more comfortable?
PV: Yeah, next time I want to leave it just more open, you know? Like maybe we don’t have to make the demos quite as intense, we can play or leave a little more room in the studio to figure things out. Finding a good balance of preparation and being open to improvising.
SR: And because everything was so tense with time and the demos, do you feel like there’s some parts of the recording process that you really wish you could have focused more on?
PV: Honestly, no, I think the time crunch felt really good, because it made us not overthink things. And we didn’t. We didn’t have time to redo things, we just had to let it live as is. And even if there’s a vocal performance or two that I would like to have done another take, it’s almost nice to think that that’s just room for improvement for next time.
SR: So at the point of this conversation, you only have two singles out. But you just wrote a really nice piece in your substack about balancing expectations, especially about the singles. You crowdsourced friends about which songs should be singles and there were some different ideas. When it comes to songs that are so personal to you, what does that balance of expectations look like as you go forward?
PV: It’s not easy [laughs]. I don’t think I do a great job at it. In all honesty, if you talk to some of my closest friends, I’ve driven them nuts over the last year just by going through the same kind of thought circles I can’t get out of. I think what I struggle with is the uncertainty rather than if something were to perform badly. I just don’t really handle not knowing in a lot of areas of my life, for various different reasons. It’s like more than being in this gray space where anything could happen and only like one thing will. It makes me crazy, makes me unwell – just in terms of like, I don’t know what my life will look like in three months, six months. I think the singles, weirdly, when I polled people on what song should be singles, I was not expecting “I Pushed It Down” to be the number two one that people would pick after “Make Me A Sword”. But to have that reflected by the Spotify algorithm is super weird. This reflects a taste of people, whatever it is. I thought that was really weird and interesting.
SR: One of the major themes of this album is understanding that nothing lasts forever. What did it mean to you, when talking about the fleeting implications of life, to come to this conclusion? Although bleak, did it offer any clarification or justification to you?
PV: I think it was the result of causing myself so much suffering by trying to keep things together in my life. Before this 150 days was started, I was dumped for going on tour for too long. And then four days later, I was on the road for three months. I had centered so much of my life around him unknowingly – it was part of the reason I decided to stay in Iowa an extra year, which became two years and didn’t move to Chicago sooner. And then with different bands or friendships, when there’s those falling outs, it left a really big emotional mark. I think in writing this record, it’s helped me be like, ‘okay, if this person doesn’t want to be friends with me or doesn’t want to repair things, that’s kind of not my problem. That’s not mine to hold.’ I can see that as an opportunity for more space for something else to come in, and I think that reframe has been really, really helpful because of the amount of like, almost a scarcity mindset of, if I want this thing and this thing feels good, it has to stay. I have to be the one to force it to stick in my life.
SR: Has this changed the choices you make when it comes to both your career or personal life?
PV: You know the meme of like, ‘I did X,Y, and Z and all I got was this t-shirt?’ That is kind of what going on tour felt like – I don’t know what happened. It’s like that thing happened, it was a blip in my life, and you know, now I wake up and I go to work and I still make music. I have a hard time not being able to make a clear and straightforward narrative from it. And so I think the ‘nothing sticks’ ethos is to try to enjoy the present as much as possible. Have the memories, but to not expect life to follow in a logical way like X,Y, and Z and be ok with things slowing down or ending because they eventually will. I don’t know if that’s a good answer for that question, but that’s what I got. I think with music, it’s made me change my approach, like, if this thing is going to cost time and money and energy to do, what are the things that I actually want to do in it? Because playing to 20 people, 100 miles away from home is like, I’ve done that, you know, I’ve done that enough now where I don’t feel like that’s an additive experience. So everything that I want to do moving forward, I want to feel really purposeful and really meaningful during the process of doing it, so that the end result doesn’t quite matter.
SR: So the last song, We’re Musicians, reminds me of a theory you were workshopping last time we talked, about good outcomes and bad outcomes. Being a musician, stuck in this almost stuck on this thin line, can you find yourself reflected in that theory?
PV: Oh my god [laughs]. Okay, well, if we’re gonna get super real with this, the big tour that I got asked to do a few years ago, that is like getting what you want and it wasn’t a bad outcome. It’s getting exactly what you want, but it’s like, not what you think it is. It is in some ways the monkey’s paw. Like, you get everything you ask for, but then it’s not what you thought it was gonna be at all.
graph made by Victoria Park
SR: What are you most excited for in regards to this album finally being out?
PV: Just to have it out. Yeah. Just to make it exist. Like, of course there’s things I want from it, but I know that’s not a guarantee. I think it’s something that I’ve been harping on in my mind of like, Oh, if X, Y, and Z doesn’t happen, then what happens? It’s like, I don’t know. You wake up. You go to work, I don’t know. That’s what happens. You make more music.. But I am really proud of this record and I think I’m just gonna let it speak for itself the best I can. As hard as that is for me.
SR: I mean, look how far you’ve come. Just earlier in this conversation you were like, I’m so scared of not knowing X, Y, and Z.
PV: The thing is, I am going to leave this question and then go back to my house and be like, ‘I’m scared of X, Y, and Z’ [laughs]. This is what I mean when I’m writing these songs as Pictoria – I would like to be this way. And by pretending that I am this way, that is me trying to be closer to that. The thing is like, part of the reason why I picked bowling as an activity that I was going to get into is because you look like an absolute fool if you are having a bad day and start crying out on the fucking bowling alley that looks like it is 1994. It’s just too goofy to be visibly upset here. Especially alone. You cannot do that. So it does kind of force a cheeriness into you.
See more photos of Pictoria Vark here.
Nothing Sticks is set to be released Friday March 21st via Get Better Records. You can pre-order the album now as well as vinyl or cassette tapes.
With pronounced earnestness and vision, Slake has shared their debut single “bonecollector” with us last week, along with an accompanying music video. Previously writing and releasing songs under their own name, California-based songwriter Mary Claire has unveiled a new moniker and a new sonic direction to embrace. As a DIY solo artist since 2018, with two self-recorded albums to show for it, last summer Mary Claire traveled to Hudson Valley, New York to record Slake’s debut album Let’s Get Married, set to be released June 20th, with Ryan Albert (Babehoven) and a collection of other talents that help bring this new project to life.
As steady guitars lay out ethereal tones and each vocal part motivates the track’s movement with both beauty and empathy, “Bonecollector” becomes a moment of tension and release, as Mary Claire steps out of their comfort zone in more ways than one. We recently got to ask Mary Claire some questions about the new project and to take a deep dive into the single and music video for “Bonecollector”.
ugly hug: “Bonecollector” is your first release under the new moniker Slake. What parts of this song feel like a new beginning to you?
Mary Claire: I feel like everything about this song is representative of a new beginning. I wrote this song after a dream i had. It was kind of scary, kind of prophetic, and it just didn’t let up. it kind of bled out into my real life, all that dream stuff from that time. There was a time before the “bonecollector”, and there was a time after. I was in-between worlds then, I was at a major crossroads of my life. i’m happy i got this song down during that time.
“bonecollector” touches on how we learn skills in order to survive, how we develop ways of being in the world so that our experience can be livable, maybe even bearable, maybe even good. but sometimes, these skills or defenses or attributes we’ve built up and gotten so good at start to become detrimental to us as our lives change – because the war we were fighting is over, the people are all different people, the town is new, the everything has shifted. so, we have to develop some newness, some new useful skills, and likely say goodbye to the old skills. and that unknown can be insanely scary and even feel threatening to the parts of you that desperately want to stay but are holding you back, that aren’t serving you, that are hurting you.
“bonecollector” is a little message in a bottle urging listeners to look at our ways of being and give them a little dusting off, a refresh, or some time in the sun in order to change into something new that aligns with your shifting life. and say thank you to your old skills too. because if you’re like me, the old skills won’t go down without a fight.
“bonecollector” is all about the guardian at the threshold before change. i guess “bonecollector” is entirely about newness. and i feel like the fullness in its production, the additions that come from collaboration, and the richness and rise & fall in its sonic story line are representative of that.
uh: Your previous two releases were both self recorded and self released, but Let’s Get Married brings in a whole cast of collaborators. What was it like shifting this process and what did you learn about yourself as an artist by working with others?
mc: i loved recording, mixing, and mastering this album with other people. bridge oona and lil made me feel very safe and supported and special while we recorded this album. ryan is an incredible producer and engineer. i’d never worked with a producer before and it just makes so much sense to me now – it really works with my brain to have someone like that there. i have a lot of big ideas and big feelings but sometimes i get stuck because i don’t know how to do what im envisioning. trusting others with my little world was very hard and vulnerable and rewarding, and made me more open and trusting to collaborating in general. i tend to have a pretty strict but not always clear vision of what i want to do artistically, so working with everyone on this record made me see better. i can be a little controlling about what i want or what i think i want with my art, but during this experience i just told myself to say yes as much as possible. and it was always always worth it. and so if i didn’t like something, i had to really know why i was saying no. and that is a helpful exercise. i learned how to work with others more efficiently and fully and openly. i’m not perfect at it, but i learn a little bit more every day. i’ve got dreams too big to try and do them alone. i’m glad everyone i worked with believed in my dreams and believed in me and believed in themselves.
uh: What was the vision for the music video and how did it come together?
mc: literally my only motivating factor was to get a bald guy in this video. i had a million different ideas that ranged from getting like one hundred different and unique bald people in a bar to having a super lonely barfly at the jukebox. then i saw this regular at a karaoke bar in san francisco give a very earnest and moving performance, so that was it. i initially thought id just have the video be of him singing in the bar, but talking to seth the DP of the video, he convinced me it needed more. eventually, i warmed up to the idea of including more in the video. i was reluctant at first because i really just wanted my bald man to be the only one. but seth wondered what might be playing on the karaoke TV, and then a world of possibilities opened. we kind of thought we’d do like a shot for shot remake of george michael’s careless whisper to have as the karaoke backing video, but i was walking around berlin on my birthday listening to the song and i thought it’d be more fun to be in tights. so that’s where the jazzercise thing came from. obviously seth was down. there’s so much awesome 80s female bodybuilding stuff that helped inspire the video. and when the day of the shoot came and two of my friends dads and one stranger from craigslist arrived, it felt like a perfect amount of bald men.
i’d never worked on such a professional video before and i felt very taken care of by all the guys on set. once again, i just said yes to as much as i could and opened myself up to being vulnerable.
i often too feel like when you have a big sad song, it can be hard to have a big sad video to go with it – you have a real opportunity to get through to people in a new and entirely different way through the visual medium of your music video. it’s incredible to me. so i wanted to do something funny, because even though i write kind of serious grief-laden emotional music, i would consider myself pretty funny. hopefully my friends think so too. it was a nice opportunity to express myself and my sense of humor, and see if the song could stand up to all we threw at it. i feel like it did, and im proud of it.
uh: What can listeners expect from this new project Slake?
mc: that’s a good question, one i don’t fully have an answer to. it’s changing a lot, but my creative life feels bigger and more alive than it ever was. it’s kind of overwhelming. i really want to push myself and create with discipline and get out of my comfort zone. right now this looks like trusting other people to collaborate with, and it’s been totally awesome and hard and worth it. the band is big and full, and I’m hoping to walk the dynamic line of earnest storytelling and lyrically forward songwriting with a larger louder performance. i like to world-build. Slake listeners can expect to be in my big little world.
You can listen to “bonecollector” out everywhere now. Let’s Get Married is set to be released June 20th via Cherub Dream Records.
Written by Shea Roney | Featured Photo Courtesy of Slake
In the dimly lit basement bar of Neptune’s in downtown Raleigh, the crowd fell into a hushed reverence as the band began to play. Cramped onstage even more than the audience, they filled the room with Andrew Dowdy’s distinctive vocals, carried by a rich composition of pedal steel and fiddle—country-soaked tones that swelled beautifully with each song. It was an intimate, immersive moment, and I was hooked. Though I had heard Fust’s name mentioned in conversations about North Carolina’s music scene, this show, a part of last fall’s Hopscotch Festival, was my true introduction—and it couldn’t have been a better one.
Since discovering them, I have been immersed in their music. Their latest release, a collection of demos titled Songs from the Rail earned a spot on my most memorable list of 2024, while their last true album, Genevieve, is one of my favorite records of recent. Led by singer Andrew Dowdy, of Durham, NC, Fust is deeply rooted in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia and West Virginia where Dowdy’s origins lie. He draws from these roots to explore what it means to be from the American South—more specifically Appalachia. On Big Ugly, Fust expands their sound, reaching louder and greater heights, while the album’s themes plunge into deeper lows than any of Dowdy’s previous work. Each song reads like the journal of some lost author, peering deeply into Dowdy’s mind and memories. Continuing the region’s rich and integral storytelling tradition, this album takes the form of modern-day folk ballads, preserving local history and passing down the gritty realities of Appalachian life to future generations.
Joining Dowdy on Big Ugly are Avery Sullivan (drums, percussion), Frank Meadows (piano, percussion), John Wallace (guitar, vocals), Justin Morris (guitar, pedal steel, vocals), Libby Rodenboug (fiddle, vocals) and Oliver Child-Lanning (bass, vocals, dulcimer, synth).
Together, they craft a dynamic sound on Big Ugly spanning from fuzz-filled tracks like “Mountain Language”—where producer Alex Farrar also sits in on guitar and lap steel to complete the arrangement—to driving drum tracks and roaring guitars reminiscent of Drive-By Trucker songs. On the other end of the spectrum is “Sister”, one of the album’s most haunting tracks. Its more stripped-back composition brings the fiddle and pedal steel guitar to the forefront, with the fiddle scratching along as Dowdy’s vocals drop to a lower register, delivering devastating lyricism. Further expanding the album’s sonic landscape are the contributions from Dave Hartley of the War on Drugs on synths and John James Tourville of Deslondes on pedal steel.
Throughout the album, Dowdy’s distinctive vocals are augmented as they are layered over with his own voice, as well as those of his bandmates, creating a haunting, almost choral-like effect. Dowdy’s vocals are complemented by a deep, resonant bass and the higher-pitched harmonies of Libby Rodenbough on many tracks, along with a duet with fellow Appalachian artist, Merce Lemon, on “What’s-His-Name”. The album’s ethereal vocal quality feels fitting for songs that deal with memory—like ghosts lingering in the past. Real people and places from Dowdy’s life come to life through lyrics about gas stations, demolished hospitals, and highways, all while grappling with the reality that these things have been lost to time. The songs are a testament to Dowdy’s love for the kinds of things that make up who we are, while they are with us and once they’re gone. The things that now exist only in memory, like a worn-out photo carried close, fading yet never forgotten.
Songs like “Mountain Language”lament the poverty of Southern life while yearning for a time when home was untouched by that pain. Dowdy sings, ‘But if we can make it up the mountain again / We’ll be back with country friends / And there’ll be language on the mountain again / Oh what country, friends, is this?’ The final line is a direct reference to Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, where Viola, shipwrecked in an unfamiliar land, speaks the play’s first words: ‘What country, friends, is this?’ Like Viola, Dowdy channels a sense of disorientation, searching for a return to the familiar past he once knew. Yet, the ever-changing reality of Appalachia renders this impossible—what was once home has become an unrecognizable landscape.
On “Gateleg”, Dowdy further shows off his songwriting and storytelling ability further, with a Hemmingway-like restraint in its lyrical content. He references Bob Dylan’s Maggie’s Farm for the chorus taking “I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s Farm, no more/No, I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s Farm, no more” flipping it to say “You ain’t gonna work on the line, no more/You’re gonna work for Maggie’s store”. Dowdy paints a picture of a relationship in the face of poverty, defined by the backdrop of wood burning stoves, convenience stores, and broken-down cars, propped up on cinder blocks.
Fust captures the contradiction of rural Appalachia—the stark contrast between poverty, drug abuse, and environmental devastation, brought on by exploitation of the region, and the enduring beauty of green rolling mountains, deep-rooted traditions, and the resilience of its people. The album takes its name from a community located in one of the poorest census tracts in one of the poorest counties in West Virginia. Its cover art features a photograph of a mural from the Big Ugly Community Center, originally painted as a backdrop for a student play that told the stories of local families. The image serves as a perfect accompaniment to the record’s themes— a testament to both the ability and the necessity of creating beauty in the face of ‘ugliness’.
Given that Fust’s last two albums were among the best releases of the past two years, I was admittedly apprehensive about whether Big Ugly could live up to its predecessors. It has—and then some. With this record, Andrew Dowdy has firmly established himself as one of today’s great songwriters. As Fust embarks on tour, I would highly recommend seizing the opportunity to experience their music live—I know I definitely am.
Big Ugly is out on all platforms now. You can order a vinyl or CD copy of Big Ugly via Dear Life Records.
“Ash, ash— You poke and stir. Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——
A cake of soap, A wedding ring, A gold filling.
Herr God, Herr Lucifer Beware Beware.
Out of the ash I rise with my red hair And I eat men like air.”
There’s much to be said about a band who bases their name off of a Sylvia Plath poem. Eating men like air, formally red-haired Chloe Gallardo discusses the DIY nature of her latest project, Herr God with us. Chloe and I (also Chloe) virtually sat in front of each other in this latest interview, one of us in a SoCal college radio station and the other in the depths of the sprawling sphere of Portland. Other than being gifted the same names, I learned that Gallardo and I had a lot in common: scribbling down thoughts in our Notes app, scanning media with junk we can find around us, and vomiting our thoughts onto paper in forms of lyrics and more. It was healing to talk to what was like a version of myself placed in a different reality where I was a girl and a performer, but Chloe is her own person pioneering her own path. She grasps onto thoughts and feelings, making art from her diary that others can relate to.
We enjoyed each other’s company during our interview, which you can read below!
Photo by KC Jonze
This interview was conducted by Chloe Gonzales (DJ Adderall Spritz) in studio at SoCal college radio and has been edited for length and clarity.
Chloe Gonzales: Honestly, I just want to dive right in, because I’m very interested in your project! I was reading up a little bit about it and it was so interesting because you all drew your name from a poem by Sylvia Plath [Lady Lazarus].
Chloe of Herr God: It’s funny, because my grandma got me this poetry book for Christmas, and I was flipping through it before I had even started the band, and I wrote down Herr God. I liked how it looked on paper, so I was like, “Oh, that’s cool,” like, “I’m gonna save that for something later.” And then when I decided to start the band, I was looking through the list of the names that I had made, and I found that one, and I was like, “Oh, that’s kind of cool. I think I’m gonna use that.” And then a couple months later, I had dyed my hair red, and then I realized that the last stanza of the poem talks about having red hair. So it was like, kind of not on purpose, but now I can never change my hair back to normal.
CG: I think every person’s got to have red hair, at least non-men. People tell me that like means that like you’re crazy or something, or like, you’re going through something. Are you mentally ill? Yeah, it’s real, honestly. Unfortunately, it is kind of true, at least from personal experience. I get it. But before we fully dive in, I always like to have bands and artists give the opportunity to give a little elevator pitch and just spill out whatever you want to say about the band. I want to hear everything from you.
Herr God: Yeah, we’re pretty brand new. I started the project less than a year ago when I was living in San Francisco. I wrote some demos, showed them to one of my friends that lives in Philadelphia, went out and recorded in Philly. And then after I had those recorded, I threw a band together, and that was Herr God 1.0 and then we’ve had a few variations of the band since. When I moved to Portland, I was just like, “Okay, I’m gonna put together the final boss mode of this band.” Like I’m done teaching people how to play the songs every single gig that I have, and for this to be more of a collaborative band, rather than just me doing it. One of the reasons I moved to Portland was because the music scene here is really awesome, and I feel like I really identify with it, and also, the people here are just so, so talented. I’m just lucky enough to be friends with a lot of my favorite local bands here, and so one of them agreed to be in my band with me, and I actually live with two of my bandmates. My other really good friend lives three minutes away and he’s the fourth member of the band. So it worked out really nicely.
CG: Your latest release is your EP, “Grief and Calamity”. Could you walk us through the concept of it?
Herr God: Yeah, it started off as weird little demos that I was trying to prove to myself that I could write all of the parts of a song, rather than just lyrics and guitar. I made all the demos myself and then replicated the exact same thing in the studio. I’d say it’s more of an independent, “I can do this” kind of project. “Grief and Calamity” is sort of alluding back to the healing process of me moving away from my home in Southern California and starting fresh, then realizing that I have free will and can move wherever–don’t need anybody.
CG: That’s so vulnerable! You talk about having very personal lyrics and songwriting. I also know that you have your own project. How do you differentiate Herr God from your own music?
Herr God: I honestly made Herr God to kind of get away from my solo project and I definitely identify more with Herr God than my other project. I mean I made that project when I was like 17 or 18 and I put out my first songs not knowing how releasing music worked. I was fresh out of high school, if not a senior in high school. It was just one of those things where I thought only my family on Facebook was gonna listen to it and so I just put it under my name because I was conditioned from school to put my first and last name on a project. And then it kind of snowballed into something bigger than just my Facebook family seeing it. And then I realized that I was kind of stuck with my name, which there’s nothing wrong with that, but I also wished the whole time that I had a band name rather than just my name.
It’s hard to book shows when you are a female solo act, venues are less inclined really. In my experience they’re like. “Oh, you’re just a sad singer-songwriter,” which there’s nothing wrong with that but for me, applying for the bills that I was applying for, it didn’t really make sense. Also, all my projects under my name were heavily collaborative with others to the point where I wrote the songs but also didn’t really fully identify with them as much as I did originally. Herr God is like a full DIY, it’s all me. I’m making all the creative decisions, or at least the first project that I put out, and have the actual band with me to bounce ideas off of. It’s like equally collaborative instead of having a session player come in and play a guitar part and then I never see them again.
CG: It’s nice to be able to build that community and friendship amongst your band members. It’s so interesting that you say that your first project with your name isn’t as much of you as Herr God is, that dissociation with that being like “Oh this is me but also not me.” Because usually when people use their personal names and such, there’s the opposite situation where you’ve been through band names but now you use your own name to be like, “This is really who I am.”
Herr God: Yeah totally, I feel like I did it in reverse a little bit. But I think it would’ve been the same if I had started with a band name. I think it’s just because I started so long ago, trying to find myself in the music world. So it’s more of the project itself, not even my name, like all those songs are so old. Also, when you make music or any kind of art, you always like your newest project the best and think your old stuff is garbage. It’s one of those things where I just really don’t identify with the person that I was when I put those songs out. I feel like I wouldn’t be where I am now without that project though. It’s just a weird thing to navigate because I learned basically everything that I don’t want to do. I was able to jump start this project and do everything the way I wanted to do it and so it was kind of a learning experience. Obviously those songs are a part of me, but I definitely am in the direction that I want to be in now with this current project.
CG; That’s amazing that you’re able to find that though and be secure in it! I also wanted to ask if there’s anything from the recent EP that you want to expand on in your upcoming works, like a certain sound, thematics, lyrics, or anything else.
Herr God: The weird song names are definitely going to carry over.
CG: I was hoping for that!
Herr God: I think that’s just kind of funny, for it not to be anything about the actual song and it just be weird, like “jesus candle in the liquor store,” I went into the liquor store and saw a Jesus candle and was like, “That would be funny for a song name or poem.” And so I have this list of stuff that I could potentially use. So they [song titles] don’t mean anything. I think we have a couple of newer songs coming out that have weird names as well. But I think as far as the sound, it’s going to be pretty similar, maybe a bit heavier if anything. We should have a couple of new songs coming out by the summer, which is exciting!
CG: I am obsessed with your names and I think it fits into the crowd that you’re catering to. I guess you aren’t really catering to anyone, but I feel like there’s a good group among Gen Z that have this weird obsession with things like teeth, dolls, and religion. It reminds me of the midwest, so it’s interesting because you’re from southern California. Is there a scene that has this kind of vibe?
Herr God: I don’t know. I don’t want to say no, but actually there is religious stuff. I grew up Catholic, Christian and it did a number on me in a not super positive way. And so I think it’s all satire and probably disrespectful, but it’s my own coping mechanism. I think religious artwork is so beautiful and it bums me out that I have a negative association with the religion itself. My room at my house is decked out in pictures of Jesus and rosaries and stuff. It’s kind of a weird thing that I have adapted into my life.
CG: I can totally understand that. Talking about religious imagery, your visuals, for example “jesus candle in the liquor store” single has scanner, print stuff. I find your aesthetic so interesting and cool. Like on Instagram and everything it seems so random but it comes together so cleanly. Is it just whatever comes to your mind?
Herr God: It’s not on purpose. The single artwork you’re talking about, I have this really crappy scanner and I found this photo that was like this old book of different flowers. I would throw stuff on the scanner and move it around while it was scanning and some of them turned out cool. And I zoomed in really close on a lot of them and that’s how I made the single artwork and the EP cover as well. It’s all just weird scanner stuff.
CG: That’s amazing. And honestly that’s the best, like it never has to be high production like we saw with “Brat.” I’m glad we’re coming to something more like mixed media, crafty in this era.
Herr God: I think it also comes down to like waiting. I hate waiting and paying for things. I’m such an instant gratification type of person so I will usually try to do things myself before I ask for help. That was another thing that I learned from my last project where I was being given a lot of advice to go to different professionals for artwork and stuff. I think that’s really cool, but sometimes you just don’t have the budget for that. And those people have a million things that they’re doing and there’s a long turnaround. The purpose of the first EP that I released for this [Herr God], I wanted it to be all myself and just all on my own terms. So it was kind of crazy when I got the masters back and was like, “Oh, I can upload these today.” Like I don’t have to wait for anybody. It was more of a thing where I just wanted to do it completely DIY and it ended up being kind of cool. I don’t really know what we’re gonna do for this upcoming release because I’m working on a collaboration with another band and so we’re kind of collaborating. I think it’s gonna be like some photo that I have and some photo that they have and combine them in some way.
CG: Yes, put them on Photoshop and do a little mix around with it. That’s the fun part. Okay, we kind of touched on this earlier, but you spoke about being independent and doing stuff yourself. How does that work with the group dynamic, with the band?
Herr God: I guess we’re still navigating, like we have all these new songs and I’m recording with my guitarist and he and I have been like—things kind of come together when you’re recording them. And then he is also a graphic designer and we have very similar artistic visions. So we already click on that front. So I don’t really have to worry about visuals because everyone gets the vibe. So it’s kind of like, how do we continue that and improve upon it as a band?
CG: That’s really nice that you all are kind of on the same wavelength!
Herr God: Yeah, it’s the beauty of being in a band with people that you’re really good friends with, which I guess could be problematic at times but for us not yet. We’re golden.
CG: Wow, no that’s good. Enjoy the ride while you can. But how do you want to carry these visuals and aesthetics to the stage and such?
Herr God: That’s actually funny that you ask, because I just was making a projection thing for our show. I literally just took this old footage of different flowers blooming and layered it with weird color blocking, flashes of different colors, and put them on top of each other and made it a 30 minute loop. It’s just one of those things where I just mess around with something until I make it look the way that I want it to look. And there’s definitely way, way better ways to do it if I was an actual professional.
CG: If it works, it works! You don’t need anything too fancy, it stays DIY.
Herr God: I want it to look kind of bad, but like in a cool way.
CG: For sure, just like goofy visuals. It reminds me of what you said earlier with the names meaning nothing. It reminds me of Phoebe Bridgers’ “Strangers in the Alps”, which has a meaning that she got from a movie that means nothing basically. It just sounds beautiful.
Herr God: Yeah, if I like it, I like it. And then sometimes meanings come to you after you name it, like writing a song or poem and you’re like, “Oh, I wrote this. I have no idea what it means.” But then you read it later and you’re like, “That’s really weird, I feel like I just predicted my own future.” That kind of thing happens to me a lot, so I usually just like to keep things pretty simple and then see if they develop a meaning to me later and if they don’t, then they still sound cool.
CG: I totally understand that. It sounds cool and then you derive meaning from it.
Herr God: I don’t like to talk about or tell people what my songs are about for that reason. I know with my solo project that happens where people will be like “Oh, this song reminded me at this point in my life and I think it’s crazy that you wrote this because I feel like it was written about me.” And that’s like a really weird thing to hear, because I’m like writing in my diary and publishing it to the world. So it’s crazy that people actually have similar experiences and make it their own complete experience. It’s weird.
CG: That’s the beautiful thing about it! I also wanted to get into the classic band inspirations. I can hear some inspiration that are not musical, like the religious aspects and stuff. Are there any other bands or non-musical inspirations?
Herr God: Honestly, I draw most of my inspiration from my friends in the music scene, just seeing what they’re doing. And it’s not even necessarily stylistically but just doing the thing that they’re passionate about. I think that’s really inspiring. My band and I have been listening to a lot of MJ Lenderman. He has some funky lyrics that I like. I just love the way he writes. And I feel like it’s probably going to subconsciously happen where we’re like writing a song and then I come up with weird lyrics like that and it’s gonna be my new MJ Lenderman song.
CG: When you do your lyrics, is it on a whim like you write in your notes app or when you’re walking?
Herr God: Definitely a Notes app. For the EP, I sat down with GarageBand on my phone and made a little beat, little guitar, hum a melody, and then I would kind of loop it, and then just write whatever came to mind on my note. Then I would sing it and that was the final product. I don’t really ever go back to edit anything unless it sounds really bad; I like the authenticity of it being fresh off my brain and just staying that way, because it’s kind of like capturing a specific moment in time.
CG: No absolutely and capturing like those imperfections but then they turn into these little things of their own. I also wanted to ask about your songs that you gave me, any context you want to give?
Herr God: Most of the songs I sent are current rotation and our favorites at the moment. Like I can’t stop listening to the Horsegirl one. They’re like the most adorable people ever, but yeah it’s just all stuff I really love.
CG: I appreciate it, like underground artists that should be more appreciated. Hope that there’s a Horsegirl x Herr God collab.
Herr God: Weirdly enough, I have played a show with them as my solo project at The Observatory in Orange County. I was just a local opener for them but they were like the sweetest people. I love them so much.
CG: That’s amazing. Do you have any good memories from opening for other people as Herr God?
Herr God: Yeah, my favorite show that we’ve done so far was in San Francisco. We played with Deadharrie and Nick Brobak and 0Fret. And like Deadharrie and Nick Brobak were like, or still are, some of my favorite bands. So it was really cool, because I got to set up the show and then they ended up all crashing at my house. That’s like such a fun part about music in general is just making friends with people that you actually really look up to. That show was really cool. And then we also played a show, our first official Portland show was a couple of weeks ago, with a lot of cool local Portland bands. I feel like it’s just really rewarding to play with people that you admire and who inspire you.
CG: Yeah absolutely. What’s that saying, don’t meet your celebrities?
Herr God: Don’t meet your heroes, something like that. I feel like that is true to some extent but maybe the people that are my heroes aren’t famous enough to be douchebags. Everyone that I’ve met so far, they’ve been very lovely and I just enjoy my time so much with them.
You can listen to Grief & Calamity out on all platforms now.
Written by Chloe Gonzales | Featured Photo by KC Jonze
It’s been a handful of years since Australia’s Olivia’s World shared new tuneage with us. But since their 2019 self-titled and 2021 Tuff 2B Tender EPs, Olivia’s World has functioned as a collaborative rotation of indie-pop charmers, recently landing on a lasting and invigorating lineup of musicians. Now with two singles out, the group is gearing up for their debut LP Greedy and gorgeous out next Friday, March 14th, and with that, Olivia’s World is offering just one more taste test with their new single “Healthy & wealthy” premiering here today on the ugly hug.
“Healthy & wealthy” is a tender rock ripper, balancing docile tones of distorted guitars with vibrant, sweet melodies as Olivia’s World revels through expectations of our most dubious inner and outer displays. “Are you TV ready?” guitarist and vocalist Alice Rezende asks with repeated eagerness, hopping into the momentum laid out by the band on the song’s chorus – the anticipation like the countdown before we run this show live. But as the crew plays out with their collaborative strengths and the melodies become embedded in our noggins, we watch as that camera light turns on, and Rezende makes you ask yourself…who is even watching?
Greedy and grogeous is set to release on March 14th. You can preorder the album now as well as vinyl copies from Little Lunch Records and cassette tapes from Lost Sound Tapes.
the ugly hug 