If you can believe it, there was a time when I thought emo had more or less run out of steam after the 4th Wave. Dumb, hopeless, out-of-touch, other pejoratives, that's me and more. I certainly know better now. And what helped me get my head back on straight was a split released on Open Door Records with Arcadia Grey, Oolong, Guitar Fight From Fooly Cooly, and dannythestreet. The energy on that release is absolutely infectious, and each of the bands are in top form in terms of their performance and songwriting. Fatal 4 Way is easily one of my favorite splits of the past decade, of any genre, style, subcultural milieu, etc... but if there is another split that could muscle in on the space I've made in my heart for it, that release might have to be JEFF, released this past May on Lonely Ghost Records. It's another super team-up, although decidedly less fatal and generally more advantageous- aligning the powers of Superdestroyer, Topiary Creatures, Mt. Oriander, and Hey, ily! in something like the Planeteers of Weird Emo. Together, through their shared determination and a display of acumen and dazzling eccentricities, the four groups have managed to call forth a lean extravaganza of electric audio and friendship that is both seamless and satisfying. Beginning with the gentle, weighty ploy of one of Mt. Oriander's strummy, star-gazing melodies, the scene then shifts to a dark theater to witness one of Topiary Creatures's electric-monster staring, deep-space soap-operas in its full, sugar-laced bloom. Coming out the other end of the wormhole we get to hang out with Superdestroyer as he unleashes one of his super-tasty, extra-feedback-fried, punk-power jams, which should amp you up just enough to keep pace with the speed-run of the first half of Hey, ily!'s track, an explosive fire-flower powered case of Game Boy Color skramz that (astonishingly!) resolves peacefully into a contemplative tail of delicately laid chords which will guide you away from the chaos of the track's foyer into the calming horizon that lays beyond. It's still a little hard for me to wrap my head around so many talented people working on a single record, so I got up the nerve to ask them a couple of questions about how it all came together. Thankfully (maybe foolishly) they agreed and you can discover the contours of their revealed wisdom, the gore details of their cutting floors, as well as various shades of history-emulsifying nostalgia and heartening, emotional dialogue below:
The following interview was conducted via email between May 22 and June 1. The responses have been edited only slightly for the sake of punctuation and consistency.
Interviewees: John of Superdestroyer, Bryson of Topiary Creatures, Keith of Mt. Oriander, and Caleb of Hey, ily!
1. Whose idea was the
split?
John: In a way, it was
everyone's idea. At different times over the past couple of years we had
mentioned being interested in doing a split together. So one day about a year
and a half ago I threw the idea out to Caleb and Bryson and they said, "yes." It
just so happens around that same time Keith mentioned to me that he'd be really
interested in doing a split with Hey, ily. We all love Mt. Oriander so I asked
if he wanted to jump onto the split we had started planning. It just kinda
worked out.
Bryson: The initial light
bulb came from Lonely Ghost Records / Superdestroyer. They threw us in a group
chat and was basically like, “I love all y’all tunes, wanna make something
together?”
Keith: Like John said,
this was kind of already a thing in process and I am a split junkie so I wanted
in. I also have admired Lonely Ghost Records and I was a fan of all the bands
involved, so it was a no-brainer for me. I currently have like 10 (splits) in various
processes and no, that is not a joke, lol. I have a problem.
The discography of my
previous band, Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate) was probably a third
from splits. We did 12 of them. TWELVE!
Caleb: I think we have Mr. Superdestroyer to thank for this split!
2. How did the split come
together, and how long did it take to coordinate?
John: This split took a
year and a half to put out. There were a lot of different (but very valid)
reasons for everything to get delayed. Life just beat our asses for a while in
various ways. We kept checking in and moving stuff around though and eventually
we got it all to fall into place.
Bryson: Longer than you’d
think. I just went back and found the original message and it was in November
of 2022. We all had our songs written and selected for it pretty early on as
well, but lining up a split schedule in between four band’s release and
recording schedules is always gonna be a bit of a juggling act.
Keith: It took a long time
for all of us. For me, my long time recording engineer and good friend Mat
Halliday passed away suddenly less than a month before we were supposed to
record a batch of songs that included this one. We had been working together
for over a decade, so it was a hard blow. We were close. On top of that, when
my headspace was in a good enough place to want to get back to it, I had to
find someone new and that took the better part of a year to get going again.
I wasn’t worried though,
we all have a Twitter group and we kept in good communication, so it was a
matter of when more than anything else.
Caleb: I could be completely wrong because it was initiated so long ago, but I think John initially sent the idea over to me, and from there we brainstormed on who we wanted on the silly little split! I’m pretty sure the idea first formed in 2022? So it took a LONG ass time.
3. Did you all
select/record songs that you thought would go well together, or was the process
more independent?
John: We all made songs
for the split. Initially, Caleb and Bryson shared demos that were pretty far
along that they thought they might use. I ended up recording a song I thought
could fit well with those. Keith sent his song earlier this year and Caleb
ended up recording a different song a couple months back. We definitely all had
a similar idea of the sound we were going for on the split I think.
Bryson: A bit of both. I
had a couple fully-demoed songs that I loved but couldn’t find a place for on
our album, so I showed them to the other bands and let them pick which
one they thought best fit the vibe.
Keith: This was originally
going to be on vinyl and when I’m writing for a split, I know from experience
the time limitations so I wanted to make sure it wasn’t too long. Besides that,
I didn’t really write anything to try and blend with anything anyone else was
doing. But it really did come together so perfectly. I think the secret sauce
of how this ended up being so good is the track order of it all. Each song
seems to be the perfect bridge to the next track and it just worked out
perfectly. It starts soft and slowly turns heavier and more chaotic.
Caleb: I had a really hard time figuring out what I wanted to do on this split. Initially, the track was going to be completely different and would’ve had the full band involved. We actually even got the whole thing recorded! We decided we were unhappy with the final version and scrapped it, then we started writing a record which took a lot of our headspace, so I ended up just writing a goofy lil’ tune on my own!
4. Was there any point
where you thought this record wouldn't happen? If so, what/who do you credit
with your success?
John: I would say that right up until the Monday of the
release I wasn't 100% sure it was gonna come out lol. We all were doing our
best but I think it's always hard to coordinate a 4 band split, especially when
2 of the 4 are running labels. Keith and I both also had to work around our own
release schedules for the labels also. But we pulled it off because we
communicated frequently and were willing to be flexible and change the
plan.
Bryson: I never lost hope!
But I was saying, “the split is happening in the next month or two” for nearly a
whole year. Plenty of collaborations fizzle out when delays happen, but I think
the fact that we did eventually find time for it is a testament to how much
each of us genuinely enjoys the other band’s music. At least for us, it was way
too cool of an opportunity to forget about.
Keith: For myself, I never
worried about it not being released because everyone was invested. 4-way splits
take a long time, it’s like herding cats. It felt like it came together when it
needed to and then it was out in the world.
Caleb: I definitely thought at some point it wasn’t going to happen. I can kind of be a dork sometimes and put WAY too much on my plate, so there were several times when I had to forego process on my song for this split in favor of other (way less cool but necessary) things. I really have to give credit to John, though. He’s one of the most determined guys I’ve ever met and I’m lucky to have him in my corner, and to be in his!
5. Were there any
technical challenges? Did you have any concerns about levels and mixing between
tracks? How did you handle things on that end?
John: I wasn't too
concerned because I think everyone knows their sound. When we all discussed
this initially, I thought we'd all be a good fit together. We also all agreed
to have Kris master the split which helped to create consistency across the
songs. He did a really good job.
Bryson: Surprisingly, we didn’t sweat that side of it too much. Living in a playlist era, and especially on a split that’s themed after the eclecticism of growing up online, it would have felt weird to round all the corners and make everything uniform. I like that the split sounds like you’re clicking between your friend’s Myspace profiles and listening to their various profile songs.
Keith: I didn’t foresee
any technical challenges and since we moved to cassette, any concerns for time
went out the window. We all just had our own studio people handle the
recording/mixing and Kris mastered the whole thing so it felt like one cohesive
release. John was the mastermind behind this whole thing, so I trusted
everything to work out and just had to send my song over. That was nice and
John did a good job.
Caleb: Other than starting from scratch a few different times on my end, I don’t think there were any technical difficulties! Kris (who mastered the split!) is a literal god-genius who could make anything we gave him sound good, so there were no problems there!
6. How did the cover art
for this split come to be? Where did the concept come from?
John: We had been
brainstorming potential acronyms using the 4 band names which led us to the
name Tom, which led to MySpace. Most of the graphic artists we spoke with don't
really do that sort of art, so I ended up giving it a shot. I think it's a cool
nod to the MySpace music days.
Bryson: That was all
Superdestroyer as well. We had been casually tossing around names and concepts
in the group chat for a while, but when they sent the initial mockup that
looked like a MySpace page, we were all like “hell yeah, that’s it.” And of
course, that prompted the fun assignment of filling out our respective mock
bio’s and top 8’s for the single covers.
Keith: Somewhere in our
Twitter group chat, just through natural conversation (the group is called ‘The
Split Pit’, by the way) MySpace came up and we all waxed poetic about its glory
days. The ball just kind of kept rolling from there and then John took on the
art duties too. AND KILLED THAT TOO! There are also individual profiles for
each band and we got to choose all the information for it. It felt like a blast
from the past, haha.
Caleb: That was ALL John!
7.Who is Jeff, and how did he get a split named after
him?
John: Jeff is just a dude.
Just a guy, you know?
Keith: It’s Jeff from
EarthBound! Sure, I just made that up, but also it could be true!
Caleb: Jeff is not a man, Jeff is the EVERY man. Every single one of us has a little bit of Jeff in us, keeping us going every day. Even you, reading this, have Jeff to thank for all of your accomplishments.
8. Were any of you big
MySpace users back in the day? Did you deck out your page, or did you go the
minimalist route?
John: I was! MySpace
peaked while I was in high school. I loved the music aspect. It made finding
independent bands much easier. It also was the first time I remember thinking I
could release music on my own and find an audience without needing to be on a
label. My page was decked out. I even made custom images for my background. It
was a real assault to the eyes.
Bryson: Big Myspace guy
over here. I was in middle school during its peak, so not all of my friends
were allowed to have profiles (especially growing up in church as a
homeschooler); I felt so cool. And you’d better believe I decked my page out. I
loved making HTML sites and Flash games at the time, so the more ways I could
alter the layout and embed obnoxious games onto my profile, the better.
Keith: I’m a bit older
than everyone else so I was already in college when I got MySpace and felt
super cool because I was a pretty early adaptor. Back in the day before they
added the ‘Top 8’ feature, it was chronological from join date, so I made the
top lists for a lot of profiles.
My band in college had a
page before they had band profiles, haha. I was super into editing everything,
we had the custom header and background, the whole nine yards.
Empire! Empire! started in
2006, and that was our main platform for years. We were kind of big on MySpace,
we have over 40,000 fans. We spent hours and hours messaging people and
networking. We booked a lot of tours through it, made a lot of friends and connections.
I maintain it is still the best site that existed for bands because it had
everything you needed in one place- music, tour dates, blogs, messaging,
comments, pictures and bulletins.
Caleb: You know, I kind of
missed out on MySpace, I think by the time I started using social media (I
definitely was already online but I just didn’t have any accounts), MySpace was
gone, although it sounded like a really badass time! I wish we could go back to
MySpace.
9. Did any drama ever
ignite over your top 8?
John: No, but I remember
being excited when ppl would put me in their top 8. Ideally, it would be a
reciprocal sort of thing, otherwise it would be kinda weird to put someone in
your top 8 who didn't place you in their Top 8. It was an odd social hierarchy
thing--at least where I lived at the time. When you had each other in there, it
provided a level of validation that you had social cache. If people didn't
reciprocate your Top 8 placements, it could be weirdly alienating. A lot of
people would take it as a sort of rejection of their close friendship. Some
people would change it every week with different people. It was a weird place.
I think most of us recognized it was just goofy fun and didn't take it
seriously. Even so, you could probably write a dissertation about the
psychological damage of MySpace's Top 8.
Bryson: I do remember one
of my friends being annoyed that I put A Skylit Drive above him on my Top 8.
Keith: YES! It wasn’t as bad as my LiveJournal drama days (I am old as hell, lol), but it was definitely a thing. I tried to be political about it, but I am sure I slighted some friends (some intentional, some not). What a weird feature, in retrospect.
10. Did you have any songs
on your page? If so, what were some of them? What did you hope these songs
informed people about your personality at the time?
John: Oh yeah, a lot were
probably from bands that have been canceled bc that era was rampant with abuse
that has since come out, but some of the cringe-ier songs I remember are
"Until the Day I Die" by Story of the Year (it's unfortunate to admit
that) and "here in your arms" by hellogoodbye. I was obsessed with Holding
A Wolf By The Ears by From Autumn To Ashes, so I'm sure
"Pioneers" was on there. My choices were eclectic. I had a lot of
punk and hardcore bands, some grind-- stuff like The number 12 looks like you,
Dr. Acula, Bane, Cruel Hand, Stretch Arm Strong, etc. But, I'd put pop and rap
on there too. I know I had a lot of pop punk like Motion City on there. I
updated it a lot because MySpace felt like social media tailor made for
me. It was music-centric and I very much expressed myself through my music
taste. Your choices said a lot about you on Myspace.
Bryson: Oh, I scrutinized
my profile songs more than I’ve ever scrutinized anything. Making sure everyone
on my soccer team knew that I was an edgy skater kid was a full time job. To
rattle off a few: Billy Talent, Saosin, Secret and Whisper, Paxtin, Edison Glass,
Anberlin, Deas Vail, The Mars Volta, Circa Survive, Homestar Runner (the Irish
pop-punk band, not the cartoon [which I also loved]).
Keith: Absolutely! Songs from Death Cab, Mineral, Jimmy Eat World, Penfold, American Football, the Get Up Kids. The list goes on.
11. Did you use MySpace
for music discovery? Who were some of the artists/albums you learned about from that
site?
John: Idk that I can name
specific bands but I found a lot of music on MySpace through profile songs. It
kinda worked like seeing a friend tweet about a band 10 times now or something,
but it would start playing when you visited the page. Also similar to now, a
lot of the bands never really got traction. There was this band called The
Trend that had this amazing song and I looked for it everywhere and never found
it again. There's probably a lot of really cool stuff that never made it past
self-uploading to a MySpace band profile. You could also find great bands
through people's top 8 because people in the scene who were tapped in would
usually put a few bands they liked in there.
Bryson: Not as much as
other people seemed to. I mostly discovered things from the iTunes’ “related
artists” section and random music forums.
Keith: I did, yeah. It’s how we met all the early bands for the label I run, Count Your Lucky Stars. If MySpace didn’t exist, there is no way CYLS would either. It was the connective tissue for the whole DIY scene. I’d say at least chunks of the first 20 or 30 releases stemmed from connections and communications over MySpace.
12. Do you still use
social media as a music discovery method? If so, what does your strategy look
like?
John: DIY twitter is a
huge source of my music discovery. I listen to a lot of the bands that follow
the label or interact with us, I check out bands I see other ppl talking about,
and I follow a lot of writers that I think have good taste. That's probably my number
1 source.
Bryson: Unless you count
Bandcamp and Spotify as social media, I honestly don’t. When I was younger,
music was inseparable from my social life—finding and broadcasting the songs I
connected with helped me contextualize who I was and wanted to be. Nowadays,
it’s more internal.
Keith: I do, yes. I think
just the bands that are in our scene’s orbit end up finding each other, one way
or another. The same names just sort of start showing up again and again and
eventually I give them a listen.
Caleb: I sure do! Sometimes, people will posts songs that I checkout and get really into, sometimes I hear songs in videos, most of the time I just see bands promoting themselves and I discover them that way!
13. How did you feel when
the company decided to wipe the site and everyone's pages?
John: I had long
since abandoned and been locked out of MySpace but I was kinda sad because that
is so much lost media. Some of my first songs were shared to MySpace and I
don't have the files even. Their music feature was so cool.
Bryson: Luckily, I had
transitioned to FB and IG at the time, so I was pretty unaffected at first.
It’s only recently that I’ve been frustrated by it. I think the fact that we
can’t see our old profiles is part of what makes the MySpace nostalgia so
magnetic. I’m always ranting about how you can only “cash in” on nostalgia so
many times before the memory starts to blend with the present—it’s really
impactful at first and then it starts to fade. None of us have “cashed in” on
seeing our MySpace pages. If we were able to scratch that itch, even once, I
think it would feel like much less of a big deal.
Keith: IT WAS ONE OF THE
SADDEST DAYS EVER! Empire! had every single show logged into it meticulously.
We were stupid and never had a complete back up and one day, it was just all
gone. I’ve been able to collect a lot of that data, but it isn’t complete and
it never will be, What a loss.
Caleb: I dunno, I didn’t have a functioning brain yet. (That’s a lie, I kind of had a brain)
14. Why do you think there
is so much nostalgia for the MySpace era, especially in emo/emo adjacent
circles?
John: It was a golden age
for emo music and the alternative rock/punk adjacent scenes at the time. A lot
of important and influential sounds came from that era. It's iconic and
showcased a wave of innovation that paved the way for a lot of the popular alt
bands people like now. At the very least, it brought emo into the mainstream
more.
Bryson: Emo music is
inherently reflective, so a ton of it is inevitable. But there was a long
stretch of time (and maybe this was just the nature of being around college
hipsters) where it felt like there were certain kinds of music you weren’t
supposed to like. It was cool to be calculated and emotionless about your
taste. Thankfully, that’s not the case anymore. (Thank you Jeff Rosenstock?
Maybe 100 Gecs?) The newest wave of (both real and fake) emo has a refreshingly
playful, passionate and genre-irreverent sound, which feels like it harkens
back to the MySpace era. Not all of us contributing to it necessarily had
MySpaces, but it feels nostalgic to me. It’s like we’re finally allowed to
admit that there was something cool going on there.
Keith: I think it either
was the first social media platform a lot of people used from that era used and
so there is always going to be nostalgia for it. LiveJournal was that for me.
But the other part is how
MySpace is the key ingredient that let the entire scene function. It wasn’t
just the music on profiles or the fans, it was also the way we all met and
talked. Like I mentioned, I booked so many tours through MySpace, signed so many
bands, met so many friends. It was the glue for all of that.
In the end, it was
honestly an inoperable mess and filled with way too many ads and spam, so I get
why people were ready to move on. But for that moment in time, it was king and
it changed so many lives.
Caleb: That’s a good question, one that I can’t really answer because I missed out, but if I had to guess, I think it could potentially have something to do with the way the current DIY scene acts/sounds being kind of reminiscent of those days just by nature? I dunno though I’m just a dumb guy.
15. What
is your favorite track on the split? Why?
John: That's hard to say
tbh. I think it depends on my mood. I think they all turned out sounding great
and I think they sound even better together.
Keith: I CAN’T CHOOSE A
FAVORITE, WHAT AM I, A MONSTER?!
It all feels like one
piece to me now, they belong together.
Caleb: The secret fifth song, the Skibidi-Toilet remix of "Hotel California." No but seriously I love all of these songs so much, everyone on this split is so talented and incredible, I am very lucky to have been involved!
Who needs a Top 8 when there is only one Lonely Ghost Records?
