Listening with an open mind. Writing about what I hear.
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The world is a crazy fucking place, and sometimes the only thing that seems to make roughly any kind of sense in it is music. Thankfully, we have German technical death titans like Defeated Sanity to match the chaos of this living, calamitous panorama of a planet, manning the lighthouse of lucidity with their ever-daring quest to breach the farthest meridian of abstruse fury. I was able to catch up with the second most senior member of the band, Jacob Schmidt, just before he took the stage at Reggies in Chicago on their latest tour with Revocation. Jacob has a pretty insane story from this most recent cross-country jaunt and you can hear it as well as other points of intrigue by checking out our conversation.
Defeated Sanity is currently on tour in support of their latest LP Chronicles of Lunacy out on Season of Mist. You can pick up tickets on their website (I think they still have two dates left so if you miss it you'll have to wait until their next record drops to see them tour the states again)!
The worst is yet to come! In the chemo crystal ball, you can see the sickness oozing and pumping like crimson cataracts through the heart of this world. Rotten juice for crayon-chewing orphans of lost continents. Drooling in rainbows because their dreams haven't any color to spare. A fire burns in the sky, and it descends to the shore like a chariot tumbling over the knife's edge of a cliff, then all the skeletons rise from the salty residue of the sands, from where dragon's teeth have planted themselves in the surf at low tide, then they begin to speak, and their voices have the sunken timbre of an old hollow oak tree. One man floats amongst the ether of this wilderness of woe. Your most menacing nightmare is his daily inspiration. The ferment of his flow will cause a cold flush bead on the back of your neck. Distinguishably large due to his countless layers. He is Fatboi Sharif!
What everyone loves about emo music, myself included, is the ability that its players have to dive into their own turmoil, traumas, and emotional tempests and surface with blindingly relatable insights into their character and personage, which, when conveyed to the listener, feel like they might as well have been scraped from the bedrock of their own soul. Observant of this tradition, Celebration Guns has flourished as peaceful cultivators of many plots of thorny yet lovely desert roses, cultivated from the cradle of self-recognition, to be nurtured in the crepuscular gold and yellow beams of the observer's sympathetic apprehension of the lacerations and petals of their own delicate and damaged, wild and badly pruned interior fernery. Yet, despite the pain, the blood that runs from one's palm when they grip a rose, Celebration Guns keeps returning to the nape of their nursery, and beckoning us to follow in their sometimes maudlin, often exuberant footsteps. For as much as inquisitions into the heart are often harvesters of pain, their stinging intuition is irrefutable evidence of the proof of our existence, and the shared context of the human condition. What Keeps Us Coming Back is Celebration Guns' second LP, first for We're Trying Records, and nearly a decade down-the-road, and a distant ancestor to their 2018 LP (Probably) Worth It. Where earlier releases pondered why, their latest LP affirms eternal reasons for their return. Need I say more? I think not, as vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and founding member Justin Weir has plenty to say for himself...
What Keeps You Coming Back to Celebration Guns over a decade into your career as a band...
Playing music is the only thing that I know and the only thing that I occasionally feel like I’m good at. I started playing in bands in 1997 when I was 15 years old. From there, I played live in at least 20 different bands with genres ranging from pop punk, ska, metalcore, post-hardcore, indie, dance punk, orgcore, and, of course..emo. Most of these bands lasted a year or less, the longer running ones maybe 2-3 years. Celebration Guns was the first band where it felt like we were actually reaching the ears of a few people (this may have a correlation with the rise of streaming and social media, etc, around 2013) and we were receiving consistent positive feedback locally. Another factor in keeping this train rolling is that the genre of emo hit me really hard around 1999 (Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity played a big part in cementing that for me), and it never fully left me. In many of the other bands I played in, I found myself trying to force an emo song or at least a part into those bands’ songs. It was the style that I knew and felt best, so the songwriting came more naturally to me.
...and why was this selected as the title for the new album?
The embarrassing but honest answer is that for a year or longer I had been hoping to come across a phrase (or even just a random collection of words) that sounded interesting enough to use for an album title. I finally found it while I was reading The First Bad Man by Miranda July, where protagonist was explaining to an unrequited love that she felt she knew him in a past life. His album title worthy response was “What keeps us coming back?” I initially took What Keeps Us Coming Back to mean coming back to a past relationship or life situation that clearly wasn’t meant to be. I just really like that it can take on multiple meanings. Like your question above, I kind of hoped everyone didn’t immediately read it as “why is this band still putting out music?” but if they do, fair question.
Tyler Flanagan, who designed our album and single art, came up with the idea of putting a house on the cover (likely not meant as a reference to the popular “house on the emo album cover” trend, as he isn’t necessarily in that scene). He also came up with the man running into the building, a reference to the album theme of coming back to a bad situation. Keeping this in mind, it could also apply to Celebration Guns running back to the genre where having a house on an album cover is all the rage (we did it with 2021’s The Visiting Years)
Do you consider What Keeps Us Coming Back to be part of an anthology with any of your other releases, or is it more stand-alone and self-contained?
What Keeps Us Coming Back is very much a stand-alone and self-contained release as it is our first album with an all-new lineup (besides me). The only anthology to speak of is the fact that we had plans to record LP2 two other times between 2020 and 2022 that turned into 4 EPs and 2 Splits*
*Starting in 2018 we recorded 9 songs with our 2 nd of 3 drummers Peter Coleman Jr., but only half of the songs were finished by the time COVID started, so we released those songs as 2 Eps: …on aging gracelessly (2020) and The Visiting Years (2021). Similar with the 12 songs we recorded in 2021 & 2022 (original drummer Timothy O’Brien back in the band) we decided to spread the songs out between Midlife Vices EP (2022), Split with A Place for Owls (2023), The Ultimate Emo Album Split with Swiss Army Wife and Avec Plaisir (2024) and Enough Already EP (2024). So, in the sense that we have been attempting to release a proper LP2 since 2020, all 32 of those songs may work as a sort of an anthology of LP2.
What was the hardest song to write on this album, and conversely, which was the easiest?
The hardest song to write was "Regrets, Regurgitated." It was originally written in 2018 and felt a little outside of the fast-paced, mathy and chaotic music we were trying to write around that time, so I never introduced it to the band. While trying to think of old demos to go with the new songs we wrote for this album, this song came up and the rest of the band had a good feeling about it.
The band wasn’t thrilled with a meandering riff break I had written later in the song, so I changed that into a more dreamy/dark section with vocals added (right after the 1st chorus). We also decided to change the guitar only intro to piano, which was mostly complicated in finding the best way to capture the sound and make it blend with the decidedly heavier approach this song has compared to the rest of the album.
The easiest song was likely "Magpies in Disguise." It is one of the more straightforward songs we’ve ever recorded. I started playing that palm muted part and was hearing Frightened Rabbit type vocals over it (the song was called “he frighten dagnabit” later shortened to “dagnabit” until a while after we finished recording it), and for once I decided to stop myself from overwriting the music and focus my attention on the lyrics. I hope I got one of those 2 things right.
Did the track "Maudolin" get its name because of the mandolin parts in it, or did you add those parts because of the name? Either way, I'm pretty curious about the intersection of the themes of this track and the mandolin parts, as I (I think others probably as well) don't typically think of it as a somber or lacermuse instrument, but it does take on these qualities in your performance to a degree.
I’m not sure why I chose to include the name of the instrument that features heavily in 2 of the songs on the album, directly into the song title (Vibraphone for the Perpetually at Home is the other). Yes, the fact that the foundation of the song was written on mandolin plays heavily into that title, but I also felt like the lyrics were a bit maudlin at time. And I like puns that aren’t quite funny or clever, so here we are.
The self-pitying, lonesome and hopeless feelings in the lyrics do feel a little disparate from the mostly upbeat and happy feeling of the song. We made sure to throw in a gloomy bridge and a weepy sounding outro to balance things out. We have a song from (Probably) Worth it aka LP1 called Move On that uses the mandolin in a similar way, wringing all the joy and sadness out of it throughout. So when we went about finally writing songs for the true LP2, it felt like it was time for a second mandolin song.
What is a "Why Detective" the going rate for someone considering a career pivot (potentially in middle age)?
The song has everything to do with making assumptions about why a person doesn’t like you back the way you think they should. It’s not you, it’s me?? You don’t have to tell me twice! But I need to know more: was it my looks? My neurotic personality? My repeated questions? I need to know why. I was considering working “lie detector” into a silly sounding phrase, but instead I went with a Justin classic: a bad pun involving a rhyme.
Also worth noting: this is one of three songs on the album that was arranged around some fantastic noodly guitar parts that Johl wrote (the other two being Johl Rides Again and Here’s the Thing). Johl refuses to comment other than to answer your original question and say: “Why Detecting isn’t free: it pays a buck o five.”
What is your favorite bird-related conspiracy theory, and how does it relate to "Magpies in Disguise"? On a more serious note, how does the symbolism of the magpie emerge as a metaphor in the lyrics of this track?
The birds are spies, they report to the trees is one of my favorite band names. That name feels like a big conspiracy theory that explains itself in one sentence. Johl actually came up with the song title “Magpies in Disguise”, but when I asked him to elaborate, he declined, claiming that explaining song titles is “for the birds.”
On behalf of Johl, I will say that magpies in disguise was a saying I was not familiar with until he suggested it. It refers to magpies being easily distracted by shiny things. The song is based on my real-life marriage (spoiler – there was also a divorce) and the wedding that took place, and how we were both excited and attracted to the ultimate big shiny object of marriage: a beautiful wedding. As we all know, there’s a lot of work to come after the wedding and that’s where myself and many others have been unable to follow through. So, I guess that would make me one of the magpies. That’s deep.
What machines are replacing guillotines, and how does the enterprise-level adoption improve efficiencies headed into Q4? Big picture, what kind of social implosion as spectator sport are you describing on this track, and what do you hope the takeaway is for the listener?
The song name Machines Replacing Guillotines is a play on the name of a post-dance-punk band I played in from 2005 called Machines Replacing Teens (https://machinesreplacingteens.bandcamp.com/) My original plan was to make every song name on this album a pun around some of my prior band names. Thank goodness I didn’t follow through on that one.
Lyrically, I was thinking about how I have consistently failed at trying to master the art of social media as a way of connecting within a music community or promoting our band. We first started kind of reaching people and bands outside of AZ around early 2020 when we started working with Chillwavve Records (now defunct: https://cwrecords.bandcamp.com/). When I was in my early 20’s, in the early 2000s, I was all over the message boards and confidently being ridiculous and outgoing. Bringing that energy to 2020 and beyond at the ripe old age of 38 was a different story.
I almost didn’t want to put this song on the album because I didn’t want anyone to mistake it as an “anti-cancel culture” type of thing. It’s just a straightforward explanation of how I kept wanting to be bold and post thoughts and ideas along with promoting the band, but I came onboard this scene when people were being SUPER CANCELLED daily. Mostly for very valid reasons, but we all know that occasionally people get “cancelled” on the same level for saying something-off putting or offensive receiving basically the same level of cancellation as the worst offenders would. So, the machines acting as guillotines are, I suppose, social media – public execution by cancellation type of thing. Yeah, a little embarrassing. But it’s also kind of catchy? I don’t know, don’t cancel me over this
I'm really feeling the dusty, alt-country amble of "The First Strut Is The Deepest"? Do you listen to a lot of country/folk? What were the inspirations for the stylistic framing and execution of this track? Addendum: are you referencing the original or the Sheryl Crow cover?
This song was written back in 2008 and was the first full song that I ever wrote and then recorded using a computer. I used my college graduation money to buy a 2007 MacBook, an acoustic guitar and a midi controller. I packed this first song full of every single fake instrument I could fit from the selections on Garageband on that midi controller, and it turned into a cute song to sneak onto the end of mix CDs I made for crushes over the years.
We attempted to recreate the song using real instruments this time, including: acoustic guitar, a cajon kit, banjo, Suzuki flute recorder, melodica, stylophone and I’m sure I’m forgetting something. It’s the only song where Johl and Justin both did back up harmonies and we are pretty happy with how it turned out. I like how it really stands out as something different for this album
Regarding the song title, I think I’m referencing the Rod Stewart version. I don’t know if that song was around more in 2008, or if I was just in denial about the Sheryl Crow version, but back then I would randomly belt out the chorus in my best Rod Stewart impression. The song title pun was what I saved the Garageband demo file as: it was literally my first “strut” at recording my own music, but was it the deepest? Time won’t tell.
You're free to choose how you want, but if P.P. Arnold doesn't win this thing I'm going to be very disappointed.
Are your chord progressions mostly inspired by other rock and pop music, or do you have influences outside of these as well? If so, how would you say they manifest?
A lot of our songs don’t have actual chords in them, it’s just a whole lot of riffs dancing around each other with bass guitar and drums creating a driving force to keep everything moving. On the occasions that we do use chords, or if we’re just considering the general sound and feel of the riffs or guitar tapping in our songs, I’m sure you can point to bands like Maps & Atlases or TTNG as an influence.
Generally, writing a Celebration Guns song starts with one riff or repeating chord sequence, looped in Garageband. At that point, I will start adding more parts: bass guitar, another guitar part and a general idea of what the drums should be doing.
Once all of THAT is in place, I will start over with another riff, and keep going with this process until I have 3-4 loops that hopefully fit and flow together nicely. When Johl contributes guitar parts, the sections of the song are built around those. Vocals start out as a melody with placeholder lyrics, which I will later try and fit lyrics over.
Are mathy chord parts antithetical to more traditional pop structures, or how do these overlap and complement each other in your mind?
One of my favorite things about Celebration Guns is the challenge of taking songs that rarely have an obvious foundational chord structure and trying to mold them into something catchy (which would likely be influenced by traditional pop structures). We tend to have brighter and “happier” sounding songs more than dark or gloomy sounding songs, although we have occasionally found ways to make our math pop bops into math aggro-bummers (see: "You Aren’t the Only One" from 2018’s (Probably) Worth it aka LP1)
Photo courtesy of We're Trying Records
What are your thoughts on personal growth and the necessity of change?
My thought on personal growth is that it’s a nice idea but super difficult in practice, at least for me. It’s something I write about, read about it, think about, but have a tough time manifesting into everyday life. Instead of growing, I think I do a lot more ruminating on the things I need to grow from. In this way, the lyrics on this album and many of our other songs are my form of therapeutically telling myself “You know what you need to do, buddy. You just need to go ahead and do it. Any day now, pal, just go ahead and get started on that growing”
Change is necessary when there are patterns in life that are preventing you from achieving what is important to you, or potentially harmful or self-sabotaging. I don’t always think change for the sake of changing is necessary. Sometimes it feels like the only way to feel like we are succeeding in life is to prove that we have changed over time and can prove it to that person we know 15-20 years ago when we run into them at The Gap (the only place I like to run into people from the past) or when they take a quick glance at our online presence to confirm whether we are still the same chump they knew back when. Ultimately, change if you need to change for survival, but not for the sake of proving something to anyone but yourself.
Do you think it's possible for a person to change their nature, or do you think they will always be essentially the same?
Human nature sounds to me like something you are born with, something that you’re stuck with unless you do some growing via your natural progression through life or by working to influence a change in yourself. I think there are some aspects of a person’s nature will stay essentially the same, and there are times that trying to deny your nature will feel false to yourself and those around you.
If there is something in your nature that is holding you back or making you feel stuck in a pattern, I think it is (hopefully) possible to shape it into something better. I also worry that trying to force change away from the person you are could do more harm than good, depending on whatever the intentions may be behind pushing for that change (i.e. not being authentic or true to the self that makes you who you are).
In the film Hamlet 2, Steve Coogan's character Dana Marschz in an attempt to encourage one of his young thespian students states, "...you're going to have a magical life. Because no matter where you go, it'll always be better than Tucson." In your opinion, what is the worst place in Arizona, and why?
I saw that movie soon after it came out and all that I can remember, unfortunately, is wishing it was a lot funnier than it was. I probably had the wrong expectations. Johl did say he thinks about that quote a lot but declined to further comment because of the time Steve Coogan refused to autograph his Hey Arnold! backpack when Steve “The Cougar” Coogan visited Johl’s community college a few years ago.
I don’t think the Tucson hate is warranted at all, and the only popular culture refence I will accept related to that city is What We Do in the Shadows “Tucson, Arizonya”.* The worst city is Scottsdale, particularly Old Town. Why? Come to AZ and spend a weekend there and you’ll see for yourself.
Spoiler from Hamlet 1. Sorry...
Editor's response: Classic! However, the best bit in that show is clearly the Jackie Daytona arc. Who doesn't want to start over in a new town where you open a bar that you eventually burn down for the insurance payout? This is what we call the American dream.
What do you love most about the place you live?
The fall and winter seasons are kind of perfect here. As I respond to this, the expected high temperature today is 107 with 48% humidity, so you really caught me at a bad time to answer this. I’m not a huge desert scenery guy, but at the same time some of the mountains are nice to look at.
One important thing that people need to know about Arizona: there are areas about 1.5-3 hours away from the hot desert that have forests and cooler temperatures to escape to. I guess I’d have to say those are my favorite parts of Arizona: Prescott, Payson, Flagstaff, etc.
Do you have any midyear resolutions?
Our resolution is to finally get this album released! September 18th is when the full What Keeps Us Coming Back album comes out.* We’re working on an album release show locally on October 23 rd where we will have vinyl, CDs and tapes to sell in person, but you can get them online as early as September 18th via We’re Trying Records. Also, we hope to get on the road early next year. Oh..was this question not meant to be a space for self-promotion?** I’d say my resolution to get better at self-promoting, but who am I kidding. We’re 13 years in and I’ve always been awful at it.
*Note: This interview was conducted on August 4, 2026. **Editor's response: Oh no, it most definitely IS! Good job! You're well on your way to a better you.
Listen up, pusshead! You ain't nobody unless you're somebody on the squash court! It is the ultimate game of manly endurance, speed, agility, and intelligence. A test of will and fortitude on a magnitude that rivals the myths of ancient gods. Two men enter the court; one man leaves... and shortly thereafter, the other man, having declared himself the victor, also hits the showers. Sure, it's the same showers that the loser is using, and yeah, he may have to ask to borrow a towel and some deodorant from the loser, and he might have forgotten his wallet so he can't pay for a cab or the train and will be hoofing it back to the office that morning, but that just makes the triumph all the sweeter. The stains on his collar and in the pits of his suit jacket when he arrives in the lobby of his employer's building are the laurel rings of a champion, and no one can erase their golden glory- as much as one might try with a Shout stick or other name-brand stain remover. No one knows the perspiration of perseverance and the stink of success better than The Eradicator, aka Andy Slania, the demon of the D Squash Ladder, banshee of the back courts, the phantom of the point-a-rally, the shaitan of sweat- in short, he's your worst nightmare... and the latest guest on this podcast!
Check out The Eradicator's latest LP You Can Hate The Eradicator:
If you could find something you love in your formative years and find a way to keep doing it for 30-plus years, wouldn't you? Not many people are so lucky, but Dave Marriman of Chicago punk pillars The Arrivals certainly is. He and his crew have been keeping steady and remaining reliably prescient all these years, and have recently (as of this spring) managed to release their 5th LP, Payload. You may wonder why it's been 16 years since their last album, Volatile Molotov, and the simple answer is that the timing just wasn't right, until it was... In Dave's own words, and summing up the ethos of the band, "If it's not fun, fuck it!" Truly an idiom to ideate on next time you find yourself running behind according to someone else's clock. They don't have any Chicago dates to celebrate the album release on the books yet, but when they do, you can bet I'll be there (and hope you will be too!). In the meantime, enjoy this conversation between Dave and me:
Footballhead started out as something of a hail mary on founder and vocalist Ryan's part, but has since steamrolled into one of the more dynamic, unique, and fun acts of the present huddle of DIY doers and shakers to snap, sack, and blitz their way out of the Midwest. Earlier this year, they crossed the end zone for the third time, releasing Weight of Truth, possibly the best-realized pitch for reviving the post-grunge sound of the early and mid '00s that I think I've heard since I lost sight of Breaking Benjamin sometime in 2009 (still around, by the way, as you'll learn below). Fresh off a tour with erudite and effortlessly-poppy emo-nerds Ben Quad, and currently scrimmaging their way across Europe, Footballhead is a band to watch, and more so to listen to, and you can hear Ryan describe much of the journey of the band as well as answer my many inane inquiries in the interview below:
Get a wife. I'm a wife advocate, and my advocacy is aimed at everyone getting a wife. ✅ house wife, ✅ work wife, ✅ goth wife, ✅ crane wife, ✅ mid wife- fuck it, why not, sister wife... alright, pump the brakes. They're handy and nice, and you can count on them to spot you at the bar and bear and raise your children; they're better than a best friend, and hopefully just as loyal (one would hope... but maybe you're into that sort of thing). A wife is good, a wife is gracious, a wife is steadfast and wise, and depending on your proclivities and preferences, you can even pick up a special variety called a hubbo- a type of domestic companion who tends to have a high skill base for opening jars and reaching objects on high shelves, and can often even be counted on to do dishes and laundry- although these talents are far less likely to be attributed to them, and are often treated as occulted, like the mythic secret menu at Taco Bell. If you want to access the options on his chore tree, you have to ask first. There is also a very confidential variety of wife known as the waifu- this is a wife you never meet but whom you adore in private (sometimes a person, but more often just like, Reze, or something), but if you ever deign to reveal the full extent of your adoration for this sort of wife, or make her picture your avi on social media, you will immediately be excommunicated from the human race and cast into a lake of fire- it is a cruel world we inhabit, but a just one nonetheless. Of course, one of my favorite varieties of wife, and the one that has inspired my present flurry of determined activism, is the Swiss Army Wife- a rare, one-of-a-kind model out of Portland. This particular instantiation of wifehood is particularly musically inclined, writing and producing phenomenally authentic and captivating contemporary emo-core and pop-punk, while reflecting on the travails of being reared in a remote part of the country, blending nostalgia with a pyrrhic wish to see it all burn, and embracing the emancipation of forming one's own identity within the wilderness of hostile convention and countervailing headwinds, driving long into the night to greet an uncertain, yet seemingly brighter future. I was able to take inventory of Swiss Army Wife's long journey and hopeful horizons following the release of their second LP, I Love You, But I Hate It Here (out on We're Trying Records [the current reigning champ of everything emo and underground!]), a compelling sequel to their 2023 debut, Medium Gnarly. You can enjoy my exchange with Ellie and Kade below:
Who do you love, and why does it hurt to love them?
Ellie:Jesus, buy me a drink first. I think there is a degree to which love is inextricable from pain. There’s pain in the fear of losing loved ones, of not being who you want to be for them. Exposing that fear is a huge part of what the album is about.*
* Interesting and thoughtful answer. Thank you. But the correct answer is Pete Wentz b/c Pete Wentz.
What are the standard features and applications for a Swiss Army Wife? Follow-up: how does a Swiss Army Wife differ from a Swiss Army Man (other than a general lack of Daniel Radcliffes)?
Kade: The only one that I am aware of is Swiss Army Wife (the band TM) from Portland, Oregon featuring:
3 guitars
Impassioned yelling
Sadness
Big riffs
Lyrics referencing dead philosophers
Medium, sometimes small riffs
Impressive average member height
I think the second one is a movie about a dead guy so that’s pretty different.
What was your favorite part about making this record ie I Love You, But I Hate It Here?
Ellie: The moments when things came together easily and spontaneously in the room. "It Used To Snow" and "Emergency Contact" both were written this way. Obviously we tweaked parts and agonized over things, but there are few things as exciting as being in a room with that kind of collective energy.
Kade: Getting to spend so much time working on something I truly care about with people I care about even more. (and Ellie making me cry in the studio performing the bridge of "Elliot.")
When did you know this record was done and ready for our eager ears?
Ellie: When Jack Shirley finished mastering it. As soon as I heard the masters, I knew that we’d made something special. Unfortunately, I can never fully let go of anything I make, so I’ll forever be thinking about all the little things we could have done differently. That feeling was pretty overwhelming up until Jack did his thing, but afterwards I felt as ready as I ever could be to let these songs out into the world
Kade: I could keep working on this record forever, but this has been the most satisfied I have been with a project at the point of stasis.
What city is featured in the background of your cover? Also, please unpack the imagery of two horses traveling towards a spotlight in the far distance. How does this imagery overlap with the themes of the album?
Ellie:The city in the photo is Asbury Park, New Jersey. I was on tour last fall playing in Home Is Where for their Hunting Season tour. Before leaving, I decided to pick up a little point-and-shoot film camera and took a ton of photos all over the country. When I was putting together the artwork, this felt like the obvious photo to use. There isn’t any thematic significance to Asbury Park in particular, but the photo had a kind of loneliness that felt like it evoked the album’s themes really well. I’ll leave the question about the horses to our resident horse girl.
Kade: Resident horse girl here. I grew up in a little farm town with a pair of horses that have become emblematic of my time there as well as the best of what remains of it in my memory. I think they represent the longing I have for a version of a place that never really existed.
So 3D vampires sound pretty frightening. How do you defend yourself from such a creature? In all seriousness, though, "3D Vampire" sounds like a hell of a breakup song. Can you share the story behind it?
Ellie: Well, it isn’t a breakup song. You can’t really defend yourself from a 3D Vampire, because you are the 3D Vampire. The song is about feeling trapped and helpless, stuck in the patterns of everyday life while horrific things unfold around and within you.
Kade: If it was a breakup song it would maybe be about breaking up with the idea that you can continue to live a normal existence while the world is tearing itself apart and instead grappling with the desire to slowly shut yourself off from it and everyone around you.
Who is your "Emergency Contact," and who are you singing to on the song with that title?
Ellie: My emergency contact is my mom :)
Kade: My partner Rachel
You seem to be blazing a lonesome path on "Cowboy." Give us some insight into the thoughts and emotions running through that track.
Kade: Anger, fear, and resignation all feel pretty central. Inherited violence is something that never leaves your body even after the abuser is gone, and watching someone experience it from the outside creates a unique form of helplessness.
How much time do you spend in Idaho? Do you have any good/harrowing stories from there?
Ellie: I am transgender. Every time I’ve had to pass through Idaho has been harrowing. Idaho is at the forefront of the states who are determined to erase people like me from the world. They will not succeed, but it’s impossible not to feel afraid there.
Kade: Spent my first 18 years there. It is mountainous and beautiful and took two of my closest friends from me and is slowly killing my mom who still lives there. It’s not a place that is hospitable to me anymore. Going back is hard but I make the trip once a year to see her.
Who is "Elliot," and why did you name a song after them?
Kade: Elliot gets its namesake from Elliot Page the actor. Gender is a difficult messy thing to navigate as I think is portrayed by how messy and painful that song is for me to listen to even still. He was the first person whose experience had a profound impact on me when it came to self-discovery.
"Heartland" doesn't necessarily paint the most welcoming picture of small-town life. How did experiences of life in a one-horse town inform your art and perspective on life?
Ellie: I grew up in a very isolated town in rural Alaska. Literally an island in the middle of the wilderness. You had to get there on a boat or a plane to leave. Less of a one-horse town and more of a no-horse town. Growing up in a place like that as a queer person trying to figure herself out was pretty isolating. I think because of that, I sought out art made by people experiencing their own kinds of isolation. I gained an appreciation for environment as an active subject rather than just scenery. I think on a musical level, that translates to a fixation on harmony. On a purely aural level, that’s the environment that melody, rhythm, lyrics, timbre, and whatever else exist within. That definitely came out in my contribution to these songs. I was always trying to fiddle with chord progressions figuring out what kind of substitutions we could use to create the environment of these songs.
As for my perspective on life, I think it made me appreciate communities that are accepting. The place I grew up rewarded conformity to a certain lifestyle that I knew from a very young age I could never be happy with. Long before I figured out that I’m transgender, my first experiences with that kind of euphoria were in meeting people who I could just be a weird fucking kid with and not feel judged for it. Often, those interactions were happening in musical spaces. It all just kind of fed back into itself.
"God's Favorite Country" sounds like the retelling of a road trip/tour that has really gone off the rails, or is careening towards utter failure. What is the inspiration behind this track, and what are some of your best/worst road trip/tour memories?
Ellie: Umm. Interesting interpretation, but no, not quite. That’s ok though, we do have a pretty good tour story. Our first ever tour was an amazing time right up until, while driving from Phoenix to Boise for the last show of the run, the van’s transmission very suddenly gave out just outside the Great Basin in Eastern Nevada at 4pm on a Friday. We ended up getting a tow about an hour north to the nearest town with any services, Ely. Mind you, it was February, which is not a fun time to be in Eastern Nevada.
We found a room to stay in at a Ramada Inn hotel casino while we tried to figure out what our next step would be. After calling around, it became apparent that we would not be able to get the van into a mechanic until Monday, so we started trying to figure out other options. We quickly learned that there are no rental car agencies in Ely. Nor are there any bus routes that pass through. No trains. No airport. If you drive in, you better be able to drive out. We could not do so.
The closest thing we could find was a UHaul location that had exactly 2 trucks, one of which was rented out for the next 2 weeks, the other of which was currently being rented but was expected back on Sunday. Until the reservation ended up being repeatedly extended. So we were still out of luck. We spent our time drinking expired beer (turns out, even the orange flavored beer is NOT supposed to have pulp in it), watching whatever was on small town Nevada TV, making trips to Safeway and the dollar store for food and swimsuits so we could kill time in the hotel pool. I also went undefeated at Pokemon singles against Kade. Important that the world knows that part. During this phase we overheard a woman at the Safeway checkout telling the cashier how her car’s transmission had died here in town a year ago and she ended up just never leaving. Later, one of the women working at the Safeway deli warned us that the town’s sewer was backing up into their water system. Bleak stuff.
In the end, we did get the van into a mechanic. After spending a couple of days working on it and updating us with increasingly astronomical quotes for fixing it, they offered us a cleared mechanic bill and $80 to scrap it. We had been in Ely for nearly a week at this point. Eventually, Tim’s roommate, Adam, ended up renting a van in Salem, and driving 15 hours overnight through a snowstorm to come rescue us. I was convinced until the moment we pulled into my driveway back in Portland that the spirit of Ely was trying to make us stay. To be honest, I’m still not convinced it wasn’t, and for this reason I will try my absolute best to never step foot in Ely, Nevada ever again.*
*Okay, definitely not a road trip/tour from hell type situation, but in a weird way, this extended curfuffle almost sounds fun. Phew! Glad they got away, though.
Photo courtesy of We're Trying Records
What do you get up to when you have time to horse around, ie what are your hobbies other than music?
Ellie: I have a completely normal degree of interest in Pokemon. I am extremely normal about Pokemon. If anyone says I’m not normal about Pokemon, don’t listen to them. I’m normal about Pokemon.
Kade: Building computers, magic the gathering, and losing to Ellie at Pokémon :/
Have you ever ridden a horse? Assuming the answer is yes, was it a terrifying experience, or did you find yourself bonding with your equine pal?
Kade: I had two horses growing up, Blue and Stormy. I rode them in 4-H and FFA and every week as a kid and miss them both dearly. Blue would always sprint across the pasture to come and greet me in the morning even when I didn’t have carrots for him and I think that was a rare and special kind of love.
Ellie: On a spiritual level, I’ve accepted that horses and I are opposing forces.
What are your connections/coincidental overlaps with the band Joyce Manor?
Ellie: We started working with our longtime mixing engineer Alex Estrada because of his work on Joyce Manor’s self-titled album, which was a huge influence on our first record. If I remember correctly, Alex recommended Jack Shirley, who produced Joyce Manor’s Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired, for mastering. We’ve worked with Alex on pretty much everything we’ve released since then, and came back to Jack for mastering on the new album. Also, by pure coincidence, I just moved into an apartment that’s only a few blocks away from The Alibi, which is a karaoke tiki bar here in Portland that is the setting for (in my opinion) the best Joyce Manor song, "Last You Heard Of Me."
Did you ever finish Oregon Trail as a kid, or did your entire party end up dying of dysentery and snakebites?
Kade: Attempted many times without success. I usually starved because hunting the buffalo made me too sad. Also crashed trying to ford a river a few times. Perhaps dysentery will be the thing that takes me from this life.
If you owned a farm, what kind would it be and where would you want it to be located?
Kade: I do not think I am cut out for farm life but if I were to return to it probably some kind of twee organic berry farm in the Oregon wilderness.
Somewhat surprised by the lack of Pretty Derby references on your social media, in the lyrics of your songs, visible tattoos, etc. Do you believe this will change in the future?
Kade: I was originally just a humble Haru Urara fan but since the Quarter Horse EP release have since been inundated with requests to watch it as I am told she makes an appearance. I will be mandating a band watching experience on our upcoming tour.
The other day I was listening to an interview with a Japanese musician, and she was describing her experience in her high school's band club. To give perspective on the topic to her interviewer, she brought up K-On! only to wipe the slate moments later with the clarification that her experience was "nothing like that." No snacks. Full practice room. You had to practice every day, and when you did play for the club, everyone judged you. This was her experience, and yeah, on balance, watching K-On! sounds a good deal more pleasurable than actually doing the extracurricular that inspired it... I'd wager the closest you could ever come to such an experience in this life is joining a DIY band in the United States. There is still some judgment, sure, and it's still a major time commitment, but there are also tons of snacks and opportunities to simply chill. You'll also probably produce some recordings and play some shows that you can be proud of for the rest of your life, as well as make some lifelong compatriots to boot. Keiongaku certainly has a future, just not where you'd expect...
So if you're going to have an extracurricular that consumes, disrupts, and alters your life, for better and for worse, but mostly for the better, then you might as well start a band with your buds... sort of like Henry from Heavy Metal Chess Club did. Now Henry and his pals don't throw horns and rip power chords in honor of the dark lord, and our main man in particular is no Bobby Fischer, but everything else about them seems faithful to the core conciets of DIY as their music is a perfect synecdoche of life's convoluted trails converging at intersecting epiphanies in the wild fields of youth, sodded in the soil of error and nurtured in murky flash floods of pensive perspicuity. They might not be true to their name, but they are certainly brimming with concrete existential observations, engaged in probing schematic interpretations of the world, managing to be loud in inquiry, and quiet in conclusion, and they have a new LP called I Think It'll Haunt Me Forever out on We're Trying Records, which is worth an awful lot in my humble opinion. Get to know Henry and his band below, and don't forget to grab some taiyaki and tea before heading to the basement to jam with your crew.
Introduce yourselves. Who is in the band, what do they play, how did they come to be in the band, and what are their rider stipulations?
My name's Henry, I normally say "I play guitar and yell." I started writing songs in high school and formed a band when I got to college. For the past year or so now the band's included Connor on drums. His band Melon Husk from Colorado played with us a couple of years ago, we reconnected at a new year's party, and got closer after he transferred to Drexel (where we all go to school) following UArts closing. Will's on bass, I kinda knew him through Connor and also just kinda being around, another UArts to Drexel guy. We saw each other at shows and got along really well and we really jive energetically when we play together. Gray's the last one on lead guitar, we did a little tour in August of last year and I needed a guitarist for it, I had seen his band Exit 109 before and really liked them and knew he was going to be in Philly over that summer so I asked him to join us for that run and he clicked really well with us. He played his first show with us on just a few days' notice, and wasn't even able to make a practice so our first time playing with him was on stage and it went perfectly. They're all a blast to play and hang out with. We've never had a rider, but it would probably include beer.
What were your goals headed into making I Think It’ll Haunt Me Forever, and were they achieved?
I never intended for this to be the only album we do, in fact I'm super energized to get working on another record as soon as possible, but I wanted to put something out where if it was the only full length album we released, I would be content with that. There were a lot of times I acted as if this was the only album we'd do. The perfectionist in me can point out a lot of things I wish were different about it, but if this band were to cease to exist tomorrow, I would be happy with what we did with this record. That being said I do hope to one-up it next time around.
The title for the album comes from a poem recited in the track "Christmas Lights." What is the meaning behind this passage, how does it fit into other themes on the album, and how was it that a line from this poem became the title of the album?
For most of the time this album was being written I was sold on this being a self titled album. I'm not quite sure how to describe this but I don't think a whole lot when I write lyrics. I like to say that they mean things on a macro scale, not a micro scale. I could tell you what a song is about more or less but not most individual lines. I see a lot of things in my life in relation to being "scared." I'm anxious and shy and I fuck up a lot, and I'm scared of fucking up more. Persistence in spite of this fear is a skill I've developed as I've become a young adult. I'm scared of fucking up? Well, I've already fucked up, I can learn from that. There's stuff that I think might haunt me forever. I'm young and dramatic, maybe it won't "haunt" me but it'll probably stick around somehow. So will the fear, and the anxiety and all that. You can't be brave if you're not afraid, you can't learn and grow unless you fail. I'm not too sure how to tie that all up but those are the general thoughts I have around the title, I think it ties the themes of what I write together.
You have a very compelling, quiet dynamic on this album. How do you feel the juxtaposition of reflection and fury draws out the themes and thought processes behind your work?
The loud/quiet dynamic is something the bands I listened to growing up were very good at, Pixies, and Smashing Pumpkins being the big two. I see the louder more explosive parts of our songs as incredible cathartic and that's what I like about them most, it's a bit of a balancing act, something to build up to I don't think the yelling and screaming should be the whole thing. I don't think that hits as hard. I think you need softer more introspective moments to complement and build up to the moments of explosive catharsis.
Who are some of your favorite scream vocalists, and do they have any impact on the way more aggressive vocal styles are deployed on this album?
I was really inspired by Jack Senff's vocals from Merchant Ships and Midwest Pen Pals, also stuff like early Pdaddy, Old Gray, and I was listening to a ton of Foxing's self titled when I was writing some of these songs, I was definitely inspired by some of Conor Murphy/Eric Hudson's more aggressive vocal performances throughout Foxing's discography.
Were any of you members of the chess club in high school?
I don't think so? Connor's been reading Gotham Chess' chess book, I've played against Connor and Will before. I'm quite bad.
What is the wisest, most far-sighted plan you have ever carried out, ie When was the last time you were really playing 4D chess?
I bought a cheap mini-van of Facebook marketplace so we could start touring and playing more regional shows. For a while I was like "that was stupid" since it was a really big purchase for me. Since then it's actually been really convenient to have a paid for vehicle thats got a lot of space, even if it is sort of a piece of crap. Getting it cheap and not financing it was the wiser part of that choice.
Who is playing clarinet on "Squids" and what does SpongeBob’s long-suffering neighbor have to do with this track?
That's a Saxophone actually, my buddy Charlie's playing it and you can hear it at the end of Christmas Lights too. Squidward has nothing to do with "Squids" but maybe he should have. I really liked the additional horns/piano we added to the record it filled out a lot more space than I thought it would.
Who is "Michael," and what is it that he is doing that is "Gross"?
I play a game called Balatro, when I started I swore that we'd make the first emo song that had a Balatro reference as it's titled. The title is referencing a card in the game called "Gros Michel" which is in turn referencing the real life thing. The card has an image of a banana on it and using it unlocks a card called "Cavendish." At the end of the day it's a long winded banana reference.
What dirty deeds inspired "Sweaty Palms / Bloody Hands"?
Honestly nothing in particular, I came up with the riff first and knew I wanted the song to be a bit heavier. The imagery of cleaning blood out of a floor came to mind and I leaned into that when writing lyrics.
What are your favorite spectator sports, ie sports that you watch but don't play? Real and/or figurative.
I love baseball! I played when I was really little but I wasn't a very athletic kid. I think it's a well paced game and the dork in me enjoys the stats-heavy side of it.
The cover art is pretty busy. Are those equations, or are you diagramming a detective show's plot? Please explain what is going on in this image.
This was my thermodynamics midterm that my friend cut up and collaged. I think I got a 70 something on it?
When was the last time you built a sandcastle, and what are you most afraid that the ocean/time will wash away before you are finished with it?
When I was a little kid I saw some older kids making a sand castle on the beach and I asked them to help work on it. I was some single digit age and have no idea how old these other kids might have been but it seemed like an awesome sand castle and I wanted in on it. They let me play with them and I think about it more than you'd think. I think there's a lot of beauty in things being temporary, as much as there is pain. Things can serve a purpose and when their purpose is done they don't need to be around anymore. Relationships, emotions, tv shows, sand castles, there's a lot of pain in endings but there's purpose and beauty in there too. I remember writing that song feeling like people would always get sick of me after a while and none of my relationships would last. Its a sucky feeling but that type of stuff comes and goes, people play a part in your life, and you in theirs, and sometimes when both of you have played your roles you drift apart. You're different because of each other, not just in romantic relationships but all types of relationships with other people, hopefully we make each other better.
Who are your favorite heavy metal bands?
I'm actually not super into heavy metal music, but I grew up on Rammstein and got to see them live the last time they were in the U.S. One of my earliest memories is my dad showing me the music video for "Mein Hertz" brennt and being mildly traumatized. Connor and Gray are really into Metalcore and play some heavy stuff in the van sometimes. "Heavy Metal Chess Club" as a name came from a shared google doc my friends and I had in highschool that was just a list of "things that would make cool band names." I saw "Death Metal Chess Club" in there one day and really liked it, but switched it to "Heavy Metal Chess Club" just because I thought the cadence was better, I liked it with the extra syllable there.
Who are your favorite poets?
I'm really not well read poets wise. I really like Billy Corgan's lyrics from Smashing Pumpkins, they were probably my biggest influence when I started. Right now I've really enjoyed/connected with Sydney Sprague and Oso Oso's lyrics a lot.
Give me a math equation that you think will stump those reading this interview.
This isn't an equation but here's a problem I remember enjoying working on when I was taking Discrete Math. You have a number p, p is prime, p - 2 and p + 2 are both also prime, Prove that p = 5. If you want a hint, try start dividing prime numbers by 6 and see what happens.
When you're an intergalactic pop sensation, and you come across a planet on the verge of catastrophic ecological and psycho-social collapse, it puts you in a bit of a pickle. You can, of course, whisk yourself away to a solar system better known for its sanity and stability, or you can make landfall and understake an attempt at sensible astral diplomacy- so the story goes, polaris pop idol Paida has shouldered the onus of bringing enlightenment to the rest of us instead of kicking back and sipping sake in a satellite resort orbiting Zatan... regrettably, good samaritans rarely enjoy the fruits of their own labor, but she's making the most of it as any good idol would! Hailing from her crash pad in Space City, Texas, Paida does what she can to bring humanity closer to the stars through her blend of J-pop-inspired hits, infectious enthusiasm, and an eccentric brand of gallows humor. Harbingers of dystopian futures never sounded so delightful! Check out my interview with the ever-invigorating Paida below:
It might shock some of you all to learn this, but I almost never listen to music-related podcasts, and I'm specifically averse to artist interviews. I know, right? Here I am about to plug a podcast where I interview someone, and right out the gate I'm saying, "yeah, I don't listen to this type of 'ish." There is literally only one exception to this, though, and that is Beers with Bands. The reason for this is that Michael Torres has great music tastes and manages to talk to bands I care about. The other reason is that he comes across as a down to earth guy, with no agenda but the love of talking with people who make great music. Points on the board. Man after my own heart. Whenever I look up a DIY band to figure out what their deal is, Michael's already right there, sharing a Hamm's with the dudes on his couch. A suds-soaked shepherd through the sounds of the underground. So, of course, I had to talk to him and see what he's all about! Turns out, Michael is as cool in person as he appears on tape and is twice as fun to share a brew with. We tossed a few back* with some time in February when we talked about his podcast, what albums he has in rotation in his car, and where the best Mexican food in the Twin Cities can be found (hint: it's in a gas station). Check out my interview with Michael of Beers with Bands below:
Cheem may be the best band in the world. There really isn't even a contest. Hardworking, original, and friendly af, they're the complete package for any DIY devotees/appreciators/aficionados who recall the intoxicating blend of rock, rap, rap-rock, Swedish-penned mega-pop-hits, and hardcore electronic beats that suffused the flavorful yet perplexingly complex and layered braise of popular music in the late '90s and early '00s- all the stuff that ended up getting exiled to the back of the freezer known as MTV2 and later completely off the table and onto compost heap of MySpace after 2005. Their sound harkens back to a time when there was greater permeability between the underground and what we could deem the mainstream, and in modernizing this sonic mesh of synecdoches and loose ends into a coherent vision that is recognizable and embraced by contemporary fans of underground music, they fill a niche in today's scene that nobody else can. Hopefully, the love they inspire will lift the group to the heights of fame and success that the inspiration and ambition of their sound prophesies as practically inevitable. And if you weren't there when Incubus, Linkin Park, Savage Garden, and the like were churning out singles and iconic, high-concept, top-tier videos, then Cheem can serve as the elder sibling you never had, introducing you to the sounds and styles of decades past and priming you to embrace the next big thing as it comes around the bend- which, in this case, just so happens to be Cheem themselves, and their latest LP, Power Move. Power Move is a follow-up to their breakout LP Guilty Pleasure, a tour de force covered positively on this very blog (and other publications of lesser cultural impact as well), whose momentum is retained and magnified on this latest release. From the vibrant, scratch-textured, and concussive internal tug-of-war of opener "Pivot," to the bust-out and build-up-the-break-down, skate-groove slap of "Gorrilla Glue," to the vaporwave-infused, Caribbean-spiced splash of "Quench," there is nary a dull moment or an inspired idea that goes unrealized on Power Move. Even though the band is currently on tour, vocalist/guitarist/scratch master Skye Holden still found time to parse some interrogatories that I slid his way, and you can read his responses below.
Let's set the
stage- what does the journey from Guilty Pleasure to Power Move look
like?
We were working on Power Move since before Guilty Pleasure even dropped, the
first full band recordings of songs like "Quench" and "Octane" were done in 2021
and a few elements from those sessions did end up making it into the final
album. Aside from that, we tried to stay
consistent while working on such a big project behind the scenes so we dropped
two EPs, Fast Fashion and Faster Fashion.
We were not expecting them to get so much traction but thanks to that we
ended up being in a really good spot to drop a record after a stint of social
media success in early 2025. We kinda
expedited the record release for that reason and went in on finishing it.
Why was Power Move selected as the title for your latest release?
The original record was 18 tracks, and that's the version that is being
released as Power Move: Victory Lap.
Dropping a statement like that is a power move, in our opinion. Especially with the range we were trying to
showcase across all the songs.
"Pivot" is such an amazing way to start out this album. What is the story behind
it?
"Pivot" was the last song written for the album, it almost didn't make it in time
but it was so good I pushed for it to make the tracklist. It's a song about a relationship becoming
one-sided, where one party is trying hard to be communicative and make things
work and the other seemingly can't be bothered and is either fine with the
dysfunction or just looking for an exit.
Tell me about the features on this Power Move? Why did you choose these
artists as creative partners? What is the story?
For the most part they were just artists we crossed paths with playing live who
we ended up becoming friends with, it was all very organic. The only one we haven't met in person is
Brazil-based MC Taya, we came across each other via a Twitter account called
"crazy ass moments in nu metal history." We just had a mutual appreciation for each
other's work and we knew after hearing her style that we wanted to get her on a
heavy song.
Pitchfork gave Guilty Pleasure a rating of 6.9. What rating would you give
Pitchfork?
4.20
Objectively, what rating would you give Power Move on a scale of 1-10 and why?
10, it's by far our best work and we're making exactly the kind of music we
want to hear. And if you're not gonna
ride for yourself then nobody is.
What is Power Move: Victory Lap and what can people expect from this
DLC pack?
Power Move: Victory Lap is the actual album we wanted to drop. It's the director's cut. People can expect even more sides of Cheem
that weren't showcased on the initial release and smoother transitions between
songs because of the adherence to the original track order.
Not that you were lacking it on earlier albums, but you do sound more
confident and comfortable in your skin on this record. Can you tell me how
being in a band for as long as you all have contributed to your sense of
self as performers and to the kind of music you can make?
The longer you do it the less you care about what other people think and more
about how satisfied you feel with the end product that you're working on. The music becomes less about what you think
will do well and more about a sound you wish existed and want to bring into the
world. We also think more about what's
gonna be more fun to play live since our live show is such a huge part of what
we do. I think this album has a good mix
of experimental studio-oriented tracks and live bangers. We think it's important to do both because we
want to explore every corner of the Cheem sound.
I'm loving how deep and rich a lot of the tracks on Power Move are sounding,
can you tell me a little about the production choices that went into this
release?
There was definitely a conscious decision to make the quieter sections more
atmospheric. There's all kinds of
samples and noises buried in the mix here and there that just add a little to
the overall feel. We also included a
couple of interlude-esque outros on songs to help bridge the gap between
tracks. I would say the biggest
influences in that regard would be trip hop and vaporwave.
Would you still consider yourself Nu-Pop? What are the parameters of this
genre? Are there any other bands you would consider Nu-Pop, or Nu-Pop
adjacent?
Absolutely, we are a nu pop band. It's
the genre blending of nu metal but with a more melodic and pop-oriented
approach, essentially just incorporating elements of hip-hop, electronic,
R&B, Latin, and Caribbean music to the more traditional rock band format
with loud guitars and live drums.
If I had to name some nu pop adjacent bands I would say South Arcade, Cherie
Amour, Medekine, Scro, Symposia, and Pink Pool.
At this point in your career, where do you see yourselves as fitting into the
larger spectrum of DIY/Emo/Punk music?
It's tough to say because even though we are pretty DIY (recording, production,
mixing, graphic design, etc.) we're at a point where we can't really play house
shows anymore. For us to faithfully put
on a show for all the people that want to see us we need a venue that can
comfortably and safely accommodate a decent amount of people and a nice loud
sound system. That said, we try to keep
the DIY ethos in mind and we do keep up with what's happening in that scene to
some extent. I think people have finally
stopped classifying us as emo though.
Say some nice things about John and the rest of the Lonely Ghost crew.
Lonely Ghost is a great label to be on for a DIY band because they do their
best to let you just do your own thing and accommodate that into their release
schedule. They never said no to our
ideas, and they really believe in the future of innovative and unique
music. Great people operating a pretty
busy label purely for the love of the game.
Is ska due for a comeback?
If you mean in the mainstream then yeah, I'd like to see a modern pop take on
ska. If Olivia Rodrigo or Pinkpantheress
dropped a ska-infused song I think that would be sick and probably wouldn't
sound like any ska we've heard before. I
think reimagining the production choices while maintaining the core identity of
the genre is the only chance it has to get a big break again.
What's the best thing someone has ever written about your band, and
why did you like it so much?
Angel Marcloid (aka Fire-Toolz aka Mindspring Memories) mastered our new record
and she sent us an email telling us how much she liked the album and why and
all the things she said really rang true with what we set out to do with this
album. We really enjoy and respect her
work so it meant a lot to hear.
What is the ideal piece of coverage that a music publication (not saying Nu
Metal Agenda, but not not saying them either) could do for your band that
would help your career right now? Put another way, what is the
value/role of music journalism from your perspective in this day and age?
Truth be told I don't know how many people are reading music publications
nowadays. I think it would have to be a
pretty huge publication to move the needle in any meaningful way. For us music interviews are just about
getting a chance to express ourselves and our intentions in detail for the
passionate fans that care enough to dig deep.
How is your current tour going? What dates/cities are you most excited
about?
Our past couple tours have been incredible, more sold out shows than not which
is a good sign. Our last Brooklyn show
and the festival Burn Bright (Editor's note: I was there!)were two particular highlights.
What are the best albums from the late '90s/early '00s ('97-'04), and what
about them inspires you?
You picked a great era so I'll keep it to 5 records.
Transistor by 311, it's 21 tracks of the band at their most experimental and
the production was mind-blowing to me the first time I listened to it.
Celebrity by NSYNC, it has really strong pop hooks and incorporates UK garage,
breakbeat, and hip-hop production. There
isn't even another song I can think of that sounds like "Do Your Thing" (the
closing track) which is a pretty cool achievement for a boy band.
Sol-Fa by Asian Kung-Fu Generation, this is how pop punk should have evolved in
the West but never did. This is an
example of what you can do when you're inspired by a genre but not tethered by
nostalgia. (Their 2008 album World World
World is an even better example of this.)
Get Rich or Die Tryin' by 50 Cent, this was one of the first hip-hop records I
fell in love with as a little kid. Track
for track it's so good. I always love
when a rapper has a great flow but also a sense of melody, like a lot of these
songs don't have a featured singer on the chorus but they still have hooks you
can sing along to.
Meteora by Linkin Park, I don't even need to get into this one.A lot of people probably prefer Hybrid Theory
but as someone who has probably listened to both records a thousand times this
is the one that comes out on top, if only by a little.
What is an influence on your group that has never come up
in an interview before, or that no one has been able to pinpoint
in a review of your music?
The Hives, I've listened to their first four albums so many times. I accidentally straight up stole a Hives
lyric in "Nano." (Editor's note: Good artists borrow, great artists steal!) And our song "Motorola
Razr" was originally a GarageBand file called "hives beat" because of
the drums and percussion in the chorus.
When are you starting an official fan club, and what can people expect as
far as exclusive merch and events from such an organization?
We kinda tried to do that with a program called CheemQuest but we've been
insanely busy and haven't been able to update it. We'll probably go back to doing that but also
maybe starting a more straightforward street team based out of our discord.
I've heard Cheem is a romantic sort of group and/or for lovers, describe to me
your perfect date.
Picking up good food to eat at home and watching a really good show or playing
a really good video game. If you want a
less introverted answer I would probably say a beach day but that's not really
on the table for the vast majority of the year where we're from.
What recommendations do you have for fans who want to take a date to a
Cheem show?
DM us on Instagram and tell us to pretend to know you so you can impress your
date.
What are your signature combos and/or finishing moves?
All of our combos involve complicated polyrhythms between buttons so no one has
actually ever executed one before. For
our finishing move we combine into a Voltron/Megazord like entity and
annihilate our foes with a beam sword called the Cheem sword.
What are your favorite game OSTs and how do they contribute to the
Cheem repertoire?
I think games like the first three Mario Bros, Wario Land 4, and Pokemon
Colosseum subconsciously influenced my melodic and rhythmic sensibilities
because I played them so much as a child.
A few highlights from soundtracks I got into later in life would be
Katamari Damacy, Danganronpa, Earthbound, and the Ape Escape games. Anytime I hear a cool production touch in a
video game song I always think about how I can incorporate it into Cheem. I think it also inspires me to utilize
unconventional instruments outside of the actual makeup of the band, stuff like
strings, woodwinds, extra percussion, etc.
What games are you playing now?
The only game I'm really playing right now is Doubutsu no Mori e+ (Japanese
exclusive Animal Crossing game) to help me work on learning Japanese. I did just finish the Xenoblade Chronicles
trilogy though.
If Cheem were an acronym, what would each letter stand for?
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