August 06, 2025

Inside Porcupine’s Altar of Vapor: An interview with Chicago’s masters of Dark Hardcore

August 06, 2025/ Logan Archer Mounts

“We didn’t sacrifice anything that makes us Porcupine. We’re still heavy. This is our most collaborative project to date as a band. We don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we take the band and the music itself very seriously. People should be keeping their eyes peeled for anything that we do.”

Porcupine vocalist and lyricist Dawson Kiser sounds extremely proud and confident when he says this to me, his excitement about his band’s newest material completely shining through the Google Meet call we arranged. I have been closely watching the evolution of the Chicagoland and Pittsburgh hardcore outfit since their first proper releases in 2018, though they had been germinating deep in the Midwest suburbs for a couple of years already at that point. Since then, I’ve heard the band put out record after record of intense, chaotic, blistering hardcore music, and seen them perform with the likes of Harvest, Ignite, and Portrayal Of Guilt. 2024 was a crucial year for the band, with their debut full-length album All Is Vapor being unleashed in June — sharing a release date with Charli xcx’s unavoidable brat, a fact they jokingly feel set them back. “Our album is a challenging listen; it’s long and ruthless for a modern hardcore album,” guitarist Joey Hernandez reflects. “And it came out the same day as brat, so we got beef with Charli now.”

Porcupine’s music has nothing in common with the 365 party girl herself, as you might imagine. Their ferocious and unrelenting approach to hardcore and metal is one of the most impressive that the underground has to offer, evident by songs like “Funeral Grief” from 2021’s The Sybil EP, or “Army Of Martyrs” from All Is Vapor. Now, just over a year later, the band is back with the six-track EP Under The Altar, released via Chicago label New Morality Zine, the band’s longtime home. The 25-minute collection serves as a direct companion to last year’s album, with its only physical release being a CD that compiles the two – a further extension of the themes and imagery that began with The Sybil. Dawson Kiser breaks it all down: “There is a strong connection between those three records. I was still exploring different ideas, starting with The Sybil, but there’s been this consistent philosophical idea of dualism – the idea of having a body and a spirit, being drawn to material life and immaterial life – and what that means in a world full of suffering and depravity. That’s been across the board through our releases, but I think it’s gotten more precise on Under The Altar.”

Hernandez adds, “Some of the ideas for these new songs have been around for a while. Dawson wanted to do a sequel to ‘Holy Cowards’ from All Is Vapor, which sort of inspired us to do this follow-up EP. I pulled a lot of things that have been sitting on the shelf and recreated them to sound like something that Porcupine would make in 2025. I was really influenced by mewithoutYou, who put out a lot of sequels to other things across their discography. The next one we worked on redoing was ‘Close The Doors,’ since the album version is just acoustic. We wanted to work out a full band version for our live set, and Dawson added new lyrics to it. I think the sequel totally works as a tone setter for the EP before ‘Dull Blade’ comes in.”

Under The Altar’s title track is the band’s longest to date, clocking in at just under nine minutes. The group is no stranger to epic, sprawling songs on their releases, like “The Kingdom Of Heaven” from The Sibyl and “I Am Bound” from All Is Vapor. But this track’s inception also predates the other songs on the EP by quite some time, as the band explains. “It was originally called ‘I Wish You Peace,’ and it came out on the benefit compilation Artists For Black Lives Matter Vol. 1 back in 2020,” Kiser recalls about his original acoustic performance of the track. Hernandez follows, “I always had the idea to make that a Porcupine song because I thought the melody and riff were so sick. When I translated it to the band, I wanted it to be super calm in the beginning, because what Dawson is saying lyrically on the song is just so haunting and desperate, but I knew the second half would be a lot more intense.”

Kiser admits, “It’s a very exhausting song for me. My vocal approach was totally different; I’ve never sung that way on a Porcupine song before. I start really subdued, and then it goes into this painful scream where I’m trying to hold the note of the song. I was listening to a lot of Battle Of Mice and their vocalist, Julie Christmas, while writing the song. Her vocals really inspire me because they’re so terrifying and emotional all at once.”

Hernandez and Kiser are the band’s co-founders and only consistent members, although Under The Altar was mixed by returning bassist Jordan Hermes, an element of the record they’re both excited about. “We love him being back, he’s been instrumental in making these songs sound like more than just demos. It feels so natural, and we’re so locked in whenever we practice. He’s been a huge part of us becoming a better band,” Hernandez says.

Between the thematic consistency of their 2020s catalog and the return of early band members, the conversation with the band led me to suggest the idea of the “Porcupine Cinematic Universe,” and it turns out I wasn’t far off. “Jordan said the same thing,” Hernandez says. “We all like to do different stuff that may not be directly related to Porcupine, but it’s all kind of connected. Dawson’s solo record that came out recently is like that.”

Released in May under his middle name, Micaiah Kaiser, Treachery Utterly Murders Our Respect, or TUMOR, is a deeply personal record about betrayal, heartbreak, and suffering. “It was still a collaboration with Joey,” Kiser notes. “We’ve been working on it for a long time, like five years…”

“That’s because I was procrastinating,” Hernandez admits.

“… that’s also true, but I wasn’t going to throw you under the bus,” Kiser laughs. He continues, “There are some sonic similarities to the band because it’s these same two guys working on it, but nothing sounds like a Porcupine song. It’s not remotely hardcore. I don’t really know what to call it. Joey is better at identifying genres than I am.”

Hernandez qualifies, “It’s like Giles Corey-core. Definitely something for fans of that or other artists on The Flenser record label. Bedroom recordings with some spacey and ambient beats.”

“Nick Cave is probably my most listened-to artist of all time,” Kiser says when asked about other musical artists that inform his writing. “I’m always listening to his stuff and am really influenced by the way he approaches dark themes with a sort of folklore style.”

The full band’s approach to what they call “dark hardcore” feels informed more at times by leftfield and experimental artists like Cave or King Woman than traditional hardcore bands, but Hernandez and Kiser haven’t lost any love for their anchoring genre, despite the sense that they’re navigating their way through it. “The thing about hardcore,” Hernandez confesses, “it’s kind of a sore subject for us. We’re totally doing our own thing, and it’s not the cool thing to do. I think that’s made us stand out, but it’s also made us go, ‘Oh, people don’t really understand what this is.’ We’re always thinking about that type of thing. I love bands like Candy and Vein because they’re so off-kilter and doing something interesting, but you can tell they’re all really talented dudes. Or a band like Code Orange, where you can tell they have hardcore roots, but they went in more of a rock and roll direction that was still really heavy.”

Kiser adds, “I still view us as a hardcore band, I don’t ever see us as not having an obvious hardcore influence. There are songs on Under The Altar that are just hardcore songs to me, and how I personally understand the genre. I still love listening to hardcore bands and going to shows and watching people going crazy, even if some of the more popular bands don’t generally line up with what Porcupine is doing. Even some of my favorite bands like All Else Failed, Converge, and Starkweather, that maybe lean more metal or something else entirely, they’re still hardcore bands to me.”

Porcupine’s live performances are not to be missed — the quintet consistently delivers blistering and visceral shows at any venue they play, channeling the energy of some of extreme music’s tightest acts like Full Of Hell and Harm’s Way. They’ve just wrapped up a short touring run with close friends The Jackal – a new Ohio band featuring members of Griphook and Coop. On the tour, Hernandez says, “I’m excited to connect back up with them, just to hang out and get inspired. Every tour we do, we get inspired by the bands we play with. Like the band Prouns, who are just a three-piece, but they really know how to rock out. And the band Clot, they’re super professional and older than us, I almost felt like they were showing us up every night. And with The Jackal, this is the most impressed I’ve been with one of Zach Butcher’s bands.”

Porcupine continues their Summer tour dates next week with fellow Chicago-based band We Weren’t Invited, capped off by a hometown record release show on August 16th. Hernandez feels equally pumped for this run, giving his next tourmates accolades for being “so crazy, and they do whatever the fuck they want, it’s wild. I’m also excited to talk to people about the new record. We’ve been keeping it under wraps for a while, but I can’t wait to hear what people think of it. I love that our close friends love our music, and I don’t think their opinion doesn’t matter, but I really love listening to new people who are discovering Porcupine, even if they only like one song. It just makes me happy to know I did something cool like that.”

2026 will mark ten years since Porcupine formed, and Hernandez and Kiser have no plans to stop anytime soon. Reflecting on the milestone, Hernandez says, “I think we’re at a point now where we’re at our best, and we can make the best music we can with the best people.” Kiser agrees, “We’ve all grown up together, and the music is indicative of that. This current lineup is the best one that we’ve had. We all get along great.” I asked them exactly what “growing up” means to them as a band, not just the experience of doing so, but what they’re taking away from that experience.

Hernandez answers, “Even though I love a lot of what we did in the past, obviously I would do it a lot differently now. The first real thing I’m proud of is the Zomia record. I still listen back to that and go, ‘that’s crazy that I made that when I was 20.’ That was the first time I realized I could make something really interesting, and we got a nod from the Axe To Grind podcast, which I never thought could happen even back then. And then they premiered ‘Euphrosyne’ ahead of All Is Vapor coming out, which was so cool of them to do.

We just want to keep challenging ourselves with things that I don’t even know if they’re hardcore or not anymore, but then I’ll go write a 90-second straightforward hardcore song after that. I love how Smashing Pumpkins can mix together soft and heavy songs on the same album, like Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness, which was the first record that made me think, ‘I want to sonically emulate this.’ We’ve ventured through a lot of sonic experimentation, a lot of different types of hardcore. We’ve grown our networking skills since our first tour in 2018. We’re a lot more mature now. I’m really happy with this EP. I wouldn’t change a thing about it, and I didn’t compromise anything that makes us Porcupine, but every new record we do, I feel like we have to reintroduce ourselves. So I hope this is going to foreshadow whatever comes next, because it’s going to be even better.”

Logan Archer Mounts once almost got kicked out of Warped Tour for doing the Disturbed scream during a band’s acoustic set. He currently lives in Rolling Meadows, IL, but tells everyone he lives in Palatine.

July 23, 2025

Different Parts of the Same Elephant: An Interview With Dustin Hayes of Walter Mitty and His Makeshift Orchestra

July 23, 2025/ Nickolas Sackett

People always say never to meet your heroes, but what if you get to meet your hero twice because you don’t understand how Google Meet works?

It might make you a little tired trying to keep up with everything that singer-songwriter Dustin Hayes is connected to. He cofounded the record label and art collective Making New Enemies, which has released an armful of records alongside a late-night-esque comedy show, a lo-fi surf film, and an annual community collaborative album called Group Picture, currently fourteen iterations deep. Hayes directed and edited a “mumblecore soap opera” short film called Library Card. He’s dabbled in podcasting, blogging, and photography. He’s even been a ping-pong referee.

At the center of this rich, creative universe lies beloved folk-punk band Walter Mitty and His Makeshift Orchestra, as well as its electric, more experimental sibling, Walter Etc., which Dustin founded after Walter Mitty took a hiatus way back in 2015. Since the band’s founding, virtually all of Dustin’s latest musical work has been under the Walter Etc. name, aside from a compilation of Walter Mitty B-sides and oddities in 2019.

But that all changes with Yikes Almighty, Walter Mitty’s first new album in over ten years. Mixing the DIY acoustic colors characteristic of Walter Mitty with new sounds echoing the experimentation of his Walter Etc. offerings, Yikes Almighty is a soul-searching snapshot of where Dustin is currently in his life. Hayes’ honest songwriting takes on new shapes as his lyrics filter through the sieve of adulthood, yet never lose their poignancy or authenticity.

After meeting once from the comfort of our own homes and failing to properly record our interview, Dustin was nice enough to meet again for a second interview to talk about the circumstances leading up to Yikes Almighty, the album’s eclectic rollout, spirituality in your early 30s, and what exactly the point of the whole Walter-verse is.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

SWIM: Thank you for being so flexible. I’m so sorry that this entire thing happened. Apparently, I don’t know how to work technology, despite what I say on my resume.

DUSTIN: No worries. I would have done the exact same thing.

SWIM: I was like, oh, yeah, I see a red recording dot! We’re good to go. Realize after the interview that it’s not a recording dot, it’s just letting me know I’m using my microphone. Oh. It’s probably going to be a little bit of a repeat of Monday for the most part. I’m bummed because we had a really good conversation on Monday, but...

DUSTIN: It’s all good!

SWIM: What can you do, man. Anyway, how are you doing?

DUSTIN: Good. This was just reminding me of my ultimate Zoom mistake where I threw an online party for Group Picture. It was the first time I did a Zoom party, and I didn’t realize you can’t just throw the Zoom link out on social media without something happening, so I shared the link on Twitter and I was like, “We’re live now!” And then we got all these bots coming into the chat, and then there’s just porn on the screen. I was like, “Holy shit!” And then they appropriated one of our friends’ usernames, so it looked like our friend was talking in the chat and saying all these terrible things.

SWIM: Dude, that’s so funny. My girlfriend and I have a book club with our friends, and that happened to us too! We don’t even know how this person got in, but they did the same thing. My girlfriend’s sister’s name is Maria, and they joined under “Maria’s iPhone.” So everyone’s like, “Okay, cool, Maria’s here!” They join and they’re just streaming Pornhub, so everyone’s like “Oh my god, what is she doing?!” Then we realize that it’s not her because she actually tried to join after!

DUSTIN: This is the Wild West out here.

SWIM: I know, honestly, if you’re in a public Zoom, it is the Wild West. So let’s just take it back to square one. Earlier this week, we talked about Yikes Almighty being the first Walter Mitty album in ten years. I want to ask you more about the recording process because before we even knew about this album, you were posting pictures of yourself in a room hitting this triangle-like instrument, showing off toy pianos and all these new sorts of sounds for a Walter Mitty record. How did that come about? What were you going through at the time? Where were you listening to?

DUSTIN: I don’t know if I really remember exactly what I was listening to, but I was definitely just kind of getting back to my roots in those sounds. The very first Walter Mitty record I had to make in a bedroom because I didn’t have access to anything. I just had an acoustic guitar and random stuff around me. So that’s kind of always been like the home base for me with recording.

When I was making Yikes Almighty, I didn’t have a home and I went to our drummer Chris’s house out in Denver, so it was kind of just back to square one. I was going around his house looking through things to hit [for percussion]. That’s why I was hitting the pan lid! But then I took it a step further on this album – I went to a thrift store and I bought a bunch of kid’s toys and started messing with those. So I could have, you know, used more real instruments, but the circumstances kind of gave me a “back to the beginning, back to the basics.”

SWIM: Right. Almost like a full circle, in a sense.

DUSTIN: Yeah, exactly. A little full circle as far as the production and where I was at in life.

SWIM: I feel like... in some ways, this is kind of a full-circle Walter Mitty album. For example, the last track on Yikes Almighty is “101 S.” I think a lot of listeners, especially if they’ve been Walter Heads for a long time, they’re going to notice that title right away: “101 N” is one of your most popular songs. Are those two connected?

DUSTIN: There’s definitely a connection for me, like, in my head and life, but I think musically or lyrically… “101 S” is not a continuation of “101 N.” I guess the vibes behind them are kind of similar. “101 N” was about leaving home when I was a kid in Orange County and moving out for my first time when I was eighteen and being scared and excited and hitting the road and taking the 101 North Freeway into the Great Unknown. Then “101 S” is from my thirties when I left my life in Ventura and I moved south to LA, and it also felt like leaving it all behind, going into the Great Unknown. This was the unknown of Los Angeles and a life with no job and no home, no partner and no band or… anything. I was just living out of my truck in LA. “101 S” just made sense because it was the same exact feeling as “101 N” of going off into the great unknown in a new moment of life, but this was the reverse of the original. So yeah, they’re pretty spiritually connected. In my head, it’s like yin and yang, but to a random listener, it’s probably just another song. [Laughs]

SWIM: I love that. I want to circle back to the treasure hunt album rollout. It’s just such a badass idea! I remember you talking briefly about an author that was a huge source of inspiration for it?

DUSTIN: It was really a confluence of things, but there was this author named Forrest Fenn who had a treasure- I’ve never read Forrest Fenn or anything, I just know the lore- but he had a treasure with these Native American artifacts, Spanish gold, and very valuable things worth over a million dollars then buried it in the Rocky Mountains. He just left a poem that was the treasure map to find it, and it was a big deal… I think there’s a Netflix documentary about it?

So my dad told me about that, and he would always joke that we should go find the treasure! [Laughs] I always thought it was super sick. So the idea was in my head, like, I want to do something like that one day! And then my friend Sarah was telling me about a sculptor she knows who buries their sculptures in the desert for people to dig up. And I was like, that’s the coolest, most romantic thing I’ve ever heard. So when I heard Sarah tell me that, it reminded me of the Fenn treasure and it all kind of just clicked in my head. I was like, “Oh, I have to bury an album one day!” And then I was like, “I’m just going to bury my next album because life is short,” you know?

SWIM: I mean, there’s no better time than the present, right?

DUSTIN: Exactly.

SWIM: Does that whole idea have anything to do with the name Yikes Almighty? I feel like that sounds something like finding something or some sort of adventure, but maybe one where you don’t like what you find.

DUSTIN: I love that. I love that. They don’t have any literal connection, but energetically, it felt the same. I had the name Yikes Almighty before the treasure hunt really got underway, so they didn’t really have anything to do with each other. Yikes Almighty is just jumping off and taking a big risk and just going for something, even if it’s messy or doesn’t make sense right away, and just trusting your gut and going for it. So the essence of the treasure hunt is very much in line with that same philosophy.

SWIM: I love it, dude, it’s such an interesting idea. I had never heard of anything like it, and you’re giving me all these references that have already been done. Last time we talked, we discussed writing and how you had wanted to write about your touring adventures and all that fun stuff, but one thing I wanted to check in on is watercolor painting! Are you still a painter?

Dustin [Laughs] Definitely goes in phases, you know. It’ll go in phases where I’ll do a bunch at once and then stop for like months. I recently did this thing for the album [holds up a water color illustration themed around ‘Yikes Almighty’]. But besides that, I haven’t really been watercoloring too much. I’ll get back into it, though. I’d like to.

SWIM: Yeah, I’d imagine you got a lot coming up, so I get if it’s not, you know, the primary goal right now to become a watercolor artist. I just wanted to know because I remember you posted this funny story on Patreon about how you came into contact with this watercolor artist. Was it Craigslist? Or am I getting it confused with something else?

DUSTIN: It was!

SWIM: [Laughs] That’s so random. That’s so cool, though. I miss Craigslist so much. Well, I mean, I guess it’s still there, but like when it was, you know… before Offer Up and all those apps and stuff.

DUSTIN: Yeah, it’s not quite as active anymore. But you know how it is. I have a lot of things I wish I could pursue and get good at, but I don’t even try! I always get sidetracked and start making more music.

SWIM: I know, it’s hard to find time. I mean, speaking of busy schedules, I know you have the Taxpayers tour coming up, and I know we talked about the Apes of the State show happening in LA in October, and you just wrapped up your solo living room tour. How is the touring experience on your own compared to touring with a band?

DUSTIN: Oh, it’s so different. Some quick pros and cons: On the solo tour, it’s like, I have all day. It’s just my own schedule. You don’t have to show up as early when it’s just you on an acoustic guitar, you know? I was going to skate parks and surfing and posting up in a park and just playing guitar or reading and it was so chill. Then after the show, I’m just getting in the car. I don’t have a lot of money, so I was just sleeping in my car. In Santa Rosa, I was like, ‘I guess I’m just going to drive out to the coast tonight and sleep in Bedego Bay and wake up on the NorCal coast and look for waves.’

But after a show, good or bad, it’s just… everyone kind of leaves, and then I’m just like, “Oh, all right!’ There’s not really anyone to hang with at the end of the night, and I’m just alone in the car, just with my thoughts. It’s so lonely! I don’t have a bandmate to be like, “How was your night?” You’re truly alone. Pros and cons with a band… It’s fun to share the excitement and the adventure with your friends, but it’s a lot easier to travel and do logistical things as a solo person.

SWIM: Yeah, I can imagine. There’s so much logistics, and especially considering how expensive it is now to tour… I can only imagine how much of a pain in the ass it is to just coordinate everything with everybody.

DUSTIN: Yeah, that’s true, too. Money-wise, it’s actually feasible alone. It’s not as a band. And then you’re thinking about where we are going to stay? Are we getting a hotel? But hanging out with my old friends, the bandmates, is just invaluable.

SWIM: It’s priceless.

DUSTIN: Right. I can’t put a dollar on it.

SWIM: I know we kind of talked about “101 S” earlier, but I really want to go back to the lyrics on this album because you’re such a great lyricist, and the first thing I want to talk about is that spiritual tinge that we touched on a little bit on Monday. I remember you saying that you’re not a born-again Christian or anything like that, but there is definitely a little bit of spirituality on this record. Going back to the older Walter Mitty records, there are lines like “Now it’s God that thinks that I don’t actually exist” and “This is why pseudo-intellectual tells us that we need our vices.” It felt like you were kind of turning away from that sort of idea, but in this record, you say, ‘I’m talking to, you know, girls that are smarter than me and I’m trying to convince them that there’s a higher purpose.’ There’s a very distinct shift into “maybe there is some truth to all this spiritual stuff?” and you’re trying to show others that.

DUSTIN: Totally. I definitely haven’t become a Christian or joined any organized religion, but I think there’s more room for it in my life now. It’s funny because I feel like with younger kids now God is kind of cool, but when I was younger God was very uncool. If you were alternative and into punk music, you were against the church and organized religion and all of that dogma.

SWIM: Yeah. They’d call you a poser if they found out you went to church!

DUSTIN: Exactly, yeah. And not that that’s right or wrong, but, yeah, that’s where I was coming from when I was younger, like 19 to 25 or whatever. It was pushing away any sort of spirituality or religion and not accepting it. And as I’ve grown older, there really is a place for this. It kind of turned from a philosophy of “everything’s meaningless” to “yes, everything’s meaningless, but we create our own reality- whatever meaning you put into that void is actually going to have meaning.” So it’s not meaningless! It’s just a customized spiritual, meaningful existence you create for yourself.

So that’s where I feel like this new album is coming from, philosophically. A little more of allowing myself to feel love and not just being cynical. Like “love’s just a trick we play on ourselves.” Now it’s more allowing myself to believe in that or allowing myself to think about a higher power and assign myself a higher purpose. So there definitely is a spiritual, philosophical evolution between Old Walter and New Walter. I think it’s just a little less angsty and young and a little more calm and confident in the chaos.

SWIM: Right. And I think you said you’ve given yourself grace to accept that love for yourself and others, which I love for you, and I think it makes perfect sense. We’re almost the same age. I feel like I’ve also gone through more of an acceptance or more of an open mind to that stuff. We almost had the same exact character arc [Laughs]. I was also like “fuck religion! Church sucks!” I was probably very insufferable, but that’s part of growing up.

DUSTIN: It’s part of growing up, yeah.

*Walter Etc. backyard show in Long Beach, CA. Photo by Nickolas Sackett.*

SWIM: Speaking of growing up, there’s one thing that really surprised me listening to this record: you make a lot of references to having children in this record.

DUSTIN: Damn. That’s probably true. [Laughs]

SWIM: Do you want children?

DUSTIN: Theoretically, yeah.

SWIM: Have you become more open to that as you’ve gotten older?

DUSTIN: Well, I was never against having kids. I would love to have kids. I love kids. Yeah. I love kids. Always have. I haven’t had a lot of jobs throughout my life, but I have always been nannying and babysitting and teaching. But it’s more a matter of if I can have some more stability and money and stuff like that. You know what I mean?

SWIM: Yeah, I know. I totally understand.

DUSTIN: And then there’s the whole, ‘is it ethical to bring a kid into a dying world?’ but that’s a whole other conversation. But kids are awesome. How about you?

SWIM: It’s funny you ask that because, again, same character arc- I was not really for having kids because of the whole ethical dilemma, and also my childhood experience of not really knowing my dad. But I’ve gotten older. I’ve been working at the same school for about five years, and the fifth graders who were promoted to sixth grade this year were in first grade when I started. So it was very strange seeing these students for five years and watching them grow and become their own persons and go through shit and see their wins and their losses. It just made me see how important children are and how wonderful they are. As I’ve gotten older, I see the allure of having a family of your own and having that chance to create a little person who has their own thoughts and feelings in the world. For them to carry the torch, but not in some weird patriarchal way. They’re like an artwork, you know?

DUSTIN: For sure.

SWIM: I struggled with the same things: bringing a child into the dying world, stability, all that fun stuff. But definitely stuck out to me on the album because I don’t think I’ve ever heard you sing about children. I want to circle back to this Patreon post you made about people having this preconstructed idea of Dustin based on your songs. You shared that this is a source of discomfort when people act like they know who you are based on the songs you write, or they have this very clear idea of who you are before they even get a chance to actually talk to you. Does that still affect you?

DUSTIN: I don’t want to overplay it. It’s not like I’m famous or something [Laughs]. But in my direct life, with friends and family, for sure. The first few Walter albums, there was just literally no one listening to us, you know? Maybe some friends, but my parents weren’t really listening, and I could just kind of say whatever. There weren’t any consequences in my real life, so I developed this personal, artistic philosophy where I’m really writing about my life and being super honest and vulnerable and… sometimes very specific in these songs.

There’s a divide between the world of Walter and the world of Dustin, but the songs are usually like 90% true to my life and like 10% poetic license. But as time has gone on and more friends and family have become fully aware of the band, they’ve accepted it as, ‘This is what Dustin does!’ I know they’re going to hear stuff when I release it, and it does create more of a block or an obstacle, so I have to just be a little bit reckless and kind of trick myself while I’m writing things and be like “okay, I never actually have to release this or show it to anybody just so I can write it as purely and honestly and true to what I want.” Then I decide later if I’m going to release it, and once I like it, I’m just like, ‘fuck it,’ and I release it. [Laughs]

But then I deal with the consequences in my life, like people get mad at me or get confused about things, uncomfortable. And they assume because my songs are so literal and raw that they just assume everything is 100% true, so if there’s a little bit of fictionalizing or poetic license taken here and there in a song, it’s taken as 100% fact. It’s just a funny life I’ve chosen for myself, but ultimately, I still have that mission to be as pure, honest, raw, and prolific of an artist in my lifetime as I can be. It’s still my number one priority and value, so I’m just sticking to it, and everything else can come second.

SWIM: Take it to the chin, like we said last time!

DUSTIN: [Laughs] Yeah, that’s what we were saying. Yeah, take it to the chin. Be brave and keep it going.

SWIM: Love it, dude. I think that’s a pretty noble goal to have in a creative life.

DUSTIN: I don’t know if it is, though. Is it? I don’t know. I feel like it is. I don’t know what people’s goals are.

SWIM: I guess that goes back to the meaning you crave for yourself, right?

DUSTIN: It is! That’s true.

SWIM: All right, I just have the last question that I asked you last time. I brought up this whole concept that many artists have talked about in the past. I know James Baldwin is probably the most famous example of this quote; he says something along the lines that he’s essentially writing the same story over and over and over again, but he’s just adding a different perspective on it. I feel like you’ve also touched on that briefly in your music. In “Um” from Always Leaving, you say, “the same chord progressions, but my lyrics were better back then.” What is Walter’s story, and do you think you’re constantly writing it and rewriting it?

DUSTIN: Yeah. It’s a really interesting thought. I used to think - I think I still think this, but I’ve kind of lost the thread on this theory. There was a time I felt really strongly that all art is about the same thing. Like everyone’s art is about the same thing. If you zoom out far enough, it’s all trying to say the same thing and kind of describing different parts of the same elephant. So speaking just for all Walter songs, that same zooming out and describing different parts of the same elephant is true. I can’t, or any other writer, can’t get out of themselves. Everything is their own experience. So whether you’re writing about yourself or writing about other people, you’re ultimately writing about your experience of the world.

I feel all Walter’s songs are about this journey through life, and maybe the elephant is the timeline of life as we experience it, and each song is describing a little chunk of that Walter timeline. Ultimately, at least in Walter’s songs, the writing is about struggles with mental health and knowing yourself. And then knowing how to deal with yourself and relationships with other people and how to deal with people. And then the third conflict is usually with the world and society and how to stay sane and make your life in the crazy, chaotic, crumbling world. So yeah, I think all Walter’s songs are kind of just about life’s journey for me.

SWIM: I love that, dude. You’re very existential. Have you read existential philosophy before?

DUSTIN: [Laughs] Not really.

SWIM: Really? That’s surprising. Because earlier you talked about creating your own meaning, and that’s the core tenet of existentialist philosophies. Existence precedes essence, which means you have to create; you’re not born with a meaning, you create your own meaning. And then you’re talking about this mingling of Self with the Other and all that.

DUSTIN: That’s funny. Well, I mean, I listen to some philosophy podcasts and I’ve read some books and stuff, but it’s not like I’m a philosopher or something, you know?

SWIM: I mean, you kind of are, in some sense. Aren’t we all?

Thank you guys so much. I can’t thank you guys enough for being so flexible.

LIZZIE: Yeah, all good!

DUSTIN: Lizzie, you’ve been here the whole time?!

LIZZIE: [Laughs] Yeah, I was. I’ve been, you know, answering emails at the same time.

DUSTIN: I hope you had us muted. I am embarrassed to know you’ve been listening.

[Everyone laughs]

SWIM: Thank you so much. I hope you guys enjoy the rest of your week. Thank you, Dustin! It was great. It’s a dream come true to talk to you, twice even.

DUSTIN: No, it was fun. I hope to talk to you again on a show or something!

SWIM: I’m definitely planning on seeing you guys with Apes of the State. So hopefully, I’ll be able to say what’s up.

DUSTIN: Perfect. You should reach out!

SWIM: All right! You guys take care. Thank you guys.

EVERYONE: Bye-bye!

The recording has stopped

Nickolas is an artist based in Southern California. Described by a beloved elementary teacher as an “absolute pleasure to have in class,” his work wrestles with the conflict between privacy and self-expression in the digital age. You can find him shitposting on Twitter @DjQuicknut and on Instagram @sopranos_on_dvd_.

June 19, 2025

Spice on the Side: A Conversation With Blue Cactus

June 19, 2025/ Caleb Doyle

With their third full-length album, North Carolina’s Blue Cactus has built on the rock-solid Classic country sounds they developed on their first two records—and they’re getting a little weird with it this time. Believer feels like what happens when you doze off on the screened-in front porch after putting a little something funny in your sweet tea. The familiar sounds comfort you, but then your mind drifts to something a bit more exploratory and cosmic.

Steph Stewart’s vocal range is truly impressive, and her songwriting style builds the perfect framework for it. Mario Arnez lays down some classically Sun Records style guitar work, but isn’t afraid to let Trey Anastasio influence the tone or experimentation.

Believer is comforting, gentle, and contemplative, and it brings surprise after surprise that welcome multiple relistens. It’s a fantastic summer album that blurs the lines between country music subgenres.

It was Steph and Mario’s first time in Kansas City, and I was lucky to welcome them to the Heartland. We sat down at Slap’s BBQ on the Kansas side, before their show at The Ship on the Missouri side. We talked about Believer, Hurricane Helene, Weird Al, cheesecake, and State Parks. Blue Cactus is finishing their tour up in the Northeast and New England through July.

SWIM: I mentioned earlier, Blue Cactus has a very classic sound. There is that Patsy Cline element, that kind of squeaky-clean Nashville Sound, especially on your early records. But the music has really evolved.

Steph, you’ve talked about the women of Lilith Fair being a big inspiration, and Mario, you've talked about your early experiences with Weird Al’s music being a big inspiration. What is the importance of having diverse influences and a variety of tastes outside of country/Americana music?

MARIO: I don't think you can separate anything, especially these days. Just having so much music available to us and growing up in the 90s into the 2000s where we were getting a lot of whatever MTV was feeding us, I grew up with a lot of the popular stuff. And then, yeah, Weird Al’s survey of Pop music, mixed in with a little polka, just kind of opened me up to all kinds of music.

SWIM: Those polkas really introduced me to a lot of songs that I hadn't heard before.

STEPH: And I think with Lilith Fair, I was really drawn to other women making music when I was coming up. So that was pretty influential, and there were just so many different styles of singing.

My family was really big into karaoke, so that's how I got into performing in front of people, doing that with them. We would go almost every Wednesday night to the Dragon Palace. It's this American Japanese restaurant in Hickory (North Carolina). We would just sing karaoke there, and it got me to enjoy the limelight a little bit. I would try out all kinds of songs. And my dad got a karaoke system at the house. First, it was like LaserDisc, and then he eventually upgraded to the same thing that they had at the karaoke bars. So I would basically practice at home, really just trying to imitate people. I think that really strengthened my voice a lot. I got a pretty big range from that. I mean, I was singing everything from like Sarah McLachlan, to the Cranberries, to Jewel, and of course, Patsy Cline and 90s country like Shania Twain.

I think it just got me trying stuff early on. I didn't have formal voice training, but I feel like that was it.

SWIM: You both mentioned the 90s. I've noticed that, specifically what you might refer to as alt-country, is having a big moment. Country music, Americana, and folk are all having a bit of a moment right now, kind of a Renaissance. My theory is that it goes back to the fertile period for country music in the 90s and 2000s, which I think was an inspiration to people our age.

Especially in your home of North Carolina! MJ Lenderman and Wednesday are from Asheville. Fust is from Durham. North Carolina is really a breeding ground for this genre and its subgenres.

What is the importance of community for fostering a scene like the one in North Carolina?

STEPH: I think our immediate community has just been such a huge support. It's hard putting out a record! Having something like Sleepy Cat Records, which is really just a group of friends who are also musicians, and they believe in your work and want to see it get out there, sometimes that’s what it takes. It's hard to know how much of a drive I'd have at this point if it weren't for them. We all play music with each other, too.

Our drummer is one of the founders of that label! He's literally the backbone of the band and a pillar in our community. That (the community) really does make this all feel worthwhile. Like I said, I don’t know if I’d still be doing this if it weren't for other musicians in general.

The night before last, we stayed at our friend Dylan Earl's house, and he’s stayed at our house multiple times. It’s so important to have this network of a road family who also know what it’s like and do this, and we just help each other out.

It's just really restorative to be in that company of people who get it and give you a place to relax. We didn't even want to go downtown and walk around. It's like, no, let's just sit on your front porch!

MARIO: There are a lot of other bands and folks running labels in The Triangle (North Carolina’s “Research Triangle,” comprised of Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill, and everything inside the triangle that those cities form). There are great studios and a bunch of different festivals and live events going on. So there are a lot of folks that you end up interacting with over the years being in the scene. It feels like a nice, dynamic place to be!

STEPH: Recently, the previous governor enacted new funding to go specifically towards North Carolina music. So they have a whole Arts Committee that basically oversees it, and there's this new financial support, which is so critical. We've been fortunate to work with that organization, Come Hear NC, and they've helped fund projects the labels put together. This can give that extra amplification as an artist in that area, which is really great.

SWIM: It's crucial to what you do! There are conversations about why there's a dearth of artists and musicians in some places, and it's like, well, people can't pay their rent. So if you give people money to do those essential things, they can be making art instead of working doubles every weekend.

On the same token as your community, late last year, Hurricane Helene ravaged the Southeastern part of the country, largely in places like Western North Carolina. Blue Cactus contributed to a 136-track compilation album, Cardinals at the Window, which gave 100% of proceeds via Bandcamp to relief efforts in NC and greater Appalachia.

What was it like to have so many musicians contribute to this thing that was supporting your home? And what role do artists play in a disaster of that magnitude?

MARIO: People absolutely turn to music when they need something to pull them along. I mean, there’s absolutely no substitute for federal funding and disaster relief. But yeah, in the small ways that we can help, it was a no-brainer to contribute to that (Cardinals at the Window).

We also bought chainsaws and sent supplies all over North Carolina. There are some great mutual aid organizations around us that we were able to connect with quickly.

STEPH: Overall, the touring lifestyle is very much in the ethos of mutual aid.

Staying at each other’s houses and helping out however you can, that’s just sort of built into the way a lot of musicians live. So the immediate reaction when something that devastating happens is like, how can we help people? And, yeah, of course, federal aid.

Marshall, North Carolina, was almost wiped off the map. The river got completely rerouted. A lot of those people were musicians that were friends of ours. So they basically had to act as first responders. And we were just in touch with them, like, what do y'all need from where we were at?

SWIM: We just had a huge tornado come through the north part of St. Louis City. That was like three weeks ago, and they just got federal funding in some small way. People have been up there every day cleaning up people's homes, you know?

STEPH: I'm sorry that happened. It just feels like it's become more and more common.

SWIM: I know. Unfortunately, I think that's what they were telling us about climate change. And nobody in charge really took it seriously.

Anyhow, for a more, um, uplifting question: Do you have an album or a song that you go to when you want to roll the windows down and drive around?

STEPH: I really love Bill Withers’s “Lovely Day.” It's one of my forever favorite songs, and that song really does help me get my day off to a good start. I should probably be listening to it a little bit more lately, because I just have to wake up and go, and I think I need a little bit of a morning soundtrack some days.

MARIO: I've got polarizing opinions here. When I need to drive, we've got a long stretch and we need to go, go, go. If I need something that I know I'm not gonna be flipping tracks or anything, I just put on some live Phish.

SWIM: Oh hell yeah. I love to hear that!

STEPH: Yeah, he listens to that a lot.

SWIM: Love to hear that. I was just listening to The Gorge ’98 this week.

MARIO: Great year.

SWIM: Great choices, both.

For the new album, Believer, Steph, you took some original photos, and Mario, you used those photographs to make some graphic design art on the cover and inserts. In addition, this is your third full-length album, and you’ve been making music together for at least eight years. Does the music and the act of putting together an album feel more personal now?

MARIO: Absolutely. I feel like this is definitely the most elbow grease we've put into a release, on a personal level. It feels like with every release, we’ve figured out how to put more of ourselves into the music.

We also just try to spend a little bit less money along the way! But yeah, over the Pandemic, we kind of picked up other skills.

STEPH: Yeah, I’m a perpetual hobbyist. I feel like I'm constantly finding new art forms that I want to dabble in and learn how to do. So it just seemed like, well, these photos look great.

We both felt those photos really made sense with the theme of the record. The whole process of taking those pictures was wild because I was kind of disappointed. The field had started to die. All these sunflowers were just dying. And I had black and white film, and I thought I would get something different initially.

It was like, well, I'm here. I might as well just take some pictures and see what happens. As I was walking around the park, there were so many birds there. A lot of goldfinches and other pollinators. It felt like those sunflowers were more full of life at that point than they were when they were in full bloom. They were about to drop their seeds and create food for all these birds.

It's funny how you look at something on the surface and don't initially see that kind of beauty in it.

SWIM: Yeah. It's like reframing what we think about the cycles of nature.

I think it's in The Great Gatsby where he talks about how “life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the Fall.” We think of the fall as everything starting to die, but it’s really this big clearing-out. Readying for what's to come next.

Have you picked up a live performance hack or tip?

STEPH: This isn't anything that revolutionary, but I almost always have to sing along in the van on the way there, so I warm up my voice. I don't do a lot of formal warmups, but I love singing before we’re actually on stage, and singing other songs that aren't ours.

Reba McEntire is a really good warmup because she's got this incredible range. If I can sing one of her songs, then I know I'll be ready.

MARIO: Shake off the cobwebs. If you've been driving for a couple hours and you've just been sort of a hermit for over half the day, you really gotta clear out the cobwebs. Either start talking out loud all of a sudden, or do some stretching. I feel like that's number one, just to make sure that we're not feeling like we're still rolling out of bed all day.

STEPH: Staying in State Parks on this tour has been really helpful. Most of the time, we'll have time to go on a nice walk. It helps me feel really awake and ready, for sure.

SWIM: What's the most recent physical media you've bought?

STEPH: Hmm.

MARIO: Clothes?

STEPH: No, those don't count.

It's been a little while now, but I did buy a Linda Ronstadt record at the Fuzzy Needle (in Wilmington, NC).

SWIM: If this album was a dish or a meal, what would it be?

STEPH: Hmm. Interesting. Well, maybe this is just because I like it, but I definitely think the dessert would be cheesecake. Let's just start there.

SWIM: That's the way to do it. Start with dessert.

STEPH: Mm-hmm. Cheesecake and probably not plain cheesecake. I think it would have some kind of like raspberry sauce.

[to Mario] What kind of a main course are we talking about? Or an appetizer, for that matter?

He is the cook in our family.

MARIO: This is just funny. This comes back to the question of influences versus what the music actually sounds like.

It doesn't feel like it would just be some everyday meal that I'm whipping up. Yeah. We're talking something outside the norm!

Okay…we open with a Greek salad…

STEPH: I think that sounds great. I don't know why I'm thinking fried chicken. [To Mario] Are you thinking fried chicken?

MARIO: Sure!

STEPH: Okay, and then you're gonna need a couple of sides with that.

MARIO: This is not turning into a James Beard meal...

STEPH: I feel like we should really put more thought into this!

SWIM: It’s eclectic, though!

STEPH: Maybe hot chicken! But not too hot.

MARIO: Like a two on the spice? And you can add your own?

STEPH: Yeah, you can add your own spice. It'll be spice on the side.

I feel like there are a lot of shifts on the record. So, you do have that country kind of twangy stuff right at the top. That feels like hot chicken. But then you're getting into the synths and swirly stuff, and maybe that's like some kind of mashed potatoes, but they're not your classic ones.

There's gonna be something a little special left of the center. Yeah. [To Mario] What would that be?

MARIO: I mean, I don't mess around with truffles…

STEPH: No, I don't like those either.

MARIO: I think a James Beard type would do that, but I wouldn't!

SWIM:. Maybe just not a smooth mashed potato. Maybe there's some chunks.

STEPH: You like a chunk?

SWIM: Oh, I love a chunk.

STEPH: You can tell they're real potatoes!

SWIM: Mm-hmm.

I also love the fact that this answer took thought and collaboration. I think that speaks volumes of the record. It's one of those records that, at the end, you kind of do finally exhale.

It is comforting, it's dreamy, it kind of has your head in the clouds a bit, but then there are some experimental aspects to it. And that makes it so fun!

Caleb Doyle (St. Louis, MO) is a music writer and dive bar enthusiast. He would love to talk to you about pro wrestling, your favorite cheeseburger, and your top 10 American rock bands. You can find Caleb on most social media @ClassicDoyle, or subscribe to his music Substack, Nightswimming, HERE.

June 06, 2025

Re-Entering The Void: Interviewing With Sails Ahead On Their Debut Album’s First Anniversary

June 06, 2025/ Ciara Rhiannon

I’ve been fortunate enough to know New Jersey post-hardcore band With Sails Ahead over the past several years, ever since I found them in 2021 through their single “In Fear and Loathing.” It’s difficult to put into words the effect this band has had on me, but the lyrics “No act of god can save me,” which I have tattooed on my right wrist, do a lot of heavy lifting there. Over the past four years, With Sails Ahead has let me in on their creative process, welcomed me as both a friend and a fan, and even invited me to tour with them last December as part of the Rock Star Energy Tour. I've watched their catalog grow across multiple EPs and singles, culminating in their debut LP, Infinite Void, released in April 2024. The past year has been a whirlwind for the band, between touring and playing local shows, marketing their first record, and most recently adding their new drummer, Deirdre O’Connor, to the group.

To celebrate their first LP turning one year old in April, I had the pleasure of speaking with singer Sierra Binondo, bassist Jaime Martinez, and guitarist Joe Warner-Reyes about Infinite Void’s first anniversary and the process behind bringing their debut album into the world.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

SWIM: Thanks for coming, guys. It was really fun talking with pulses. and figuring out how I want to do all this. I'm trying to do really casual conversations with this series, and it just so happens that these first two also coincide with anniversaries.

Before we jump in, what is everybody listening to right now?

JOE: I got nothing good. I mean it's the same old.

SWIM: Closure? [Laughs]

JOE: Closure In Moscow. [Laughs]

SIERRA: I love them. I could stand to listen to them more. I loved the Audiotree, it blew my mind.

JAIME: That's one of the best Audiotrees for sure.

I've been listening to a lot of the Snooze record. I really enjoy it, just really visceral math rock. The guitar tones are really punchy in a very cool way. I'm on my K-pop fix again. That’s all I’m listening to in the car.

SWIM: Sierra’s a bad influence.

[All laugh]

SIERRA: I looked at my [Spotify] Wrapped last year, and it was like 75% K-pop. I'm like, “Oh my god, I need to listen to more music!” And what's happening is that it ends up being half K-pop still, because of my gym playlist, but then the other half, I've been really branching out into a lot of different stuff. I've been going back to a lot of 90s pop lately. Janet Jackson and Christina Aguilera. Also the new Snooze record. I recently went through and listened to Kero Kero Bonito ‘cause I was like, “Wow, I could really stand to know more of their discography.” Louie Zong is an artist I love who does music across whatever genres he wants, basically. He's very prolific.

SWIM: Yeah, something I was talking to Kevin and pulses. about was how most people aren't listening to five albums a day and constantly churning through new music. Most people are breaking down one or maybe two new releases a week, and then just going back to old favorites or only listening to music a couple of times a week, but not regularly. It's something I give myself a hard time about, but realistically, I do a lot of my music listening in the shower. Being able to have that moment where I'm not doing anything else and have a good half hour to listen to something. It's hard to do a lot of dedicated listening for sure.

SIERRA: Absolutely. I don't listen to podcasts anymore because I don't commute to work. When I'm working at a desk, I struggle to listen intently to anything. It’s gotta be like lo-fi or instrumental video game music. I won't be able to fully enjoy what's happening. I remember when the new Coheed album came out, I really enjoyed it, but most of my listening was at my work desk, and I could not describe that album to you with a gun to my head.

SWIM: One of my colleagues at Swim was talking about how good the new Japanese Breakfast album was and I could assume that it would fit the vibe of a cafe, so I threw it on today while I was working and it was the same thing where I'm registering some cool things, but obviously not doing very conscious listening. I kind of cheat that way; if something is a little bit more palatable or slower or accessible, I'll throw it on at work when I have an opening shift or I'm the only one working and can control the music.

SWIM: Infinite Void is celebrating its one-year anniversary this month. How are y’all feeling about that?

JAIME: I honestly can't believe it's been a year already. And Joe has Twizzlers to celebrate the one-year anniversary. Infinite Twizzlers. [Laughs]

JOE: I love chewing on plastic.

SIERRA: When you think about it, plastic is in everything we consume.

SWIM: Twizzlers are macroplastics.

[All laugh]

SIERRA: Ahh, it’s so weird. Weird is the principal feeling for me. I'm glad we released it when we did, ‘cause it felt like we had most of the year to push this album. I don't know what it is, but when the calendar year flips and it's a new year, I do compartmentalize and pack away anything I experienced in 2024 and leave it there. It also feels like it wasn't enough time, you know what I mean? Album cycles have changed so much. That was also a chapter of our lives. So, it's weird to say that's a year away now. Like, “Oh my god, when did we jump out of that?” I never really wanted to, but time just happens.

SWIM: Yeah, absolutely. When I asked pulses. about Speak It Into Existence turning five, David was so serious, like “Fastest five years of my life.” It's just a fucking vacuum. Post-COVID, even one year just compresses way down. I don't feel like Infinite Void came out a year ago. That’s insane.

JAIME: In a lot of ways, the album cycle still seems fresh to me, even though it has been a year.

SWIM: Album cycles never end.

SIERRA: They just stack.

JOE: I'm ready to start promoting Infinite Void. That’s what it feels like.

[All laugh]

SWIM: Give everybody a year to kind of feel it out by themselves, and now I really wanna push this record.

SIERRA: I am so stoked to announce we're now promoting our record.

JOE: I feel like I still have motivation to do stuff, you know? The tabs are coming out soon. Having just done that makes it kind of fresh. I want to record videos for all of the songs. It still feels fresh, even though it's a year old.

JAIME: And also for us to start playing some of our other songs that we have yet to play live from the record. There's plenty of stuff that we still have yet to debut live. That'll be a lot of fun to switch things up and get people to hear some of the tunes that maybe people haven't heard as much as “Darting Eyes” or “Swear Words.”

SWIM: Absolutely. I forgot, have you guys debuted “Peach Tea (Obituary)” yet, or are you doing it on this next tour?

JAIME: We did play it in Brooklyn in November, I believe. So that was the first time we played it, but we haven't played it since.

SWIM: Cool. You can save it for a tour that I can attend, and I'll be so happy. You got the t-shirt and that's fine.

Are there songs that, a year later, have flipped for you or sound new to you?

JOE: Playing “Catastrophe” live is super cool, because there are certain things on the recording that, because of how it was mixed, it's not like how it sounds live. It's cool to hear it live and have it be different from how it sounds on the recording.

SWIM: One of the great things about listening to music live is the way that the band or the artist is interpreting it, and it'll never be the exact same, hopefully, as it is on the recorded version.

SIERRA: I guess I shouldn't be surprised that everyone loves hearing “what if i fall,” everyone loves that one. And because of how much it’s been demanded, I don't love it less, but I'm like, “What about all the other stuff on the album? Do you guys not like this stuff? You just want this one?” [Laughs]

SWIM: Right. You have the singles that obviously people are more aware of, and then you have the immediately popular ones. So that leaves a small chunk of songs that you're like, ‘Well, what about these guys?’ [Laughs]

SIERRA: Yeah, exactly. I was really hoping people would take to “Oblivion,” ‘cause that's a direction I would like to explore some more. I mean the world’s our oyster, we're going to do a lot of stuff, but I thought people would be into that one because it's more thrashy and darker.

SWIM: Well, that's why you attached it to “Y.E.R. (Your Eternal Ring),” right? You were like, “What if it plays into ‘Oblivion?’ Oops.” [Laughs]

I think it's a banger. I mean, obviously, I think the whole record is a banger, but I think “Oblivion” is definitely an underrated one for sure.

SIERRA: Thank you. What I was really delighted by was that we sequenced the album in a way where the more mellowed-out songs were in the middle, and there was an intermission. I don't have to explain it to you, but this weird corner of music we're in has certain preferences, and they don't like it when you stray too far outside the box. I love that the record is so varied. I love that it has different moods. So, we were like, “All right, let's smack it in the middle and see what happens,” and a lot of people love those songs, like “Peach Tea” and “Picture Perfect Pixels.” I was waiting to see how people reacted, but I was very pleased with that, and it surprised me in a way. I was confident, but also like, “I don't understand the common listener anymore – and then everyone also jives. Awesome.”

SWM: The kids are alright.

SWIM: Obviously, it was your first record, a lot went into it. Sierra, you’ve mentioned in the past that it was a lot of stress, and it consumed your whole life until it was released. What did you learn from Infinite Void that you can apply to new releases and LP two?

JAIME: For this next batch of recordings, whether it be LP two or something else, it's just going to be a more refined approach to what we did for Infinite Void. We've recorded with each other for quite a long time, so we know how we work together. I'd like to think that the process will just continue to be more streamlined. We know what to prepare for a little better.

JOE: Going into the new batch of songs, I think, regardless of how Infinite Void turned out, we just wanna do what we want and play what we love. Not let song plays or numbers affect what we want to do. We're just going to do what we love and do what we feel like.

SIERRA: To Jaime’s point, a lot of the songs that went on Infinite Void were not jammed in real life before we recorded them. It was straight from Guitar Pro to the session, and we learned a huge lesson. Maybe there's a way to do that where you don't run into what we ran into. We discovered that things took up the same space in the stereo field, or there were phase issues with certain riffs, things of that nature. So, we are trying to ensure that we incorporate everything in real life before tracking it, just to make sure if there’s anything we want to take out. Things that we could improve while we have the chance, before committing to them on recording.

To Joe’s point, a lot of these songs are the best shit we've ever written and I did feel insane when we dropped this record and everyone just kind of turned over a new page the following week. This is what people are talking about when they say that no one’s attention span is there anymore. We had some plans to promote in the weeks following, but we were on tour!

JAIME: Literally the week after.

SIERRA: That was the first time we've ever toured a record. I just felt insane, because we had very high hopes for this record. I don't like to send demos or anything to anybody anymore, because I just don't want to hear anything in the interim where it's like, ‘Oh, the recording is done, but you can't change anything now that this person has had this lukewarm response.’ The thing was, a lot of people we know didn’t have lukewarm responses, so we were like, “Maybe we have something here. People keep telling us.” I did not set realistic expectations, but I also burned myself out trying to promote this record.

Something I learned that I will take with me is that no matter who you are, you have everybody's attention for a week. If you are strategic enough, you can expand that to three weeks. I've watched amazing records get brushed over in the last five years, and the reality is that people are just going to move on. It’s a law of nature at this point. I wish that I didn't drive myself so insane. I would probably be more strategic in that. Hit it really fucking hard and plan for three weeks of bullshit spamming people with and then just disappear. It doesn't matter, and in a way, saying that is kind of freeing.

SWIM: There's a beauty in relinquishing that pressure and responsibility. That’s the thing with the digital age and all of us having all recorded music at our fingertips all the time. That, along with the idea that something is considered outdated even if it's only a year old. If someone found Infinite Void now there would be some motherfucker out there saying, “Oh, it's from last year? Why are you listening to that?” The kinds of people who are only listening to what’s new, which is insane to me. Especially because, like you were saying, Sierra, I've been going back to a lot of 90s and early 00s stuff, and it's still there. It's still good. They're still going to make money off of it if I actually buy it. You guys can still reach people, and people will still be finding the record.

There's so much pressure to hang on to that initial attention span and get those jingly keys as long as possible for people, but now more than ever, there is freedom in letting people move on, and trusting that they'll come back to it. I do it all the time. There's something to be said about celebrating something when it's being released, being excited about it, being proud of it, getting that well-deserved attention for however long you can, but it's still out. People can still listen to it. You guys are still jamming those songs, obviously. You'll still attract new people all the time who find it.

SIERRA: Yeah, that’s true

SWIM: Is there anything that you guys didn't get around to on Infinite Void, or are you starting from scratch material-wise on the next release?

JOE: More sonic textures. More ambiance. Different sounds, production styles. Incorporating elements from different genres. Production specifically – including synths, percussion, different elements like that. I want to add vibraphone to a song. Stuff that would obviously have to be recreated with a plugin, but still.

SWIM: Speaking of percussion, you guys just got a new drummer, which is super exciting. How's it been bringing Dee into the fold?

SIERRA: She has been ready since frame one. Really, we just tell her what to learn.

JAIME: I've been just amazed since day one that we jammed with her. She knew all the tunes, and maybe there were very tiny notes, maybe a few things, but I was all for it. I was ready to just give her the drummer job right then and there.

SIERRA: We've known her for years. Joe's known her the longest out of all of us. I mean, Ciara you know her from American Stereo, right? She was in a metal band before that, too. It's one of those things where we had another drummer for so long that we didn't know who would've possibly been interested. She was like, “Yeah, I always thought it would've been cool to play with you guys, I had to jump at the opportunity,” and she really is the best person for the job. She has experience playing multiple different genres of music. Math rock, metal, and punk. All these areas that our music sort of touches. She's very creative. I love the way she plays the “Catastrophe” outro live. I'm very excited for people to see that at shows, because she puts her own spin on it.

JAIME: People are in for a treat when we play catastrophe live with Dee. It's going to be sick.

SIERRA: She learned everything so fast. It's crazy.

SWIM: That's awesome. I think a lot of the time, when people think about the identity of a band, maybe they think about the front person. That is, if the front person leaves or changes, it's either the end of the band or a huge change. But when a bassist or drummer changes, people don't register it the same. I think with you guys and Dee, it's very exciting to see how she's going to interpret the material she didn't write and put her own spin on it. This is a new era for you guys. You are such an instrumental band and every piece of With Sails Ahead, especially on Infinite Void, fucking hits, so I'm excited to hear what Dee does with it and how she puts her own identity on it, too.

JAIME: In a way, that'll help breathe some new life into the Infinite Void tunes as well.

SWIM: Absolutely. Well, thank you guys for hanging out and chatting about Infinite Void! Do you have any last thoughts on the album turning one? About the album in general? Anything you guys want to plug?

JAIME: Well, for me, all I can say is that ever since I started to pick up the bass and wanted to be in a band, the first thing I ever wanted to do was be on a full-length record. So, Infinite Void was the dream right there. This record will always have that space in my heart. I'll never forget this record.

JOE: Infinite Void was the first album I produced in full. It was a really cool experience, and I learned a lot. I'm excited for the future and being able to apply what I learned from Infinite Void to the next step.

SIERRA: I'm not even exaggerating when I say that releasing Infinite Void to me was bigger than my high school and college graduations. I’ve always dreamt of releasing a full-length album, and when you dream of that as a kid, you can't really predict what that's going to look like. I had the best possible first album experience of my life because of my bandmates. We felt so embarrassed for so long, ‘cause it was taking forever, but even though Infinite Void was a small moment for a lot of people, it was a massive chapter of my life, because it wasn't just everything that happened to each of us while we were making the record and all the things that the record is written about. We took our time with it. We actually got to enjoy the album writing process.

This is the case with a lot of things in life; you can't enjoy the slow burn. Everything is go, go, go. Fast turnaround. How quickly can you make a new song and stay relevant? Of course, you don't have to play the game. I have to remind myself of this often. I fucking fell off of making TikTok videos. I've fallen off on a lot of things, 'cause I learned that the world's still going to turn and I need to just breathe. Infinite Void is never going to leave me, ‘cause I learned so much. So much of it stays with me, but part of me is ready to move on to the next thing. I hope people still find it all the time and I want to give it its flowers as much as I can while we're not promoting some other bullshit.

[All laugh]

SWIM: Totally. Well, thank you all again so much for doing this! Love y’all so much and I’m excited to see what’s next for the band!

Ciara Rhiannon (she/her) is a pathological music lover writing out of a nebulous location somewhere in the Pacific Northwest within close proximity of her two cats. She consistently appears on most socials as @rhiannon_comma, and you can read more of her musical musings over at rhiannoncomma.substack.com.

April 23, 2025

Half A Decade of Speaking It Into Existence: An Interview with pulses.

April 23, 2025/ Ciara Rhiannon

On It Wasn’t Supposed To Be Like This, the Virginia-based post-hardcore act pulses. tackle the idea that we must make the most of difficult circumstances, that those hardships make us who we are and ultimately can lead to great things. I’ve never shied away from speaking about how pivotal pulses. were to my introduction to DIY, leading me to a music community that I’ve been able to foster through them. Over the past five years, I’ve been lucky enough to grow close to this band and celebrate their impact along with other fans, but around this time back in 2020, as an unforeseen pandemic was altering our lives forever, all I knew was a single called “Louisiana Purchase” and the album it was released on.

To celebrate five years of Speak It Into Existence, I sat down with pulses. frontmen Matt Burridge and Caleb Taylor, drummer Kevin Taylor, and bassist David Crane to discuss the album's creation and what makes it so special to not only the band but also those who found them through it.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

SWIM: How are you guys doing?

MATT: Solid. We practiced. David tracked some stuff. It's been cool.

CALEB: It's been a day.

KEVIN: [Laughs]

SWIM: Yeah, I worked earlier today, so I’m pretty fried.

Thank you for being here! I had this kind of epiphany earlier this week where I wanted to start doing these interviews, and I was like, “Well, pulses. is kind of where I started getting into my DIY interests and Speak It Into Existence (specifically), so it makes sense to go back and revisit the album.”

Before we dove into the album discussion, I was curious what everyone had been listening to first.

KEVIN: It's funny. I feel like I'm not listening to anything. It's the weirdest time where I'll listen to stuff in really quick bursts, and then I won't listen to stuff for like three days. It's odd.

SWIM: Yeah, I always have a weird complex like, “I’m not listening to enough music right now and definitely not enough new music,” so it’s nice to hear that other people are the exact same way. Nobody’s listening to new music constantly; it’s just whenever it happens.

KEVIN: Yeah, Sleigh Bells had a record that came out that was good. Scowl’s record is pretty good. The new PinkPantheress song is really good.

SWIM: [Heaven knows] was so fucking good, I’m excited for more from her!

KEVIN: Listening to the [Callous] Daoboys singles, they're all pretty good. The new Skrillex album was pretty good.

MATT: That new Deafheaven is really good. I feel like every year and a half, when I'm having writer's block, I watch all the “making of John Bellion" videos that he does, ‘cause he used to film the entire process of making a song and then edit it down to like ten minutes or whatever, and those get me feeling creative. His music is either terrible to me or really good.

I discovered Model/Actriz today. I'm really late on that, but they're really good. It's like dance-punk, post-punk. The new singles sound like live band versions of deadmau5 songs. It's crazy.

CALEB: Yeah, I've been lacking on newer stuff. I get overwhelmed pretty quickly with things, and lately, my time listening to music has been while I'm working or doing something else. So sometimes I'd rather give my focus on new music, like give actual focus on it and check it out. Especially if I'm working, I don't want to listen to new music to analyze it. I want to listen to something that makes me feel good, because I feel terrible while working. [Laughs]

Recently, I've been revisiting and re-listening to things I may have missed or previously listened to to gain new context. I listen to the first Foals record a lot.

One I revisited that I haven't listened to in a while was Bad Rabbit's second album.

SWIM: They’re very good! They’re super underrated.

CALEB: Absolutely. I love their first album a lot, and that stays in rotation. American Love and their EP, too.

MATT: Relient K is one that I just saw pop up! One of my hottest pop-punk/emo takes is that Mmhmm is one of the best pop-punk records of all-time.

SWIM: “Be My Escape” has one of the best pre-choruses in punk rock music.

CALEB: Yeah. The other day, while I was working, I listened to four of their albums. I went in reverse order. I started with Forget and Not Slow Down. That one's a sleeper. I actually like that album a lot.

MATT: I was going to say, you’re a Relient K oldhead. [Laughs]

David: I'm going back through The Acacia Strain discography. Slow Decay is honestly one of their best albums, and it's a pretty recent release. Some of their back catalog is really good, too.

MATT: It's like beatdown, fucking super heavy.

David: Humanity's Last Breath is also really good. They just put out a new song.

MATT: You’re the metal representation in our listening. [Laughs]

SWIM: Yeah, gotta keep things balanced.

SWIM: So, somehow, Speak It Into Existence is turning five this week.

David: That five years was fast as hell.

[All laugh]

SWIM: Time is a really fucked up vaccuum, especially since Covid. I think everybody who listened to that album when it came out is having a lot of feelings about it, but how are you guys feeling about that album turning five?

MATT: It’s weird. I feel like I don't listen to it, but I need to. I'll probably listen to it on the day or around the day, because I usually do that with each of our releases as they gain a year. I like parts of it more than others. I remember when we put out Speak Less, I was like, “I don't have a favorite of the two,” and then now I'm like, “Oh, I like Speak Less way more.” But I still like them both. Then there are a lot of people like you, that we've met on Twitter, who found us through [Speak It Into Existence] and have become really close with us off of that. So I hold it in a special place ‘cause it did things for us, but I don't listen to it much anymore, and we don't play a lot of it ‘cause it was super technical for all of us.

SWIM: Yeah, a lot of it is very shreddy. [Laughs]

MATT: Yeah, and trying to multitask doing that is hard, so we play the hits and that’s it.

CALEB: It's funny, I don't remember a lot of it. I feel like I have pushed out so much of that time, because we were working on it, primarily, my senior year of college, and that was not a good year. [Laughs]

I still remember when we put it out; I had a lab assignment due the same day, and I was working on it up until like midnight. I was just like, “All right, fuck this. I'm just gonna take whatever grade, I don't feel like working on this anymore. Let me celebrate the album release.” I still passed that class, and that was the last thing I needed to graduate, so yay for me, but definitely a weird time. Obviously, I'm always gonna be incredibly proud of it. I like a lot of the songs for it. Like Matt was saying, I like where it got us. I feel like that was the thing that established us in a lot of ways. I feel like bouquet. established us in our local scene, and then it got out somewhat, but Speak It Into Existence is where things started to expand past the local scene, and we were really starting to do some things. Still proud of it.

MATT: Even with the pandemic and everything, I think that might have helped it, honestly, ‘cause it was like within a month and a half of it starting.

CALEB: Yeah, nobody had shit to do.

MATT: Yeah, and nobody was dropping other than like a couple bands, but a lot of people were postponing their stuff, and we were like, “We've waited too long,” because that record took so long to make.

CALEB: “It's not like we have any marketing backing behind it or anything, so we can release whenever we want to.” [Laughs]

SWIM: Yeah, I remember around that time, before listening to “Louisiana Purchase” and this album, so much of my listening was just commercial music/non-DIY. It took my oldest brother and my friend Jack being like, “Yo, check out this single,” and that really was the start of it. I remember thinking, “Oh, these guys did this all by themselves. How do you do that? What is this process?” I recall that being the thing that stuck out for me. Hearing a song like “Louisiana Purchase” and just how professional it sounded to me – how polished – and my mind breaking a little. The fact that people can do that without being on a major label.

MATT: That's cool, because I feel like you and Will [Full Blown Meltdown] are like the two people that I know that are the most on top of DIY music now. So it's cool that we were kind of the start of it.

SWIM: Was he one of those early adopters as well?

MATT: I knew [Will] before he was doing FBM, because Will was Sam's brother's friend from high school. So, I think we posted that we were in Frederick or something, and then he messaged them and said, “Yo, I'm literally in this hair salon with my wife and she's getting her hair cut, come by.” I met him and we literally just sat there and talked. We were writing Speak Less at the time, and I was just like, “Oh yeah, we're putting out some stuff soon that sounds like Orchid and Satia. Then we kind of bonded over that. Now, I always joke with Sam every time I interact with him, I'm just like, “It's so funny to me that I talk to him more than you do now, and you’ve known him since you were a child.” [Laughs]

SWIM: Will is definitely the DIY hype man. He’s the kind of guy you want talking about your stuff. [Laughs]

MATT: Yeah, he's all over it. But that's cool, ‘cause we recorded it right here. Literally, I was sitting in this exact spot with my laptop.

CALEB: This was a guest bedroom at the time, too. So, there was a bed here.

MATT: We would finish at like three or four in the morning, [Caleb] would go upstairs ‘cause he still lived here at the time, and I would sleep on that bed that was in here. [Laughs]

SWIM: What’s it like having that connective tissue still to all of your recordings? Being in such a different place as a band, five years removed from that album, and doing it in the same space?

MATT: I don't think about it much, because it looks different in here now, you know what I mean? It's Kevin and Caleb’s house. I don't know if they think about it more that way, but it's a different room to me now.

KEVIN: It's very odd. I don't really think about it much. Not that I live here right now, but we've been here for like, what, 20 years, Caleb?

CALEB: I think we moved here in 2002, yeah.

SWIM: It’s been your folks’ home for that long.

KEVIN: Exactly. I guess it's just another piece of me growing up here. It doesn't register to me as a difference for the band. It's just like, “I used to have a twin-size bed and now I have a queen-size bed,” you know? You don't think about those changes, so I feel like it kind of stays the same.

SWIM: This is The pulses. Studio and it keeps evolving.

KEVIN: We shot “Untitled” in here, from the bouquet. era. We shot parts of “Bold New Taste” in here. We'd done those live stream recordings, but for me, they're all like somehow in a different room each time, but also in the same space. Different pieces of the same puzzle. It's weird.

CALEB: I think it grows with us. Funny enough, I was tracking drums for new Followship music, so that was the first time I was recording them here, and it was so funny, ‘cause they were somewhat geeking out. Like, “Oh shit, this is where y'all recorded the ‘I Drink Juice’ video! This is right here! Oh, this is where y'all did this!” And I'm like, “Yeah.” [Laughs]

Again, I don't really think about it in that way, ‘cause this is just the basement I grew up in. I was telling [Followship] even, “This is my whole life, my whole childhood, everything was here in this basement,” you know? They walked in and were just like, “Oh, you got the Rock Band drums graveyard.” We had all the New Year's parties with kids on the block here. It's just grown with us, and now it's the studio.

MATT: It's every room down here, too. You even go into the bathroom and you're like, “Oh my God! This is the bathroom from ‘The Message Is Clear’ video!” [Laughs]

SWIM: It’s becoming a pulses. museum.

CALEB: Honestly.

SWIM: I always mix up the timeline, because when I think of pulses., it’s obviously the current lineup with Matt in it, but what was the timeline with Matt joining and Speak It Into Existence coming out?

MATT: I joined in 2018, so [pulses.] put out “The Appetizer” and “Jecht Shot” like three months after I joined. They had me go ahead and record a second guitar on “Jecht Shot.” Not for “The Appetizer,” but I'm on “Jecht Shot.” That's my first thing, but it's just guitar. Then we started working on the album and didn't put anything out, just played a lot of shows. I didn't do vocals on that record. The lineup had changed before the album came out. So I think that's why a lot of people get confused with it, ‘cause we put it out and it was like, “Okay, but this isn't me, but I'm gonna be doing it from now on.” Since then, it's just been the four of us doing everything.

CALEB: I remember we had a number of songs already written for the album when Matt joined.

MATT: It was “Sometimes Y,” “Exist Warp Breaks,” “Mount Midoriyama.” “Olivia Wild” you had started. “Don't Say Anything, Just RT,” I think you had started.

“Graduation Day” [too].

KEVIN: That one's old.

MATT: Yeah. I just added parts to all of those. Then we wrote “Plastiglomerate” and “Louisiana Purchase” first. Which is wild, ‘cause they ended up being the singles. The title track was gonna be for Speak Less, and then we were like, “This will be a good opener. We'll make it longer and fill it out.” Then we wrote “Good Vibes Only (Zuckerberg Watchin’)” because we needed a pop song. It was almost the whole thing they had the instrumentals at least started for, then we wrote a couple core ones together.

SWIM: You touched on it a little bit, but how do you think lockdown and Covid affected the album, how it was released, and people’s relationship to it?

MATT: I think people attached to it because they were just not doing anything, so that helped. I think that helped it spread a little bit, because, realistically, if it wasn't Covid, we would've played a bunch of local shows and it would've probably not had as strong of an initial connection with people.

KEVIN: Didn't [Dance Gavin Dance] have an album that came out later?

CALEB: Yeah. That was the whole thing. [Laughs]

MATT: Later that month, I think.

KEVIN: Yeah, ‘cause we were trying to beat it. We had to drop it before…

CALEB: Afterburner.

SWIM: Oh, god.

KEVIN: Yeah, because if we dropped it after, no one was gonna care. So we rushed it to get the album out before them, and I honestly think that helped a lot.

SWIM: Do you regret not having a song in Spanish on Speak It Into Existence?

[All Laugh]

KEVIN: Honestly, I'm glad we don't for a number of reasons.

CALEB: If we did, we would actually have a native speaker on it.

MATT: If we did it now, we would get a feature that speaks Spanish. Andres or somebody who speaks Spanish. [Laughs]

SWIM: Yeah, you have no shortage of connections who could do that.

MATT: Not trying to Google translate my way through a verse.

KEVIN: As we've always said, there's just such a tumultuous relationship with that fucking band and I do think the fact that we dropped it before [Afterburner] was helpful. I feel like people listened to [Speak It Into Existence] and had their moments with it. Then [Afterburner] came out and the fact that it was weaker for a lot of people, they were like, “Oh, well if you don't like that shit, listen to Speak It Into Existence!” Then people suggested us more, and it got around that way.

MATT: People still liked that genre, so there was a fan base for it. Whether we were part of it or not.

KEVIN: Yeah, there wasn't any animosity.

MATT: Yeah, it wasn't as big of a deal then, but I still remember when we started getting reviews, one of the big ones was like, “Oh, ‘Exist Warp Brakes’ is like ‘Don't Tell Dave’ ‘cause it's like a funk thing!” And we were just like… stupid! [Laughs]

KEVIN: Yeah. “Dumb, but we’re just gonna let it rock,” because at the time, it wasn’t as annoying yet.

CALEB: I still remember back then, we were already trying to move off from it and were feeling that internally as the record was coming out. Especially because of how much time passed between us finishing it and when it came out, it was like, “I'm a different person now.” I think that album had the most time between us recording it and it actually coming out. That was the first album that we tracked ourselves. We started tracking it at [Matt’s] place.

MATT: Yeah, at my old apartment in West Virginia.

CALEB: I think we started with tracking guitars for “Louisiana Purchase” and “Exist Warp Brakes.” It was during that snowstorm, so it was like January 2019. And then we didn't finish tracking it all the way through until August?

MATT: We were almost done, but we were like, “We have to put out something,” so we dropped “Louisiana Purchase” in December. We were done, but I know we were waiting on two features that took a while. [Laughs]

We finished around October, then, because it was before the tour.

CALEB: Well, the tour was in September.

MATT: Oh, I guess it was August. It’s been over five years now, I can't fucking remember.

KEVIN: I wasn’t going to comment on any time thing, because I don't fucking remember. [Laughs]

MATT: I thought I remembered touching up things, but maybe I'm just thinking ‘cause we were writing Speak Less at the same time, and we were still doing that.

CALEB: I was still editing things, and I'm pretty sure we did one of those things where we got the master back for the record and then we put it out like two weeks later, which is something you shouldn't do, but we did it like twice. Three times, probably. I'm pretty sure we did that for bouquet. Especially ‘cause at that point it didn't matter. We were just a local band. I think we did it for Speak Less, too. Anyway, to go back to the original point. [Laughs]

We were in a different headspace. We were already writing Speak Less, so by the time Speak It Into Existence came out, people were like, “Oh, y'all wanted to do this sound. It's like Swancore,” and I already started to move away from wanting to do that, by like 2018, 2019. But I'm not gonna get rid of songs, we still like those songs. I’m still happy with it. I don’t know, it's interesting. [Laughs]

SWIM: I think some people might be under the impression that when bands write albums it’s like, ‘Okay, we’re going to sit in a room, we’re going to bang out these eight to twelve songs, and it’s all written at the same time,’ and I think especially in DIY spaces and music creation in general, you guys are pulling from different places, seeing what works. So, you’re very different people for different songs, rather than like an entire album.

MATT: Yeah. I mean a band with a label and a budget, it's like, ‘Okay, we're gonna take two months and go write and record this record.’ We can't do that. We get together once a week and write songs. Luckily for future things, it's been going very fast recently, which has been really cool. But yeah, Speak It Into Existence and Speak Less took such a long time ‘cause we were just chipping away at it. Then recording takes even longer, ‘cause you can't just take two weeks or a month and sit in the studio.

CALEB: Even as an example: today, we were tracking a song for bass, and it's like, “Oh, we got X amount of songs we want to do,” and then this one song took like three or four hours to track. It's like, “Well, that's it for the day, we'll figure out another day we can get together next where people can take time off.” You're gonna spend eight hours a day, like a normal job, in the studio each day. It'll be like, “We'll come back to this tomorrow!” And it's like, “No, I'll see you in a week and a half. Maybe.” This is the first time we've seen David in like two months, ‘cause you know, life happens.

SWIM: You gotta prioritize music over those fires, David. Priorities.

[All laugh]

MATT: No, but it's been cool now. I think we're in a groove right now, which is nice. It takes a long time and a lot of work to make an album, and I think you’re bound to be – by the time it's coming out – a little bit over it. Especially in a DIY band, because it takes so long.

CALEB: But then also when it comes out, and then people actually respond to it well, then it gets re-contextualized. It’s a weird thing. I saw this very recently again, where somebody was mad at a band for being like, “I don't like this anymore!” You can still like it, but they're a person too, even if they created it!

I know going into the release, I was like, “I like this, but I'm changing as a person. This represents who I was a year ago, and I feel disconnected from it.” But then, when it came out, people started liking it, we started playing the songs live, and I was like, ‘Okay, now I have re-contextualized it all. I love this.’ Especially particular songs. I will always love playing “Louisiana Purchase.” I'll always love playing “Exist Warp Brakes.” So, all that hurt I had prior is gone now for that aspect of things.

SWIM: That makes a lot of sense. Any lasting thoughts on the album turning five? Anything you want to throw out there?

CALEB: I'm glad that we still exist five years later, you know? That's always something to be grateful for. Speak It Into Existence was named after that, in a way. We said we were gonna do a second record, so we're gonna hold ourselves to it and we're gonna make it happen.

It Wasn't Supposed To Be Like This is also, in a way, a statement of, “We're still existing, we're still creating music, and we're grateful to do that.” You can take the title in a positive or a negative way. We weren't supposed to start this band in 2015 and still be going 10 years later off of nothing, really. I'm grateful to still be at it and still be feeling even more inspired than ever before.

MATT: You got any plugs, Kevin? You're usually the plug man.

KEVIN: I don't really have a whole lot of plugs. In terms of Speak It Into Existence, it's still out on vinyl, still got CDs. I want to do another tape run, but money, you know. So, outside of that, we're working on new music. We're working on old new music and then we're working on new new music. So old, new music should come out sometime this year. New, new music should come out next year, most likely.

CALEB: And then new versions of old music, in a live way, will come even sooner–

KEVIN: In the form of a live album that we did celebrating 10 years of a band with friends and shit. In the form of possibly a DVD, if I can figure that out.

MATT: Oh, I didn't even know you were gonna do that!

KEVIN: So, there's your scoop. [Laughs]

SWIM: Nice! Well, I got the exclusive one, thank you!

KEVIN: Always. Every interview has to have an exclusive drop.

That's about it. Got a couple of shows. They're fests, they're far apart.

MATT: We're spending all this time on new music. So, festivals, that’s what we got.

SWIM: Well, as a fan and someone who found you guys through Speak It Into Existence, thank you for that album. Love that you guys are still here and doing it. I appreciate y’all coming on for this first interview!

KEVIN: Absolutely, thanks for having us.

CALEB: It's fun to talk shit over a mic.

[All laugh]

SWIM: Love you guys, thank you!

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Swim Into The Sound

Inside Porcupine’s Altar of Vapor: An interview with Chicago’s masters of Dark Hardcore

Different Parts of the Same Elephant: An Interview With Dustin Hayes of Walter Mitty and His Makeshift Orchestra

Spice on the Side: A Conversation With Blue Cactus

Re-Entering The Void: Interviewing With Sails Ahead On Their Debut Album’s First Anniversary

Half A Decade of Speaking It Into Existence: An Interview with pulses.

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Blog

Swim Into The Sound

Swim StuffHome PageMain FeedSwim SelectsPhotographyThe Swim TeamMixtape CornerFavorite ArticlesTaylor’s EssentialsAboutMerchSearchArchive

Swim Select

Explore by CategoryReviewsInterviewsRoundupsRetrospectivesFoodVideoEnd of Year

Recent Articles

Swim Stuff
Home Page
Main Feed
Swim Selects
Photography
The Swim Team
Mixtape Corner
Favorite Articles
Taylor’s Essentials
About
Merch
Search
Archive

Explore by Category
Reviews
Interviews
Roundups
Retrospectives
Food
Video
End of Year