Someone Once Told Me 001 – Nicole Boychuk (I Hate Sex, Illustrator)

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In the first few bitter cold months of the past, wretched year I found myself chatting with a friend about how much we mutually disliked Midsommer (2019). After sharing a couple laughs over the half-baked plotline, we started to steer in to more vested conversation (the kind where one walks away learning something they will always keep with them) where I was first told something I would think about each day after: "Your friends are your future".

The above-mentioned friend-in-conversation is Nicole Boychuk. You may know her from past project: I Hate Sex, or her series of illustrations on Instagram, or on a much more personal level lucky enough to call her friend.

Whatever the connection may be, and for whatever reason you may be here reading this; let me be the first to welcome you to Someone Once Told Me. Short-form conversations with artists and creatives about the best advice they've ever received. 

 
 

Alex Couts: Let's start with some history. Who told you this advice and how do they fit in your life? Where were you when you received this advice?

Nicole Boychuk: The advice came from Nicolas Field, who I met through the community after seeing his band La Luna in 2013. La Luna was the first time I had ever seen someone who looked like me playing aggressive music and having that admiration and inspiration from Vanessa Fever (Vocals in La Luna) compelled me to do the same.

Over time, due to the remote nature of Alberta, IHS and La Luna formed a strong touring bond with one another, sharing each others' cities weekend after weekend and being perpetually inspired by the community they were experiencing and the art they were creating.

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Eventually, La Luna moved their operation to Toronto and Nicolas and Vanessa became a part of the beloved New Friends Fest. In 2018, IHS was able to play their final show as NFF headliner. After flying in a couple days ahead of the rest of the band, Nicolas and I were on our way to the airport for them, discussing future endeavors and ambitions.

absorbing the luxury of the moment, Nicolas mentioned in passing "Your friends are your future" while talking about the insanity that we were even able to be there--doing music at such a complete level--entirely because of the steps we had taken in one another's lives.

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That is what caused me to think more about what had happened entirely leading up to where I was in that moment. That there would never be any possibility of doing anything like this without the engagement of friends. Fully understanding the weight of the connections and people that you will meet, and how they will inform the steps you take to the different places in your life.

I need to mention this isn't networking or some business connection, this is about seeking the company you keep to be there to build you up and help you grow due to the love that they are there to show you. It's about finding the people in your life that will mean the most to you and working hard to keep them there.

 
 

A: Noting that IHS is much a past part of your life, how do you find yourself applying the advice forward in your life?

N: IHS is a closed chapter of my own life now, that has its own fondness and nostalgia, so the phrase takes on a new meaning for me than it did in that moment when I first heard it.

I think of it as a measure of mindfulness, returning to it most when watching the shallow performance of social media unfold in front of me most days. I see people engaging with others across platforms, with clear intentions of their statements and actions being only for personal gain.

There's a lot of concern coming from people to be strongly individualistic, and present that forward as much as they can through platforms. From my view, it would seem like we could all learn to be better to one another if there was effort to be less individualistic and focus on connecting with people in whole ways and be able to look back on things with sentiment.

This interview for example; I am not thinking about this as "Alex is going to write about me and my band and then so many people are going to read it and the art is going to be so much more popular," .. I am thinking about waking up tomorrow morning being happy that we got to spend this time together to talk about something meaningful and sentimental we share with one another and be that much closer because of it. There is a rather simplistic nature to it all, and the value of the moment in connection and what that adds to the foundation of our relationship is much more important to me than whatever may become of this piece.  

A: You drew the intentions of this series right out of me. The whole reason I started this was to create focused opportunities to have engaging and meaningful conversations with friends, strangers, and whoever else has something to share. I'm not here for personal gain, and the goal of putting better advice into the world is only secondary. Maybe it's selfish, but I mostly want to hear what my friends have to say about their life experiences. SOTM is just a catalyst to have that conversation.

A: Who needs to hear this advice? What kind of resolve do you imagine this bringing to someone hearing it for the first time?

N: I think people exploring new creative ventures, especially those with a method of exchange in some way, would benefit from hearing this the most. Especially after this past year, people will need this idea re-enforced after being so distant from one another, and not having as immediately apparent feelings of community and friends.

It hasn't been as easy to see the little red strings that connect us through everything this past year.

A: red strings?

N: Like a PI mapping out their investigation. Think about it this way: if one of us is at the top of the mountain, whatever accomplishment that is, everyone that was involved or we experienced in getting there are the stones that lead us up the path. I'm thinking a lot about Tim Richard right now, who was like IHS's secretary.

... the I Hate Sex-cretary..

A: nice.

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N: We would spend eight or so hours a day together through classes in university, which is how we came to know one another and he came to be involved with the band. He was never an "official" member, but IHS would have never been what it was without his efforts. He put together promo materials, did merch, came to countless shows, helped us out with places to sleep. We would have never survived as a band if it weren't for the kindness and love that Tim showed us. If that relationship never existed, none of IHS would have been known for what it is.

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A: Let's wrap everything here together with one last present, future outlook: how has this advice influenced how you live and interact with others?

N: I think the way the advice has impacted me is putting value in the connections and the little red strings that connect all of us, and create something bigger than any of our respective individuality.

Lately, I've been hard at work putting together a discography release and have learned that the process is leaning on those past relationships more now than ever. Feeling much as if there is no reason why anyone should be helping out with this, but finding that they are because of the cemented and personal natures of our relationships. There are so many people out there in the world, some I've never even met in person, that are willing to give parts of themselves to this effort.

It's been a gift to realize so fully that the people you surround yourself with, and have made it into your circle, are there for a reason. They are choosing to be there to share their kindness and love with you because of the love that you have shown them, and that beauty is so needing to be appreciated.
I made a tweet earlier this year (and then probably deleted it) during a rougher time that read something like: "there are people in your life who put up with your shitty existence for whatever reason, you need to thank them for that."

A: retweet.


I Hate Sex was a screamo band from Edmonton, and Nicole Boychuk is the bleeding heart of meaningful connection that anchored the group's sound over the years. As written in the sacred scripture of skramz and needs to be remembered now more than ever: "skramz is for friends, but there is no happy here"

Someone Once Told Me is a collection of conversations with artists and creatives about the best life advice they have ever received. Our logo is by Nicole Boychuk and my name is Alex Couts and I'd love to hear what you have to say. Drop a line on Twitter @VirusesForFree or just shout profanities at me from a moving car. Both are equally effective. 

Finding Balance Amidst Chaos - An Interview with Portrayal of Guilt

Photo: Addrian Jafaritabar

Photo: Addrian Jafaritabar

Content Warning: This article discusses themes of self-harm and suicide.

It’s very easy to get hung up trying to describe the sound of Portrayal of Guilt. Is this hardcore? Perhaps it’s black metal? Could it even be screamo? Ultimately, these questions are merely distractions because all that really matters is that the music is straight-up brutal. The band is adept when it comes to infusing their caustic fury with elements of hardcore, black metal, harsh noise, even ambient, and their sophomore LP, We Are Always Alone, is a perfect distillation of this collage. 

The Second Coming” kickstarts the album with dizzying riffs and thunderous blast beats that prop up Matt King’s throat-shredding snarls. In just thirty-three seconds, the song shifts to a refrain that is indebted to screamo before a coda of eerie ambient sounds wraps up the track. In just one minute and thirty-nine seconds, Portrayal of Guilt is able to deliver a thesis of who they are as a band; they make music that is intense, loud, challenging yet rewarding, and most importantly, downright evil. 

The album is a document displaying how Portrayal of Guilt has grown as a band. Let Pain Be Your Guide, the group’s debut album, drew the blueprint of what was to come; it’s a hardcore album that dabbles with foreign sonic textures. We Are Always Alone finds Portrayal of Guilt in a state of balance as its influences come in and out of focus, serving the songs with efficiency. 

It must also be noted that Matt King’s lyrics are incredibly sharp on We Are Always Alone. While at times challenging to decipher due to his visceral shrieks, King’s songwriting explores themes of despair, pain, and death. “My Immolation” tells the story of a person who is dissatisfied with their life and resorts to burning themself alive in their house. King examines this sorrow with unflinching clarity singing, “I’ve never felt so alive. / My vision fades away as I watch my skin and bones melt / away and turn to ash. / This is where I belong.” It’s a bleak and harrowing sentiment. While many of the songs could be seen as suicidal, King is in no way glorifying self-harm; rather, he is analyzing the emotional and mental anguish of a person struggling with such thoughts.

These lyrical motifs help to bolster the sonic menace created by the band, resulting in a listening experience that is taxing yet gratifying. Portrayal of Guilt brings a lot to the table; the lyrics are dour but sharp, and the instrumentation is abrasive and exhilarating, this allows listeners to view their work from myriad angles. Personally, I was introduced to the band from a metal perspective, and I found the genre tag to be fitting. It’s exciting when a band can be embraced and shared by fans of multiple scenes. While the group might not be a crossover act in the traditional sense, they are a band that moves between subgenres without alienating fans. No matter how you view them or what genre you ascribe to Portrayal of Guilt, all that matters is how hard We Are Always Alone rips.

To get a sense of where the band is coming from, we spoke with Portrayal of Guilt’s singer and guitarist, Matt King.


The band’s genre and sound always seems to be a hot topic when you are being talked about. With the release of We Are Always Alone, it’s easy to see why people are so interested in this discussion as the album features elements of black metal, hardcore, harsh noise, and ambient, yet you have previously stated that, to you, Portrayal of Guilt merely is punk. What does it mean to you to be punk and to make punk music?
Punk, in my opinion, means having complete artistic freedom, where no preconceived rules or ideas exist. Creating something out of nothing based solely on what you enjoy and completely ignoring any thoughts or opinions on the outside while holding nothing back. Just genuinely doing you. That's just my first thought. We're not trying to please anyone, we're just having fun and doing what we want to do, no exceptions.

As a follow-up, what do you think of fans’ discussion of your genre and sound? To me, it shows the band’s versatility and appeal.
I think it's funny as much as it is interesting to see what people think about what we're doing. None of it matters, though we appreciate anyone taking the time to listen to us and give their thoughtful opinion. Call it black metal, hardcore, whatever. None of it is taken into consideration.

Many of the songs on We Are Always Alone are longer than those on previous releases while also seemingly pulling from more genres than before. Was this a conscious effort on your part to go longer and diversify your sound, or was it more of a natural progression?
It was 100% natural progression. Personally, my attention span is so short I can't even get through longer songs as a listener, so the fact we were able to put together a 4+ minute song is pretty incredible.

Your lyrics are often bleak and brutal, featuring themes focused on depression, failure, pain, and suffering. When it comes to constructing a song, do you write lyrics to serve the sound of the music, or is the music meant to serve the anguish depicted in the lyrics?
The lyrics are written and then altered to cater to the music when it comes time to record, though those are two completely separate things.

Texas has a rich punk and metal history. Do you see yourselves as descendants of previous Texan bands and scenes? If so, do you draw inspiration from any of these bands, and is there a certain amount of pride in being known as a Texan band?
No, not really. I can't say we were ever embraced by the scene here, but that might be by choice. We have made a point to follow our own path, although we have massive respect for the Texan bands before us. We will always claim Texas, of course. That's where we're from.

We Are Always Alone was released by Closed Casket Activities, but you also operate your own label, Portrayal of Guilt Records. What made you want to start your own label? What can we expect from future releases?
It has been a goal since we started to operate as a band and as a label, where we're able to release our own records as well as records for our friends and affiliates. We're working on creating our own realm. I only started taking the label seriously as of a couple of months ago, but you can expect multiple cassette and vinyl releases down the line from those friends and affiliates. I'm looking forward to seeing how far we can take this idea.

The album was recorded during the pandemic, and the idea of the “pandemic album” seems to be discussed ad nauseam, yet it holds some merit as every person is affected by the pandemic. Is We Are Always Alone a response to the pandemic in any sort of way?
Not at all. We wrote this album months before the idea of an upcoming worldwide pandemic existed, although it was recorded at the beginning of the lockdown in our area. Perhaps that had an effect on the energy presented within.

With touring postponed for the foreseeable future, are you pivoting to other methods such as livestreams in order to promote the album?
I don't really like the idea of a livestream, personally. We recorded and edited a video of ourselves playing a few songs recently, but even then, it was nowhere near the same energy as a live show. We'd prefer just to wait it out. With no touring going on, it helps us focus on writing for more upcoming releases, which we have planned for the rest of the year.


Connor lives in San Francisco with his partner and their cat, Toni. Connor has an MFA in creative writing and is working toward becoming a community college professor. When he isn’t listening to music or writing about killer riffs, Connor is obsessing over coffee and sandwiches.

Follow him on Twitter or Instagram.

Breathing New Life Into Shoegaze, An Interview with Clearbody

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Even though it came out in December, Clearbody’s One More Day was easily one of 2020’s strongest debuts. Formerly known as Dollhands, the Charlotte, North Carolina trio fuse the speed and ferocity of punk with the lush textures of shoegaze to create an immensely satisfying album. Clearbody find themselves in the increasingly fertile sect of shoegaze that is heavily indebted to bands such as Hum and Deftones. Where bands like Narrow Head decide to infuse their blend of heavy shoegaze with the grungy sound of nineties alt-rock, Clearbody’s punk and emo leanings help to set them apart from the pack as they have more in common with Blink-182 than Alice In Chains.

One More Day is a shock to the system; its eight songs are delivered with both speed and efficiency in just twenty-five minutes. “Scratch The Color” opens the album at a sprint’s pace as guitar, bass, and drums charge forward in unison while Eric Smeal sings of the absence of friendship. The band displays its pop sensibilities on “Blossom”  and “Too Far Gone,” which feature infectious guitar leads backed by upbeat rhythms. 

If this is starting to sound like Clearbody is a run of the mill pop-punk band, rest assured, this band contains multitudes thanks to their bonafide shoegaze aesthetic. The title track opens with heavily reverbed guitar chords, steady distorted bass, and crashing cymbals as gloomy vocals ponder the pain of not being with their beloved. “Suspension” closes the album with a climax that displays how well the band members play off of each other as rhythm section Martin Hacker-Mullen and Seth Wesner provide grit and heft for Eric Smeal’s screeching guitar solo.

What makes One More Day so exciting and interesting is that no song is just one thing despite the short running times. The band is able to include a diverse range of their influences in each track without creating a muddy mess. Pop minded songs such as “Scratch The Color” and “Blossom” each close out with passages of heavy distortion that play into the dreamy side of shoegaze, whereas “One More Day” alternates between moments of slow haze and blistering aggression as a means of servicing the pain and confusion depicted in the lyrics.

With One More Day, Clearbody has delivered a debut that could easily be from a band that has found its sound three or four albums into its career. Who knows where they will go from here, but wherever it is, I will follow. 

Recently, I had the pleasure to sit down with Eric Smeal, Clearbody’s guitarist and lead vocalist to discuss the band’s past, present, future, and you guessed it, Tom Petty.


The three of you were originally in a band known as Dollhands. Is Clearbody just a name change, or do you view it as a new band removed from your old work?
Kind of both, honestly. Technically the original band was called Muffled, I started that project by myself in 2014 when I was a junior in high school, it was just garage rock kinda stuff inspired by bands like the Pixies and Ty Segall. We switched it to Dollhands once we started playing local shows because the word muffled is kind of an onomatopoeia; every time I’d say the name to someone, they’d be like, “wait what? I didn’t catch that.” We came up with Dollhands off of word association, and I never really felt like it was a good fit for us, it sounded like a horrorcore band name or something. When Seth and Marty joined in 2018, it felt like a totally new band, we just played some of the same songs.

Your work as Dollhands skews more toward emo and pop-punk. I’m curious what led to the inclusion of aspects of shoegaze. Was this a conscious shift in sound or something that happened naturally?
It happened naturally, at least that’s how I think it happened. Dollhands had a scrapped EP (which I put out earlier in 2020 under the name Collection) that was more so a garage rock record than anything else, I’ve always said that we’re one thing when we’ve been called something else the whole time. I honestly think the shoegaze shit started with the song “Showbiz” off of that EP, I had no idea what the fuck I was doing at the time, but I listened to that song recently and was like, “damn, this is kind of a shoegaze song.” I like to think that we’re a “shoegaze” band, but people can call us whatever they want. When we were writing & recording One More Day, I didn’t realize how much it sounds like a classic emo record, but now I totally see why people say we’re an emo band. I really didn’t get the Sunny Day Real Estate comparisons at first, I just thought they were sick comparisons, but I like that people think of us as a melting pot band.

A version of “Quarterback” appears on a Dollhands/Stress Fractures split EP. Are the other songs on the album B.C. (Before Clearbody), or were they written specifically for One More Day?
So technically, 5 out of the 8 songs are “Dollhands” songs; “Blossom,” “One More Day,” and “In Latency” were all written while we were recording. Seth came to practice one day in April with the Blossom riff, and it just kinda wrote itself. We tracked that song first, and initially it was just going to be a single, but then we were like fuck it, let’s record the rest of these songs, which were “Scratch,” “Ultraclarity,” “Too Far Gone,” and “Suspension.” At the end of 2019, we tracked an EP, which was all of those songs minus “Suspension.” We had another song on it called “Dream Eater,” which was an incredibly cursed song for us to play live; we played it like 8 times since 2018, and every time something would go wrong, or we’d fuck it up, one time we straight up just stopped playing it and moved on hahahaha. We all felt down on our performances during the EP recording session and decided to do it ourselves. Alex Martin convinced us to add “Quarterback” to the record, and we were already working on One More Day, so we added that one too. “In Latency” just kinda came to me one night after tracking, and it felt like a good transition from “Too Far Gone” to “Suspension.” I’ve always loved artists like Grouper and Alex G, so it’s me just trying to channel that energy.  

One of the things that impresses me most about the album is how you blend punk’s speed and aggression with the spacey and dreamy aspects of shoegaze without sounding awkward or muddied. Can you speak to how you find this balance? 
We just kinda do our thing, it’s always been like that. We try to not put so much pressure into stuff like that when we’re writing, we just know where the parts should be. I’ve always been the “play as fast as possible” type of musician, which can be a little challenging when shoegaze music is usually slow and droney. When we were tracking, I was hella into bands like Boris or Yuragi, Japanese shoegaze music is fuckin sick, and they constantly blend different styles together. I showed Marty this band called “………” the other day (yes, their name is just 9 periods), and they’re straight up a pop-punk shoegaze band, its so fucking sick hahahahaha.

The field of “heavy shoegaze” acts has become increasingly fertile over the past few years, with bands like Cloakroom, Greet Death, Narrow Head, and Nothing all approaching the sound from different angles. Do you see yourself as a part of this movement? If so, do you draw inspiration from any of these bands (mentioned or otherwise)?
I think we’re apart of that movement, yeah. We’ve been lucky enough to play with both Narrow Head and Nothing, along with some other cool bands like Fake Eyes & Soul Blind too. Everyone has their own style to the genre, which is really sick. I think that I draw a ton of influence from both Greet Death and Cloakroom, respectively. I just want Clearbody to be heavy as shit, but also have huge and beautiful moments too. Spirit of the Beehive is the best example of something like that, I think, they can be so aggressive, but they also have these expansive, beautiful moments too. Dynamics in shoegaze are everything to me, they can really make or break a band. 

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Will you describe your writing process? Do you all write together? Are ideas fleshed out through jamming or some other method?
Most of the time, one of us will just bring a riff to practice, and we’ll try to flesh it out as much as we can. I wrote most of the songs on One More Day by myself first, then I brought them to practice. I write all of the lyrics too.

Your lyrics speak on themes of failed friendship, the passing of time, and people either being lost in life or moved on from completely. Where do you draw your inspiration for lyrics?
Personal experiences, I guess, sometimes it can be hard to tell. My whole life, I’ve always just let the words come out; I’ve never tried to write about only one thing, so all of the songs on One More Day are about a bunch of different things. The title track is mostly about my partner Cass and how they live 12 hours away from me, but it’s also about seeing how much you’ve grown personally. That’s another thing that kind of “happened by accident,” all the songs are about growth. Yeah, sure, you can cover a lot of ground with just vague shit like that, but I think that I processed stuff on this record, shit I needed to move on from. We live in dark times, so I’m glad that the album has connected with people in that way.

Your work as Dollhands features covers from myriad different artists, but the one that sticks out to me as the most interesting/peculiar is your cover of Tom Petty’s “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.” I find it to be a very successful cover and I am curious what your relationship to his music is. I have noticed that, like Petty, your songs are able to get to the chorus/refrain in four lines or less.
That cover was actually apart of a cover comp I worked on! My dad plays harmonica on it hahahaha, but yeah, I’ve always loved Tom Petty, and when he passed away, we started working on that comp, it was way before all the Acrobat Unstable stuff. I’ve never really thought about it like that; I was raised on Tom Petty and other bands like Aerosmith and REO Speedwagon, then when I was in middle school, I found out about Nirvana and blink-182. Blink was obviously the big one; I bought a bass when I was in high school and learned all their records.

You recently played a fantastic live stream for Audiotree. How did it feel to play your music in a live setting with shows being prohibited for the foreseeable future? 
It was honestly crazy, we added something new to every song in that set, and I’m stoked with how it came out. Hopefully, we’ll be able to play live in the near future whenever it’s safe, I really miss it.

You mentioned on Twitter that you already have three songs for your second LP. Can you discuss the direction you are going with it and when you think it might be out?
It’ll probably be out in 2022. The songs really aren’t much just yet; Marty and Seth both wrote a song together, which is sick. I wrote a cowboy ass riff for it that I hated at first, but now I love it. I already have a concept for lyrics and imagery that I wanna run with, we just haven’t really had a chance to sit down and talk about that stuff yet. We’re just trying to pump these songs out cause One More Day took me 4~ years to write; the oldest song on it is “Suspension,” which I wrote back in the Muffled days (full circle interview moment) but this one we’ll hopefully be done writing sometime in 2021.


Connor lives in San Francisco with his partner and their cat, Toni. Connor has an MFA in creative writing and is working toward becoming a community college professor. When he isn’t listening to music or writing about killer riffs, Connor is obsessing over coffee and sandwiches.

Follow him on Twitter or Instagram.

FinalBossFight! Walks Us Through Every Song on Their Debut EP 'The Light In Your Room'

FinalBossFight! - The Light In Your Room

Most people don’t get into music for money. Most people don’t get into music for clout. Most people start making music because they are creative and have something inside themselves that they need to get out into the world. The DIY scene is a perfect encapsulation of this ethos. Nobody in this is making money. Even bands on some of the biggest “labels” in DIY are just run by a few people who are merely helping artists with logistical concerns, supply chains, and album promotion. 

Even for “successful” musicians, making a living off of music is hard. Plus, with touring being a non-factor this year, making any money off music in 2020 is almost impossible. Nobody is looking at the music scene as it stands today and thinking, ‘I could make some serious cash in this system.’ People in DIY especially know they’re not going to make a living with this, so why bother? Especially now?

Because the spirit of DIY is indomitable. 

There will always be people experiencing the world, formulating thoughts on it, and wanting to translate those experiences into something bigger than themselves. Music is something that can exist outside of yourself, a permanent document of not only a time in your life, but a time in the world. Just look around; bands are still releasing music, filming videos, and selling shirts because they believe in their message. Even if people aren’t flocking to your songs by the thousands, sometimes it’s just rewarding to find a few other people out there who believe in it and identify with those same emotions. That connection is what music is all about. That’s the reward. 

While FinalBossFight! may sound like a one-word, exclamation-pointed Myspace-era screamo band in the vein of Lions!Tigers!Bears! or Eatmewhileimhot!, they’re very much a product of 2020. Formed in March of this year, the same time as our nationwide shutdown, FinalBossFight! is a band that has existed only in the time of quarantine. They’ve written, recorded, and now released a collection of songs under the imposing shadow of a global pandemic, and that alone is an artistic achievement. 

Seeing the fruits of the band’s labor in the form of lead singles “Spitney Beers” and “Ivory” this summer only solidified my beliefs in the group’s steadfast determination. When a project is born and bred in what feels like the end of the world, that means there’s a baseline level of ‘fuck you, we’re going for it,’ which also tracks with the band’s midwest upbringing. 

The Light In Your Room represents the artistic payoff to months of scrappy recordings, DIY promotion, and intermittent band practice. Created equal parts by guitarist John Coote and drummer Sage Denam, the two share vocal and writing duties, the end result being a hearty emo EP that feels equal parts communal and personal. There are tappy guitar lines, goofy song titles, and all the usual emo elements, but the release speaks for itself as a testament to steadfast creativity and musical drive. It’s a document of the good that can happen even when nearly every aspect of the world outside seems to be conspiring against you. Pandemic be damned, FinalBossFight! is here, and they’re ready to shred.


Spitney Beers

This was the first song I actually wrote for FinalBossFight!. When John and I first started working on music at the beginning of the year, I had a few ideas from the last couple of years that weren’t completed, just a collection of choruses and riffs. I really wanted to start a new song from scratch, and I knew that after talking about our influences, I wanted to write a fast, hard-hitting song that I would like to hear from those bands. I took a little bit of inspiration from the fast-paced pop-punk/emo music I was listening to at the time and sat down in my bedroom and started writing and it. Surprisingly, it did not take long to come up with the song’s structure, and the rest just sort of fell into place.

For the most part, the lyrics focus on the troubles someone is going through in a relationship that lacks trust and honesty but is filled with copious amounts of alcohol. At the time of writing, I had just recently gone through some troubles in my life that were mainly caused by me living too recklessly and drinking way too much. I felt the need to write about that issue in a way that reflected on how substance abuse and trust issues could mess up things like the relationships in my life.

I recorded a video of me playing it acoustically in my room and singing what I had for it, then sent it to John, and he loved what he heard. From there, we just kept messing around with it any time we got the chance to hang out. He ended up adding some additional guitar parts that I absolutely loved, and that helped the song turn into what I had in my head but couldn’t quite get to out without his help.
- Sage

Texas Sized Ten Four

This track was an idea that I had back in December before FinalBossFight! was ever formed. I was messing around with some chords and riffs in Drop D tuning and eventually turned it into a full song before adding the drums. Once Sage and I started practicing together, I remembered this song, and I showed him. We worked on it for a bit together while I figured out the lyrics and everything soon came together.

When I wrote this song, I was in an off-and-on relationship that lacked communication and that’s what I based the lyrics around. A lot of it is about wondering what the other person is up to and the misconceptions you have about someone when you are unsure what they are doing. When you are so open with someone about what you are doing and how everything is going with you, and they don’t do the same in return, it can lead to a lot of issues.

This song has more of a “pop” feel than the rest of the EP, which we believed made it stand out. We really wanted this song to be on the EP, and especially where it is on the tracklist, because it sounds so different than the rest of the project; it really shows that we can have a diverse range of sounds and still make it work.
- John

Ivory

This is probably the quickest song I wrote for the project. It all came to me late one summer night. The whole thing, from the idea for the melody to the final of the lyrics, probably only took 2 or 3 hours, but it all worked out how I wanted it to. Once I showed Sage, he was immediately on board with putting the song on the EP.

The lyrics have a lot to do with the anger you feel while going through the stages of grief. After repeatedly trying to save a relationship that was ultimately doomed from the start, you reach a breaking point where you realize there’s nothing left to save, and it’s better that everything just ends. Of course, that will make you bitter, which explains a lot of the song's lyrical content. This person has put you through a lot, and you’re finally accepting that you’re done trying to forgive them. You’re done being their emotional punching bag: “That’s it. Sayonara! Take it out on someone else because I’m gone.”

The song was pretty much finished by the time I brought it to the table to be put on the EP. Sage added a few touches here and there, and we both loved the song enough for us to put it out as our second single before we ever even had the EP fully together.
- John

Eviction Notice

This was a song I actually started working on years before Finalbossfight! was ever even an idea. Every time I went back to work on it, I couldn’t get anything done besides the chorus melody and the first line of the verse. A big part of me not ever finishing this song was never seeing an opportunity to have a band that I could fully record it with. Once we started getting tracks together for the EP, I found the old notes on my phone, and I knew I finally had to finish it.

For the most part, the song deals with throwing out everything, both physically and mentally, after someone leaves your life as a way of getting rid of them; “evicting” them from your head. I think most people have memories they wish they could just throw away, so as John and I were writing this song, it was so easy for us to relate to what we were vocalizing. It’s a pretty simple song, but it has this pounding energy that just makes you want to throw shit in the trash and yell at your brain for keeping all the memories that you know don’t mean anything to you anymore.

Also, there’s a little reference to two American Football songs in the first verse, and I personally think that made for one of the most clever lines on the whole EP.
- Sage

Winter Coat // Shorts

This song is my personal favorite on the EP, and that seems to be a common sentiment for most people who have listened to The Light In Your Room in full. Just like “Eviction Notice,” this was a song I started writing years ago but could never make it past the first verse until John and I formed the band and actually started working on songs together. There’s a part in the middle of this song where we use a blast of chaotic noise to kind of separate “Winter Coat” from “Shorts.” There was a time where we considered having these as two separate tracks, but after we messed around with that transition between the two parts, we knew it had to all be one.

The first part of the track, “Winter Coat,” focuses on the distance someone has with somebody else, both physically and emotionally. This person is full of excuses as to why they can’t change; their car not starting, phone being dead, or the fact that they’re just a burnout. The transition in the middle of the song is meant as a stand-in for the passage of time. After this flash-forward, the two are now living in the same area, but things are different. The “burnout” from the beginning of the song now faces this internal conflict where they’re not sure if they want to leave and get lost or if they want to simply go for a drive and come back and have everything be normal. Kind of a “Should I Stay Or Should I Go” situation.

We decided to have this as the last song on the tracklist because it perfectly wraps up the EP. There’s so much energy at the end of this song, and that’s the exact kind of final push I love to hear at the end of a project. I can’t wait until one day (when we aren’t facing such an awful pandemic) where I see a crowd of people lose their minds to the end of this song with us.
- Sage

SESPOOL Walks Us Through 'before the fog covers me' Track by Track

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Not to get all “90’s Kid” on you guys, but I’m about to reminisce. Being born in the era before hyper-pervasive internet meant you had one foot in everything, whether you liked it or not. It meant you grew up listening to pop-punk on CDs and RnB on the radio. It meant you had the “good” Star Wars movies on VHS and questionable ones in movie theaters. It meant you were growing up in one of the last ever truly messy offline eras and witnessed the world transform before your very eyes. 

Growing up in the 90s and early 2000s also meant you were coming of age right as things like Myspace, Limewire, and Napster were gaining mass traction, and what that meant was that the shackles were finally coming off. You could dig into any specific hyper-fandom you wanted. Hot Topic Mallcore? Done. Weird Al phase? Achieved. Mainstream pop from 2006 to 2007? Completely memorized. The internet gave us the power to become the masters of our own pop culture domain, and for many of us, it meant we could spread our tendrils wider and deeper than any generation before us. Today this is evidenced by artists like 100 gecs and Lil Aaron who have made a name for themselves by combining previously-disparate genres, sounds, and ideas into something that feels at once new and fresh yet familiar and comforting. 

With before the fog covers me, San Francisco-based musician Sean E (aka SESPOOL) is adding his name to the list of artists above, creating a genre-agnostic mashup of trap, rock, metal, and psychedelia into a potent blend that’s uniquely his own. There are auto-tuned hip-hop bars, head-banging metalcore breakdowns, and ear-wormy pop melodies. It’s a barrage of two-plus decades of omnivorous music and pop-culture consumption, as seen through the lens of Sean E. I sat down with SESPOOL to talk through each track on his upcoming sophomore album and the music, events, and thoughts that inspired the songs on this collection of tracks. 

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1. before the fog covers me

This song was started before the COVID-19 outbreak and really set the tone for how I wanted my sound to progress. Once I got deeper into it, I decided this would be the title track since it embodied the various styles and themes that I was combining on the album. At its core, I wanted to make a song that started as an ambient ode to “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” by Pink Floyd, building an atmosphere that erupts into a modern trap banger. I knew I wanted to integrate heavy guitars in a way that wasn’t present on my debut album, and that led to the heavy chorus part, which always reminded me of a funeral procession. Ironically, in the following months, that marching-to-our-end aesthetic would become all too real and wind up defining most of 2020.

Lyrically the song is about the fog that blankets us as we get older. Personally, I’ve felt my memory going and my mind becoming less sharp, especially as I work a 9-5 job and get sucked into a “wage slave” mentality. It feels as if things become less vivid and more dull as time goes on. I’ve also had flashes of intense anxiety and other physical ailments that doctors tend to ignore, and often felt like I’m being consumed by something beyond my control. When I wrote the chorus, I was waking up early to practice stream of consciousness writing before my day job, and “morning clarity before the fog covers me” just organically came out. I would wake up full of emotions and ideas that would gradually fade as the day went on, and thus it was the “light of my life” that kept me inspired and pushing forward to make new art.

2. newsflash

This is one of those songs that just “happened” - it came together very quickly, and I remember the exact moment the chorus just poured out seamlessly. This was the first song I wrote in quarantine, and I thought it was so interesting that California went on a state-wide lockdown on the first day of spring. Here in San Francisco, we locked down two days before (on March 17), but the big news didn’t come until March 19, which lined up perfectly with the spring equinox. It’s such an interesting and darkly poetic juxtaposition to have the first day of the season, which is usually associated with rebirth and new life to land on the day the world as we knew it stopped and changed so dramatically in a negative and frightening way. 

At its core, “newsflash” is a very straightforward emo-pop song with 3 choruses, which is something I rarely do. Despite its melancholic lyrics, this track has one of the most feel-good “bop” type energies on the album, which makes it pretty infectious. The lyrics are a visceral reaction to being in quarantine and asking yourself, 'what really matters?’ When everything stops, and we’re left with just our thoughts and ambitions, how do we react? For me, the answer was clearly music, and I spent all of that time and pent up energy/anxiety making this album.

3. meet ecstasy 

This was the last song I finished for the album. Musically, I felt like I needed a counterpart to “newsflash,” which, prior to this song, was in its own lane. “meet ecstasy” is still more experimental and off-kilter than “newsflash,” but none of the other songs had that same bounce that it did, so I finished this one in lieu of a bunch of other songs I was working on to include in the final release.

Lyrically, the song goes back and forth between my current state and my inner voice. The choruses sung in higher falsetto range are my inner self; “walk from the past and I can be the one to hold you” is quite literally about moving on from things that have held you back. Whether it be a negative mental space, or addiction, or not believing you can do something, my inner self wants to affirm to my living physical being that we have the ability to change - if we want to. Like most people who have been around the block a few times, I’ve had lots of ups and downs with physical and mental health. This song really came to me when the initial wave of the 2020 shitshow came down, and I realized that no matter what is happening outside, I have to take care of myself, and hopefully when it’s all through, meet ecstasy.

4. buried beneath the sickness is sweetness

This is the most experimental, weird, and heavy song on the album. I actually started this song over a year ago, long before the heavy guitars and dark vocals, and something about it kept bringing me back. I tend to write pop songs with a verse-chorus-verse-bridge type of structure, but for this one, I said fuck it all. It’s dark, it’s heavy, it’s spacey, and it took a lot to wrangle it in to make it what it became.

The lyrics are predominately about the “wage slave” mentality I referenced in the title track, as I tried to make very obvious in the spoken-word intro. In the United States, we put so much emphasis on work, work, work, money, money, money that I can’t help but feel like it’s all going to erupt… and in some ways, it already has. Our trickle-down economics don’t work, and a lot of us work 40+ hours a week and still end up living paycheck to paycheck. It’s increasingly common for millennials like myself to have little to no savings, no property, and no children. We more or less work our asses off and have nothing to show for it. The lyric the title was pulled from “open your thighs and give me your heart - buried beneath the sickness is sweetness, if you let me pull you apart” is about the false promise of giving yourself to employers and corporations who don’t give a shit about your well-being. This ladders up to tackling the overall failures of modern capitalism and neoliberalism. 

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5. lost waves crash

I tend to write from places of darkness or sadness, but “lost waves crash” is a rare love song. It’s a love song through the lens of quarantine when suddenly the person you live with is now one of the only people you’ll see. It worked out really well for me since my girlfriend and I both understand when we need space or support (like working on music alone for 6-8 hours a day), but being in quarantine, even if there’s love involved, still conjures up feelings of sadness. I don’t really tend to connect with “happy” music, so this is sort of my best attempt to speak on something positive while still being true to myself.

The lyrics reflect more on the themes of the album - “can you see the hypocrisy in how we breathe? We live to leave to fall asleep and then repeat”, highlighting the monotony of wage-based living. In this song though, I reveal that the way out of that is through love, both of yourself and for someone else. So many days in quarantine I would have gone totally insane without someone to bullshit or take a walk with, and for that, I am immensely grateful. The chorus ruminates on how in the end, we’re all lost (“like crying eyes, two hearts’ allure”), and being able to share experiences and emotions with someone we care about brings us solace. Even if those feelings can be fleeting, they’re important and necessary for happiness, especially now.

6. twilight plight

When I originally made this instrumental, I said to myself, “I want to make a really hard piano beat,” - and I did! I let the loud, distorted 808 really lead the way, and quickly found myself reaching for the electric guitar. When it came to the vocals I wanted it to feel aggressive, but in a spooky, almost dissonant way. I was trying to evoke “off” feelings while still being melodic and slightly disorienting in the contrast between the verses and chorus, playing into the lyrical themes.

The song is about systemic oppression, the United States’ current erosion into authoritarianism, and white supremacy’s reemergence caught between dark and light in an ongoing struggle for liberty. Thus, an eternal state of twilight. Like many people, I was disgusted by the murder of George Floyd and the blatant disparity it brought to the surface. I hate racists, and at times am ashamed by people that look like me who think they’re superior to someone who looks different than them. It felt irresponsible to not speak on the issue, as the last 4 years, our country has spiraled further and further into accepted hate. It’s not only unacceptable, but that type of rhetoric could lead to a really disastrous outcome - “you don’t decide who’s equal, we are all one people in a world oppressed.”

7. can we heal?

This song was written as a direct response to climate change. I wrote the lyrics before the pandemic broke out, and it’s one of those songs that carries so much more weight after what we’ve all gone through the last 7 months. It’s the only song without 808’s driving the bass, which gives it a completely different feel. It’s a somber track, and it felt like the perfect ending to an album with pretty dark undertones. 

It’s the only song besides “newsflash” that doesn’t have any “surprises” thrown in, but I find comfort in simple things. Despite its simplicity and bleak tones, I really love how this song makes me feel and the relevance of the dire problem that will become an uninhabitable planet if we don’t change our ways. Even though we’ve done so much to fuck things up, as a species, as a race, or as individuals if we take a step back and modify our behavior, can we heal?


before the fog covers me drops on all streaming platforms on October 9th and is available in limited cassette and CD on Bandcamp now.

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