HU$H Interview

At 18 tracks, SKUNKWORKS is a sprawling release which does well to contradict prevailing trends catering to receding attention spans. This isn't to say HU$H is remotely ignorant to the musical landscape around him, but only that he incorporates it into a mode which best reconciles with his own creative identity. Having already released a series of singles and a collaborative EP with Tech N9ne, SKUNKWORKS is HU$H's full-length debut on Strange Music, and serves not only as a culmination of several years of work, but also as a personal time capsule documenting a series of life-altering obstacles.

During its creation, HU$H experienced a car accident (which influenced the track "Faith is Lost"), the passing of his father, and a transition to Kansas City, where he found a group of like-minded individuals to work with amid a period of time that otherwise drew so many into a spiral of social isolation. That this is such a vulnerable and, at times, revealing collection of songs becomes all the more interesting when recognizing that the name HU$H, itself, was originally meant to represent a sense of safety, or a tendency to seek protection through silence. Throughout our discussion we connected on a few other points surrounding the album's development, including its wide reach across several genres, but began by digging into HU$H's personal history with music, both as a creator and as a fan.

villin: One of the things I personally find interesting is tracing artists' roots back, to look at their current work as a continuation of a broader path, rather than a destination. More specifically, what I mean is that SKUNKWORKS isn't an end point, but a moment along a much more extensive creative path for you. You've been creating music since childhood, and I was hoping you'd be open to reflecting on how some of the major musical points on your timeline helped guide you to this moment and this album. SUB MILITIA, in particular, jumps out at me because of how the sound directly relates to some of what I'm hearing on SKUNKWORKS. How did you get connected there, what was your role, and how do you think that experience continues to inform your creative process?

HU$H: Oh, man, you dug deep for that one.  That was actually an incredible experience and a lot of fun. I had been working with my friends Travis and Kalani (HACKR) in Vegas on that project while I was living in Los Angeles, so I’d go back and forth and we’d work and kick it. Eventually I was back in Iowa handling some things and Kalani hit me up. He said, “I worked my ass off loading airplanes for 13 years, and I've decided to quit and pull out my 401k and take all my best friends on the road and live my childhood dream as a recording/touring musician.” We hit the road and went to see this saint—Amma from India—in San Ramon, California; hit San Jose to see his homies Persevere and Dave Dun; then to see Hawaiian Lyon in Tahoe. That’s when shit got crazy.

All the sudden we’re chillin with Lyon's boy Bobby Wobbles and A Plus from Souls of Mischief and Hieroglyphics. Then we set a date to record and hit the road to Los Angeles to meet up with Myka 9. Myka is a great dude and truly a lyrical god; he took us to some of his spots and we had a great time. Then  Lyon linked us up with another friend of his: the one and only Dave Arron (engineer for Snoop, 2Pac, Sublime, Death Row—Dave’s a legend). We rented Dave’s studio and met up with Myka to record his verse, then headed back to Nevada City where we had rented a cabin and we met up with Adam (A Plus) and recorded his verse. Both those dudes have such a strong connection to their spirituality, it was really mind blowing to meet two legends who were such solid people. 

After that we set up a small tour. Myka joined us all the way to the end and Adam [joined] just for Reno and Nevada CIty. It was an amazing experience 'cause everyone involved were legends from my childhood. 

villin: Reading your Volatile Weekly interview, it's clear that coding plays a key role in your life. To quote you from that article, you said you're interested in everything from c++ to building websites to developing Web3 technologies. Creatively speaking, does that provide something different for you than creating music does, or is it all one and the same when you get right down to it?

HU$H: A little bit of both, really. It’s all creative work to me. They often intertwine, too, like, I build VST plugins I can use in Ableton/Logic/[FL Studio]. Recently I built a stable diffusion system for creating AI videos [and] started remixing all my videos from the album. It’s been a lot of fun. I’ve also been working on a MIDI controller I prototyped with an Arduino that’s still in development. I’m currently working on a Discord bot that can generate AI images, use AI to convert audio to MIDI, and hopefully generative MIDI soon. [I've] been really into the audio AI stuff lately and finding ways to enhance production as opposed to replacing it.

villin: When connecting with Bloody News, you mentioned a few interests and influences that hit particularly close to home for me. When I was in high school I religiously wore a green Soulfly jacket I had, and seeing you shout out that band out was interesting because of how their first two albums tried to cross over genres in ways that Soulfly's predecessor, Sepultura, never really could. There was thrash and rap-metal and then even this hard rock hybrid song with Sean Lennon, all aimed at a fanbase that had come to know the group's frontman traditionally for much more of an unbending metal sound. What sort of influence did they have on your mindset when thinking about creating something as genre-bending as SKUNKWORKS, which moves between EDM, rap, metal, punk, and alt-rock without reservation.

HU$H: Wow, that’s a great question. They actually have been a big influence on me. I love how they mixed drums [in a way] that makes you jump with real heavy and earthy riffs. Perfect example is "Jumpdafuckup" [with Corey Taylor of Slipknot] or the more vibey earthy shit like "Back to the Primitive."  It’s funny when I was working on the BLIGHT album with Tech N9ne. I invited Jehry [Robinson] over to my house in KC to check out the studio and listen to some tunes. I remember being really excited and trying to explain what I wanted to do with the album, and showed him "Back to the Primitive," saying it was gonna "Be like this, but absolutely nothing like this." After the song was over I remember telling myself "No one will ever understand what you just said." Anyways, I love that bouncy metal vibe and love mixing it into other genres and trying new shit. The new tracks I’ve been working on lean a lot more into the heavy guitars and screaming with a lot of beats.

villin: You also mentioned a few other personal favorites like Goldie and NOFX. When I think of those acts, my mind goes to something far more purist, in terms of their musical output. Goldie doesn't make drum & bass, for example, drum & bass pretty much is Goldie. And NOFX is a very particular strain of punk that might seem a little antiquated through today's lens, but one that connects with me personally in a way that few other bands can. NOFX doesn't make punk music, they are punk. Thinking about a song like "Go Away Plz II," there's a branch between the electronic and punk worlds, and I'm wondering if you're ever slowed down by consideration for what a "purist" might think about the music you're creating?

HU$H: I don’t really kick it with purists so I don’t know how they think, so [it] would be tough to do, I guess. I always found the fight to be “the most punk” or “the most metal” was more of a competition than a contribution, and didn’t seem to end anywhere meaningful for many people. So, like, in your example, if NOFX is punk, then if you want to make purist punk music you technically just want to rip off NOFX. I’d rather watch influences from NOFX and Goldie mix together into something new like "Go Away Plz II."  Hence the name, SKUNKWORKS.

For more from HU$H, stream SKUNKWORKS via Apple Music, Spotify, or YouTube, and follow HU$H via Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok.

Kristian Day Interview

This week's edition of the Iowa Basement Tapes radio show covers the bases of the underground, featuring noisy punk, hardcore, sound collage, electronic psych, thrash, and indie rock. The show is a passion project of filmmaker, writer, and composer Kristian Day, and began broadcasting on KFMG in Des Moines in 2018. It's since expanded its reach to two other stations, and its archive can be listened to via Apple or Spotify. Checking in from Nova Scotia for this edition of Making a Scene, Kristian shared some background on how the show developed and where he hopes to see it go in the future, as well as the passion he has for recognizing and celebrating some of the lesser known aspects of Iowan culture.

villin: On the current iteration of your website there is an introduction to your work, noting you are a film maker, writer, and radio host. But my own introduction to your work came through your musical compositions. Your releases now span three decades, and as I was combing through old interviews I came across an old blog of yours where (in 2011, I believe) you wrote that you'd hoped you might view the Ambient Martyr release as something of your own masterpiece album. How do you feel about that collection now?

Kristian Day: So, when I was a teenager and in my early twenties, music was 100% my focus. I didn’t care about making movies, writing or anything else. I had built up years of recordings since I was 15 years old. I had gotten into experimental music via Skinny Puppy and Throbbing Gristle. Making music was a cheap way to spend a Friday night when you are broke and underage. A lot of the recordings that ended up on Ambient Martyr were from this time. Though it wasn’t all new recordings like I had planned, it is my most accessible collection of music. I still remember the day I recorded the two Buddha Machine and Radio pieces. It was a rainy October day in 2009 and I had two of those Buddha Machine sound generators that were released by the band FM3. I would play them simultaneously and change loops while I was rolling. I also had a tape deck with a recording I made off the radio on 9/11/01 (my 16^th birthday) of President Bush giving a speech after the attacks. My 4th input was a radio that I was tuning, and the recording rolled on. That piece "Protozoa Drops" got some radio play on Hearts of Space back in 2004. I am really proud of this.

villin: Having done sound design on projects like Saw 4, which isn't to mention your own personal ties to the likes of Fangoria, there's a thread I appreciated learning about that runs through your professional life that speaks to your own appreciation of horror. Last month you released a piece that you'd arranged for American Guinea Pig: Bouquet Of Guts And Gore, which I believe was following in the footsteps of the original exploitation series. Is there something about working on projects with darker themes that you're drawn to?

Kristian Day: One hundred percent. The American Guinea Pig series was a continuation of the original Japanese series. I was sort of a fan when I was a teenager. I say sort of because they were gross and kind of pointless pieces of cinema. But they were a lot of fun to play when you had friends over. I was and still am a huge horror fan. My friend Marcus Koch was the special fx supervisor and editor of the first three American Guinea Pig films. He was the first person to hire me as a composer back in 2006 for his movie 100 Tears. As much I as dabble to in the dark worlds, I am very much a daylight person. I am up by 6am every day, I enjoy being outside in my yard when the sun is out. Not to mention I am usually in bed by 11pm. Horror and darkness isn’t something that consumes my life, but these types of films do excite because they are super creative, and they push me to be equally creative. When someone says they need something to sound ugly, I start carving things out that are disjointed or out of tune.

villin: Similar themes came through in the music videos you directed and produced for Druids. I appreciate them in part because they tap into my own appreciation for dark or esoteric themes, casting that against a backdrop of the American heartland. Whether that was even what you were going for, that contrast really worked for me. Looking back on them, do you remember much from those shoots and are music videos something you'd ever like to get back into again?

Kristian Day: I don’t care for music videos. At this point I only work with friends. In their heyday they were basically commercials for singles and albums. They were also budgeted like commercials. But there is no money in it and unless the band or artist has a public relations person helping market the video to the largest audience, it dies on YouTube in the first 12 hours. Druids are one of my favorites and they check all the boxes: friends, great music, record label, and PR firm. I directed the "Shivast" video and then I produced "Path to R." "Shivast" was fun as I got to cast four cool friends of mine. Gary Monte, who is the station manager at KFMG, is the ghoul with the sunglasses. Dick Klemensen, who published Little Shoppe of Horrors magazine (British horror magazine), is the butler guide. My friend Oz is the girl lost in the labyrinth. She was a couch surfer friend who crashed at my place with some friends back in 2017. Then Miranda Oldenburger, [who] I had previously cast in some commercials, was the witch demon.

villin: From the standpoint of being music fan, yourself, what's aired on Iowa Basement Tapes seems to run the gamut. But on a more personal note, you're a fan of ambient and have professed roots in the Cedar Rapids punk and hardcore scene. When connecting with Greg Wheeler, he also spoke fondly of the scene then, adding how influential bands like the Horrors were to him. Do any bands or specific memories stand out to you from those years that helped guide you toward the path you're on now?

Kristian Day: The Horrors (Cedar Rapids punk rock, not the lame UK band) were a huge influence on me, too. The Cedar Rapids scene in the late '90s and early 2000s was the best scene you could grow up with. We didn’t have real venues. It was all community center and basement shows. If were you better than average you could play Gabe’s in Iowa City. Cannibal Horse has a personal connection for me as I got to perform one show with them at the Candle Shop in Cedar Rapids. I met Ben Smasher when I was 17 and we shared a love for black metal and noise. He gave me a copy of the The Horrors/Pee Pees split 7”. Ben had an important role in the music scene back then because he had a CD burner. Think about that for a moment. Mp3.com was the only online distribution platform. So, if bands wanted to share physical copies of their music, they had to make tapes or CD-Rs, and burners were not cheap yet. Ben was duplicating everyone’s tunes and burning CD-Rs for them. All the bands were just being super creative back then and no one cared about breaking out. We were just excited to share our music with our friends. Another big one for me was Deerslayer, a bedroom electronic project by Adam Groves of Brazil, The PeePees, and Wheel and the Fence. I can talk about this project for hours. Speaking of that, Brazil was a band whose sound I personally think defines the Cedar Rapids hardcore scene. My favorite memories seeing Sadistic Kids play the Fairfax Community Center back in 2002 or 2003. They hung in there for a really long time. I was also at the Halloween show at the Hiawatha Community Center that Cannibal Horse and Honky Tonk Overlords played. Andy Koettle of Captain Three Leg/Honky Tonk Overlords filmed this. This was a great scene and great time to be creative.

villin: A few times over I'd heard mention that Once Upon a Time in the West is your favorite film. I don't remember when I first started listening to Ennio Morricone more seriously but, good lord, something like "The Ecstasy of Gold," is truly a thing of legends. A long time ago I remember seeing the Raconteurs when I was living in Minneapolis and they came out to "Navajo Joe"–the shrieking wales in that setting, poured upon an unsuspecting crowd, were something I'll never forget. What comes to mind when thinking of his music and do you think it's influenced your own composition style?

Kristian Day: Ennio Morricone is amazing guitar player. I don’t know if you immediately recognize it in his music. The main theme, "As a Judgment," and "Man with a Harmonica" are amazing compositions. Tension building and also serious thrashers. I have loved his music in films by Tarantino, Argento, and Carpenter. But the chef’s kiss is Once Upon a Time in the West. His influence pushed me to do “slow drags” and loud climaxes. Even in my own films I tend to not want to cut. Just drag it out until someone wants to scream.

villin: KFMG bills Iowa Basement Tapes as something of "a wider look at the Iowa music scene's history and future," but it's also been mentioned as a project attempting to "preserve Iowa’s punk rock and counterculture history." How did you begin the show and did you think it would become as sprawling of a series as it has?

Kristian Day: I love radio. It’s a classic media and when I was younger I would listen to Coast to Coast AM late at night. In fact, late night radio is interesting when it’s an original broadcast. Like, who is listening to this? So, there is that. I also had collected so much music from Iowa bands over the last 20 years and I was trying to figure out how I could share it with people. Ben Smasher had created the 319 Dude Bandcamp Archive in 2012 and then said that he wasn’t going to maintain it anymore. It really just focused on Cedar Rapids and Iowa City bands. [In the] Spring of 2018 I pitched this idea to KFMG and very quickly they came back with my first airdate being July 5, 2018. I knew no commercial station would play this and the Iowa NPR affiliates had music shows already nor would they probably care to talk to me. No one played this type of material and I wanted this show to be loud and have an attitude. One of the big selling points was the playlist and listing where the band was from. Bands were from Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Sioux City, Mason City, etc, etc. It made our desert island seem a little bigger. Sioux City has a huge fanbase now. I have gotten care packages of tapes, records, and flyers.

villin: When thinking about what the show has become, what do you think is your current mission with it and is this something you’d like to do indefinitely, or have you ever considered an end point with it?

Kristian Day: So, right now the show is on three stations. KFMG in Des Moines is the home station and then it gets syndicated on KWIT in Sioux City and KOJI in Okoboji, which are both part of Siouxland Public Media and cover western Iowa, eastern Nebraska and that small tip of South Dakota. I really would love to see the show move in line with Iowa Public Radio someday. We have a huge fanbase with the archived podcast episodes but I would love for it to be on late night IPR to make sure the show will live beyond my own lifespan. But did I think it would get this big? No. I figured it would last six months to a year and then I would be asked to move along.

villin: There was a recent Twitter post showing off a collection that had been passed on to you for the show. In a few past interviews the value of minimalism has come up and I'm wondering if you ever become conflicted about personally taking on so many of these artifacts? Do you have any idea what you'd eventually like to have happen with this collection?

Kristian Day: One hundred percent. I have boxes of music in my living room right now that is giving me major anxiety from this very collection intake. I am still picking through it. Some I am going to hold on to, some I will be taking down to a record store in town to sell as a lot. I literally can’t have all this stuff. I actually get the shakes when I have stuff on every surface in my house. But I have a rule: Anything new that comes my way means I need to get rid of something in order to keep it. I have talked to the Iowa Historical Museum and they currently don’t have a great way to store the physical artifacts. So, I have been digitizing them to the Iowa Basement Tapes Bandcamp Archive in case my house ever goes up in flames.

villin: One addition that would seem proper to add to your byline is that of "historian." I randomly dove in on one of the interviews on your YouTube page and learned that Cedar Rapids has the oldest mosque in America, for example. Elsewhere, you've made it your business to write about things like the Iowa Jam, which isn't to mention the documentarian aspect of your film work. In some ways being a historian has become something of a counter-culture role. What do you make of the label and do you know what first influenced or instilled this sort of value within you?

Kristian Day: I hate the historian label. There are some things I just don’t care about. What I hate more than the historian label is the love for nostalgia. Which might shock people to read. I don’t like living in the past but I don’t want to forget it. My business has basically become everything that I love and enjoy I indulge in: film, music, writing, etc. If I don’t like something I don’t want to mess with it because I will never care enough. I am also very protective of Iowa. Even when things are not great in our state government I will still go to bat. If you want to see me lose it, have a Californian say something demeaning but this state. Counter-culture is what leads to progress but there is a still a game to how the world works. Documenting everything means there is less of chance of forgetting all the efforts people have put in. But what’s funny about time is we will nevertheless forget until the next person comes along says, “Oh hey, I am into that.”

villin: In a Globe Gazette interview a few years ago, you commented, "I’m constantly looking for things because I don’t want things to dissolve into ether." As an outsider looking in, that seems to be built into your personal ethos at its core. And there's a photo of you wearing an Einstürzende Neubauten shirt on your Twitter feed - perhaps a fashion statement, but I also take that something of an act of advocacy. Do you remember when it started feeling important to you to carry the torch for the cultural fringes? And what do you fear the damage would be if these sort of histories, be it specific pieces of music or the awareness of bands completely, would become lost to time?

Kristian Day: My day job is filmmaking. I am very lucky to be in the position I am in. I have produced documentary series for HBO, Discovery, and even Hulu. I have written screenplays for a kids series with Peacock Kids and Dreamworks. My producing partner and I just closed on a deal with Amazon for our next movie. I also just finished shooting a movie in Iowa that only a few people know about. Most people would walk off and live their life in that Hollywood world but I don’t need to. I can literally be wherever I want and I choose to be here. I love Des Moines, I love my neighborhood and I love being surrounded by real people. In 2020 I produced Queen of Meth for Discovery, and the director asked me about Iowa music from the late '80s. I lit up. We ended up licensing music from the Iowa hair metal band Roze as well as two songs from my favorite Iowa band, Captain Three Leg. Roze had played at a bar in Ottumwa, Iowa around the time the story took place. Captain Three Leg was from the area even though they were almost a decade later. That’s when it all hit me. There is a line we can walk with success and never forget who we really are.

For more of Iowa Basement Tapes, dig into the archives on Bandcamp or subscribe and listen to the show via Apple or Spotify. Elsewhere, keep up with Kristian via Instagram or Twitter, or listen to his music via Bandcamp, Apple, or Spotify.

Kelly Plumber Interview

Of the many hats Kelly Plumber has donned over the years, it's his role with the Iowa Musicians Project that introduced us. Somewhere along the way in preparing for an interview with Ames scene mainstay Bryon Dudley, a comment jumped out at me from another interview mentioning how Dudley donated a copy of each of his Nova Labs label's discography to an archival project. After we'd wrapped our main discussion, I asked him for more information on what that archive is, which turned out to be the Iowa Musicians Project, run through the State Historical Society of Iowa. Normally, this sort of detail would remain an unspoken backstory, but its in the spirit of preserving backstories of the scene's past that the Iowa Musicians Project exists, so it seemed to make sense to lead this installment of the Making a Scene series with a little context.

The organization's website bears a diverse collection of artifacts, ranging from oral history interviews to digitized show flyers, supplementing a physical archive housed by the historical society. In this conversation, Kelly Plumber discusses how he first became wrapped up in the project, and how it serves as another mile marker on his lifelong musical journey. Before digging into his own work, we began by exploring the mission behind the Iowa Musicians Project, and how he first became involved in it.

villin: The Iowa Musicians Project was started through the State Historical Society, working with Justin Baumgartner and Mary Bennett. What led to you connecting with them and what was it that interested you enough to get involved?

Kelly Plumber: I was introduced to the "project" when I was having a lunch with a friend of mine down in Iowa City (Devin Hill, from The Dangtrippers/current Twin Cities guitar instructor) and he mentioned having heard there was a collection of Iowa music at the State Historical Society. We walked over, asked Mary Bennett to see the "collection" and she sat us at a table, gave us the white gloves, and... brought out a half box of 45s. At that point, I'm sure there was a double take or two... and then I may have said, "This is the collection of Iowa music? I have more than this in my car." Just a box of miscellany, anything from versions of the Iowa Fight song, to Leo Greco polka singles, to, yes, an actual Dangtrippers 45.

So we looked that stuff over and I started asking Mary some questions about where they wanted this to go. And this kind of suddenly dovetailed with some things I had been thinking about at that moment. I had just retired early, had a lot of music related stuff that I—as all retirees do—wondered if my family would care about if something happened to me.  I think anybody that's presided over the doings of an estate knows what happens to stuff that the family might not have a specific interest in. Mary interviewed Devin fairly soon after, and that was the first oral interview they did for the project. [Then] I started talking to Mary about donating some of my Iowa related music stuff. I had music of many formats, posters, newspaper ads going back to 1924 (grandfather's band in Ft. Madison). I copied stuff that was valuable to me, made mp3s of anything Iowa music so I could donate physical copies. I think mine was the second interview they did, and that's when i met Justin, Hang Nguyen (current head of the project, their intern Kate Heffner, and that's when we started discussing this project in earnest.

Now, to be fair to the actual mission and project, the State Historical Society had a tremendous amount of collected Iowa sheet music and ephemera, thanks to Prof. Fred Crane, who specialized in Iowa choral music and composers.  But that's material for a very specific audience, not looked at very often.

villin: "The goal of the Project is to gather an archive of records, photos, ephemera, and oral histories of Iowans in one place for future generations." From your perspective, how do you feel about the progress that's been made toward that goal and what do you think is needed to continue growing and expanding in service of its mission?

Kelly Plumber: Which brings us to the present, some four to five years later, with the COVID hiccup in between that kept us from contact, interviews, even donations, since the State Historical Society was basically shut down during that time. Without looking at the last inventory, I think we've collected more than a thousand pieces of audio? A tremendous amount of posters, flyers, and other physical media, another seven to eight interviews, started a Facebook and Instagram page, [and] launched the state Omeka page. The Instagram page was up pretty early on to spotlight things we were collecting as the project started and then stalled out due to COVID and Justin moving to Duluth to start a new job. I had started an Iowa Musicians Project Facebook page because I was bored, and frustrated by the lack of progress due to all those factors (and because it's a platform I can actually negotiate), then finally got the keys to the Instagram site. And because I'm retired and am endlessly fascinated by the mission, I've put up a lot of content, tripled the followers on Instagram. Gotten some great help and content from folks on the Facebook page.

So, pretty amazing progress. It isn't without some frustration. The folks at the State Historical Society are short staffed and—as I have remind myself when things don't happen as fast as I'd like (and i'm 68, staring down the short end of the stick, so nothing does)—they are collecting and archiving all of the state's history. Music is a very tiny (but sexy and culturally relevant) part of their huge mission.

I'd love to see more donations. I understand folks hanging onto that kind of stuff. It's their personal history, probably wrapped up in the best moments of their lives. But, as I mentioned in my case, there comes a time for all of us, for whatever reasons, when we have to divest ourselves of stuff. My pitch to donors is better to have a say while you can, to have it go to somewhere where it will be archived for posterity and hopefully seen. We need to get more interviews on the Omeka site. That is a platform where longer media can be indulged [in], and I kinda love that folks can talk at length. We have deliberately tried to choose lesser known figures, because the bigger musical names have had plenty of interviews done. We need to seek out more women, trans folks, people of various ethnic backgrounds for those interviews. Our mode at first was to have people come to the State Historical Society building to do interviews, but in the future I think taking the recorders out to the field will be easier and more prolific. We ask a lot of people if they'd like to talk to us, but for some reason many don't follow up... not sure why that is.

So, this project will outlive me, but interest begets interest. People just send me amazing info now, and I just hope it keeps growing.

villin: In listening to your 2018 oral history interview on the website, I'm curious how the project has changed since that time. There's an extensive online catalog documenting the pieces of work that the Project is archiving - are those available in person to browse?

Kelly Plumber: Outside of the three online vehicles, I'm not sure the State Historical Society is staffed well enough to actually present the collection in full (at least without an appointment?), but the plan going forward is to have a show, hopefully about twice a year in some venue, where we can actually bring most of the collection out to see and hear, present our mission to attendees. We did one at the Trumpet Blossom in Iowa City a year+ back, had various Iowa bands play live, [and] had a DJ spinning stuff from the inventory. That's probably the best way to celebrate this collection, without adding stress to the State Historical Society staff, and convince people to add their personal stuff to the mission: let them see it doesn't disappear into a dusty corner somewhere. We have one planned for this Fall, probably at The James Theater in Iowa City, which we will give a heads up on ASAP. I am super happy that we now have two interns at the State Historical Society for this project. Justin still contributes and I have roped my friend/bandmate Brian Thompson, a record hound extraordinaire, to help keep this thing rolling. We have a blueprint for the digital party of our mission from a Cedar Valley Underground site that our friend Matt Wilson did a couple decades back, and help with flyers from Matthew Hundley, Mark Mueller, Ed Flack, Heath Hanlin just to name a few so far.

villin: One of the aspects of the project I'm drawn to is simply the exploration process inherent to it. My own process with the villin playlists is something of digital crate digging, and without that I would have never been exposed to the music of someone like Arthur Russell. Are there any bands and artists that stand out from the Project's archive that you can't believe more people don't know about?

Kelly Plumber: "Digital crate digging" is a great way to put it! I got rid of most of my vinyl some years back, and donated the Iowa portion of it (and cassettes, CDs) to the Iowa Musicians Project, so most of the work I do on the daily is exactly that phrase above. I track any sites having much to do with Iowa music from any decade/century (and this is probably super important to note: We are collecting and archiving any genre of Iowa music, from any time period, except the present). It's been awkward having to explain the difference to folks between archiving and promoting. We are history driven, not promoting every gig or release from Iowa artists (that's your job, Chris). But the chase and discovery every day is something I could have never guessed would be so fruitful. We have a much more amazing musical footprint here than anyone would guess. Justin, Brian and I will grab vinyl here and there where we can find it affordably (thanks, Discogs!) but we have no budget or stipend. We try to encourage every new band or band with new product to donate a copy to the Iowa Musicians Project, so we don't have to buy it, but not sure that message/request has traveled well. Most of what I find to put on the Facebook site is YouTube videos of stuff that would be way too expensive to add to our collection, so kudos to the record freaks out there that find that rare stuff and put it up for anybody to hear.

There are so many bands/players we've found, it would be hard to pick anything resembling a favorite. A friend of mine mentioned how unlikely a story [like] Arthur Russell's was... and then one would have to consider, from the same part of the state, the story of one Simon Estes. Bix Beiderbecke is an obvious Iowa jazz touchstone, but he had an ugly side most folks don't know about. From my particular era, I always found it cool that there were punk bands forming in the late '70s here in Iowa, just at the same time they were popping up all across the country (and world). Pink Gravy from Iowa City, Steve Turner's various bands in Cedar Falls, The Law in Des Moines, and weirdly, a trio from Decorah called The Dogs (earliest of the bunch/early '70s). The three of those from the bigger cities all kickstarted a lot of bands in those towns in their wake, an explosion of indie bands that has not stopped yet, and also the advent of forms of recording that made it possible to release art without having to deal with record labels. I think Bryon and Rachel Dudley launching a label in Ames and putting out 100+ records in a decade is pretty amazing, but the IGL label in Spirit Lake and Fredlo out of Davenport did the same things in the '50s and '60s!

I guess, just to name a recent one with a local slant, would be a guy named Ellery Temple. Most folks in the '70s and '80s around Waterloo/Cedar Falls knew him as a small, unassuming, good keyboard player in local blues and cover bands. Then I found out he had been in a band called The Night Flight that released a 45 on Chicago's Quill Records, played bass, keys, sang, arranged and wrote, and apparently well enough for the biggest band on that label (the New Colony Six) to poach him for their band for a couple years. The 45 is really good. Then a friend of mine, Cathy Rohlf, finds a record by the Columbus Boys Choir (fairly prestigious) in 1959, featuring... a 13 year old Ellery Temple actually singing a solo on the record. That's the kind of stuff that really thrills me to find, almost daily.

villin: In that same interview, one of the concluding comments spoke to the idea of creating a digital archive where music could be shared online. The Iowa City Public Library hosts a modest version of this called "The Local Music Project," but I'm curious if the idea to build out the Musician Project's digital catalog ever got anywhere (or was just stonewalled by copyright issues)?

Kelly Plumber: Short answer is: not sure. The State Historical Society is well aware and extremely wary about copyright stuff where publishing that stuff online is concerned. I don't worry about it on FB because if the owner wants it yanked, I will. Nobody has asked yet, because face it, it's already on YouTube, so? I think the Omeka site will eventually feature short clips of the music we've collected. The interviews we already have permission for.

villin: Your own musical history runs decades back, or generations back if taking into consideration that you're a third generation musician. When thinking about your own work, be it Drednex, the Beveragemen, or even something like the Clown Prison collaboration with your son, is there something you think of as your most fulfilling music project?

Kelly Plumber: I'd love to think that my best musical work may yet be ahead of me. I mean, I just played guitar and sang on stage a few weeks back for the first time in about 40 years, and it went pretty well. I play with an experienced band full of guys with good musical history of their own, and they're great musicians that leave me at ease about playing or presenting songs. I have come to love the stuff I've done in the past, which took me some years to come around to; a combination of comparing it to our peer group at the time and listening to kids doing something pretty original in front of somewhat less than interested (at least to begin with) audiences has brought me to a greater appreciation. And certainly reading bios of like-aged people all the way across the country who were attempting the same ideas did, too. But my son Cole (and really, everybody else in my musical family but me) is just an effortless good musician, and it's somewhat of a dream to figure out a way to play music with him that engages him and doesn't embarrass me. My grandfather and dad were both jazz musicians and I never had the skill set to play music with them while they were alive. My bigger regret is that neither lived to see my son play, who they would have absolutely loved. My musical resume feels pretty good to me now. A few things yet undone, which are good targets to have.

villin: My family is from Minnesota and I lived in the Twin Cities for a few years, so coming across the Minneapolis threads from your story were interesting to me on a personal level. You played a couple of shows with a still-young Soul Asylum, and in the oral history interview talked about a failed bid to get noticed by the legendary Twin Tone Records. My hunch is the answer is of a practical nature, in that work was the thing that kept you in Iowa, but did you ever daydream of taking your music up to a market like Minneapolis? Do you feel like there were any missed opportunities along the way or did it all work out the way it needed to?

Kelly Plumber: I'm sure if you asked me this question when I was around 30—when the Drednex hit a wall (where I was concerned) and I tried and failed to get some of the first things I wrote and recorded as a singer/guitarist any further, and then through some bad recording sessions with others that I thought might lead to some doors opening—I probably would have sounded a little bitter. But I've come to realize (should have then, considering the experienced folks I knew and was raised by) that not everything in those situations was something i had control over. It may not have mattered if I did. I have never cared about making money playing music, but I deplore inequity in it as well. I don't like greed, whether it be about money, or attention. It demeans art. I bemoaned some opportunities we missed, but not because I sought some sort of fame, but because most of the time we put in the hard work and then for varying reasons didn't get to play to a wider (not bigger) audience. The usual things happened to us, in every band I was in, that happened to everybody else that came up wanting: guys had jobs; guys got married; guys moved away; gals broke up with guys and left the band; lost interest; whatever. The Drednex, in particular, had a great run, played with cool people, navigated between two very different singers successfully, and just had hiccups that blocked that step to go farther. But so much of it was just having some luck and working hard, and that's something to be thankful for, all said.

villin: Another project you've worked on is the Old Thrashers Reunion. That kicked off in 2008 as "a reunion of people from the 80's punk rock scene" benefiting United Action for Youth (UAY), and I believe the 2017 iteration included a performance from you and a reunited Drednex. What was it that drew you to the Old Thrashers series, how long were you involved for, and I didn't see anything about a 2023 event: Was last year's edition its last dance?

Kelly Plumber: My friend Kylie Buddin started the Old Thrashers thing as a combo birthday bash/UAY benefit. I went to a couple over the years, but there was a 2015(?) one that happened in the Summer that year that more folks could attend from farther away (they were usually held in March), and it was the last one held at 10 S. Gilbert, a Unitarian church that hosted some amazing punk shows during the early '80s (all ages, good behavior), and was that perfect reunion/memory space for a particular set of Iowa City bands to reconvene. And I had been in touch with some folks about going to that show, some of whom I hadn't seen in decades. I went down, hung out all day and most of the night with a lot of people I hadn't seen in a very long time and it was kind of earthshaking for me on quite a few levels. 

I had lost four friends of mine during the previous year to various ailments; three of them younger than me. I reacquainted with a lot of folks from the old scene that day, and it was like stepping back into a briefly interrupted conversation. I found myself wondering why in the hell I lost track of these people, some of whom lived barely three hours away. I had been contemplating retiring from my small business in light of missing playing music, seeing that nothing is guaranteed to anyone of any age via those lost friends, just a general malaise in my life top to bottom. That day changed everything for me. As I sat talking with somebody later that night, we saw Kylie saunter by, drained by the whole thing physically and emotionally. We had him sit down, told him how amazing it was and he confided he was thinking about hanging it up because it was a lot of work and his kid was getting bigger. And I thought right then that I would step up, step in.

I made a wish list of bands that had yet to reunite to play the Thrashers, including the Drednex, which was awkward because I had flat out resisted previous attempts to get us back together. We wrangled a new place to have the event because 10 S. had been shuttered by the city. I spent six months trying to get musicians from Austria to California to get back together and play for 30 minutes apiece, including a couple members of the Tape Beatles, who played the intermissions with their appropriated found sound mastery. It came together about three weeks before the event was to go off, and I ended up playing drums in two bands, because the drummer for Horny Genius had feet issues due to diabetes, and nearly ended up playing bass for The Burlap Elevated, because one of their members was playing hard to get (they ended up practicing by Zoom across three states). I rented a house in Iowa City, practiced like crazy for months, and it was a great show.

I did two more years, COVID derailed another, my friend Hart Epstein picked up the baton last year, and this year it just didn't happen, for no particular reason. It's really hard to keep that event fresh strictly relying on "old" Thrashers, so we had started asking young bands from Iowa City to be on the bills in the recent past. But it's still a hard ask to get people to come home from all over the country, or even locally, for no money, even considering the cause. I think it will go on. It's so much a "family" reunion, and I hope everybody, even younger folks, understand that it's not promised that we'll be here. We've lost even more of those Thrashers just in the past couple years. It's also more work than anybody who hasn't done one could ever understand.

For more from the Iowa Musicians Project, browse their website or follow along via Instagram and Facebook for regular updates. The article image features the cover from the Drednex' Leftovers Tonight release, featuring Kelly on drums.

Midwest Mixtape Interview

Billed as "a podcast where two music lovers come together to explore the landscape of the music industry across the Midwest," Midwest Mixtape issued five episodes this May capturing interviews with a diverse cross-section of musicians. Created by Emily Postlethwait and Natalie Novak, the project was borne out of the pair of friends' mutual appreciation for music, and resulted discussion ranging from a free-flowing talk with Allegra Hernandez about transgender rights to a near-confrontational dialog with Brenton Dean (of Holy White Hounds), touching on the competitive nature of working as a professional musician. The podcast also served as a capstone project for the two as they wrapped their degrees at Drake, and in this edition of Making a Scene, Natalie shared some thoughts about what she learned from the conversations, her own relationship with local music, and whether they'll carry the podcast forward post-graduation.

villin: If I heard correctly in the episode with Patrick Walsh, Midwest Mixtape is part of a capstone class project. What led you to wanting to make this sort of podcast and is that how you two met—in school?

Natalie Novak: Emily and I met freshmen year of college. We both studied similar subjects and lived in the same dorm room, on the same floor. It's funny, Emily and I talked about starting a podcast our freshmen year. I think we were both surprised that we actually saw it through, as a part of our capstone project senior year.

villin: Are there any standout memories you have of seeing local bands play shows in and around Des Moines, and which would you say are your favorite venues for live music in the area?

Natalie Novak: Watching Allegra Hernandez perform last month at Capitol City Pride was a really cool and meaningful experience. Especially after getting to speak with them on the podcast, it was so awesome to be there cheering them on. They sounded amazing with their band and totally killed it.

villin: At the podcast's core is a mission of exploring "the landscape of the music industry across the Midwest," and as the first five episodes have proven, it's impossible to separate music from the humanity of those who create it. What I mean is that the episodes have focused, perhaps to a surprising degree, on personal topics ranging from addiction to mental health to transgender rights. Looking back on the themes which have arisen thus far, did anything come up that surprised you, and how has digging into these topics and getting to know the musicians you've spoken with influenced how you hear their music?

Natalie Novak: There were some topics discussed that I was surprised guests were willing to share. Not everyone is able to open up about such personal hardships, so I really applaud our guests for being so open. Hearing the details of experiences that inspired works, or reactions they had received has really made an impact on how I listen to their music. It humanizes it for me and helps me understand how much their music means to each of them, and how deeply personal music can be.

villin: A recurring premise throughout the show is that there's a specific type of relationship with music which Midwesterners have. How has living in the Midwest influenced your own journey as a music fans?

Natalie Novak: For me, I think growing up in the Midwest has made me more appreciative of music, and more involved with it in my community. Anytime I hear about a concert or live music anywhere—it doesn’t really matter if I know the group well, or if I’m a fan of their music—I try to make it.  When there are bigger artists that come to town, even if I’m not a huge fan, I will still make an effort to go, just because our exposure is a little more limited than in bigger cities. You don’t know when or if you’ll have another chance to see that group/artist. I think it also made me really appreciate when people do come tour here. It can be rare that we get the privilege of being able to see our favorite artists in our state. I think people in bigger cities might that for granted. Because it doesn’t happen as often, I think it just feels a little bit more special.

villin: Another recurring topic on the show deals with how artists feel about living and working in the Midwest, as opposed to a larger market. One of the things I got a kick out of personally was hearing Nashville included in that discussion—I lived there for over a decade and have a running joke with a close friend about how insular and small a town it is in many ways. In my time there I came to love a lot of music coming out of the city, but I also recognize that its musicians run into the same problem there as they do just about anywhere: To gain a bigger following outside of Nashville you actually have to leave Nashville! What's one piece of advice or a lesson that has really stuck with you from the interviews you've done so far?

Natalie Novak: I think the biggest lesson I learned in this was about connecting with my community. Nearly every interview we did was interesting, emotional, and inspiring. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting each of these individuals and being able to connect with them. Though the episodes were only 20 minutes or so each, the interviews were much longer—an hour or two. I didn’t expect to connect so deeply with our guests and I think that is what I am most grateful for/my biggest takeaway. Without this podcast I would have almost certainly never met these people. I enjoyed hearing their stories, getting to know them, their perspective, and their unique experiences. Many of them expressed gratitude for the platform and enjoyed having these conversations. I am just as thankful they took a chance on us, and for the wisdom and knowledge they shared.

villin: Your conversation with Brenton Dean of Holy White Hounds was particularly memorable because of his outspokenness on a number of topics; the subject of "local" branding being one of them. To paraphrase, he said that over-identifying with a place—at least doing so in terms of self branding—is "ridiculous." The point he was trying to make, I believe, is that labeling oneself as from a city or region, out of a sense of pride, is a misguided practice—naming Tech N9ne's references to Kansas City in his music, as an example. As I was listening to his argument, I found myself thinking about my own position from the other side of this coin: This whole website is aimed at championing the very thing he was critical of, calling out and drawing attention to creatives based on a sort of regional association. Likewise, your podcast is named Midwest Mixtape, focusing attention similarly.

The parameters of doing something like this, to narrow the lane of attention to a specific group of musicians might not be of any interest to many, but I think it has value—particularly when the tools and online avenues for music discovery which are available to help people find new music often overlook independent artists... let alone independent artists in small or non-existent markets, such as those throughout Iowa. For many, to get noticed anywhere, that often starts with getting noticed at home. I find this to be a really interesting topic, obviously, but have you had any thoughts since that conversation about the potential benefits and drawbacks of the "local" branding conversation?

Natalie Novak: I respect Brenton Dean’s opinion but I disagree. I think there’s a difference between branding yourself as your hometown/state/whatever and having some good old-fashioned hometown pride, and just sharing your experience. I think where we grow up has a huge influence on us. Growing up in the Midwest, I always felt like it wasn’t as “cool” as a place to be from, and that it would’ve been way more exciting to grow up someplace else. We have the reputation of having nothing going on. And yeah, maybe we don’t have as much stuff going on as they do in Los Angeles or New York. But there is life here, contrary to popular belief. It isn’t all cornfields and soybeans. Midwesterners make art, too. Iowans make art, too. A big part of our motivation behind this was to lift up these artists that don’t get the same coverage/attention. To show people we are here.

villin: I also enjoyed hearing directly from artists about their takes on the topic of the business of music; not necessarily out of some lust over capitalism, but more so in terms of learning about ways in which they've identified as viable opportunities and mediums by which they can help support themselves as professional artists. Looking ahead, is the podcast something you'd like to continue on with and, if so, is that topic something you'd like to lean in on, or are there other areas you'd like to explore further?

Natalie Novak: Yes! I found this really interesting, too, to hear how they were able to get creative in making their livings. I think it’s definitely a point of interest. Originally we set out to get a full scope of the music industry here and wanted to speak with more record labels and venues and things like that. So if we were to continue, we would definitely keep up with the artists but also work more on expanding our scope. Emily and I have discussed continuing the podcast, we both want to. Having just graduated this spring, we are both in a transition period and dealing with moving and getting adjusted to new jobs and post-grad life. I would love to continue with the podcast, but at this point, I don’t know exactly when more episodes could be expected.

For more, listen to the entire Midwest Mixtape podcast series via Spotify, and follow Natalie via Instagram or at Urban Plains for future updates.

DRXCULV Interview

DRXCULV is a Des Moines-based MC and producer, and his new album, SUBURBAN NIGH+MARE, is aptly titled, bearing a deeply embedded sense for the nightmarish terrors provoked through everyday life. There's a heavy flavor of collaboration throughout the release, featuring the likes of Chino Vivid, Lil AR, HXD, King Luu, and fellow Blackshoe Inc. crew member Imma, but despite the communal aspect of its creation, the lyrical focus often reverts back to one of isolation and paranoia. Speaking to this, in our conversation DRXCULV commented on the track “RIPDEADTEEN,” noting that "the song is about a collective that I used to be in before I joined Blackshoe Inc. that ended up breaking up, and all the members disbanded." This, he said, influenced his internal feelings, which can be heard as a "feeling of paranoia and distrust throughout the album." That's where we began our talk, looking at the release as an autobiographical reflection of what he's been going through.

villin: From the beginning to the end, there's a thread of paranoia and distrust that runs throughout the album's lyrics. When we were originally talking about SUBURBAN NIGH+MARE, you commented on how this album was going to be different in that it leans in the direction of autobiographical rather than fictional. Besides the two threads I mentioned, what are some of the main themes you're hoping to communicate with the release?

DRXCULV: My main objective with this release was to showcase my vulnerability both as a human and as an artist. I feel like in this day in age it’s a lot of pressure to always come off as perfect, or “bigger than life”on social media, and that can be an easy path towards depression for many people. So instead of just making a album full of all my highlights I wanted to take time to talk about my insecurities and imperfections.

villin: "Stockholm" has a line about feeling angry, only to then also feel regret, and in "American Dream" you rhyme, "And when the going is tough and when the going is clean / Everything that you see be killing your self esteem." My takeaway from this sort of thought is a recognition that the contributing factors around us might be negatively influencing us, but that there's a considerable amount of personal responsibility still felt for the feelings that follow. I've been there, feeling lost by it all, only to blame myself for being in the position I'm in in the first place... despite also recognizing I have no control over so much of what's causing me to feel the way I do. What thoughts were you having when trying to put these two songs together?

DRXCULV: Well, firstly, I was having a lot of feelings of overwhelming self awareness. And not just for my personal position in life but awareness of the collective consciousness and what we all have in common when it comes to the negative thoughts that we have. And when I started thinking about this topic i started to think about how American Media and Western Society values in general will basically take your hand and walk you down a path of insecurity and distrust, which really is in the government's best interest. It’s easier to control a group of anxious insecure people than any other group. But what makes matters worse is that we gladly allow this thinking into our minds because finding a new way to think would be too much work for the average person .

villin: There are a few sources of lyrical inspiration teased on SUBURBAN NIGH+MARE, and there's a line from "Girls I Trust" that I particularly appreciated because of how I could hear it coming from someone like Lil Wayne. "If the shoe fight / I mean if the shoe fits / Only shoes I give a fuck about is 'Blackshoe' bitch." But on the other side of things, where did you draw inspiration from on the production side and what are some of your favorite moments, musically, from the release?

DRXCULV: I really appreciate that you named Lil Wayne because that is actually a huge inspiration and was my literal first favorite rapper growing up. The instrumental behind“Girls I Trust” is definitely one of my favorite musical moments. It samples a song from a female lead band named “Men I Trust,” hence the name. Another moment I was proud of was the ending of the “B Roll interlude.” I’ve been really fascinated with synths and keyboards so I used that ending to give myself space to have fun and experiment with the different sounds on my keyboard. And My favorite beat on the whole album was the one for “RIPDEADTEEN.” I spend a lot of time looking through old music to sample and turn into a beat and that specific sample is one of my favorites I’ve ever found.

villin: In "Midwest Paranoia" you have the line, "what's the point of making music when you from I.A." which sort of aligns with a moment from "Monster on Maple St.," where you mention how local music is on decline. What were your thoughts behind these lines; they seem to come from both a place of defeatism.

DRXCULV: With the “Midwest Paranoia” line, it came from a place of feeling like screaming into an abyss. Living in Iowa, which is really just fly-over land, it feels like in the grand scheme of music our area doesn’t matter or doesn’t get paid attention to. And even though, like myself, a lot of artists here are doing this strictly for the love of music, it would also be a dream come true to make a living off of what we do. But again, living somewhere like Iowa makes that dream feel very unrealistic sometimes. Which then brings up the “local music on decline” line, that it’s hard enough that we live in a place that not a lot of people pay attention to, but in my opinion only a handful of artists genuinely take it serious, too. There’s amazing talent and work that is taking place in [Des Moines] but a lot of it isn’t [taken] serious because of the amount of lower than average stuff that comes out.

villin: With last year's ANTIPORN there were a ton of examples where you cited horror for inspiration, and in this album Dr. Faust gets a shout out. The true horror, in my ears, comes late in the album though, where the narrative focuses on a recognition of homicidal urges which leads not to external violence, but to isolation from others. In "Fox Creek Drive," there's a line that repeats, "Evil shit has been my personality." I'm wondering if you could explain the connection between that darkness and the self-alienation that seems to follow.

DRXCULV: Firstly, I’ve just always had a fascination with horror and the darker side of things. I feel like, as humans, something about our brains make us very interested/intrigued whenever those topics are bought up, so I like to play with that psychology with my lyrics. And the alienation and almost homicidal feelings comes from simply being Black in America. From both sides of living. From being into things like rock music and film and things that aren’t usually celebrated in the Black community, that definitely enabled my feelings of alienation. And the homicidal urges comes from dealing with these systematic oppressors and even the people who look like me who are only in this for personal gain, and don’t think twice about not helping something who’s the least bit different from them.

Living in this reality it would make anybody distrust everyone and think about killing, but I’m also emotionally aware enough to know that this is also the feeling that turns my people into a statistic. So, instead of acting on them I would rather speak my truth on a record to heal that feeling.

For more from DRXCULV, listen to SUBURBAN NIGH+MARE on Apple Music, Spotify, or YouTube, and follow him online via Instagram.

Strong Like Bear "The Slow Collapse" (Singled Out)

With the release of In The Future Only The Rich Will Live Forever in 2021, Strong Like Bear uncharacteristically waded into the realm of stoner fuzz. In exploring the dialogue surrounding the album, there's an interesting contrast at play with it. Little Village commented on the band being "as silly as they are serious" in a review, and speaking to the Ames Tribune, guitarist and lead vocalist Bryon Dudley commented that the release "started out kind of as a joke, but then we kept getting serious about it." The music never really screams "silly," though it does sound borne of playful experimentation, and the same holds true with the group's new single, "The Slow Collapse." The song covers a lot of ground, musically, in its five minute run-time, though it takes a dramatic departure sonically from the aforementioned stoner-leaning affair; elements of whirling pop-rock act as a counterbalance to more distorted riffs before giving way to a wavy jam of an outro. In this edition of Singled Out, Bryon Dudley, drummer Rachel Dudley, and bassist Greg Bruna dig into the track, discussing their collaborative process, the song's lyrical focus, and the influence of Sonic Youth on its sound.

villin: Sonically, the track aligns with its title - maybe not collapsing, but at least meandering away from its initial direction. Does the song's title have much to do with how it plays out musically?

Bryon Dudley: It definitely does. We were trying to create some tension so that when we got to a release it would hopefully actually feel like a release.

villin: Vocally, the song utilizes a little distortion in complementing the instrumentation, but what is the track's focus lyrically?

Bryon Dudley: The lyrics tell a story about a group of cyberpunk kids in the future, hanging out on a rooftop, making fun of this city jam-packed full of people. While they're taking videos and things, martial law is declared, and cops stream in and start arresting everyone. The punks steal a car and escape the city in a big chase, and learn to live outside the city in Nature. And they're punks, you know? So they're not really equipped to do that. But they end up feeling more free than they've ever felt before.

villin: In another lifetime I used to contribute to a music blog with a couple other guys, including one who would without fail find a way to include the word "jangly" in his reviews when talking about guitars. That word is, itself, a bit of a pet peeve for me, but it's also what was coming to mind when listening to the track as it changed directions and winds down. When we first connected, Bryon, you called it "a big spacey jam." What was the sound you were going for there?

Bryon Dudley: I used to write for some music blogs, and am also guilty of overusing the word "jangly" to describe guitars (hahaha). I'm blaming Big Star.

We were really trying to do this big buildup, and then have a release that would sort of sonically demonstrate the bliss in Nature that these escaped punks were feeling. Something very chill, but also very free, ideally without any sort of attachment to anything else, a new beginning. I'm also a big fan of the SYR series of Sonic Youth albums, so there's a healthy amount of that DNA in there as well.

villin: Greg and Rachel, when approaching a song like "The Slow Collapse," did you find your approach to crafting the rhythm changed significantly from some of the more stoner rock-leaning music on the band's last album?

Greg Bruna: Well, the song was supposed to be a bit of a palette cleanser for us. We were working hard on all these heavy, riff-based stoner tunes and we wanted to clear the air a bit. I like to think of myself as being able to meld into whatever genre I'm recording and serve the song on its own terms. But to be honest, if you were to listen to just the bass tracks of "The Slow Collapse" soloed, its over-driven, I’m pounding on one riff through most of the song, and the chorus is filled with tritones! It's all pretty much still stoner rock, so I may not be as clever as I like to believe.

Rachel Dudley: I wouldn't say it changed significantly, but it was certainly different. I had been learning a lot of covers of '80s pop tunes at the time and that opened up some new riffs in my bag of tools, so to speak. My first instrument was the guitar, so my habitual instinct is to play the drums like a guitar player, but I am constantly trying to break out of that mold. Immersing myself in classic pop tunes that I grew up with and picking up some of those chops was a great way for me to grow as a musician. The timing of our recording "The Slow Collapse" worked out great in that respect.

villin: And is there a song writing process that you've locked in on by this point within the group?

Greg Bruna: If Bryon is bringing the nugget that the song grows out of, then the process tends to be him playing that piece over and over while we keep trying stuff 'til something clicks. Emphasis on, "over and over.”

Rachel Dudley: I would echo Greg's assessment on this one. Bryon typically brings a couple of chord progressions he's come up with and we'll just jam on them for a while until we find the grooves we like in each of them. Then, we start hammering out the arrangement of a song. It is definitely a collaborative process, and what I really enjoy about this band is that we are all open to and respect what each of us brings to the table.

villin: Seeing as though there's a lot of stylistic free-flowing from one single or album to the next, with the band, do you find that working as a trio allows you more flexibility when writing music?

Greg Bruna: Being a trio is definitely limiting in some respects; we can do a lot more in the studio than live. However, I find the smaller the group, the tighter it can potentially be. Often this translates into complicated arrangements as we dive deeper and deeper into trying crazy ideas when left to our own devices down in The Spacement. We are maybe a little too good at indulging each other when an idea sprouts up! I think being together for over a decade has allowed us to develop a great sense of trust in each other. So if one of us wants to go out on a limb exploring, we know the other two will be right there. Over the years this has allowed us a lot of leeway when we start talking about what music we want to create next. It's something I really appreciate about this band.

Rachel Dudley: Again, I think Greg summed this up perfectly! Each of us enjoys a wide variety of music and it's really fun to explore various styles. We challenge each other to explore and see where we can go. At the end of the process, I feel like we all grow as players with each new single, EP, or album. I also think that, in the end, we always sound like us, and not like we are trying to be something we are not.