HAVE A NICE LIFE

HAVE A NICE LIFE INTERVIEW WITH FOUNDING MEMBERS DAN BARRETT AND TIM MACUGA BY MARIKA ZORZI

PHOTO BY BEN STAS

CONSUMER INTERVIEW WITH MULTI-INSTRUMENTALIST TIM MACUGABY MARIKA ZORZI

Eleven years after their initial release, Deathconsciousness, Have A Nice Life have found new focus and discipline on Sea of Worry. The new album, out in November 2019 via The Flenser, is a triumphant addition to their ever-evolving discography.

“I think all the records that we put out feel of a specific time and place,” founding member Dan Barrett says. “[With] this album that is very much the case. This record reflects us as a band now.”

Have A Nice Life was formed at a time when founding members Barrett and Tim Macuga both dealt with depression and suicidal ideation. As the project’s following has grown, Dan and Tim have aged and faced new life challenges, such as family and careers. Sea of Worry reflects just that.

“I think the biggest difference is that I got married and had kids,” Barrett admits. “I take being a dad very seriously.

“Another thing that’s really different is that there’s an audience now,” he continues. “I think in the beginning we had nobody that cared. We’re still a very small band relative to anybody that does this seriously, but there are people who care when we put things out. I’ve also talked to a lot of people who have these really deep relationships with the stuff that’s we’ve made. So, I try to be more aware of that.”

“I don’t know if it’s just because I’m older, but a lot of the stuff that I wrote – it’s not like I regret it, because I don’t, but I’m also careful to think more about what it does once it’s out there, and how people are going to relate to it. I don’t want it to just be, ‘hey, killing yourself is super cool.’ There’s definitely a thread in our community that toes that line a little too closely for my taste. And maybe that’s just me getting older, but it’s definitely different now than it was before.”

As the title suggests, dread is the primary theme throughout Sea of Worry. “I’m definitely somewhere on the neurotic end of the spectrum there,” Barrett confesses. “I do tend to worry about a fair amount of things. Especially when you have kids, there’s just this kind of endless supply of things to worry about. I worry about my depressive tendencies, like do they inherit that? It’s a constant sense of responsibility to other people. You do it because you want to do it, hopefully, but it’s still exhausting. I think a lot of that works its way into the record.”

“Despite this feeling of agency we have with the iPhone in our pockets,” Tim Macuga adds. “It’s very easy to get cynical and feel like it’s not worth even hoping you have any power over things. Because you’re just minding your time, having the id centers in your brain refreshed, and being distracted from the bigger ecological problems, the bigger foreign policy problems that our country has right now.”

“The closing track on Sea of Worry, called ‘Destinos,’” he continues. “That track is asking, ‘What am I?’ Period. Not, what am I in the context of my relationships or my job, or what am I in the context of these big political clashes of our times that I feel helpless in, but what does that make a person at the end of the day?” Maybe that’s a naïve thing to lose sleep or burn calories thinking about, but for Dan and myself, a lot of those are very real.”

The strong relationship between Barrett and Macuga is, without a doubt, what keeps Have A Nice Life together. “Tim has been my best friend for a very long time now,”

Barrett says. “But beyond that I’ve never had a working relationship or a creative relationship with anyone even remotely like him. That’s just such a valuable thing.”

“The band itself is an element of our friendship, our relationship.” Macuga adds. “Whenever we’re writing an album or playing for live shows, it’s just us two. It sounds like a marriage commitment. In a way, the two of us are rivals for the attention of our spouses, in terms of the amount of attention that we put into each other’s projects. It’s a relationship with that kind of gravity.”

“The thing that Have A Nice Life has, that no other project that I work with has, is the sheer joy of making music with Tim. And from this time around, with the other guys in the band,” Barrett explains. “I get to be surprised by stuff all the time and it’s just so great. There’s this feeling when we’ve recorded something, when we play it back and it sounds like a real song, there’s this feeling that I get that is just pure excitement. I feel like I just want to run around the room. I’m just not able to get that in any other way.” ��

Consumer features Tim Macuga from Have a Nice Life (HANL), as well as musicians from that project’s live lineup - bassist Mike Cameron, drummer, programmer and synth player Rich Otero, and guitarist and engineer Joe Streeter. In Computers is the first record released by the band, which formed in 2017.

“The A-side is three songs that we wrote within the first few months of our inception,” Macuga explains. “The B-side, that’s pretty noisy, but those were soundscapes and tape-loops that had come out of some separate sessions.”

“Essentially, the song-writing process just came out of me and Rich Otero and Mike Cameron paying rent on the same practice space that we were using for HANL rehearsals in 2017,” he continues. “We all kind of separately had some ideas for different styles and textures that we wanted to work in. The end result we felt comfortable releasing to the world around the same time that [HANL’s] Sea of Worry is coming out. I wouldn’t call it a demo, it’s been too fussed over and worked on and polished, but it’s kind of our first notion as an ensemble, that we’d gotten together and written between all of us.”

Even though all the band members come from Have A Nice Life, this project is aimed at a different purpose, Macuga says.

“HANL is deeply personal stuff. Consumer, that’s kind of a place for a conceptual processing of where we are as a late-capitalist society, where automation has made human labor redundant. Not dystopian themes, but sometimes very dry economic ideas that we want to give voice to or critique. We figured that a different project would be necessary for that kind of thing, that wouldn’t fit the inward-looking, private, emotional vibes that HANL does. Sonically, HANL has its louder parts, it has its synthier parts, but that kind of loud and heavy and damaged and broken kind of sound that we’ve brought to Consumer, some of those sounds don’t quite have the same home as with HANL.”

Macuga says that bass-player Mike Cameron came up with the title In Computers, and thought it would be open to different interpretations.

“I like the idea that it’s open to a variety of directions and putting it all together. The lyrics are very focused on our roles as buyers and movers of product in this society, but in terms of the loudness and the bigness of the size we’re going for, there’s the destructive doom-metal element in it. It makes room for the idea of the consumption of fire, the consumption of matter in the universe, so I like the fact that it can cut in different directions,” he explains.

“Most people,” he continues. “Even if they’re not willing to admit that we’re running up against ecological constraints, material constraints, scientifically we have the data to point to the idea that our consumption-driven lifestyles are not a good thing, not just for the environment around us, but for us in terms of our personal health. To suggest some sort of ascetic, sacrificial kind of lifestyle to preserve and conserve what we can about the world in which we live, it’s almost antithetical to the idea of how to sell people shit that they don’t need. I guess that’s an attractive idea for us to follow. The lyrics that we write for Consumer aren’t too wordy, they almost sound kind of caveman-like or dumb, because that’s what consumers are expected to be. It’s to give in to that id, to allow the latest flavor-blasted snack that the gas station is trying to sell us to push that pleasure center, and let us invite it in. The fact that we’ve gotten too good at selling things to the chemical components of our brain that we don’t actually really have control over, it’s kind of scary.”

FROM ATMOSPHERIC POST HARDCORE, TO ELECTRONIC DOOM, TO JAZZ INFLUENCED DISCO, WE OFFER A LOOK AT SOME BANDS PUSHING SONIC BOUNDARIES IN 2020. PHOTO BY DAVE RENTAUSKAS DJUNAH

INTERVIEW WITH MULTI INSTRUMENTALIST DONNA DIANE

North New Jersey’s Djunah exists in a weird but wonderful dichotomy where the duo is both a wonderful concept and yet truly insane. Donna Diane sings and plays the guitar, and what’s called a moog bass with her feet. She is seemingly surrounded by pedals and amps - and in most photos appears to do this shit in heels! Imagine having the coordination to pat your head and rub your belly (don’t pretend it’s easy!). Now imagine doing three things at once with one body and not going insane. That attention to detail and craft is also apparent in the multi-faceted noise rock the duo plays – there’s a haunting human element that’s more in line with soul and Gospel than hardcore, but the sonic violence is no less punishing. It’s a careful balance that makes Ex Voto, out now on Triple Eye Industries, feel like an instant classic, like we’ve got a new Melvins on our hands. So how did Diane find the ability to triple task?

“It was definitely a case of necessity being the mother of invention. My old band had ground to a halt, and I wanted a way to play solo without sacrificing the bass. I don’t like using prerecorded sounds or loops, so I decided to try playing guitar and a bass synth simultaneously. It’s such a mindfuck - I love it! Music is a physical, full-body experience for me anyway, so playing with my whole body - and controlling so much of the frequency spectrum - only deepens that.”

Thematically, Diane’s love of art with multiple layers and meanings comes forth in this affecting listen. Just like how the album art takes influence from the beautiful and the heart-breaking, her lyrics are haunting and moving in equal measure. So, what was the album about?

“So much has happened politically and personally since I started writing the album in 2016. I saw this theme of self-healing emerge, both for me as an individual and for society collectively. I see healing as a political imperative. We live in a near-constant state of political crisis, and I think people realize we’re never going to fix things if we keep hiding from our own sickness and trauma. Every day, people come forward with personal stories about sexual assault or opioid addiction or mental illness, and we’re slowly learning as a society to embrace that vulnerability instead of shaming it and telling it to shut up. I want to make music that represents the power of that vulnerability. A lot of my life I was told I was too sensitive and that being sensitive is weak. So, I killed off a lot of the feeling, in my heart and in my body, just to make it through the day. Reclaiming it and finding power in it has been incredibly healing for me. I think that’s why there’s a lot of sexuality in the music. Sex, to me, is the ultimate in combining sensitivity and power. I sometimes think of it as feminine power, but really it has no gender. �� PHOTO BY LUZ GALLARDO DREAM PHASES

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST/GUITARIST/BASSIST BRANDON GRAHAM

Creating psych rock that feels grounded in the real world is a feat tougher than getting high and doing, well much of anything. However, Los Angeles’ Dream Phases have their sights set in the land of the living rather than their namesake dream world. Sure, the hazy atmosphere is second to none, and it’s impossible not to feel the hallucinatory effects of So Long, Yesterday. Yet, the songs come together to create a haunting and compelling experience that should appeal to anyone who connects with the sultry tones of Ty Segall or Thee Oh Sees. Vocalist/guitarist/bassist Brandon Graham reflects on the affecting nature of the album, “We wanted to have each song stand on its own but also be able to blend into one another, sort of like The Dark Side of the Moon does, or the second side of Abbey Road. A lot of the songs are dealing with the end of a chapter in my life, and then moving onto the next one. So, there is a lot of nostalgia, reflection, and some melancholy that is shared both in the music and lyrics.” There’s a conversational element to the record that only amplifies the personal yet relatable nature of Graham’s lyrics. So Long, Yesterday is out now on Nomad Eel Records.��

ZONAL PHOTO BY LUKASZ GAWRONSKI

ZONAL Frankly, it would be more surprising if the latest project from the Frankly, it would be more surprising if the latest project from the legendary Justin Broadrick (Godflesh, Jesu) weren’t an absorbing, legendary Justin Broadrick (Godflesh, Jesu) weren’t an absorbing, massive listen. Indeed, his collaboration with Kevin Martin (The Bug) massive listen. Indeed, his collaboration with Kevin Martin (The Bug) - with key verses supplied by the wonderful Moor Mother - is a new - with key verses supplied by the wonderful Moor Mother - is a new masterpiece. This duo is writing their own rules on creating a unique masterpiece. This duo is writing their own rules on creating a unique fusion of futuristic industrial noise and hip hop. Moor Mother's infusion of futuristic industrial noise and hip hop. Moor Mother's inyour-face lyricism and delivery mesh beautifully with the varied, punyour-face lyricism and delivery mesh beautifully with the varied, punishing sonic output, creating a truly intoxicating listen that demands ishing sonic output, creating a truly intoxicating listen that demands the listener’s attention. It feels like the sonic embodiment of a host the listener’s attention. It feels like the sonic embodiment of a host of sci-fi classics - deftly pointing out society’s ills while dismantling of sci-fi classics - deftly pointing out society’s ills while dismantling power and creating glorious chaos. So, what did B ro a d power and creating glorious chaos. So, what did Broadrick aim to rick aim to accomplish with this record? accomplish with this record?

“The sound of alienation and the poetry of protest combine on Wrecked,” he says. “But we seek beauty in a future tense and “The sound of alienation and the poetry of protest combine on Wrecked,” he says. “But we seek beauty in a future tense and sensuality in friction. We find the record haunting and haunted, and I guess we wanted to create an album as warped as sensuality in friction. We find the record haunting and haunted, and I guess we wanted to create an album as warped as our headspace.” our headspace.”

ARCH OF LOVE

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST CHELSEA BRENNAN

Releasing more synthwave into the world isn’t a novel idea in 2019. However, doing so while creating captivating, intimate, and emotionally resonant tunes is one of the many reasons that Philadelphia’s Arch Of Love need to be on your radar. With the haunting vocals of Chelsea Brennan at the helm, the three singles released thus far (by 6131 Records, who have a knack for discovering the most promising new artists) paint a very bright neon (naturally) future for the retro-futuristic duo. The shared history, musical compatibility, and personal connection between Brennan and bandmate Chris Schackerman clearly contributed to making such powerful and punchy songs. Brennan notes that their creative union has been fruitful and inspiring. “Chris and I have known each other since our late teens in 2012, and always knew we shared this common love for creating music. Between then and now, it goes without saying that we experienced a lot of growth individually, which brings an entirely different ‘spark’ than it would have back then.” The comfort of knowing each other for seven years may not be immediately noteworthy among the synth lines, saxophone solos, and hummable hooks, but it manifests itself by making robotic music sound distinctly human. ��

PHOTO BY JOSH HUSKIN

PINKO The musical recipe for success is simple yet wonderfully effective for Pinko: start with your main course of angular noise rock, season liberally with ’80s punk speed and aggression, sprinkle a few dashes of caustic lyricism, and voila! That’s a spicy meatball! You & You does a masterful job playing up the familiar and the fresh - it’s home cookin’ for any fan of noise rock, but it’s got a flavor all its own thanks to the talent of the sonic chefs. Pinko is a band comprised of actual cooks, and the frustration of the real world certainly plays into their brand of brash punk.

“We tell stories in our own, obtuse way, focused on imagery and setting the table for our music,” guitarist and vocalist Guillermo Mendez says. “Our political views drip out, but lyrically, what we play as a band is shaped by what is going on. We’re all broke cooks who love our crafts, and find ourselves at odds with the myriad gross shit around us. It inspires us to ‘blow shit up’ with sound, and find a connection with people through that.”��