The Greatest Interview Ever, feat. Worrier

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Mp3: Worrier -Reverse the Hearse

One of the best things about working for SeizureChicken (and when I say “working,” I mean that the staff makes me shotgun bottles of maple syrup at gunpoint as “payment” for writing for SC) is the insight I’ve gained into Milwaukee music. One of the best Brew City bands I’ve heard in my short time stealing eggs in the Coop is called Worrier, whose quirks are as readily apparent as the undeniable quality of their tunes. Quirks, you say? You want quirks? I’ll give you some quirks: Worrier’s album, Sources Errors Spells, is out…IN JAPAN. ONLY IN JAPAN.

Okay, so that’s pretty much it as far as quirks go – at least, aside from the music itself, which is a fairly quirky (but totally accessible) Mendelian cross-breed of twitchy post-punk dance rhythms, cyclical, minimalist guitar parts, and soothing vocal melodies. The resultant effect is that of several minutes of strangely relaxing bee stings. And so, amidst great ballyhoo and hullabaloo, I do hereby honor Worrier with the first ever SeizureChicken GOOD BAND merit badge, signifying our utmost blog-endorsement. In addition to their various internet avatars – Myspace, Facebook, and my personal favorite, Google Image Search – you can also find Worrier at SeizureChicken’s very own One-Year Anniversary Bash, supporting the Austin-based agent of cool that is Harlem and Milwaukee’s very own recent Sub Pop signees/coolest damn dudes EVER, Jaill. Which is May 3rd at Mad Planet…in case you were wondering or something. And now, without further ado, a very special interview with the swarthy globe-trekking gents themselves…ladies and gentlemen, a li’l bitty interview with a big bad band, Worrier:

Tony Wonder: Your debut album is barely even out yet, but you’ve already got feet in Japan, Ireland, France, planning a European tour (etc. etc…y’all know where I’m going with this)…why did you decide to release an album on a Japanese imprint? Why such an international plan of attack?

Scott- We took the opportunities given to us. As a band were kinda international anyway. Personally that’s how I see us..Weve had interest here too from labels, but throw us in with everybody else scrapping for a deal and i guess we sit on the ‘nice but maybe a little too strange’ pile. None of it has been planned or orchestrated. Plus who wouldn’t want to put a record out in Japan! I’d start a Creed cover band if it meant we could go and play Tokyo!

Chris- We made some (in retrospect) bad label decisions here in the states, turning down offers to wait for one label in particular… who eventually told us to get in touch with them on the next album. So I decided to join Scott’s Creed cover band, only as the Kid Rock role for when he goes wayward, and he will.

Tony Wonder: Any advice or words of inspiration for upstart bands looking to get their feet into the door of the music industry?

S- Dont listen to us, were not exactly there yet! I used to think that the D.I.Y thing was a good idea, and that building a local fan base was good also, but I hear of bands getting signed to big indie labels having never played a show before, Locally it’s who you know, nationally and bigger than that its pure luck. If your band is rad, that cant hinder you either. Thats something we have to work on!

C- Brush your teeth, change your clothes every once in a while, hang out with your pals, and call your mom in between your constant writing, practicing and tweaking of various online propaganda podiums… actually repeat is the only thing to take from all that, everything happens 20 times slower then it should so just keep cracking skulls, and call your mom.

Tony Wonder: How do you feel about the idea of the “local music scene” in the age of the internet, in which everything is easily accessible no matter where it’s been made? Is it fostering a local scene more irrelevant than ever, or more important than ever?

S- Local scenes are important to the people in that scene. Then i guess occasionally other people notice it if it’s raging. Like the LA or Portland thing at the moment. But does anybody in say Houston wonder what the Milwaukee scene is like? Or Vice Versa. I have mixed feelings with the idea of a local scene.Only because I’ve seen people act like total egomaniacs before. And its very easy for it to become elitist, which only defeats the point of having a ‘scene’ in the first place. On the flipside if your part of that you probably dont care that much either. Think locally, aim globally.

C- I hope it’s the latter. Because there is so much out there now it’s nice to be able to associate yourself and be proud when good things happen to “our” local bands. It seems it’s given more a reason then ever for local bands to unite and be mighty together. But like Scott said they can sometimes end up being more like golf club memberships then a union jack attacks.

Tony Wonder: I hear Japan is a strange place if you’re not from around there – any crazy Japanese touring stories? Any cartoon-induced seizures?

S- I hope it’s crazier than a bag of spiders! we should do a tour blog!

C- I get seizures if I watch more then 5 minutes of Yo Gabba Gabba, so Sean acts as my seeing eye dog. Plus he knows every Yo Gabba Gabba song, so if I get the fear he sings quietly to me and let’s me scratch the tuft of his neck.

Tony Wonder: Compositionally, your songs are very interesting – instead of chords and your standard Bob-Dylan-Beach Boys-Beatles songwriting, there’s lots of sparse, prickly interlocking instrumental parts and addictive little chants. Also, there’s two drummers, so…how do you go about writing these songs? What’s a typical songwriting session like for Worrier?

C- I flip’n love all those guys’ tunes and songwriting style, I just suck at it. Also, growing up my dad invaded my brain with an all out 70′s guitar rock assault, then my older brother raped it with Satriani/Via/(may God forgive him)Malmsteem/etc.. When i finally got my brain to myself I crammed as much Dischord/US Maple/Sonic Youth/etc in as i could. I think this tragic story somehow formed the idea that while guitar rock owns you can do it however you want to… and if it ain’t wacky enough throw some vocals on it to make it even more confusing. So ya, we all sit in a dark room holding hands listening to Micheal Angelo Batio and The Talking Heads played simultaneously before every jam, then we fail at both, but succeed at making something that makes sense to us. Then my dad grounds us.

S- The two drummers thing was a one off tour we did with a friend. We only rock the one kit now! Although if Animal from the Muppets wants in, we’d make an exception. Me and Chris wrangle ideas all of the time… sometimes too much for our own sanity, then we try and organize it. Once we have it outlined, we work it out as a band.

Tony Wonder: “Wind the Sails,” “I am the River,” “Lost Ships”…there’s a definite aquatic theme on your record. What’s the reasoning behind this imagery?

S- I cant speak for Chris but, I feel it has a lot to do with the fact his studio looks right out on the lake, here in Milwaukee. So its what we would look at all day when we wrote that album. I’m from England and that lake looks bigger than my whole country! It feels like the sea or the ocean, and I guess it colored the music.

C- Its like I told the good people of Japan: It was kinda unspoken early on that there was a definite nautical theme peeking it’s head in on us, so we said- “Welcome you beautiful sea creature, we will do our best to represent you in the glorious manner you deserve.” and we nurtured that little beast into the album we have now. Their probably gonna think we’re creepy now.

So really, it did sneak in on us unplanned and worked its way up to an embraced theme, which I think created good imagery for the music while still leaving it nicely left to individual interpretation.

Tony Wonder: When I try and google “worrier” or “worrier Milwaukee” or “worrier band,” the only results I get concern stupid bands named “warrior.” How much does this suck?

S- It’s gotta be sweet for the bands called ‘Warrior’ because they might get a little more traffic. Haha.

C- Tell the truth Scott, we started all those bands as a classic diversion tactic, at the appointed time we shall pull the plug on them and watch the search floodgates open with absolutely no regard to all current “Warrior” bandmates (and family’s) to whom we’ve come to know and love in our underhanded double agentry… and we will laugh and laugh.

Tony Wonder: Okay, so, we’re in 2010. You can release an album in Japan, but music is also pretty much free for anyone willing to steal it. The king and queen of the musical monarchy are Pitchfork and Miley Cyrus. If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be? (Ofcourse you can list more than one thing)

S- I’d put Miley Cyrus in charge of the reviews for pitchfork. And then i’d make the people from pitchfork write all of her music and
play as her backing band. Seriously though, the music industry has always been mental. People were copying cassette tapes like crazy in the 80′s. Maybe because pop music has gotten progressively worse and worse it’s now almost worthless, so they scapegoat something for it. I’m in no way advocating piracy. But if somethings worth buying, people will always pay extra for it.

C- Eradicate coke and hookers involvement in record deals and we might get legitimate music back on mainstream radio for the first time since The Doobie Brothers, wait… Ahh hell. F it, you know Miley has the best blow.

Tony Wonder: Say I’m planning a trip to Japan. What is the legal limit of Pokemon that I can bring onto an international flight?

S- Whatever it is, it’s probably not enough!

C - Its 40 personal use, 45 non-personal use and minimum 3 each of the following: Sneasel, Slowking and Pikachu. But I hear it’s pretty easy to mule pack a couple foil packs.

>>> you can get tickets in advance 4 the May 3rd – Worrier/Jaill/Harlem show, here.