Pissed Jeans have just released a new album (sixth overall). Titled Half-Divorced, it showcases them taking a bit of a left turn. Many of the songs on the album are two minutes and under. They could be classified as hardcore punk, or at least Pissed Jeans’ take on hardcore punk. The record burns with an energy and aggression that belies their nearly 20 years in the game. In fact, many people won’t be expecting this from them at this point in their career. (I wasn’t.)
But, if you follow the band, you know they aren’t ones to conform to any sonic norms. They just play what they feel like playing. Though, vocalist Matt Korvette’s lyrics still deal with the craziness of being a human being in the insane world we have created for ourselves.
So, with an incredible new album just released, we sent Korvette a bunch questions concerning its creation and the state of the band, which also includes guitarist Brad Fry, bassist Randy Huth, and drummer Sean McGuinness.
His answers follow below.
Pissed Jeans have been around for nearly 20 years. Why do you keep coming back? What draws you to it?
We’ve never left it! I think our approach might be a little unusual in the music biz in that for the four of us, Pissed Jeans has always been this incredibly fun escape from all the drudgery of our non-creative work lives, not something to make a living at. Why ever stop doing what you love? We aren’t making strategic business moves with the band; we’re just playing shows and writing songs and recording them as often as we can, and we all love it dearly. I have always loved music, and I’ve been performing it for other people since I was an early teenager, and, I suppose I don’t see any reason to stop.
I’m lucky to do it with these friends of many years who feel similarly. Our goal has never been steady upward growth; that sounds too much like a corporation! We are happy to simply exist and make music we’re proud of, though I suppose I wish we came up with a different band name all those years ago—Who knew “Pissed Jeans” would be the band that lasts? The fact that other people are interested in checking it out remains an incredible bonus, of course. I realize it takes us a bit longer to put a new record together than many other bands, and that we do far less touring, but maybe that’s what helps keep it so fun – it never feels like an obligation.
How do you balance doing the band, with all your full lives away from it?
I guess part of the key there is that it doesn’t really take up a ton of our time. We play maybe like 20 shows a year (sometimes more, sometimes less, usually a couple long weekends or maybe a full week-long tour in there somewhere), and besides that, we don’t practice a whole lot unless we’ve got things coming up. The times when we’ve got a lot going on are rare but fun because of the temporary frenzy of it. I dunno, it’s like any hobby right? How does a model train enthusiast find the time to set up their tracks and engines and little trees and tunnels and stuff? They just find the time in between the rest of their lives, I’d imagine. I would love to find a way to not work a day job, but I’d have to luck into some crazy situation that allows me to continue to just have fun and not work particularly hard at anything, so I’m not holding my breath. I don’t want Pissed Jeans to ever feel like another job.
Was there any time in the past when you thought the band was done? How did you get through it?
I don’t think we ever thought the band was done … Many years ago, our original drummer moved away, and Sean quickly arrived to replace him, and shortly after that, our original bassist moved away too, and Randy stepped right in, so that wasn’t as scary as it could’ve been. During pre-vaccine COVID days, we would only talk to each other on the phone, no in-person practices or anything, and it certainly felt odd when we finally met up again, but we shook off those cobwebs pretty quickly and never entertained the idea of calling it. It’s like, if you love cooking, and you have some friendly mouths to feed, why would you ever hang up your apron? It’s going to have to be death or significant illness that gets us to stop, I really think, which of course are both quite real (and eventual) conditions.
When you are creating an album, what is the actual process like for the band?
Honestly, it’s some of the most fun I have with Pissed Jeans, writing and then recording new tunes. We get together in one of our little practice spots, and one of us has a musical idea—occasionally a full top-to-bottom song ready to go, but usually a riff or a part or two—and we try it out together and see how it feels. Some songs click immediately and take 15 minutes; sometimes we’ll have an idea, shelve it, bring it back months later and labor over it, and eventually it becomes something we think is special. We all are close and contribute with ideas and suggestions for every song, and I just really love that part of being in a band with these guys. By the time we get into the studio, our material is usually fully-formed, though there are always a handful of tracks that require the studio setting to really bring to life. We try to find a balance between spontaneity and well-rehearsed material, so we don’t feel too stiff or too loose.
Half-Divorced is a very aggressive album for a band that’s been around for about 20 years. You could have phoned it in. You didn’t. Where do you think this aggression came from? Were you trying to make a more hardcore punk influenced album? Or was this just how it turned out?
I’m really glad you got that out of it! I think part of it is us very strongly not wanting to age into wimp rock, as is the usual punk trajectory/retirement plan. I don’t know of any band who, like, released their first authentic hardcore punk songs six albums in! That idea amused us for sure, that our overall fastest and most aggressive record came out when we’re also at our most elderly. It’s like the direct opposite of SSD, Circle Jerks, Die Kreuzen, Hüsker Dü, all those greats.
That said, it wasn’t like we sat down and formulated a plan before writing—We wrote these songs over a few years, and only after we were really in the studio laying them down for a week did it seem abundantly clear that this was as close to hardcore-punk as we’ve ever gotten, even though it’s a style we all love (and have played in our younger years, prior to Pissed Jeans as well).
I also think that while you can file it under hardcore, there’s still a bit going on that’s very much the same as what we’ve done in the past: some groove, some noise, some riffage, some bizarreness. We never want to write a record that’s a full 180 from our previous stuff—I can say fairly confidently that there won’t ever be an industrial synth Pissed Jeans album, or a power metal Pissed Jeans album, though we are certainly fans of those styles. We are most interested in writing songs that feel like they fit within our little Pissed Jeans universe, but hopefully pushing out on those self-imposed boundaries each time. We want to surprise ourselves without betraying what feels like the true Pissed Jeans aesthetic or whatever.
The lyrics take a hard look at some of the realities of being an adult—of course, with your trademark acerbic humor. How does having a sense of humor help deal with all the crap that goes on with being an adult?
It’s just how we’ve always been … I think our most natural way of dealing with the world and its myriad problems is to find the humor in them, or at least find a funny way of reacting to it. I really can’t relate to bands who are so stonefaced in their presentation, though there are certainly plenty of dead-serious, no-laughing artists that I admire. That just ain’t us.
I think part of it goes back to just what a joy it is to be in this band together and the fun that we’re having. We aren’t doing Pissed Jeans because we’ve decided this is how we are gonna pay our bills; we’re doing it because it’s some of the most fun we can have, a glorious escape from the horrors of the world, and that leads to silliness sometimes, even if it’s a silliness we’re serious about. And it’s not that I shy away from true-life horrors in my lyrics … I think I process things best when I’m coming at them from some sort of smart-ass perspective. Or at least, it’s most comfortable for me that way. I think humor can help us see things from a new angle.
Do you think you would ever write lyrics that wouldn’t deal with your reality?
I am not always writing from first-person, diaristic lived experience, but I don’t think I could conjure some fantasy realm, or really reach outside of my understanding of the world and the things that directly affect me. I also don’t ever want to be generic, either. One thing that has worked out for us so far with this band is just trying to be as truly us as possible, if that makes sense … figure out what makes us unique, what perspective we have that others might not, and really try to dig around in there and pull out the good stuff. I know that if I tried writing lyrics like At The Drive-In it would be the phoniest thing ever, so I just try to do what feels most honest and exciting to me, which is usually some sort of commentary on myself, the things around me or whatever is in my periphery. Tangentially-related, I have always been disgusted by all the songwriters who ever rhymed “bad” with “sad,” just the sheer audacious laziness of it, so I finally took it upon myself to do that exact very thing on this album! It felt incredible.
Why did you decide to cover the Pink Lincolns song “Monsters” on Half-Divorced? Did the lyrics feel especially prescient for our times?
We’ve never released a cover song before, and in the spirit of the record, it just felt right. Time to try something new! The lyrics definitely felt appropriate—I think the line “people are more hideous than monsters” kind of sums it up both then and now—and it’s a total ripper. We’ve been punks since we were teenagers, and I’d still identify as such, so why not throw an unexpected early ‘90s punk cover on there while we were at it? It’s not like Pink Lincolns are in the zeitgeist these days, but they rule, and we wanted to have some fun honoring them. In the course of the album, it hits a nice spot as well. We usually just rip off songs we like, but in this case it seemed more appropriate to just cover the damn thing.
Why did you decide to name the album Half-Divorced? Was there something about it that fit the themes expressed on the album?
It seemed to fit the times, and the general malaise we’re all in … Whoever is fully committed to this charade of capitalism and social-media and surveillance isn’t anyone I know and care about! I feel like we’re all realizing that the life we’ve got going (here in America in particular) works for basically no one, and that perhaps a third option is needed, some hidden door that we keep walking past without noticing. That’s certainly how I feel, at least, and I’m assuming people can relate. I think reading Jenny Odell’s How To Do Nothing inspired a lot of that, along with the endless political nonsense that feels completely irrelevant from real life. Like, which demented corpse do you want to press the button that facilitates the murder of children, Blue Guy or Red Guy? You want me to pick one and feel like I’m participating? I’m hoping to opt out from that garbage entirely and find some new path, and I think if we all keep talking about it with our friends and families and even strangers, that’s the only way forward. Let’s all figure out who the real enemy is and go after them for a change.
Has anybody ever found out about the band at any of your jobs? How did/do you deal with it? Are people actually cool about it? Or do they give you crap for it? (I could see it going either way.)
Yes, co-workers have discovered that I play in a band before. Personally, it used to really freak me out, and while it’s not optimal, I’m getting too old to really care about what anyone thinks about anything, or at least my mentality is trending in that direction. With all the truly horrific things happening around us constantly, some random guy playing loud music in a band feels pretty quaint and un-newsworthy to me. I have even gotten used to having to say the words “Pissed Jeans” out loud when some random person asks me what the name of my band is. I enunciate loudly and clearly!
Do you think this might be your last album?
Ah, morbid question! I sure hope not, but who knows? There’s probably a chance this could be the final album PERIOD, that music ceases to exist later this year. While breaking up for a few years and then doing a “reunion” tour would probably be more beneficial for our publicity and ticket sales, I firmly believe that we will keep doing this band until we’re too dead or disabled to do so, which means writing new songs, putting out records, and playing shows where people will come see us. I hope that we call it once it needs to be called, if, like, there’s only one or two of us left playing with some new random fill-ins, but if I’m one of the dead ones, I won’t have much of a say!
Purchase Half-Divorced here.
Photo courtesy of Pissed Jeans