Welcome back to another edition of Dead in Our Tracks: the monthly column here at Switchbitch Noise in which I sit down with artists, bands, and musicians to talk about their experience with other artists’ favorite records. Last time, I sat down with Mike Abuiso to talk about IX by Rent Strike. This week we are again joined by Mike, along with James and Kevin. Together, the three of them are the Mayor, a new project that I’m extremely excited for. On today’s edition, we are talking about Deloused in the Crematorium: an album that I have never sat down extensively with but is extremely important to the three of them. I had an absolute blast talking to the Mayor, and I hope you have as much fun reading this interview as I had conducting it. Without much more to say, let’s get to the interview.
I had never heard this record before Mike suggested it to me, but listening to it and hearing all the bands and music that I grew up in that post hardcore scene, I can hear the influence on that genre looking back. After listening to this record and then listening to bands like Chiodos and Pierce the Veil again since hearing it, it clicked that while I haven’t heard this band or album before, I definitely have listened to and loved music made by people who have heard this music before. Mike told me to listen to it and I listened to it over and over; each pass feeling a little bit different and offering something new.
James: That album didn’t leave our cd players for like — 8 months or something after it came out. That’s all we listened to. I got to listen to it the day before it came out because our friend worked at the local CD store, we all grew up together, and one of our buddies worked at the local cd store when it still existed and so he had access to the stock the day before it came out and they let him take it home. He picked me up and we listened to it. We sat in the parking lot of this house party in high school and just didn’t end up going in. When it ended we listened to it again. That album is something else. I always go back to Televators.
Mike: I just got chills thinking about the transition between the first and second song. It’s gorgeous. I mean, the album is so well put together that it feels like you could listen to the end, get to the crickets at the end, and just go back to it. I’m glad that I introduced this to you. What are you like 25?
24. So I think I was like 7 or 8 when this record came out
Kevin: God damn.
Not trying to make y’all feel old though I promise. What have you guys been working on during this pandemic though? Last time I talked to Mike he sent me a little sneak preview of the new band.
James: We have been able to come in with a bunch of material in the studio and record some other material and just rip through. Music has been getting us through this pandemic.
Mike: Honestly if we didnt have music I don’t know what we would do. Literally all I have been doing is music related stuff.
Kevin: it’s been really cool for me because i have been so removed from the whole music thing for so long because of kids —
James: He’s also an airline pilot.
Mike: Yeah, Kevin is an airline pilot.
James: He flies big jets and shit.
Kevin: Well, not since the pandemic.
James: Not since the pandemic, but he does. Don’t let him downplay it. If you look up and see a jet in the sky there’s a good chance it’s him driving it.
Mike: Not flying it, driving it.
Kevin; Getting together with Mike and James though has been so cool though, I’m so excited to be working on this music.
Kevin, I’m not sure if you are allowed to listen to music when you’re flying an airplane, but hypothetically if you were, what is your go to album? And James, same question to you.
James: I’m thinking Sunny Day Real Estate with the Rising Tide, just listened to that two days ago and it is amazing.
Mike: Have you heard that band, Jon?
I have not.
James: I think if there is one record that never gets old, it’s that one.
Mike: Sunny Day Real Estate is a band everyone should check out, and everything that the lead singer does as a side project is more often than not pretty tight.
James: Now that I just thought about it right now I want to listen to it.
Is there anything new that you’ve discovered lately that you’ve been digging.
Kevin: Phoebe Bridgers.
James: She’s rad!
Kevin: My sisters love her, too.
James: Oh, I also found a record today by an older band called Hum and the album is called Inlet. They’re more from the mid 90s but they put out a record last year called inlet that really kind of rules. It sort of reminds me of Cave In, if you know them. Check it out, it’s really cool.
So here in 2021, it’s clear that you guys are familiar with The Mars Volta and this record in particular but tell me about your first experience with it. Was your first experience with this album when you got it with your friends a day early? Put me in your shoes when this record first came out 18 years ago.
James: Tell me it wasn’t that long ago. I was thinking about when At The Drive In split into Sparta and The Mars Volta and this band kind of just smacked me in the face. I didn’t know it was coming at all. My friend told me that I needed to get on it though.
Kevin: I had a similar thing. I heard the record was coming out and as James said, we’re huge ATDI fans, and so for Cederick and Omar to be coming up with a new record: that was insane. I had a similar thing where I bought the record and I put it in the CD player, drove all the way home — it was about half way done when I got home — I just didn’t even get out of the car. I just sat in the driveway and listened to it.
Mike: I feel like you do that often, right?
Kevin: Yeah.
Mike: You tell me a lot about sitting in your car and listening to records in their entirety, which is awesome. I remember you did that with the Dear Hunter.
Kevin: Oh yeah! Mike, you got me into that band and I feel like I am way more into them now.
Mike: You’re more into that band than I am , I haven’t really kept up with them.
Kevin: I don’t know if you know that band, they’re also a New England band.
Color Spectrum changed my life. I’m so glad you mentioned that band because they are one of the bands I thought of when I was listening to this. Especially the Colors record. When you were listening to this record for the first time, what are the tracks that stuck out to you the most?
James: Definitely that first transition, the intro track in the second, that was a huge. Eriatarka, too.
Mike: How’s that one go?
(Full band proceeds to sing the riff)
Kevin: For a record I adore so much, I don’t know many of the lyrics. I barely know the song names.
Mike: Yeah, I don’t know the song names. We were in basements playing beer pong and air drumming to every part. It is mostly the music for us, for sure. Like ripping a riff while throwing a ping pong ball.
James: It’s all the music.
Kevin: I feel like the words don’t really make sense. I mean, they don’t really have to. Hardcore and metal is screaming, and its another instrument. It’s not really about the words so much as the melody. We’re not like Bob Dylan here, we aren’t trying to make lyrical masterpieces.
Mike: It’s something to latch on to.
James: The whole thing feels like a movie, there’s not a whole lot of blank space between the songs. I don’t think there are any. It’s seamless.
Honestly, I can’t remember a single lyric now that I think about it, but I can recall all of those melody lines. Roulette Dares especially, I have zero idea what he is saying, but that melody really seared into my head.
James: I’m not at all convinced that the lyrics aren’t just bullshit.
If you told me that, yeah. But if you also told me that the band had a deeper lyrical meaning that makes sense, I also wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest.
James: They released it originally without a lyric booklet and all they originally said was that it was a story about a guy who tried to commit suicide but ended up in a coma. He wasn’t able to commit the suice though. Apparently, the story is that he eventually wakes up and is successful. They released the lyrics when they released the vinyl record, it was a four lp. And they released it in this big cinematic book. Reading the lyrics anyway, it doesn’t really make sense at all.
If you had to recommend music to fans of this release, to whom would you point them?
Kevin: That album kind of stands alone.
Mike: Bands with soaring vocal lines and intense drumming.
Kevin: This sounds crazy, well maybe not that crazy because the riffs are inspired by Santana, but I would say that the new Santana record has been playing in the background and I just keep asking myself like: “is this Mars Volta?”. But I’m not sure if I would recommend someone who loves Deloused to listen to that.
James: Something that feels like that.
Mike: There’s so many bands that tried to replicate it
James: Have you ever listened to Wish You Were Here all the way through? That is the only thing that reminds me of it even a little bit. The reason I say that is there’s some weird movements and moments in there.
Mike: Zeppelin and Floyd. I can see someone listening to this band and not liking either of these two bands.
Have any of the three of you ever heard of a band from Louisiana called Pears?
Mike: The hardcore band right?
Their most recent record and the split they did before that — while not being identical or in the same sphere of this band — has a similar vibe with the crushing lyrics and technical playing.
Mike: Everything I have heard from that I have really liked, but I started getting into them a little too late. I still like it, but I definitely would have been more into it if I had been younger when they came out.
James: Just to throw it out there, I would also add Cave In’s Jupiter as far as the dynamics and vocals go. It’s different but it’s in the same vein.
Mike: We were definitely listening to that around the same time as this record. I guess if you were listening to this record for the first time you should go and listen to it at the drive in. You should listen to that band because that’s where this one comes from, for sure.
James: Do you know who played bass on Deloused?
No.
James: It’s Flea.
What?
Kevin: Yeah, when you go back and listen to it you can kind of hear that it is Flea. That’s pretty nuts.
Mike: It’s pretty mind blowing.
James: The only thing about Red Hot Chili Peppers I love is Flea. I hate everybody else.
Mike: I like Chet Smith.
Kevin: Sorry if you’re a Chili Peppers fan.
One more song that I just found yesterday that gives me a vibe like this is Night Owls in the Mating Season, as far as the vocals go and the usage of noise. It’s definitely a weird and cool song that I have had pretty much on repeat. Now, we move from the Mars Volta to the record we will assign to our next artist.
Kevin: I think we mentioned Sunny Day Real Estate so much that it has to be one of theirs.
James: I’d go with the Rising Tide, I just listened to that one two days ago. Yeah, let’s go with the Rising Tide.
I have never listened to that record before and I’m extremely excited to hit the ground running with it. Why are you selecting it for our next artist?
Kevin: First, they have a really cool background. They were in the Seattle grunge scene with Nirvana as the most notable, the Melvins, too. Their records really evolved over time. Diary is amazing but it is so different from the Rising Tide. The Rising Tide was their last before they stopped playing. I had known about them before this one, so it wasn’t like a new band situation, but it was so different and so beautiful, and it was on a different level. You could hear the shift in direction from punk/grunge to something else, but having those undertones. I get the feeling that when you listen to it you will notice that the lead singer has a voice unique to him.
Mike: It sounds like nothing else.
Kevin: It grows on you.
The Mayor can be found here and a full playlist of the music discussed in this column can be found here.
Dead In Our Tracks:
- IX – Rent Strike
- De Loused in the Crematorium – The Mars Volta
- The Rising Tide – Sunny Day Real Estate
