** Plus ** Tigers Jaw Cloud Nothings Glitterer Wild Pink Yonaka Teenage Wrist Deap Vally + loads more
upsetmagazine.com
nothing,nowhere. Chase Atlantic
Weezer
MARCH 2021 Issue 63
RIOT 4. WEEZER 8. WILD PINK 12. YONAKA 14. CLOUD NOTHINGS 18. GLITTERER 22. TEENAGE WRIST ABOUT TO BREAK 24. DEAD POET SOCIETY 26. ANOTHER MICHAEL FEATURES 28. ROYAL BLOOD 36. CHASE ATLANTIC 42. TIGERS JAW 46. NOTHING,NOWHERE. REVIEWS 50. ARCHITECTS TEENAGE KICKS 54. DEAP VALLY
Upset Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Scribblers Alexander Bradley, Connor Fenton, Dan Harrison, Dillon Eastoe, Jack Press, Jasleen Dhindsa, Kaz Shaw, Kelsey McClure, Linsey Teggert, Melissa Darragh, Rob Mair, Steven Loftin Snappers Dan Brown, Daniel Topete, Farrah Skeiky, Jade Jackman, Jordan Knight, Julia Leiby, Mads Perch, Mitchell Wojcik, Lindsey Nico Mann, Rebecca Lader, Sarah Louise Bennett P U B L I S H E D F RO M
W E LCO M E TOT H E B U N K E R.CO M U N I T 10, 23 G RA N G E RO A D, H A S T I N G S, T N34 2R L
All material copyright (c). All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, in whole or in part, without the express written permission of The Bunker Publishing Ltd. Disclaimer: While every effort is made to ensure the information in this magazine is correct, changes can occur which affect the accuracy of copy, for which The Bunker Publishing Ltd holds no responsibility. The opinions of the contributors do not necessarily bear a relation to those of Dork or its staff and we disclaim liability for those impressions. Distributed nationally.
HELLO. When it comes to rock success stories, it’s hard to think of any in recent years much bigger than that of Royal Blood. Ever since dropping their self-titled debut album, they’ve continued that most wholesome tradition of two pieces that make a noise far, far louder than their diminutive numbers have any right to demand. As they stand on the brink of their third record, the much anticipated ‘Typhoons’, we’re delighted to welcome them to the cover of Upset for the first
time. With a new outlook, a new sense of purpose and some difficult times behind them, they’re landing at just the right time to deliver a much needed shock to the system. Welcome back, lads.
S tephen
Editor / @stephenackroyd Upset 3
Riot_ EVERYTHING HAPPENING IN ROCK
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THIS MONTH IN ROCK
Cult faves Wild Pink are unleashing their most ambitious record yet, third album ‘A Billion Little Lights’. p.8
Striding into 2021 with urgent new single ‘Seize The Power’, and the promise of more ‘on the way’, Yonaka are back and kicking up an almighty noise. p.12
It’s second album time for former Title Fight man Ned Russin, aka Glitterer. p.18
OK HUMAN Words: Dillon Eastoe.
Back with a surprise new album, ‘OK Human’ - their first of two to be released in 2021 - Weezer remain that band that everyone has an opinion on. They’re not slowing down now.
“N
ot everyone knows what the La Brea Tar Pits are? OK, yeah, I mean they’re quite well known here in LA, but I guess it makes sense that they wouldn’t be elsewhere.” Rivers Cuomo, the driving force behind rock legends Weezer, is giving Upset a quick California history lesson before talking through the final track on ‘OK Human’, the band’s fully orchestral new album. “There are sabre-tooths and woolly mammoths, and all
“I’M VERY ANXIOUS RIGHT NOW ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN” RIVERS CUOMO
kinds of animals got trapped in the tar and starved to death. And in some cases, a woolly mammoth would get stuck there, and the sabre-tooth would come along and say, ‘Oh great, I’m gonna go eat this guy’, and he wades in, and then he gets stuck, and they both die together.” “All those animals ended up extinct,” Cuomo continues. “So I think it was a metaphor for me feeling like the world has evolved beyond me and I’m going extinct, and no matter what I try to do, I’m just stuck here in this tar.” Music has changed enormously since Weezer’s Happy Daysspoofing video for ‘Buddy Holly’ reached the masses through its inclusion on Microsoft’s Windows ‘95 CD-ROM, downloading Cuomo’s melodic loser-rock into
millions of households. Since then, Weezer have both delighted and divided their fanbase with their plentiful and often baffling output, hit singles ‘Island in the Sun’ and the sarcastic jock-rock of ‘Beverly Hills’ bothering radio stations and keeping the quartet in demand on the live circuit. So far, rather than sinking into the tar, Weezer have kept their heads above the surface by finding new angles to deliver the catchy melodies and crunching guitars that brought them fame. In that time, Weezer have survived their industry changing beyond recognition as improving technology, and increasingly advanced algorithms continue to race away from human control like a runaway train. “When we started it was pre-internet, and you’d Upset 5
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WILD AT HEART
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Cult faves Wild Pink are unleashing their most ambitious record yet, third album ‘A Billion Little Lights’. Words: Rob Mair. Photos: Mitchell Wojcik.
I
n 2017 film A Ghost Story, writer and director David Lowery’s quiet rumination on grief, time takes centre stage. Whether that’s making the audience sit through five uninterrupted minutes of a grief-stricken Rooney Mara gorging on chocolate cake, or a whistlestop tour through the ages with Casey Affleck’s sheetcovered ghost, time – and the passage of time – is used as a device by the director. And it raises some important questions – most notably, how can time both move at a glacial pace one moment, and then cover thousands of years in a blink of an eye? It’s a similar trick to that employed well by Wild Pink’s John Ross on the New York group’s third full-length outing, ‘A Billion Little Lights’. The lights in question might refer to the stars in the cosmos – as set out on ‘Bigger Than Christmas’ – or they might refer to the minuscule bioluminescent phytoplankton illuminating the sea on ‘The Shining But Tropical’. “Why can’t both things be true?” he questions cryptically on ‘Oversharers
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CLOUD CONTRO
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Back in the first studio they recorded in together, and with their old mate and previous producer Steve Albini, Cloud Nothings’ new album sees them on solid ground to push forward.
OL
Words: Linsey Teggert. Photos: Daniel Topete.
“THE PERFECT POP SONG NEEDS THAT ELEMENT OF CHAOS TO IT” DYLAN BALDI
D
ylan Baldi is always searching for the perfect pop song. As part of his quest, the Cloud Nothings frontman has been writing a new song every single day for the last year and a half. This would seem like an enormous undertaking to most, but not for someone whose name is rarely mentioned without the word ‘prolific’ cropping up alongside it in a sentence. “It’s a weird, ephemeral thing being a musician, I felt like I needed to have an actual representation of me doing something every day, so at the end of the day I can say, ‘this is what I did today’. Now that we’ve had touring stripped away too, it’s nice to have evidence that I existed today.” Since Cloud Nothings’ beginnings a decade ago as a scrappy, lo-fi solo project, Dylan seemingly has limitless musical energy, always plugging away, determined to keep moving forward - you just need to look at the band’s ever-expanding discography for evidence. As they prepare to release their new record ‘The Shadow I Remember’, Dylan himself has trouble recalling how many albums the band have produced, with numerous EPs, splits and compilations peppering the timeline. (According to their label Carpark Records, it’s their fifth studio album as a full band and ninth under the project name.) “We’ve also screwed with the timeline for putting out records before this one even comes out,” laughs Dylan, referring to the surprise internet release of the dreamy and more delicate ‘The Black Hole Understands’ in 2020, recorded via email between drummer Jayson Gerycz
and himself while quarantining separately. “I doubt ‘The Black Hole Understands’ would have existed if it wasn’t for the lockdown situation. The plan was always for ‘The Shadow I Remember’ to come out in February 2021, so we were still going to have a year of essentially nothing to do after recording it in February 2020, though I’m sure we would have done something, but it probably wouldn’t have been a record like that. It’s hard to make something intense when you’re not physically with another person and when you’re doing it in a sort of sterile way with a guitar plugged into the computer, so those tracks came out a lot cleaner and poppier.” This element of spontaneity has always been a characteristic of Cloud Nothings’ approach to creating music, with Dylan stating in the past that nothing the band does is on purpose; that everything is off-the-cuff and reflected upon after. He admits, somewhat ruefully, that things tend to be more considered these days. “For a while, the band was our collective life, we really couldn’t do anything outside of it, it took up so much of our energy and our time. Now it’s harder to have that connection as we live in different places so we have to take advantage of the time we get. The songs are a little more thought out before we play them, everything is a little more ordered and deliberate.” “I think that it’s something I’m almost starting to resent in a way - well maybe not resent, that’s a strong word. Whenever we get the chance to do something again, when we’re all vaccinated and ready to go, I would like to switch it Upset 15
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LIFE IS NOT A LESSON It’s second album time for Ned Russin, aka Glitterer. Words: Sam Taylor. Photos: Farrah Skeiky.
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TROU Back for album three, and sounding bigger than ever, Royal Blood are a band reborn. Words: Ali Shutler. Portraits: Mads Perch. Live photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.
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COMI
BLE’S
NG...
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THE THR THE
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HRILL OF CHASE Newly signed to Fearless Records, LA-based, Australianborn trio Chase Atlantic are taking a confident stride forward with their third album. Words: Steven Loftin. Photos: Jordan Knight.
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REME -MBER REME -MBER Well over a decade deep, and Tigers Jaw are throwing off the weight of expectation with their new album, ‘I Won’t Care How You Remember Me’.
Words: Alexander Bradley. Photos: Rebecca Lader.
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T
he stars aligned when Tigers Jaw released their self-titled second effort back in 2008. Through the small cracks of light, word of mouth and an unusually potent music scene in north-east Pennsylvania, that album became a cult classic that unified acclaim between punks, indie-rockers and the re-emerging emo scene alike. The magic of the album was the straightforward tone, it was the truth of teenagers struggling to find their place in the world. For those who lived through that album when it was first released almost 13 years ago, nostalgia for teenage angst and for trepidation of the unknown comes quickly whenever it is revisited. And for those still discovering it, it remains a great accompaniment for navigating those insecurities. Now comes Tigers Jaw newest Upset 43
“NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE IN LIFE, YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO FACE YOUR INNER DEMONS; YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO FACE THE PERSON IN THE MIRROR” 46 Upset
nothing,nowhere. has spent the past few years wrestling with his mental health, and the result is an album that’s both filled with honesty and hope. Words: Steven Loftin. Photos: Dan Brown.