Reintroducing Preoccupations

It's a tough hand for any artist, but for a band that is used to drawing as many protesters as fans, and that's recently changed its name because of it, they're grateful just to be there.

​Strolling onto the stage at LA's FYF Fest, the group goes on to deliver a slate of ruthless punk- and dark wave-soaked rock to one of the day's best-attended sets, galvanizing the crowd into a moshed-out, fevered frenzy. This time, there's not a picketer in sight.

"Everyone we've met today has been awesome," singer and bassist Matthew Flegel tells me after, between pulls of cider in their trailer. "It's humbling, and it kind of blows my mind that anyone cares about us enough to wanna ask us questions about things."

Preoccupations' self-titled studio debut as Viet Cong first earned headlines in early 2015 for its rough-hewn post-punk vigor, reinvigorating a genre that largely lost its teeth sometime in the mid-00s. But the contentious name, which its members are now quick to refer to as "thoughtless," would soon overshadow that buzz, incurring criticism, protests, and even boycotts over what many felt was a flippant reference to the violent, loaded history of Vietnam's National Liberation Front.

After acknowledging​ that the name was problematic and issuing an apology, the quartet reemerged in April as Preoccupations, with plans for a second, newly self-titled studio album, out now via Jajaguwar.

The controversy would be just the beginning of a tumultuous year for the group. In the wake of Viet Cong's release and tour, the group's four members dispersed and relocated to different cities, some reeling from dissolved longterm relationships, others returning to monotonous day jobs. They returned to the studio nameless and directionless, dismantling demos and eventually scrapping their songwriting process altogether, with little by way of inspiration.

But confronting the process of destruction and rebirth—both in the studio and out—would prove to be what the band needed to craft the muscular return to form that is Preoccupations. More than a reintroduction under the new name, the record lives up to the meaning of its title, a 38-minute examination of the emotional weights that saddle us. If Viet Cong thrived off of the time-honored post-punk tradition of emotional distance and abstraction, Preoccupations inverts it, shedding the scuzz, musically and otherwise, for an unflinching look beneath the surface. On tracks like "Anxiety" and "Degraded," synth melodies rise and resolve through droning rhythms, while Flegel reveals a dramatic, nuanced set of pipes that point to Bruce Springsteen as much as Peter Murphy. It's more melodic and visceral—a sort of disconcerting pop.

We caught up with Flegel and keyboardist Scott "Monty" Munro to talk about starting over, their ridiculous list of potential new names, and how being forced to reinvent themselves made them a better band.

Noisey: How sick are you of talking about the name change?
Matthew Flegel: As far as fielding questions about the name change, I'm more into fielding those than fielding angry protesters' questions. Fine with it.

A lot has happened with the group between recording the first studio album and this one. On a personal level, how did the past year influence how the new record took shape? 
Flegel: Right so, definitely a lot of changes have happened over the past couple years since we started doing this really full on. And actually one of the major changes is that this is just what were doing now. We all used to have day jobs, um, and music was always kind of on the side. And it's definitely front and center and kind of an everyday part of our lives at this point. So that was definitely a huge change. We all moved to different cities, we all got out of really long relationships. Kind of breaking things down and building them up again. But everyone's doing great.

Matt, your voice is a lot more vulnerable and unprocessed on this record, you just hear it more. It's also kind of more forceful. Was that a conscious choice? Let's talk about the production. 

Flegel: Well, as far as the production differences with the Preoccupations record and the last Viet Cong self-titled record, this one was a little more disjointed.

Monty Munro: Yeah, and I think on the Viet Cong self-titled record, we wrote and recorded all of the songs, and then toured a bunch and played the songs live, and then we basically went into that studio and recorded that whole record live in about five days. Like, live off the floor. When we did our first EP, it was more like me and Flegel working in the basement on whatever sort of recordings. Just taking a full day to try to get a weird synthesizer sound, or that kind of thing. On the Preoccupations record we got back to that a little bit more. On this record it was more like, "Okay, now we'll try to get a weird drum sound for the verse of this song," or, "Maybe it would be cool if we did drum machine for this whole—" you know? I feel like more went into each song on this last record. And then as far as the vocals go, I feel like we played 200-ish shows last year, [whereas] on the first two records Flegel was just getting started.

Flegel: Yeah, I had never sang in a band before, really. I'd done some minor back-ups and harmonies, but I had never been the lead singer of a band. And it's not a super comfortable thing to just dive into. It's a strange thing, putting yourself out there like that. But I definitely think after playing 200 shows last year and then going back into the studio to record, I was a little bit more comfortable with my voice, and I wasn't afraid to have it front-and-center and, you know, have some intelligible lyrics [Laughing]. It's just a matter of being more comfortable with it, I guess.

What about the songwriting, and the lyrics on this album? Can you talk about some of the specific experiences behind some of the songs? 
Flegel: Yeah, well a lot of the lyrics came from piles on notes on hotel stationary, napkins, iPhone notes. I'm always writing, and I feel like I'm getting better at hearing something, or someone says something funny, and I just write it down. And I've kind of made a more conscious effort to get better at documenting things. And when it comes to the actual songwriting, we almost always record all the music first. And then I have a melody and I'll go through my notes and find something that kind of sticks and then expand on it from there. It's pretty random. But, I feel like this record is a little bit more on the personal side of things, where, lyrically, on the last one, it was a little more abstract and outside.

​

Let's talk about "Anxiety." What came into that song?

Flegel: "Anxiety," we had the music for that song—

Munro: From before the Viet Cong record.

​Flegel:​ Yeah, for quite a long time. And I had some melodies, and I didn't know what I wanted to sing about. I think I was driving my girlfriend to the airport from the studio, and it was a two-and-a-half-hour drive outside of Toronto. And I really didn't want to go back to the studio and record vocals, and I was feeling shitty and anxious about it. I just didn't want to do it. At all. I was nervous, and I didn't have anything prepared and, you know, we're paying money to be in the studio. We were staying in this beautiful house, and I felt pressured and anxious. And then I came back and busted out those vocals I think that day. And that's that.

Munro: We were in the studio for four days on that time, and the vocals on "Anxiety" were the only thing that we did. [Our friend] has like a sauna and an outdoor pool. He's in this Canadian band that's called Blue Rodeo that's pretty popular in Canada and has this beautiful house studio. And so we did all of our vocals there last time, and this time we went there to do the same thing and we did nothing. We just like, camped and barbecued and smoked hash and swam in the  swimming pool. It was a really great time. ​

That sounds like the opposite of anxiety.

Flegel: Everyone else is partying and on mushrooms, and I'm just busting out vocal tracks.

Munro: Matt's stressed out in the room, listening to the song on repeat just like [grumbles]. And then me and Danny [Christiansen] are just walking in there stoned every 15 minutes, listening back and being like, "Yep, sounds cool man, okay, back to the pool! Woo! Rock and roll!" And Flegel's just sitting in front of the microphone just like, "Oh god."

Flegel: Struggling. [Laughs]

Munro: That's what you get for being the singer.

Did you feel a certain pressure to reintroduce yourselves with this record? You got quite a lot of momentum with the last album—was there concern that you were gonna lose people, or that there wouldn't be a connection, given the changes?
Munro: We re-branded entirely, so, I don't know if it was concern, but it was like, we were cognizant of the fact that it would maybe be a step back in a publicity way, or whatever. But I feel like on the last record, and before that, we just tried to do as good as we could at the shows.

Flegel: Try to be better. I think if anything, changing a band name, it almost sort of gives you a clean slate in a way? Looking back on it, I think we were more willing to try some different things and, not that I was really feeling any pressure to repeat ourselves or anything like that. We just do what we do.

Munro: Honestly, I feel like there was more pressure from us on ourselves to not make the same record again. And in a way, changing the band name made that part of it a little easier. Because we knew as we were making it it was gonna come out under another band name. And so it was like any time you thought of any idea, the old ideas were all gone at that point. It's kind of like starting over again. But starting over in a good way.

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How did you land on the new name? 
Munro: We had list after list after list of names. Our label, both in Canada and the States, had sent us names that they had come up with and then, ultimately, our friend Chad VanGaalen sent us probably about eight emails with lists and lists of names that he had come up with. And we basically picked the five best from those lists, and then after we had the top five, we just researched them, and Preoccupations was the only one that wasn't already a band.

Flegel: It's tough. A lot of over-saturation.

Munro: It was actually extremely crazy. We had some pretty abstract band names and you'd look it up on AllMusic and it was like, "Yep, they had a one hit wonder in the 60s…" or "They played one show with the Clash in Ireland in 1982." When you're naming your band the second time, under like, serious scrutiny, you can't just pick a name that somebody already had. Whereas when it's just like your first band name you're like, "Oh, we're gonna lgo to Vancouver and play like five shows and then somebody's gonna go back to college and it's gonna be over," you know? You don't give a shit if there was a 50s band that had that band name. Whereas with this one, we definitely had to look not whether the names were already taken and every name is taken, almost.

What were some of the other contenders? 
Munro: Oh, I have a bunch of the list. "Santa Claus Orchestra" was a top contender.

You're making that up.
Munro: No that was one on there. "Floating Acid Baths" was one on there. "Contrast."

Flegel: I liked "Belief on Demand."

Munro: "Belief on Demand." Okay, "Belief on Demand" was cool, but nobody that I told that band name to could remember it for more than about five minutes. What are the other ones on here… "Multiples," that must be a band though already. "Neo-Eco," I think that's pretty cool actually. "The Invisible Bodies." "Particle Decelerator." "Male Pattern Baldness." "Vid Screens," which is cool as like, a Philip K. Dick reference, but then everybody just hassmart phones now so it's not that cool, really. I don't know. They all suck. Every band name sucks.

Flegel: Our new band name sucks, too. [​Laughs​] The old one sucked…

Munro: And every other band name pretty much sucks.

Let's talk some more about the themes on this record. You guys have been through a lot in the course of making two studio albums, I think more than most bands of your level at this point.​

Flegel: We've been through a lot, for sure. I don't imagine that we're the only ones who have been through a lot. It's just kind of every day life stuff. There's always problems that you have to deal with, and there's always things falling apart, and you're trying to put them back together. I don't feel like ours is a special case, necessarily…It's funny because we printed out the lyrics on the last record and this one, I really didn't want that.

Why's that?
​Flegel: Because they're more personal and, I mean, they're up front in the mix, and they're a little bit more discernible than on the last record. But I didn't want people digging into it, so much. But you can take what you want from it. I know that's kind of a half-assed answer, but the song titles pretty much sum up everything, and I wanted to be very blunt with that. What's the one word that could describe what this song is about. And that's why it's all one word, very blunt, heavy-handed, to the point. And they are pretty heavy-handed lyrics, sometimes, but I'm fine with that.

You've spoken before about finding humor in the weakness of your songs and subject matter. Was that also something that you felt worked on the songwriting on this record? After everything that happened with the name and the debate about political correctness it sparked, did you feel like you had to tread more lightly, in that sense? 
​Flegel: ​Well, I personally deal with shitty things that happen to you in life by being able to laugh at it, and I always have. I think I can speak for the rest of the guys and say the same thing. I feel like with a lot of the lyrics people would listen to and assume I'm on the brink of suicide, but it's kind of just a way of dealing with the dark things. And I like how heavy-handed they are, and I like how ridiculous they are, and I think there's humor in that, and it's definitely a very dark humor, but that's what it is, for me. I don't know what other people will think, but it doesn't necessarily matter.

There's a touch of camp to it that's really satisfying, especially on this record. 
Flegel: I absolutely like kind of straddling the line between that triteness and that hasn't been done before. I like the trite things. And everyone likes that stuff, it's pop music, you know? It's what it is. "Baby, baby, baby, love, love, love," whatever. But for us it's definitely not on the "Baby, baby, baby, love, love" side, it's kind more on the darker end, but, it's campy sometimes.

Andrea Domanick is a great band name. Follow her on Twitter.