Getting Messy with Scare Quotes and the Tactics EP
“I honestly was barely listening to music during a good chunk of the time we were writing the songs,” confessed Nathan Springer, drummer and co-vocalist of fresh Atlanta, GA art punk scrappers Scare Quotes. The bonified supergroup just released Tactics, their expansive and exciting five-track debut EP, today on their hometown Rope Bridge Records and Philly super label Super Wimpy Punch. “I think playing with Scott and Lily was just a good reprieve from how much quarantine sucked — just having fun and trying to shake off the dark vibes.”
“We almost called the EP ‘They’re All Fun to Play’ after something Lily said one practice,” guitarist and co-vocalist Scott Irvine offered. “That neatly summarizes how we approach craft, I think — Just keep it interesting moment to moment. Get messy. The harder to describe the better. ”
“I think there’s a similar dynamic to how I write with floral print in that the guitar ideas get brought in first a lot of the time, but then the songs naturally evolve from there and everyone kind of goes on this journey with the writing of the song together,” Springer explained, on how the band dynamic differs in this project. “We also just jam on stuff and come up with whole song ideas sometimes. One thing that’s different is having both Lily and Scott sing - it’s really cool to see how their different styles take the songs to different conclusions. I’d also say going in without intent or expectation was a crucial part of the ethos of starting the project. Like, kind of wanting to surprise ourselves with what we came up with.”
“I’ve been loving the writing process with this band, it’s felt really intuitive and collaborative,” Zwaan [also of Providence, RI group Food Court] told Wormbrain. “Scott has been bringing in a lot of the starting ideas but we’ve been doing a lot of jamming and seeing how things kind of congeal. I’ve been in other collaborative bands, but it’s been really fun jamming more than I’ve gotten to in other projects. Maybe it’s partially because of the pandemic and the sort of revelations about toxic productivity a lot of people were having, but I’ve also been setting less rigid expectations for myself when it comes to songwriting, which has been really positive. Since none of us are playing our first instruments it’s also felt kind of exploratory, which has made songwriting really excitjng.”
“We probably fall in some nether-zone between post-punk and math rock. The latter has become such a dirty word to me, but some of my formative favorites fall neatly in its ranks,” Irvine offered, when Wormbrain asked the band to define their undefinable sound and pigeonhole themselves on influence. “I basically learned guitar to play in this band and was listening to a lot of Polvo and Unwound for some sort of rubric. At least half the songs on the record dabble with very bright and chipper melodies, though, so I don’t know who to credit for that.”
Photo courtesy of the artists
“Just keep it interesting moment to moment. Get messy. The harder to describe the better. ”
“I kinda think of every song on the EP as taking the voice of a different character,” said Irvine, who also plays in ATL’s Narrator, on where the EP’s lyrics spawned from. “They certainly draw from personal experience, but I feel estranged from them somehow. They all got written while sequestered in our homes so they’re quite sad and lonely, directing anger and confusion in different directions.”
“Yeah, these songs were written during the early part of the pandemic, so I’d say there’s a feeling of isolation that kind of comes through in a lot of the lyrics,” said bassist and co-vocalist Lily Zwaan. “I liked taking on kind of mundane subjects like tomatoes and video games, it felt appropriate for a time when the best I could do was kind of get through the day. In the past I’ve overwhelmed myself trying to write lyrics as a sort of forced emotional catharsis, but it’s been cool writing more for a character, like Scott described.”
“I don’t like the math rock thing because my other band gets labelled with that a lot,” commented Springer. “I think anyone with weird time signatures gets labelled as such. Scott mentioned Polvo, and I think that was an influence on the band and the drums for sure.”
“Our friend Nick said a really nice thing after our first set, that essentially he could hear all of our influences, but that we sound like none of them — seems like an ideal to me!” said Irvine, ultimately boiling it down.
The unintentionally(..?) ever-elusive? That is the Wormbrain World ideal, too.
Photo courtesy of the artists
Wormbrain asked the members of the band to give us a bit more insight into the EP’s lyrics to help our readers better understand Tactics as they listen along song by song, and here is what they said:
“Eternal Hoss” — Zwaan:“‘Eternal Hoss’ is about being alone and losing your sense of time, and breaking that in moments of joy playing Rocket League with your friends.”
“Tomato” — Zwaan: “‘Tomato’ is about a tomato, but also about wanting to help but not being able to.”
“Idiot Doom Spiral” — Irvine: “‘Idiot Doom Spiral’ was inspired by this big poster Nathan jokingly has on the band room wall. It’s a huge graph with different QAnon adjacent conspiracies intersecting with one another. The master plan all laid out. When we first wrote the song, I started ad-libbing lyrics from the poster and it just naturally evolved into me trying to write from the perspective of someone who believes in a hollow earth, for instance.”
“Condo Fucked” — Irvine: “‘Condo Fucked’ is one me and Lily co-wrote about a pair of demon real estate agents giving you a tour through the new 21st Century urban hovels. We channeled a lot of what’s happening to Atlanta right now, being outright stripped of character and turned into a homogenous neighborhood of high-rise apartments.”
“Easy Hits” — Irvine: “‘Easy Hits’ is about someone that can’t help measuring their artistic self-worth against others. I intended to write it about the bitter ending of a close friendship of mine, and some of that is still baked in there, but it took on a different bent the deeper I dug.”
W.W: What is Wormbrain?
SI: A boardinghouse for pigs and perverts.
NS: The condition I have waking up every morning.
W.W: Thank you for sharing with Wormbrain.
Scare Quotes’ debut EP, Tactics, is out everywhere today via Atlanta, GA’s Rope Bridge Records and Philadelphia, PA’s Super Wimpy Punch.
