By Carlos Ramirez |
@noechonet |
The last time Discourage made an appearance on No Echo was via Adam Yoe’s (huge) thumbs up piece on their 2022 debut album, Disaster Fatigue. The Oakland hardcore quintet’s go-for-the-throat tempos and instantly memorable lyrics always deliver that way. It’s a crime more people in the hardcore community aren’t up on them yet.
With In Lieu of Flowers… coming out soon, things should be changing in that last regard. Recently joining the WAR Records roster (Home Invasion, World I Hate), Discourage’s sophomore album was produced by the group’s drummer, Matt Tyler, and is their meanest-sounding material yet.
I spoke with Tyler, and vocalist Eric Pocock, about the making of In Lieu of Flowers…, their place within the hardcore scene, and why they’re still so deeply involved with it all.
As a bonus, we’re also streaming two cuts from the forthcoming album—”Gadsden” and “Clear”—with the former including vocals from Meghan O’Neil (Super Unison, Punch).
The last time we heard new music from the band was the Disaster Fatigue LP. Three years is an eternity in hardcore! I know you’ve been playing shows during that time, but why did you wait this long to release new music?
(Matt Tyler): I think there’re a couple reasons. First, we’re all older guys with adult lives so this is one thing amongst many priorities we all have. So the process of getting a record written and recorded can drag a little more when you’re balancing a bunch of different things whether jobs, travel, hobbies, family stuff, whatever.
We also went through a member change in the middle of writing. Our bassist Alex left to focus on other projects and our good friend Israel Branson joined, and there was time spent getting everyone ready and up to speed, and then scheduling recording.
And another reason is that I personally wanted to take a little extra time to really get truly ready for drum tracking so I learned to play along to a click track, which I had never previously done. Lots of reasons, personal and “professional.”
I see that Matt handled production duties on this new record. Tell me a bit about the writing and recording process.
(Eric Pocock): Matt put so much blood sweat and tears into the production of this record he deserves all the burritos in San Diego. Once we decided we wanted to make another record, we knew that there were some changes we wanted to make to differentiate from Disaster Fatigue.
The mantra I kept repeating during the writing process was “make the fast parts faster, the slow parts heavier, and the whole thing meaner.” I’d been listening to a lot of Punch, Coke Bust, No Tolerance, Ceremony, En Love, and other really fast, gritty hardcore and that definitely had a huge impact on the songs that came out.
As far as the actual writing went, this one was a little different than prior releases. There are a couple songs on here that we all wrote together but quite a few were written essentially over a 2-3 week stretch in my old living room. I would write the track, film myself playing it on guitar to send to the guys, and then usually Matt and I would get together to add drums and turn a collection of riffs into an actual song.
Once we had that foundation we’d show it to the guys to add a little “stank” to it and then Matt recorded demos.
(Matt Tyler): It was cool to have the opportunity and resources to do a lot of the recording work ourselves. A lot of my work beyond recording the guitars, bass, and vocals was coordinating how we were going to execute this whole thing without taking a week off work to go into a studio. Alex Jacobelli at Sunsick Studios in San Diego, who did our last record, and mixed this one, was a super helpful collaborator in giving me ideas for how to make this happen.
You really don’t need big budget equipment, just a laptop, a few pieces of gear, some technical know-how, and, most important, organization and foresight. As Eric mentioned, part of our writing process includes recording pre-production demos. I think we learned after the first LP and early 7”s that there’s a huge benefit to getting tracks recorded, listening back, and then making adjustments based on what you hear.
For the record itself, we did all the drum tracking at Butchertown Studios with Marc Estabillo, who does a lot of work with many of the young Bay Area bands that are getting attention these days. Funny story: we had a little snafu during the drum tracking and I ended up having to come back a few weeks later and record everything again in one day instead of two.
But my performance was better in the second session. I banged it all out in a few hours and all was well. Then it pretty much was a process of working around everyone’s busy schedules and spending a lot of evenings and weekends in our practice space dialing in tones, tracking, and passing files around. Doing it this way allowed us to review, listen deeply, and decide where we wanted to make some changes, not to mention do it cost effectively.
Reading the lyrics to “Gadsden,” it feels like one of those songs that was directly inspired by a specific person or incident. Can you get into the specifics there, or is it too personal to reveal? Also, I really loved hearing Meghan ripping on a fast hardcore track again.
(Eric Pocock): Man, having Meghan on this track was surreal. Punch is one of our favorites and was a huge influence while writing the record. As soon as Richard suggested asking her to contribute some guest vocals I immediately knew I wanted it to be “Gadsden.” Politically charged, fast and mean as hell. It just fit perfectly.
In terms of the lyrics being inspired by a specific person, there isn’t really one to point to. It began based off of a few different conversations I’d had that really pissed me off, but I tried to extrapolate into the broader trends we’re all seeing. We are seeing people not even trying to hide being fascists, and smugly knowing that they have this country and the world by the proverbial balls.
We are seeing secret police disappearing our neighbors and watching our tax dollars fund a genocide. It’s disheartening and devastating and I think more people are realizing that the people at the top are just parasites that don’t have our interests at heart. The song is really about the anger that comes from that realization, as well as a call to action.
Speaking of lyrics, is there a thread tying the material together on In Lieu of Flowers…?
(Eric Pocock): Lyrically, this is probably the most raw and emotionally charged record I have ever written. The lyrics were mostly written in 2023, which was a really tough year for me. I went through a lot of different kinds of loss that year and those struggles ended up on the lyric sheet of the record.
The title, In Lieu of Flowers…, was actually suggested by Richard, and I think the funeral imagery it invokes really ties in those themes of loss and anger well.
(Matt Tyler): Not to reveal too much of our future plans, but we do envision In Lieu of Flowers… being conceptually linked to both what came before and what we’re planning to do next. The lyrical content is a bleaker extension of Disaster Fatigue, a further descent into madness and derangement. But it’s not the last word and the ellipsis in the title is critical.
READ MORE: The Nerve Agents Singer Eric Ozenne on Their History, California Hardcore & More
It felt like the last album flew under the radar, and didn’t get the attention it deserved. How has it felt working with WAR Records compared to doing it yourselves or working with other labels so far? What have you learned from your last release experience that you want to rectify this time out?
(Matt Tyler): Our aim this time around was to work with someone connected to California and involved more locally, to build our connections here. Andrew is a total professional and it’s been rad to work with someone who has his depth of experience in California hardcore (not to mention that Strife is on my Mt Rushmore of hardcore).
We’re also stoked that Andrew has so many sick bands from the Midwest where we have a lot of friends, such as Direct Measure, Home Invasion, Like Heaven, and Last Gasp.
I wouldn’t say there was anything we wanted to “rectify” from Disaster Fatigue, except maybe having more copies of it. Jerry from Patient Zero has spoken publicly about his recovery journey and the path he’s on toward becoming an addiction counselor. He doesn’t have the bandwidth to focus on a label, but we’re super stoked for all the positive things he’s building and are grateful for what he’s done for the band. He still has committed to doing a second press of DF and is working on doing it in a financially sustainable way, so look for that in the future.
It’s so easy to get jaded as you get older, but why do you think hardcore resonates so deeply with you all these years later?
(Matt Tyler): I think life ebbs and flows and so does the depth of our engagement with hardcore. From my mid 20s to early 30s, I was less involved because of what I was doing with my life. But I think the dissatisfaction with life under capitalism drives me back to my heart, to the search for a deeper connection to something beyond myself.
For a long time, I thought religion would provide that, and in recent years I’ve found that isn’t the case. Hardcore as a community, an experience, and even a sacrament satisfies so many of the deepest longings of my heart to create, connect, and feel fully present to each moment. Stage dives truly do make me feel more alive.
(Eric Pocock): What Matt said.
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In Lieu of Flowers… will be out soon via WAR Records.
Discourage on social media: Instagram
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