Back when we lived in Oregon and had a lot going on musically, we’d try to challenge ourselves every now and again with new things like mixing records, improvising at clubs, and going to seminars, but there was only one time we ever said, “fuck it, I’ll do the sound” at a gig.
That gig was January 24th, 2020 and it was HELP with The Critical Shakes at the Washington Jefferson Skatepark. We’re not sure what compelled us to say yes – at the time, both of those bands were literally the loudest acts in the Pacific Northwest. We’d played dozens of gigs with The Critical Shakes and had become quite close over the years, and we’d seen HELP a number of times at Treefort Music Fest, so ultimately it just felt right even if it felt risky.
As much as we adjusted the faders and dicked with the mics, we couldn’t do much against the billowing reverberations of a literal freeway overpass above us, not to mention nearby trains, but that night, there was nothing in the world that could deter HELP. Not even our lack of experience in live sound. It was not a disaster – both bands reliably overwhelmed the acoustics of the area and transcended into pure, primal punk rock energy, so really the most important of the sound gig was keeping a couple of the most sensitive mics in check when they started squealing more than felt aesthetically necessary. Anyway.
In the years since we’ve moved, we haven’t done a ton with music directly, but we’ve been pretty busy here on the site and the last couple years specifically has seen an uptick in relationships we’re really proud of. When we saw that HELP had signed with Three One G to release Courage, their upcoming EP, we were over the moon because Justin Pearson’s label and a host of professionals in their corner have been instrumental in helping the blog reacquaint itself with math rock’s punk roots. In times like these, we think that’s really important, and HELP is a great example of why – their deadpan, honest, and caustic delivery feels like a catalyst for change at a time it’s sorely needed.
We are super excited to present some their answers to some questions we got to ask them recently:
FB: HELP has been beating the shit out of stages for a while now – we’ve seen you jump off of tires, hang massive banners, and smash a number of instruments into tiny pieces. Have you ever desecrated / destroyed something onstage and ended up regretting it?
Ryan: Well, I have definitely regretted destroying certain parts of my body onstage, but that has never been intentional. Our original bass player, Boone Howard, picked up the tire and slammed it down on a guitar I had just purchased a couple days prior. I had to explain to him that I have $100 guitars I buy for throwing around but I also have special ones. This was not the reason for his eventual departure. For the most part, if you are at a Help show and you see things being destroyed, it is truly because we are deep in that moment. It was not discussed ahead of time. I also once stuck my hand in an industrial ceiling fan above the stage on the FIRST SONG of the set. That was not a fun one.
Bim: There’s the time in Olympia when Ryan tried to hang from this huge chandelier and it came down. Landed on him, glass everywhere. The thing must have weighed 100 pounds. It was a solid ring of metal 6 feet around. It took two dudes to roll it to the side of the stage during the song. I couldn’t believe Ryan was unscathed, much less finished the song and the set with only the normal amount of shitty playing. There’s a power in music, that’s for sure. I broke my wrist in May of 2023 and it’s still broken right now, here in August 2024. We thrive on pain, we’re only human after all.
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FB: Courage has a lot of the same sonic guts as 2053 but it also sounds like there’s some progression and experimentation happening – was that a conscious direction for the band on this EP?
Ryan: We are always growing as we write and bringing different musical influences to the table each time around because other than Radiohead, I’m not really listening to the same stuff day to day, month to month, year to year, etc.
This is also our first record with Morty on bass so things were destined to sound a little different. Ultimately, we decided we wanted to make something “mutant” and “freaky” to which I would say, we did NOT succeed. But we consciously were trying to do something that sounded different from 2053 and Courage is what came out of us.
Bim: I told Ryan I wanted to make a record that sounded like Korn and he said okay. He lied to me and we made this instead. Love is trusting each other to make the right mistakes. Here we are.
FB: HELP has always had a healthy mix of noise and punk, but Courage has some Jesus Lizard-level nastiness to it – would you say you find yourselves listening to one genre more than the other?
Ryan: If I am being honest, I don’t listen to a whole lot of noise music, I just appreciate noisy stuff. Help is much more of a punk band with noisy parts and crazy pedal sounds interworked within the song. I love the Jesus Lizard comparison, so thank you very much! Definitely listening to a lot of punk and hardcore these days, and nu-metal. It is a genre that gets pretty dunked on but there are some VERY cool things on some of those early Korn records.
Bim: My favorite drummer is Brian Chimpendale of Lightning Bolt and my favorite record is This Is PiL by Public Image Ltd. As far as what I listen to day to day though. It’s mostly Bjork, or local bands. Sun Foot, Mope Grooves, and Nasalrod have more of an influence on me than any hardcore band. I know all that stuff but at a certain point you’re just a painter making brown and it’s better to not mix intake with output, if you can manage such a trick. I have no idea why we sound the way we do, that’s exciting to me.
FB: Do you prefer records that sound like studios, or records that sound more like live shows?
Ryan: I prefer records that sound like studios but capture the energy of the live show. I have been in many bands over the years and I have always struggled with people telling me “your record sounds great BUT you’re so much better live”. I want people equally stoked on the recordings as they are the live set. Like a tire is being thrown through your little AirPods and damaging your ear drums.
Bim: Totally depends on the band. Music is actually two distinct forms. Like sculpting and painting are different. Live music and recorded music are different. Some sculptors are also great painters, and that’s a sight to behold. Some are not, and we would be petulant to expect them to be. Recorded music is one thing, live music is another. So some bands mostly make amazing records and then try to not let their fans down in a live setting. Some rely on lights and projections to hide the fact that they are painters presenting a sculpture. There are tricks afoot. Then there are live bands who present recorded work that mainly acts as a billboard to try to get people to come get the real thing, which for them, only exists in real time and in person. For me, I prefer live music, it seems like the one that’s harder for evil people to use for evil shit. Plus I think there is something important about people gathering together, for one, large gatherings scare the shit out of the people at the very top of our power structure and anything that scares them is better than us sitting listening to stuff alone on our headphones.
Can I make this answer any longer or more abstract? Yes. I can. There is a compelling argument that recorded music was the end of music as a revolutionary force. Developing the muscle of sameness (reproduction, so everyone listens to the same shit) while also atrophying the muscles needed for organizing and action on our collective will through the use of the only thing of value that one should own, their body. Gathering, breathing together, embracing how important this moment with each other is, and how fleeting and how fragile we all are, and why we need each other. It’s all very political. Or you can buy a record to listen to alone. I love working with Help in the studio and am more proud of the records we’ve made than anything else I’ve worked on in my life in a studio. But no map will ever come close to the fidelity of the thing it’s mapping, and it’s mapping me. I don’t watch TV, I am TV, and the revolution will not be televised. Jesus christ this is an insane answer to your question I am sorry.
FB: Considering how cathartic and ritualistic HELP shows are, it’s pretty lucky that the recordings have the intensity to match – can you describe some of the challenges of capturing that energy, if there were any?
Ryan: The only challenge for me really comes from doing the same song take after take in the studio. I physically lose the energy and start to get bored however, sometimes that boredom leads to some little treats where I will try something different on a guitar part and it ends up working out. It also helps that our engineer/producer, Sonny DiPerri, knows exactly what he is doing and how to make our recordings sound huge.
FB: Most bands would probably struggle to recreate the photo on the cover of Courage, but we have a feeling it wasn’t terribly difficult for you guys – are we wrong?
Ryan: You are…………WRONG. It was a very difficult process and I really just applaud our photographer who had the idea from the get go, Daniel Fickle (who also did the layout for the vinyl). We had to try a couple different orders and I was on top of the stack for about 2 seconds at best. We practiced a bunch with digital cameras but the shot that is the record cover was the final take and it is on film. As they say, it all starts with an idea.
Bim: That shit hurt. Daniel is such a fire photographer, all credit to him we were just his play things in that shitty garage attic on that day.
FB: Bim has a fantastic quote in the orginal Help EP notes that posits “if Ram Dass said Be Here Now, I say Class War Now… meditation is cool though, actually.” If it were ever in the cards, would HELP write a similar book? And if so, what would it look like?
Ryan: I would not be able to write a similar book. I am actually working on a joke book right now called “Gene Simmons and Gene Wilder Walk Into a Bar”. However, I think Bim should write a book. Do it Bim, Do it (in an eerie mind control voice).
Bim: HST’s dad once said: “There’s no such thing as paranoia, if you chase your fears long enough, you’ll catch them.” Writing that book is a fear I’ve been chasing. I recently spent three months in a cast for my broken wrist. It was the kind that isolates your thumb from your hand while holding your wrist straight. I had time to write, at last, and I was unable to hold a pen. This is the irony of desire, that timeless urge that pretends, no matter how short a time you’ve been feeling it, to have been there all your life. There’s a torture to desire. I did write some during that time, using a typewriter.
But you know what I mostly did? I fucking meditated. Ram Das was right about the moment, his moment, the moment for people like him, his home, his body. All was well for him and the rooms of corporate wolves who he taught to dismiss harm using forgiveness, without first attempting to not indulge in the selfish plundering of corporate logic in the first place. Not for me that trick, that misuse of peacefulness, no. Better to kill a billionaire as an example, in the public square. Better to do that than to rally in that same square to tax him after the damage of his trade is done. After the lithium mines have been dutifully emptied by the working children of the world who still prop up all the wonders of modernity. Synthetic and mirrored, not safe but spikier than ever. Something has to give and that something will not start with me accepting this world. I do not accept this world. I push against this hell even as it breaks me and tears the skin from me. I do it with more courage and peace now that I sit on my pillow each day for 23 minutes and return home to my out-breath. I will take any action that suits me. Anarchism doesn’t exist, but if it did, they’d lock us all up for being anarchists each time we were able to do the right thing. But no, I fear all static output. If I were to write a book, it would pin me to this moment and strip me of a freedom I hold dear, the freedom to be totally wrong about what I am most certain about. I’ll take the paradox over settled debts to reality anytime. Or simply, I’d rather be in love than be right.
Man, these guys fuckin get it. Pre-order Courage here.
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