Protomartyr - Dissent and the inevitability of the end

Not exactly a chatterbox, at times prickly and apparently not too interested in the questions put to him, Joe Casey, born in 1977, calling in from Detroit, is certainly not the easiest musician to interview. We struggle quite a bit to really draw him into the conversation, which he approaches in a rather detached way. Still, he was generous with his time and put no limit on it: we took the opportunity to settle in and cover a fairly wide range of topics, not all of which he seemed particularly keen on, since on a few occasions he happily dodges the question. Here's a summary of our long chat with the singer of Protomartyr, in which we talked about post-punk, about “Ultimate Success Today”, one of the most important and acclaimed records of this hugely complicated year, about Idles, about festivals falling into the hands of alcohol corporations, about up-and-coming bands, porn stars, and assorted prophecies. And, of course, about the profound consequences the pandemic is inflicting on our lives…

Hi Joe, first off we'd like to settle a bit of local curiosity. After the now-legendary 2011 sessions, from which you recorded a whopping 21 songs in just a few hours, 13 of which ended up on your debut “No Passion All Technique”…

Twenty-two songs (he interrupts us abruptly…). It was twenty-two…

Ah, off to a great start… Sources online give us 21… Anyway, right after that, in 2012, you chose an Italian-language title for one of your first EPs: “Colpi Proibiti”. What made you do that? Did you like the sound of those words? Or do you have a particular soft spot for Italy?

You should know that at the first place we used as a band to rehearse, we had this Italian poster hanging on the wall for a movie starring Jean Claude Van Damme, a 1990 film, “Death Warrant”. The title of the film in Italian, splashed across that poster in huge letters, was exactly “Colpi proibiti”, which in English would translate roughly to “forbidden shots”, or “illegal strokes”, or something like that, and I just thought the meaning sounded nicely fitting!

Mystery solved, let's get straight to the point: as you probably know, many people argue that, in terms of the stylistic mix on offer, Protomartyr are an American band with (post-punk) English influences. Do you agree with that statement? Or do you think your background has exclusively American roots?

Actually, I think our closest roots can be traced to the bands that animated the Detroit art-punk scene, the one we came up in. Bands probably not very well known where you're from, like Frustrations, Human Eye, Druid Perfume, Tyvek, and so on. A lot of groups loved mixing a sound close to Midwest punk, so stuff that's very American at its core, while also applying some influences, both British and German. Some pushed things far enough to incorporate elements you could trace back to English post-punk of the '70s and '80s. Which is probably what you're referring to…

Indeed, in your songs you can pick up on influences from The Fall and Wire, but there are also plenty of elements of the Detroit Sound, The Stooges, MC5. Your guitars at times also recall Sonic Youth, both in some of the earliest songs you wrote (particularly “Jumbo's” and “How We Lived After We Died”) and in several tracks on your more recent albums.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. Basically I'd say that when it comes to Wire in particular, we're all in agreement.

It might be interesting to try putting together a list of each Protomartyr member's favorite bands or records. Maybe whatever you've each been listening to the most in recent months…

Eh, look, sorry, but I don't think that would actually be all that interesting…

Alright, let's go back to English bands: it's become fashionable to draw a parallel between you and Idles. You're both seen (on your respective sides of the Atlantic) as flag-bearers for a certain kind of unease, a certain protest sentiment put into music. Do you feel you have things in common with the Bristol band?

You know what I wonder? I imagine we'd come off pretty pathetic if we got into that kind of comparison! Haven't Idles basically become a stadium-rock band by now? The new U2? Am I wrong? You can confirm that for me, right? I'd guess the similarities between Protomartyr and Idles boil down to the fact that both bands have a particularly annoying singer named Joe! (laughs, ed.)

Trump, Brexit, the Black Lives Matter movement after the events in Minneapolis: these are all things that have further fueled artists' creativity. Don't you think the result has been a rise in the average quality of music being produced?

People need their human rights recognized, upheld and protected far more than they need music, or art in general. I worry that certain artistic attitudes can muddy the waters when the time comes to actually make change happen.

The fact remains that probably all this healthy anger expressed across so many albums (and not just in rock, think also of so much output in the Black music sphere – see Sault – or hip-hop) wouldn't have been quite as powerful…

I'd hate to think of "rock" as something separate, cut off from everything else, or backed into a corner by a "Black" scene. So a broader mobilization is welcome, though it should be said that protest movements, protest music and quality music always have existed and always will, whether you notice them or not.

Protomartyr fit perfectly into this context. Yours is subversive, angry music, without "Consolation". Your lyrics often contain sharp criticism of the political system, of corporations, of Trump, of the limits placed on individual freedom. In just a few years you've become one of America's symbols of singing "against"…

I don't know if that's a question or a statement. Either way, I want to point out that my lyrics aren't "always" against "political systems" or whatever else. Honestly it bugs me a bit, this blanket tendency to reduce anything I've ever written to a mere political gesture or a slogan against something.

I get what you mean: this element – taking a stance "against" – is so prominent in your music that few people notice your lyrics actually contain not just dissent, but also a lot of room for psychological analysis, inner turmoil, and the inevitability of death. Doesn't it bother you that this side of your songwriting – hardly a minor one – ends up unfairly overlooked?

I wouldn't want to come across as some kind of protest-song troubadour. So I don't mind touching on different themes, and I think listeners eventually pick up on that.

You manage to mediate and distill all these themes into song form. But are those choices driven by you, or is everything decided collectively by the whole band?

No, come on, I write the lyrics. It's just Joe answering these questions and these statements.

And do you feel privileged to be able to express your dissent through a medium, music, capable of getting certain ideas and positions out into the whole world quickly, like some giant megaphone?

Honestly, porn moves a lot faster. And TikTok stars get a lot richer than we do. No, I don't feel privileged — if anything, I'm still walking that very thin line separating me from unemployment…

Do you think a song today can actually help change things for real?

What, you mean like John Lennon and flower power? No, I've never thought a song could change anything!

In many of your songs, the musical textures manage to conjure a strong sense of threat, of imminent danger. On the new album it's all tangible right from the opener "Day Without End", which conveys a powerful sense of dread…

It's neither simple nor complicated. You just have to let your mind go as far as the music can take it. I just try to write lyrics that can adapt, each time, to the mood of the music.

But underneath the wave of sonic assault in your songs, there's always a powerful melody lurking. And inside “Ultimate Success Today” there's the most emotional ballad Protomartyr have ever written: “Worm In Heaven”…

Oh, well, thanks so much for the kind words.

Your previous album, “Relatives in Descent”, had an opening track, “A Private Understanding”, in which the line “She's just trying to reach you” was repeated obsessively. That album's final track, “Half Sister”, closed with the line “She is trying to reach you”. Now the line that opens “Ultimate Success Today” is “I could not be reached”. It looks like it's meant to be a link between the two albums…

Yeah, well, they're both Protomartyr records… And consecutive ones too! The fourth and the fifth…

In some of the lyrics on “Ultimate Success Today”, certainly written before the Covid-19 pandemic, you highlight the issue of the health emergency. In “Processed By The Boys” you talk about a “Foreign disease washed upon the beach”. Were you dramatically prophetic?

I was feeling sick, both physically and mentally, while we were writing the songs for the album. I was trying to figure out which of the two ailments was causing the other. And yeah, I guess I'm one of those people who could be considered useless psychics. So I wouldn't know what to say about any supposed prophecy. Honestly, I struggle even to pick a horse to bet on at the races, so I can hardly claim to be able to predict anything!

The best partner for the anger and tension in Joe's voice often seems to be the drums: besides writing the lyrics, what's Joe's role as a musician within the band?

No, no, I just “sing”.

Tell us about the decision to shoot a video for every track on the album. How did you “assign” and split up the tasks?

Over these past months, the Coronavirus has killed off any chance of organizing a promotional tour. Given that situation, making videos felt like the only option, and maybe also the easiest one, to keep reminding everyone that our record exists.

Do you ever listen back to one of your albums right after releasing it?

Oh, definitely! Especially when I feel the need to remember how to sing certain songs.

After “Ultimate Success Today”, do you feel satisfied? Or is there something you would have done differently?

No, I'm never satisfied. “I'm never satisfied”: just like the mother in “When Doves Cry” (the famous song by Prince, featured on “Purple Rain”, ed.).

Where was “Ultimate Success Today” mainly written? Are these different locations from the ones used for your previous albums?

No, it was conceived in the very same spaces where “Relatives In Descent” and the EP “Consolation” were born. The spaces where we usually rehearse. We just moved a couple of floors down in the same building, but we were always there. No change this time.

Do you think the lockdown could somehow affect Protomartyr's songwriting or live activity?

Americans' inability to carry out even a single simple act of respect toward their fellow human beings will most likely destroy touring life as we've known it forever, both inside and outside the United States. If you want, you can take this as a psychic's prophecy too…

When it comes to organizing your live activity, do you prefer playing on your own, as the headliners of the night, or do you prefer to tap into the synergy generated by big Festivals?

For the most part, I don't think Festivals are really the right place to listen to and appreciate music. Of course there are exceptions: there are small Festivals, some of them pretty quirky, with genuinely good organization and line-ups. But many of them, especially in the United States, seem like squalid circuses set up by boozy corporations. If you're into that kind of thing…

Speaking of concerts: will there still be a chance in the future to see Kelley Deal as an added member at some Protomartyr live dates?

At the moment I have no idea. The future, as we were saying before, today appears in many ways very, very dimly lit. It's impossible to make any sensible predictions.

You've always been keen on collaborations, even prestigious ones, like the split with Preoccupations. Generally speaking, which bands do you feel most in tune with these days, and with which ones have you managed to build actual friendships?

I wouldn't want to embarrass the bands we know by tainting them through our association with them…

Fontaines D.C., Shame, Murder Capital, Girl Band are in some sense already historicized bands. Plenty of new acts are forcefully pushing their way into the contemporary music scene. Recently, for instance, we've had the chance to appreciate Do Nothing and October Drift. In your opinion, why does post-punk remain such a widely embraced genre? It's not that it comes back cyclically: it's just always there…

I don't know if post-punk is really all that popular. I think people like lumping a bunch of bands together under this name, under this “genre”, under this extremely vague heading. The term “post-punk” has become particularly annoying nowadays: it doesn't mean anything and it doesn't help anyone, except for whichever guy suffers from that particular brain injury that makes him compare any band only to Joy Division or The Fall. I have to take pity on him…

Speaking of new bands, are there any you've listened to recently, maybe from your neck of the woods, that you'd like to point us to?

Honestly, by the time I listen to a “new” band it's not that new anymore. I've listened to and enjoyed Erik Nervous, Treasury Of Puppies, Too Free, Neighbors Burning Neighbors, Rose Mercie. From the Detroit area I'd point you to Toeheads, XV, Monica Plaza, Beauticians, Werewolf Jones. Take note: you might cross paths with some of them sooner or later…

Nowadays it's really very hard to make a living from your art. How many copies did “Relatives In Descent” sell, an album regarded as an absolute reference point and adored by critics the world over? How do you manage to carry on with such small numbers?

I'm certainly not going to answer that, oh boooooooooy!

To wrap up, I wanted to ask you: what is the “Day Without End” prophesied in the first track of the new record? The day we fall asleep forever? Or the day set for the next American presidential election?

It predicts nothing more than the day you or I will die. It's hard to call something a prophecy when it's inevitable! See, I was right?

In the meantime, the 2020 American Presidential election went ahead as planned: Democrat Joe Biden won, becoming the forty-sixth President of the United States of America.

Boris Johnson, on the other side of the Ocean, between one lockdown and another, confirms his firm intention to take the United Kingdom out of the European Union as soon as possible.

Almost every week a Black person is killed by law enforcement in the United States of America.

We are still far from having a viable vaccine against Covid-19 available.

Concerts and music events of all kinds remain virtually at a standstill in almost the entire world.

(November 2020)

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