INTERVIEW: As It Is
By Maggie Leone (Photos here)
Stranger Sings DJ Maggie Leone sat down with Patty Walters, As It Is frontman, before the band’s February 10th show (their biggest headlining show in North America yet) at The Middle East Downstairs. The Great Depression Tour: Act II with Sharptooth, Hold Close, and Point North, is in partnership with A Voice for the Innocent, a non-profit organization that provides community, resources, and support for people who have been affected by sexual violence.
As It Is recently released a new music video for their latest single from The Great Depression, “The Fire, The Dark.” It serves as a welcome for new permanent lead guitarist Ronnie Ish.
Maggie Leone: Where did the inspiration for The Great Depression come from as a whole?
Patty Walters: A number of places…I think the more surreal part of it is that it sort of arrived in my head as a fully formed idea. We’d had the title for the record before we’d written a lyric or a song or a section or much of anything. But I think it was just the right time and place for this record for us and it was a concept record second but it was always going to be about the exploration and the conversation that the scene and the society is guilty of romanticizing mental health, depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide. And the concept and the narrative came second. At its core it was always going to be about, you know. And that’s why it’s kind of cynically and satirically called “The Great Depression.” That’s where it all started, January 5th, 2017. It was just (snaps fingers) there.
ML: What about the idea for the music video trilogy? I call it a trilogy because they’re called Acts I, II, and III, but they’re not a cohesive story…
PW: Yeah! So the record is telling a cohesive story and the music videos are to be stand-alone music videos representing the individual songs, metaphorically symbolic of the subject matter. But we really wanted to revisit how we valued and created music videos. We really wanted them to be special again, to really mean something. We love and miss the super high-budget, ambitious emo music videos of the mid-2000s and we got really creative with the significantly smaller budget we had and wanted to create something that felt that special and spectacular again. So between ourselves, our manager, and the directors of the music videos, Dan and Josh, we tried to create something that was pretty special.
ML: Which one was your favorite one to shoot?
PW: Either “The Stigma (Boys Don’t Cry)” or “The Reaper.” And “The Reaper” was with our friend Zak [Pinchin]. He sings in a band called Modern Error. And that was really fun; that felt very nostalgic of new metal music videos that we grew up watching. It was much darker than anything we’d ever done. So it was fun to wear the skin of a band that was heavier and darker. But “The Stigma (Boys Don’t Cry)” was really fun. It was also the first music video we filmed. We released “The Wounded World” first but we filmed “The Stigma (Boys Don’t Cry)” the day before we filmed that one. And it was really fun. The actor playing the drill sergeant was very fun and very warm. He was very cool to just be on set with and he would tell jokes. It was a really fun time, it was really exciting. Especially because it was the beginning of everything. You know, nobody had experienced or knew anything about The Great Depression at that point, so it was exciting to be taking steps into that world finally.
ML: So what inspired the hair change?
PW: So the record is very consciously, intentionally paying homage to post-hardcore and emo bands. And I can understand why a lot of people singled out Gerard Way or Pete Wentz when I dyed my hair this color. But if you are my age, you remember that every band had this haircut and it’s really just paying homage to that genre and that movement that really shaped us. For me, this haircut was Finch, Silverstein, From First to Last, Funeral for a Friend, it was every band. And it was very consciously taking a step into that sound, that world, that aesthetic.
ML: Where did the name “As It Is” come from and how did the band’s image develop?
PW: It’s a lyric from a song called “Life is Hard Enough” by Have Heart. We came up with punk and punk-core bands, so we took out band name from a hardcore band’s lyric to try to fit in a little bit better. ALSO one of my favorite bands of all time so that’s one thing. We wanted a name that didn’t really pigeon hole or limit us to one specific sound, so you know a little more ambiguous, so we could get away with experimenting along the line and straying from pop-punk.
ML: I know your sound has changed a lot, but how would you say that it’s changed from Never Happy, Ever After to The Great Depression?
PW: In a big way, I think. What fundamentally hasn’t changed is that we always write what is natural for us, what we want to be writing. With Never Happy, Ever After, our biggest influences were Drive-Thru Records era bands like The Early November, Allitser, and New Found Glory, so many amazing bands…oh, Hidden in Plain View was one of my favorites of all time. And with “okay.” we started to just kind of experiment with instead of “who inspires us, who are we?” and that was an album of, more than anything, experimentation and embracing heavier and poppier elements…with “Pretty Little Distance” and “Still Remembering,” and equally, “No Way Out,” “Soap,” and “Austen.” So, we were just trying to find who we were and kind of having found that, and understanding that the darker, more aggressive sound made us feel better and more confident, we embraced that with The Great Depression. So that was really the evolution of the experimentation of the band over three records.
ML: How do you come up with the setlist?
PW: With so much difficulty and so much time! You’re never going to make every person happy. There are going to be songs that aren’t in the setlist that people are going to wish were there. But this particular setlist, we were playing in Europe and the UK on our biggest ever headline tour, so it was created with those rooms in mind. So performing it in the smaller clubs that we’ve been in in the US has actually felt really fun because it still feels very theatrical and grandiose like that. But it does take a very long time and a lot of thought. And when we get home in about two weeks, I’m almost there with our next one, but really just trying to create something that is very special, that doesn’t lull at any point in the set. You just want there to be energy and momentum from Track 1 to Track 17.
ML: What are you listening to currently?
PW: I’ve been listening to… Okay, this is so nerdy. (Laughs) I’ve really been loving – Imogen Heap did some music for “The Cursed Child” on Broadway. I listen to it a lot because it’s instrumental, so I read to it. Other than that…I still listen to a lot of Phoebe Bridgers, I still listen to…just a lot of really quiet stuff, I don’t know. I think just because we are in an alternative band, alternative music is something I listen to less and less. Not because it doesn’t still hold a very special place in my heart, but because I kind of get all my aggression out during our set instead of vicariously through other bands’ music. But that being said, the three bands on this tour are three bands we really love and believe in. So Point North, Hold Close, and Sharptooth are bands that we listen to pretty frequently.
ML: What’s your dream line-up?
PW: Oh wow. So, we’ve supported a lot of bands that have meant so much to us. But two that are still on our bucket list are Blink-182! and Green Day. But Jimmy Eat World is probably one of the biggest influences on this band…Jimmy Eat World and Taking Back Sunday are two bands that we’ve performed with alongside on festivals, but never as part of a tour. And Jimmy Eat World and Taking Back Sunday are two that just be monumental and hugely sentimental to this band.
ML: Are there any bands that once thought of as influence that you can now call friends?
PW: Oh! Mayday Parade and Silverstein…those are the main two that we were listening to when we were quite a lot younger. But they are two of the most genuine and hospitable and courteous bands that we’ve ever toured with. They just made us feel so very welcome and they are just genuine friends at this point and that’s bizarre, but it is what it is and they are just genuine people that we love to see and catch up with whenever we’re in the same place.
ML: What’s your go-to karaoke song?
PW: I have never done karaoke in my life!
Bassist, Alistair Tetso briefly chimed in: “Tequila”!
PW: So I just watched this video of someone doing “Tequila” on karaoke and I love that. I love that. It is just a man standing in one place in silence for 40-60 seconds, says “tequila,” and then stands there some more. I’m gonna say “Tequila.” I love that.
ML: I respect it.
PW: Thank you.
ML: What is the best theme party you’ve ever been to?
PW: Ooh, that is a really good question. I haven’t been to a theme party in quite a while. I’m trying to remember. There were some really, really good ones when I was younger. While I think, what was yours?
ML: Oh, well, I asked that because I went to one last night and it was 2000s and we were the Cheetah Girls. There was a lot of jorts and denim on denim. It was wild.
PW: Tight. I’m blanking, but there was something really good recently, I know there was. I went to a Love Actually one and Love Actually is a film that so many Americans haven’t seen and should. It’s a British Christmas film. I’m gonna say that because every American listening to/reading this interview should watch Love Actually this Christmas. It’s a good film.
ML: I thought of something else…you were on Warped Tour this summer. Wasn’t there a cool party…? I saw a lot online about something.
PW: If there was, I wasn’t there. I don’t go to cool parties. I was part the crew that played Werewolf every night. I was part of the nerd crew, yeah.
ML: That is all I have for you. Thank you for your time!