We got the chance to chat with SwitchBitch Records artist, Flannel Mouth again after their release of single, “Oh Bastard.” Check out what the guys had to update us on!
BS: What have you guys been up to since we talked last?
Tyler: We just released a single! Yay!
Everyone: Yay!
Tyler: I grew a beard!
Luke: I grew a goatee! I’m thinking about shaving it, though.
Tyler: No, dude, you look good.
Luke: I don’t think so.
Ryan: I grew a mustache.
Tyler: And Zach got his hair cut.
Luke: I think I’m going to shave my face exactly like Ryan’s.
Tyler: Are you going to shave the hair on your face, or your actual skin so you look like Ryan?
Luke: I’m going to shave the hair, and then I’m going to pluck, so I only have a little whisp.
Ryan: …awh.
Tyler: Just grow a better mustache.
Ryan: Not like I can just tell myself, “Hey! Grow better!”
Luke: It’s a good mustache.
Tyler: It’s a terrible mustache. It’s good for him, but it’s awful.
Luke: Your sideburns could use some work, though.
Tyler: This whole thing is just going to be a critical analysis of Ryan’s facial hair.
Ryan: Oh my god.
Tyler: We just released a new track that you can buy for a dollar on Bandcamp.
Ryan: It’s a dollar.
Tyler: It’s a dollar on Bandcamp.
Luke: It’s a song.
Tyler: It’s a song. It’s narrative poetry set to music.
Ryan: And it’s a dollar.
Tyler: It’s a dollar, it’s on Bandcamp, and it’s a song.
Luke: It’s so good!
Tyler: We’re really proud of it, because it touches on our pop sensibilities, and also just shows you that we know how to rock!
Ryan: It can be more than a dollar!
Tyler: You can buy it for more than a dollar! You can pay as much as you want, but more than a dollar!
BS: You just released a new single, “Oh, Bastard.” What story are you telling with the song?
Luke: I’m telling the story of a bastard who was born to some people from — no, let me rephrase that.
Tyler (impersonating Luke): “Let me rewrite that song.”
Luke: Let me rewrite it!
Tyler (impersonating Luke): “I don’t like the way I was going to answer that question, so I’m going to rewrite the song entirely.” Everybody forget what we were saying about dollar songs, because it doesn’t exist anymore.
Luke: It’s hard to explain further, I guess. It’s a story.
Tyler: The song is a story about a bastard child born to less-than-good people who, at a time when they should be selfless, are very selfish, and then the Bastard goes out and he — what’s the word — he takes all that information in, interprets, and acts upon said information by murdering everybody. Wait, no, Sophie died young and beautiful; did he kill her?
Ryan: Yeah.
Tyler: Oh, cool!
Ryan: Saying that she died young and beautiful means he killed her young instead of waiting.
Tyler: But he waited to kill daddy?
Luke: I’m going to say he killed her young, but I don’t know, though. I’m going to say Sophie was killed, and then he moved directly to America to escape the German authorities.
Ryan: How do we know he was German?
Tyler: Because it says that in the song.
Luke: Dude, he lives in Berlin.
Tyler: Daddy was deployed to Germany and impregnated Sophie.
Luke: And Sophie stayed in Germany.
Ryan: Germany’s not a country.
Luke: Bastard killed — excuse me?
Ryan: You heard me.
Tyler: Look like we’re never touring in Germany now.
Ryan: We already have fans out there! Luke: You ruined that, Ryan. Tyler: See you later, fans in Germany.
BS: What was it like for you writing this song?
Tyler: That’s actually an interesting story. It started off when we won some studio time.
Luke: For me it was rather stressful in the beginning, because we were in the middle of writing the album that we’re going to be recording eventually someday soon. I was in that mode, like writing for that, and then this came along and I went through three or four ideas. I had this one that was kind of like, “Oh, that’s just a silly idea,” which, you know, is weird. I couldn’t get anywhere with all the other songs, so I was like, “Fuck it. Write the song that comes most easily,” and it was that one.
Tyler: And we didn’t have to revise it that much. You basically wrote it, sat us down, went “alright, this is how this part goes,” and at first I thought the part after the verses was in a different signature.
Luke: Oh, yeah! There are quite a few revisions I completely forgot about.
Tyler: Writing the song, we —
Luke: What we did was write the scratch track of my guitar part, we had Tyler write his part –
Tyler: And then we took it out to Erik at Eclipse Studios in Bloomington, Illinois where we’d won some free studio time, and he did an excellent job. He set up so many mics that made the drums sound just big and thunderous and great, despite the fact that my cymbals were just trashed, and it’s super raw, but it’s polished, and it’s good. We took it back to our home studio, the Dr. Swigburn’s Palace of Debauchery, in Glasford. I shouldn’t say “Glasford;” I should say “Peoria area.”
Ryan: No, you should say “Glasford.”
Tyler: Yeah, we live in Glasford. And we recorded everything else —
Luke: Move there. Move to Glasford. We need to make a huge city.
Tyler: Sweet, let’s build it. You can get a job at the corn mines.
Luke: …and so we were recording…
Tyler: Yeah, so we recorded everything and sent the tracks to Mike at SwitchBitch Records/Studios in Marblehead, Massachusetts, and then he sent us a couple different mixes, and we liked the last one that we got, and that was it! Oh, bastard!
BS: Is this only a single or is it going to be part of an EP you’re working on?
Luke: No!
Tyler: It’s a single independent of an album.
Luke: We’re actually never going to play it again.
Tyler: We didn’t want to lose the studio time, and we thought it would be really nice for our fans to hear something independent of the story we’ve been trying to write and tell for a while, so we ended up putting that together. We kind of shot ourselves in the foot in terms of morale at first, but it quickly turned around and we haven’t been prouder of a song in a while, because it’s great! It’s just a good song.
Luke: I wish we wrote it.
Tyler: It’s like one of those songs where you’re like, “I wish we wrote it.” We’re just…
Luke: Happy. Really really happy.
Tyler: And we want everyone to be as happy as we are, and just excited about what’s coming next, because it kind of showed us what we can do, and our morale just boosted back up for what we’re currently writing. We’re about halfway through that, and we’re beyond excited to share that.
BS: When can fans expect to hear some more new music from you?
Luke: We’re talking about releasing some acoustic dandies via — would that be YouTube?
Tyler: Yeah, it’ll be YouTube, and probably somewhere else, too.
Luke: It’ll be live.
Tyler: Pay attention for some acoustic stuff, probably live.
Luke: Probably stuff we’ve already done, but different!
Tyler: Right! Different versions of stuff we’ve already done, an acoustic version of “Oh, Bastard,” which is so funny, because to us that’s like an acoustic song [already], but we play it live, like big and loud. But new music, as in new compositions — we’re aiming for summer/fall 2014.
Luke: Aiming.
Tyler: Aiming, like it’s in the crosshairs.
Luke: But we’re still kind of way out there.
Tyler: And we’re almost hesitant to pull the trigger, because we don’t know the wind speed, we don’t know the, uh…wind speed —
Luke: Or the wind speed.
Tyler: Or the wind speed. I mean, we know the Coriolis effect and which direction we’re facing.
Luke: I don’t really know anything, because it’s all metaphorical, so I don’t really know anything that’s going on with this wind speed.
Tyler: And we also don’t know the wind speed.
BS: What else is going on in the coming months for you all?
Tyler: The next few months, we’re going to be pushing “[Oh,] Bastard” as hard as we can, just like the way his mother —
Zach: And we’re going to run it straight into the ground.
Tyler: We’re going to run it so hard you all get exhausted by it and just be longing for new music.
Luke: We’ve got to make sure the wind speed is correct.
Tyler: Let’s just say today is December. It is December.
Luke: Okay.
Tyler: In the coming months, we’ve got — let’s just use April as a benchmark. In the next few months we’ll have a lyric video for “Oh, Bastard,” —
Luke: We’ll be hibernating.
Tyler: We’re going to be doing the opposite of hibernating through the winter. We’re going to be working so hard just to make sure we’re at a place where “[Oh,] Bastard” has been heard by as many people as it can, we’ll release a lyric video, we’ll have a whole new live set, and ideally some tours. We really want to spread our music to some people and get real personal with some fans and make sure they all know they’re not spending time reading this interview in vain, because we’re in it for the long run and we have nobody but our fans in mind. And then all of their friends.
Ryan: And all of their friends’ friends.
Zach: And all of their mothers.
Tyler: And the wind speed.
BS: Anything else you’d like to say to your fans out there?
Tyler: Let us meet your mothers. They’re very dear to us.
Luke: Um…
Tyler: And watch the wind speed.
Luke: Thank you!
Tyler: Thank you as much as one can be thanked, because we’re thanking you that much.
Luke: Times more.
Tyler: Thank you for listening to us and giving us a shot, and we’re forever humbled by it. But we’re looking to be further humbled with things that we’re currently working on.
Luke: Yep!
Tyler: Last time I was asked what to say to our fans, I said “Don’t die,” and that was real morbid.
Luke: …but don’t. Seriously, don’t.
Tyler: And don’t fall into the monotony of…
Luke: …everyday life.
Tyler: Just go out and try something new, like buying our single! For a dollar!
Luke: Or checking the wind speed!
Tyler: If you check the wind speed, it might be more than a dollar.
Luke: Because Flannel Mouth might be releasing a new album if it’s right.
Tyler: Dude, no matter what, the wind speed is going to be what the wind speed is, but we’re going to measure it and shoot for that through the crosshairs across the terrain and hit our target.
Luke: If anybody in our fanbase has a birthday, happy birthday!
Tyler: And buy our single!
Flannel Mouth is currently nominated in a few categories in the 2013 BareBones Awards. You can go vote for them Here
