Since making their presence known on the scene in 2009, there have been few bands more intently discussed and bickered over than the Connecticut collective known as The World Is A Beautiful Pl
Since making their presence known on the scene in 2009, there have been few bands more intently discussed and bickered over than the Connecticut collective known as The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die. At the core, much of the conversations surrounding the band center on now-outdated concepts of strict genre boxes that the band (and music in general) has naturally outgrown, but there’s also many more noteworthy aspects of the group for those willing to really examine TWIABP and what they could potentially mean for music going forward. At times, the band says so little with so much, whether it be from a basic album cover or relentless song title, and their steady flow of music constantly means there’s always a new facet of the band ready to be explored, a fact no more evident than on their latest record Harmlessness. From top to bottom, TWIABP may just be the music world’s most intriguing band today and they’ve really only just begun.
After taking in the compressed magnitude of their band name, the first significant aspect of the band has to be the size of the band. All in all, around 15 musicians have been able to claim membership in TWIABP, with the current line-up orbiting around 8, though is definitely debatable and could very well change tomorrow. Obvious comparisons to collectives like The New Pornographers and Broken Social Scene pop up in light of this and more so as past members begin to rotate back into the lineup, as is the case with the re-entry of founding member Tyler Bussey. Bussey started the band with Tom Diaz (who’s since left) and Derrick Shanholtzer-Dvorak, the frontman and public voice for all things TWIABP.
“The three of us had all been playing solo shows around that time,” Shanholtzer-Dvorak told us. “I brought up the idea of starting a band even though we didn’t know a drummer. I taught myself to drum by taking Adderall and playing a free set I put together. Within a year, we had recorded an EP and went on our first eleven day tour, but when we came back, Tyler told us he couldn’t be around us anymore because we drank so much so he left. A couple of years later, things are flying by and he’d come see our shows as we got more popular. After we finished our last record, we started to write the new one and I just called him to see if he wanted to write this record with us. He was down so he just started flying in from Oregon to help us out.”
Hearing Shanholtzer-Dvorak talk, it seems apparent TWIABP is viewed as a revolving door of sorts. “There’s definitely a core six people that have to be there, but other people can sort of come and go as there is space available in the band or depending on what we’re working on at the time. It’s just a collaborative project in that sense.” Still, it’s not a mission statement of sorts for TWIABP to be these humongous collective of musicians; it’s just a natural response to the ambitions the band has for their evolving sound. “I don’t think it’s a gimmick or something. There’s just a lot of people in the band. It helps with our live shows when it comes to textural stuff that we do with our improv pieces. For our recordings, having so many people makes it so much more interesting than when there was a lot less.”
It may not be a gimmick, but that doesn’t mean that TWIABP is above utilizing their large stable in a way that could make some unique recordings. “I don’t know if we’ll follow through with it, but we’ve talked about doing a split LIP with ourselves. We’ll cut the band in half into two separate bands and they’ll go off and write songs together. We’ll then each record our own half and see what each come up with. It’d be like gym class almost – two captains just picking people back and forth.” It’s a lofty goal that could yield yet another intensely discussed work, but it’s also one that could fizzle just as quickly as we discussed. Shanholtzer-Dvorak was realistic about this, though it didn’t stop the young musician from gushing about it. “I really want to do it. I just think it’s this funny and interesting idea. I remember this band By The End Of Tonight once had each member of the band record their own EP and release them all at the same time. It was really interesting to hear because you could sort of tell which parts of the band was coming from which member. I remember the drummer’s EP was the most insane and weird thing. I’d love to do something similar.”
As much as it’s interesting idea, the allure for Shanholtzer-Dvorak comes more so in how the project differs from the workload a full length album requires. It’s something people following the band should be well-aware of considering their propensity for EPs, standalone singles, and 7″ releases. “I just like not having the thought of, ‘We have to go work on another full length record and make it a big success.’ I like to work on smaller projects and follow through with all these random ideas that don’t have to be anything more than just that. Just some fun projects to think about it and then finish.” It’s an interesting take on the album format topic, making it less about single format versus album format and more about just what really goes into making a full length cohesive record and how it can really detract musicians from these simple, small side projects.
For TWIABP, these small releases come not just from a desire to see each random project to completion, but also from the back catalogue the band is still amassing. “Every time we practice, we just write instead of practice old material and then we just record all of it. Probably since Whenever, If Ever, we’ve just kept building up all these songs. By the time we got to the studio for Harmlessness, we had 30 or something songs that we could have possibly recorded. There were five songs we actually did record that didn’t end up on the record. We’re just constantly working on new stuff every time and documenting it so we have it later down the road. It’s easier to do these small projects when we have this surplus of material.”
For musicians tied to a label, this type of constant output (especially through multiple partners) is almost inconceivably, but luckily for TWIABP, their current label home of Epitaph is more than willing to lt them do what they need to do to grow and just be TWIABP. “Epitaph was the first label we spoke with that was willing to let us do anything we needed or really wanted to do. They even offered to help us anyway they could. Most of the time, [label owner] Brett Gurewitz just answers ‘whatever’ with our requests. I think the only suggestion they ever had was that the snare might be too loud on the new record, but I said it wasn’t and that was it. Really, they’re just great to work with.”
The big discussion around TWIABP ultimately boils down to their sound. Since their beginnings, journalist and publications have labeled them as champions of the recent emo-revival movement and while some in the scene are quick to embrace TWIABP as their own, others are less enthused. A typical argument over where they fall on the musical spectrum may yield a dozen different conclusions, but invariably, there’s always the nonsense point of the band not being “real emo,” as if such a thing can be accurately described in 2015. “It’s whatever,” Shanholtzer-Dvorak shrugged. “People get into arguments on the internet about the way things sound and it’s not real emo because it’s not emotive hardcore. I really don’t care if you want to call us an emo band. It doesn’t really matter. All that stuff is just stupid. Getting into arguments about labelling the way things sound seems like an enormous waste of time and thought. Why would you really care?”
With that in mind, it makes you wonder if the band almost made a push to move their music out of the emo confines and into new sonic territory, as most reviewers have touched down upon for their new record. It’s a nice sentiment and all, but listening to Shanholtzer-Dvorak, it’s almost as baseless as the aforementioned argument. “There was no conscious decision that this record had to be completely different from the last one. It’s just how it worked out. We started writing some of these songs before Whenever, If Ever even came out. ‘Haircuts For Everybody’ was written for that record – we just didn’t end up finishing the song before we recorded it. I don’t hear a drastic change in our sound. I mean, we have a couple different vocalists, but I don’t know.”
Harmlessness is still a record that defies labels, whether or not it was a pre-planned vision by the band. It flirts with a number of genres and also seemingly pits them against each other making a song like “January 10th, 2014” something an emo kid would covet as well as a post-rock junkie. Above all else though, it’s a very cohesive sound that’s impressive not only from the amount of musical voices being expressed, but also by the way it’s all put together. “Everything with this band, from the way we write the music to the lyrics, is just on the fly as it happens. We just run with ideas. We write all the music collaboratively at practice and for the lyrics, well, this is really the first record that’s mostly Dave [Bello]. I wrote some of it and Tyler wrote some of it, but most of it is Dave. While we were writing the songs, he was just working ideas through his heads. Melodies and lyrics. It’s whatever inspired him in the moment like ‘January 10th’ is about an episode of This American Life he remembered. With Dave, it’s whatever hits him in the moment and it’s the same for the music too.”
The moment hit TWIABP just right it seems on their new record as it’s clearly one of the year’s most impactful records, one that really challenges the status quo for not just societal norms but for musical norms too. It’s clear throughout the whole record, but also something that’s subtly evident when you glance across the album’s cover, one that might become legendary one day. “It’s a friend’s photo. It’s from a series of photos she had with these adults wearing masks and playing tag and just chasing each other. That photo seems terrifying even though it’s an innocent thing. It just plays on the idea of actually being harmless and how you think your thoughts and actions affect other people and the environment around you. The difference between what you believe is real and what is actually real. I just liked that it looked childish, but also like a threat.”
While Shanholtzer-Dvorak is just discussing the album cover, that subject matter is all over Harmlessness, even when the vocals drop out and all that’s left is simple, yet tense backing music. It’s moments like these on the record that really give TWIABP their identity. It’s not explained by a short phrase or easily placed in a neat category. It’s an identity that’s confident and bold while striving to push forward through whatever method. It’s an identity that constantly invalidates any conclusion you can reach about the band and it’s an identity that really shows that despite the bands already rich catalogue, there’s much more to come and no one will be able to pin down what’s next.
The World Is A Beautiful Place… returns to Richmond tonight at The Camle with Foxing, This Town Needs Guns, and Brightside opening the evening. Doors are at 6pm with tickets still available for $17. For more information on the show, click here.
