Anyone that reads this site knows how much we love Philly’s phinest (intentional) hardcore bros Paint It Black. The band just released their ferocious third full-length New Lexicon (Jade Tree) last week. I’m not going to really beat around the bush here because in this situation the proof is in the pudding. Just listen to the album and compare it with their other albums and you’ll see what I mean. I’d rather have the band speak for themselves.

I talked with members Dan Yemin, Andy Nelson and Jared Shavelson a few weeks ago, while I was on the clock at work no less, when they were in NYC. For nearly an hour and a half, we talked about the early stages of the record, their recent record release shows in Philadelphia and, of course, their infamous house show down at the Fest VI in Gainesville.

I know there was another title for the album before it came out, “Gravity Wins.” Why did you change it to the New Lexicon? What does it mean?

Andy: That was never the title of the record. It was a working title and someone misunderstood something in an interview that happened while we were making the record.

Dan: I said ‘tentatively titled.’

Andy: One person posts something on one site and it just goes everywhere. Titling songs, records and bands is the most difficult thing.

Dan: It’s such a battle. You’ve spent two years working on this body of stuff that you’ve poured everything into and then you have to choose one to three words to define it.

Read on after the jump for the rest of my interview with Paint It Black.

Andy: It can’t be similar to anything that anyone has used ever in the history of music, literature, art or film. Everyday we’d have this conversation. What the fuck are we going to call this thing?

Jared: I was visiting my girlfriend in Germany. I saw in her town Rise and Fall and Blacklisted were playing together with No Trigger. It was like friend fest. I go and hang out and George, the singer of Blacklisted, out of nowhere is like, ‘bro, you aren’t naming your record ‘Gravity Wins’ are you?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know. We haven’t really talked about it.’

Andy: Somehow he heard this. He’s on tour in Europe.

Jared: He’s like, ‘don’t do it.’ I was like, ‘we weren’t, but why?’ He’s like, ‘just not a good name dude.’ He’s a good friend of all of ours. It just hit me like ‘man, you’re right.’ To have someone say that to me, that I respect their opinion, right off the bat before it’s even announced. We on our West Coast little tour with Blacklisted and Ceremony, driving the whole time in the van together, we’d just turn the music off and start talking. ‘What about this?’ We’d take everyone’s ideas, try to piece them together and talk about what we were looking for.

Andy: We were attracted to ‘Gravity Wins’ initially. It was at that time the song we were most excited about. We’ve never done a song that was just one riff. The lyrical content was pretty on point to what we were thinking at the time. We liked the double-sided nature. The biblical imagery there and the weight of your words is there. It’s about substance versus shit. To find out after the fact, and of course, I wasn’t aware of this, that band One King Down has a record calls Gravity Wins Again. For fuck’s sake, if every motherfucking review of this thing says, ‘well, borrowing from One King Down…’ We just weren’t sold on it. I don’t know who thought of it.

Dan: He thought of it [pointing at Jared]. It’s a line from “Saccharine.” Andy was like, ‘what, well if we printed the lyric sheet, 90s style, with the lyrics to the new songs on it and just title it ‘New Lexicon.’’ We ended up not doing it but that stuck in my head. I hadn’t thought of it. I poured through the lyrics and look through every combination of words that stood out as having some impact. For some reason, I went right over that.

Andy: It’s a slightly different theme than “Gravity Wins” but it’s no less indicative of what the band’s about. It also has the whole punk thing; the Germs reference in it. This summer I watched every [Federico] Fellini movie a million times and his idea of a new lexicon was with film. We took that idea with sounds.

Dan: We are trying to accomplish the same things but with a new vocabulary.

Andy: It also has to do with the content. Thankfully, One King Down never had an album called that. Although Milemarker has a song called that but Milemarker is cool.

Dan: With underground and independent music, punk music in particular, I think the more it becomes commercialized, the more marketing people will take the most obvious and superficial aspects of the subculture and use it to grab people’s attention and sell stuff to them. If they are taking our vocabulary, and using it for their purposes, we have to find a new language to express things.

Andy: We use to talk a lot about how we didn’t like the labels of punk and hardcore because they were kind of meaningless. They don’t necessarily mean what we think they mean.

Dan: When I hear people use the words, they are often talking about the things that have nothing to do with what we are.

Is the album a representation of the band’s direction now and also trying to sort of raise the bar within the scene? There are a lot of bands out there doing the same old thing.

Jared: You can’t really set a level. It’s not like we are going to take it upon ourselves to say ‘this is what you have to beat.’ It’s not a competition.

Dan: We raised the bar for ourselves.

Andy: I think it’s largely about renewal and challenging ourselves and hopefully not doing something that is to be expected of us. I’m really depressed and at times very disgusted at how bands have an opportunity to set a good example and don’t. I always talk about how bummed I am that Fugazi’s not around. For a long time, they were the shining example of how you could do things. Not necessarily that that you have to do five dollar shows or you have to do this. Just, fuck the bullshit. You can do whatever you want and you can succeed.

Dan: How radical was it for a band in the 90s not to have merch?

Andy: Even if you look at our merch, it’s not like a lot of other bands that are smaller than us who have like twenty-five designs. I do shows at the First Unitarian Church all the time and we have these bands that aren’t popular and have like thirty t-shirts. What the fuck is that? I don’t want to read into that too much. Part of the record release weekend, it was sort of an experiment in DIY. The four of us did the whole thing.

Dan: [Pointing to Andy] He did 95% of it.

Jared: I showed up.

Andy: Yeah but you looked good.

Dan: The other five percent was Jared looking good.

Andy: The idea wasn’t about commerce. We gave you shit for free. It wasn’t about buying our t-shirts. It was nice if you did. It was about coming together and hanging out and having fun. Spending our energy together.

Dan: We were out to curate an exhibit of music we think is awesome.

Andy: The ideals that we think are awesome. There was no outside involvement of anything. All DIY, no corporate involvement. No hidden messages. A lot of people were like ‘oh man, you guys sold out two shows at the church.’ Nah man, it wasn’t us, it was everyone. It was the gathering. A lot of people came to us at the end of the weekend. Anyone from like eighteen year old kids that work at the church sometimes to Mike from Damnation A.D. were like, ‘this was fucking inspiring.’ Dude, we are just Paint It Black. We are just four idiots. I would like to challenge people to do more things like that. I’m not saying challenge like, ‘fuck you, we did this.’ You can play wherever you want. No fights, no beef. To do something like that Sunday show with six hardcore bands in Philadelphia. For everyone just to have smiles on their faces, in Philadelphia, that was a miracle. I have a very transcendental view of it. You can control every aspect of how your band operates.

Jared: Since I’ve been in this band, we’ve done a lot of cool shit.

Andy: We’ve only played like ten shows. Most of them have been fucking awesome.

Jared: We’ll do our shows that we are scheduled to do and then we’ll get a last minute invite to play someone’s house, cave the floor in and almost get arrested.

I saw it as a mini Philly-style Fest in a way. A rendition of the Fest in Gainesville, Philly style.

Dan: The Fest in Gainesville has inspired us in the three years we’ve been going. Tony [Weinbender, organizer of the Fest], man, he’s like a Florida Andy Nelson.

Andy: [Laughing] I’m like a Philadelphia Tony, I hope. A lot of people traveled and I hope they can get an idea of how great Philly can be but more importantly, I hope the people that live there were like, ‘fuck man, this is awesome.’

Dan: We did it for Philly just as much as ourselves. People are like, ‘oh, Philly. It’s violent, the scene there right?’ I guess if you only go to certain kinds of shows it might be. I don’t even know what shows those are. I’m not highlighting anything in particular.

Andy: When we first started, every interview we did was like, ‘yo, I heard Philly is a tough place. What is that like?’

Dan: For people that came to Philly from out of town they got to see something really cool. Hopefully, they’ll go home and be like ‘Philly’s scene is fucking cool.’ Not only that, maybe they’ll see that possibility in their own city. Which is part of the point. People communicating and inspired about what they can do.

Andy: Even the 7-inch was partially to get people to trade records. Obviously people are going to want this and you’ll have to find someone from Philadelphia and you guys will have to talk.

I think it was cool for the city too because of how much shit is going on right now. It’s a disaster, there’s so much crime. To bring the music when the city is having a tough time was cool to see.

Dan: Everyone that created the Philly scene over the last fifteen years played a part in it.

Talk about that house show down in Gainesville.

Dan Yemin: Next time it’s 2 A.M. and you’re drunk and you hear about a show that’s five miles away and say ‘ah fuck it.’ Don’t say ‘ah fuck it.’

Andy: We were stuck in a very weird position because they were like, ‘the show has to be over at this time.’ Which of course, was like three in the morning. Shook Ones were playing. We were like, ‘hey, we want do it. The only thing is that we are not going to leave until after Naked Raygun is done.’ So we are in the front row, just singing along and I’m getting all these text messages saying like ‘where the fuck are you guys?’

Dan Yemin: At Naked Raygun. Fuck you.

Andy: Yeah, like do you realize what you are missing? We ran all the way down from where they played to the Holiday Inn. It was a fucked up day. We got lost getting there.

Jared: We see kids and we’re like ‘get in the van!’

Dan: You were never going to get there on foot.

Andy: Shook Ones were calling. ‘Dude, where are you. We just finished playing.’

Jared: We pull in and we’re like, ‘how are we going to find this place. Which one is it?’ As soon as we get into this development, you see this swarm of people.

Dan: It looked like a keg party. There were three cop cars there already. The text was ‘Shook Ones just finished. Come around the back. Run up the backstairs. The shit is set up. Just pick up and go.’

Andy: And lock the doors so the cops can’t get in. We’re just like, ‘fucking go!’ We didn’t have a set. People just yelled out songs and we played them.

Jared: The Shook Ones’ gear was set up and you walk in the backdoor and the drums were right there and the equipment. If you go in the backdoor, that’s all you got. I was the last one in. The drums were right there. The guys are all set up and ready to go. I remember looking around and feeling completely lost. Everyone was just sitting on the floor.

Andy: They were like, ‘listen, seriously, you guys have to stay seated. The floor is caving in and if you jump around, you’re going to kill everybody. We were just like, ‘eehh. Don’t know about this.’

Jared: It was just really quiet. Andy was just like, ‘ok let’s go.’ We just start and I mean I don’t even know how to describe what happened.

Dan: It just erupted.

Andy: They obviously did not care about if they died or not.

Dan: Which is amazing. People are just like fuck it. They could feel the floor caving in.

Jared: Door shuts and just chaos. It was absolutely amazing.

Dan: First thing I remember is that somebody dove off the refrigerator. People were throwing beers.

Andy: Police just storm in and grab Josh while he’s playing. The guy whose house it was like, ‘ok, let me go outside and talk to you.’ We were like ‘let’s just keep playing.’

Jared: We finished the second song and we stopped for a minute. They aren’t even out of the room, the cop and the guy who was renting the house. They just turned around and we started playing again. I think that happened twice.

Dan: The cop was flashing his flashlight in my face. Somehow that became on the Internet, ‘there was a cop trying to stop [the show] and Yemin just screamed in his face.’ Yeah that’s not true.

Andy: Somehow, the guy who was renting it, I don’t know how he worked this, but he was like, ‘ok, you guys can play for ten more minutes.’

Jared: The floor was just getting worse.

Dan: We played like seven songs.

Jared: He got evicted and we saw him the next day and he didn’t care. He was just like ‘that was the best night of my life.’

Dan: We got an e-mail saying ‘we’ll have a new house next year.’

Andy: Let’s destroy that one too.

Jared: I was at the Fat showcase the next day. I was standing in line and just waiting for Chicken [of Dead To Me] to come meet me. These kids were going off about ‘Paint It Black last night was the best show of the Fest.’ I’m just standing there and they are literally right behind me. I was just like that’s hear what they say. Nothing but good things. During Dead to Me’s set, Chicken asked how many people were at the Paint It Black show last night and I shit you not, everyone in the place raised their hand which was impossible.

Andy: At the time I was like, ‘that was fucking awesome.’ I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. The next day I was like, ‘wow, I guess that made an impact.’ We never use to do stuff like that. Ten fucking minutes is all it takes. We played the Common Grounds show and it was fun. It was hard in comparison.

Jared: It’s just not fair to play after Municipal Waste.

Dan: For me, it’s more like when you’ve just played the night before with people falling all over you, it’s just hard to be on a stage, above people.

Andy: If people ask us to do that again it might not be as good. We should just book it and not show up and then the next year, do it.

The record’s sound is so complex thanks to Oktopus. Is there a thought of bringing that out for a show?

Dan: I could care less to be honest with you. I think there’s one song that we’ll try to do it on a regular basis. The studio and the stage are two different mediums. The songs were ripping when we got to the studio. Just bass, drums, guitar, vocals.

Jared: We’ve pondered on an idea to do a show with Oktopus. Without that, it’s not going to happen otherwise. He’s a big part of that record. It’s not up to us to replicate it.

Dan: It’ll be fun to replicate live but it’s unnecessary.

Andy: I don’t think any of us feel beholden to exactly replicating things as they sound on the record. You can never do that anyway. Unless you are traveling with a sound guy and a ton of equipment. We are a hardcore band. If I was interested in a band that we are in, I’d be really interested in seeing them do it live. I think it’d be wild to see kids diving and just like Oktopus on the side doing his thing.

It sounds like it was the hardest album you ever made. What were some of the hardships you came about just doing the album?

Andy: Ironically, this was the least hard record to make as a band. The first record, we had to cancel recording, delay it nine months. It was not a group effort. None of us were in the studio at the same time. The fact is that I can’t listen to that record. When people tell me it’s their favorite record, I immediately lose faith in any opinion they have after that.

Dan: I keep looking on the side of their head to see if they have ears.

Andy: This record, we had four people that wanted to practice all the time, had creative ideas, and were fun to hang out with. We spent way more time on it. I think it was because we are excited about the freedom that we had given ourselves on it.

Jared: I can’t really think of one time in particular where I was like ‘I can’t look at this guy again.’

Dan: When you are doing a record with people, there’s always one part where you are like ‘really? That’s what you are going to play there?’

Andy: There’s really nothing like that on this record.

Dan: We were much more public about the process. I talked about how we were going to do it. I posted lyrics as I was writing them. We’ve been much more deliberated about taking that seriously. Updating our web stuff and taking the time to communicate with people.

I thought that was an interesting move. Why were you trying to get thoughts on your lyrics?

Dan: I wanted feedback. Personally, I wanted to communicate. I need encouragement.

You said this is the first time, you’ve written particularly about Philadelphia? What song on the record is about Philadelphia?

Dan: “Four Deadly Venoms.” Dave Hause [of The Loved Ones] and I challenged each other when we were writing. We were talking about the writing process and how sometimes it’s really uphill. We made a commitment to share our stunted efforts with each other along the way. We’re going to write and share with each other. I wrote a song about being in Philadelphia and being trapped by writer’s block. It’s hard to say I’m going to write about this.

Andy: With hometown songs you run the risk of being corny.

Dan: They are all for Philly. This one is about Philadelphia. It’s an underdog city. I’m constantly inspired by the situation in one way or another. Either inspired by the creativity or when I do see violence, to do one better.

Tags: Interview, News, Paint It Black, interview //