JOHN JUGHEAD PIERSON

JOHN JUGHEAD PIERSON

Even In Blackouts as a band has always represented something unique in the pop punk culture, and has been embraced despite not conforming to the trappings that tend to define the music and the look. How do you feel about the impact EiB has made?

It is hard for me to see any great impact.  Similar to Screeching Weasel there was no goal to make an impact.  It was more about filling our time with something we thought was worth spending time doing.  If there is anything about impact, it would be of a personal sort. Creativity, especially in the arts, is very important to me, in some ways it is my connection with the seeking of truth.  It is the way I understand the world. In periods of my life where this pursuit of creativity does not manifest or is not the main focus, I tend to be very depressed and lost. So it makes sense that a band that I helped start would use this as its foundation.  I believe that we need to engage and entertain an audience. Or else why do it? But we must keep ourselves interested first and foremost.

And as to the punk aspect.  It has always been a part of my life since I discovered it with my friends in high school.  I don’t know whether to consider EiB a punk band, but it is where I am from, and I try to recreate that energy any way I can. I believe in many of the aspects of the punk ethos, and being unapologetically yourself is one of them, even when it strays away from where you started. The aggressive, think for yourself, and social aspect of punk, will always be important to me.

The focus of this blog is songwriting, and I feel that EiB is the band you've contributed the most songwriting to. How do you approach your contributions to the band, and how has that changed over the course of the band's history and evolution?

It is a collision of the intentional and the accidental.  When I start writing something, I don’t always know if it will be a poem, a novel, a play, or a song… the things that are swirling in my brain, from the stimulus inputted by my social world at the time, combines with my literary or philosophical interests, and comes out as if on their own, from another source other than myself.  Many writers talk about this… muse concept. From there the real work begins, to observe it, help give it a direction, a structure, and then multiplying its contents by using other aspects of my understanding of the world and the musical and artistic genres and styles for which I am familiar. In this way I feel all the projects a person, or a group of persons, engage in are related and progressive through time. It’s all related, and therefore increases one's knowledge. (Or hopefully)

From the beginning of EiB, this approach was both lyrical and musical, on my own, then once Liz came aboard, and I began discussing music and songs with her, my approach to songwriting branched out in many directions.  And then this was magnified once again when Gub joined the band. (And also Bice and John Szymanski, and anyone else who has been in the band to lesser and greater degrees.)  An initial idea of mine is usually created alone, but once it springs into being, it craves the help of others, and that is why I prefer to work with an ensemble of people on most all artistic projects.

Has your level of confidence as a songwriter increased as a direct result of your output with EiB? Do you feel that your songs fit that band more so than any other you've played in? Have the other band experiences informed your songwriting technique and/or voice significantly?

My confidence has most definitely grown with EiB.  I mean, I didn’t really consider myself a songwriter nearly at all before I started that band.  I was most definitely an important contributor to the sound of a song with Screeching Weasel and The Mopes, but in general the initial idea and foundation was not my own. (Not including Screeching Weasel self titled and Boogada.  I had a much more hands-on approach to the songs in the beginning of SW.)  From the start I had a bit more control of direction with The Mopes, but ultimately it was following the lead of Vapid.  But EiB is a completely different beast. I didn’t really use Screeching Weasel or Mopes to grow as an artist and musician, those bands were just keeping myself alive, moving forward and enjoying my time with fellow musicians and some of the best pop punk songwriters out there.  It was all about trying to make the things I was doing the best things I could help to make them. That combined with both me and Ben having a business sense mind very easily and quickly turned our fun pursuits into potential careers. (flailing or successful was really of no concern.)  Even though my songwriting is nothing like Ben’s, I feel he is more of a guiding force for me, structurally, than Vapid.  Ben was always trying to mutate the rules, to constantly create similar structures but to always have a moving part that feels unique with each song. I feel my nature is a bit more subtly rebellious than Ben’s, and I like for that to come out in the styles I tackle.   That part of Ben’s writing was an important lesson for me.

Something that has always struck me about Even In Blackouts is the way in which it conveys a more approachable, accessible aesthetic both musically and conceptually. There's no air of pretension to be found at all, which itself is very refreshing. Is there a sort of ethos in the band that centers around sincerity and a down to earth approach?

I think that is really the only way I know how to write, whether it be a play or a song.  And I would even go so far as to say I get a little too introspective, too real, and then I struggle to make what I write and do more universally accessible.  And that is how I tend to live my life, I can only see my world through my own eyes, but I have a hunger to share that with others. Ironically this may be what makes it feel more “down to earth” as you say.   It is important to constantly be making connections with other minds, even though I can’t get out of my own. Since I have a deep love for people in general, that may make it even more encompassing of the feel of the band and its music.  In creating a band I gravitated towards making the connection between people the most important thing, and so I feel that breeds confidence in others to do the same, and therefore that is where I believe EiB is right now. And luckily those that most fit that description were also some of the best people and musicians I know.

The feel of the EiB experience seems to have something in common with the plays you write and perform in. Do you see a commonality there? There's an intimacy and "live" quality that feels unique.

Yes, when I joined the Neo Futurists Theater Ensemble in Chicago, it made perfect sense.  As an artist I was already heading in that “intimate” direction. With the Neo Futurists all material must be from our own lives and with as little artifice as possible.  Creating art without artifice is difficult, challenging, and nearly impossible to do away with all together, and therefore to me makes a great quixotic way in which to create.  I don’t like to make things easy for myself. Trying to understand oneself, is extremely difficult. And of course can keep material generating for a life time… and longer.

The activity of EiB has increased in recent years, and the releases have spanned a long period of time by now, there hasn't ever seemed to be an intentional break from activity. Has the longevity been organic all along?

I would say yes, but it was also a very painful journey too.  The band has never made any money. I had to stop the band in 2009 because I went completely broke and couldn’t afford to keep the band functioning, especially since we all lived in different cities.  It was a controversial decision within the band, but one I felt I had to make at the time. And yet we continued to work in small groups through those years. Liz, Gub, and Bice got very close and would even take family vacations together.  And I worked with John Szymanski in theater during all the years of EiB. Even though we weren’t creating new Even In Blackouts’ music for a decade we were all still in contact and working and socializing alongside each other. We still haven’t committed to a full time band again, but we decided to make working together more of a priority.

As a guitarist, do you feel that there's a certain way that you must play your acoustic versus your electric in terms of chords and techniques? The EiB has always had the unplugged element but not a particularly "jangly" sound one might expect.

The initial idea of the band was to make an acoustic guitar sound like a punk electric guitar, but more in its energy than it’s actual timbre. I wanted to be able to hear more clearly the strings and notes of each chord I played.  Plus I really like the sound of an acoustic guitar muted and downstroked. I wanted at first to play with no electricity, to be able to set up anywhere. We have grown since then but that is still part of our aesthetic.

The strongest impetus to pursue a band completely revolved around me becoming a better musician, with the knowledge of chords, rhythm, and ultimately in songwriting.  With all that said, I did not realize I was creating a way to play that would become so integral to how I want to play for the rest of my life. This isn’t tooting my own horn, because I don’t know if it is a good thing, but I don’t no ANY other musician who plays an acoustic like this.  I destroy so many guitars playing so hard, and my fingers have been cut down to the nerves and bones many times. It has taken my body quite a long time to get good at this style. And I can’t seem to go back to NOT playing like this. An electric guitar doesn’t feel right in my hands, and even the band members, when we try it, comment on how wrong it looks and sounds.  People at shows have asked why I don’t just play an electric, and I usually say because I can’t create that chaotic, life threatening, energy that comes along with me trying to make urgent sounds out of an acoustic instrument. (Whether the acoustic is unplugged or plugged in.)

The new album ROMANTICO! is an exciting and intriguing release. Can you talk about its development and how it differs from past EiB albums? It seems that you embarked on some very interesting artistic and creative experiments in order to arrive at this collection of songs.

This is a really difficult question to answer, seeing that, like the process I talked through earlier, about how all projects are related, ROMANTICO! could never have arrived to where it is, without all that had come before it.  Not only musically but in the evolving of the relationships in the band. It may be strange to say but Fleetwood Mac and their album Rumors comes up a lot when friends talk about this record. Without the loss of past members and the complete changing of a sound and style, and the heavy amount of emotions between the band members, could Fleetwood Mac have created what they did with that record.  This is similar to our situation, but of course in very limited but specific ways.

The biggest difference with our new record is that Gub and I tackled this one on a more even playing field.  We created this as complete equals. We discuss and discussed together every song, every artistic and financial decision we made and make.  We even split the amount of songs evenly on the record. Over time the band began to recognize the odd synchronicity Gub and I had in how we think.  Even though we are so different as people, are contributions to each other’s creations makes complete sense to each other. This along with our loving relationship with the rest of the band members, feeling that we could not live lives without each other, is what formed every aspect of ROMANTICO!  The songs are about this journey of discovering this overwhelming compassion we feel about each other, as people, and as a band. And sometimes, like a family this can be beautiful, but it also can be frustrating and difficult. And with all this at play, the record came out more fierce than our prior releases, although with the same amount of diversity in songwriting and commitment to expanding each other’s knowledge of music, not only in the writing but in the production too.  This project was wholly created from within the band itself.

I feel that EIB offers a level of poetry and nuance that is not common in our pop punk universe. I dare say that it feels more like high art than low brow amusement. And yet, like I said there's no pretension or fuss about what it is - it simply is. That's quite an achievement for a band, don't you think?

It’s hard to comment on this.  The band is just a reflection of what its members want to pursue.

You and Liz have remained core members of the band and her vocals are a defining characteristic of the sound. How did the addition of Gub add to that legacy? It seems that his contributions have been significant indeed.

I answered this above, in reference to Gub. I’ll only add that he has quite a legacy of his own in the punk scene, and he has a much more hot-wired connection to its pulse than I do or ever will.  He is integral to the direction of the band from now and forever.

But let's not change a thing in this question and allow this space for the touting of Lizzie’s skills.  I don’t know how I got so lucky as to find not only a great singer, but a person that was so willing to learn styles and ways in which to live, that she was unfamiliar with.  I really don’t think I would have improved as much as I have as a lyricist and musician without her there to interpret it. She has perfect pitch and an inherent understanding of how a song moves along, even when the structures are strange and foreign to her.  She even took on assistant engineering on this record, and did a way way better job than I could have done, and I’ve been doing this two decades longer than she has. Her dedication to this band often blows me away. I think we are very similar in how we see a band as an all encompassing passion and it is hard to play in anything else when we still enjoy what we do in the band that we are in.

You've mentioned that you aren't very comfortable writing in the style of pop punk that you're perhaps best known for via your other bands. The traditional, sing-songy, peppy and upbeat 4/4 1-4-5 tunes. But you are in fact very capable in this style - do you think that the self-consciousness stems more from having played with some of the best songwriters in that style, or perhaps that the style is limiting to you compared to the breathing room that EiB allows?

I don’t think the pop punk style is limiting.  There is still plenty of room in its structure for talented writers to discover amazing gems.   And it is true I do feel I have played with some of the best pop punk songwriters out there. The reason I tend not to write these type of songs is just a gut feeling that I get, that there is very little purpose in trying to recreate what they, Vapid and Weasel for instance, instinctively do way better than I could ever hope to.  I definitely agree that I could easily write catchy poppy punk songs, but they just wouldn’t have the heart that theirs do. It’s not where I excel. When I do occasionally attempt to write one, I can just feel the lack of depth within its structure, and it makes me cringe.

What do you make of the following that EIB has earned over the years? Do you think that most of the fans are squarely in the pop punk camp and came via your other bands? How many of your fans have come from other scenes or contexts? Do you feel that EIB has its roots in the pop punk world, or elsewhere? Are there other communities in with EIB thrives that are quite separate from it?

I don’t know where our audience thrives.  We have kept a handful of pop punk fans from my other bands but in general we have had to create our own audience base.  There are plenty of my punk friends, in bands and not, who like the band, but I can see in their eyes and words that they just don’t really get it or feel too passionately about it, they just like US, the people within the band, as a band.  But when I see an actual fan, and I see how excited they get, and the questions they ask about the songs, I realize even more that our audience is elsewhere. But punk is what I know, and for better or worse it will always be a part of me, and I will always want those people to like what I do.  Like in my answer above, I can’t just fake it and give them a pop punk song, it would kill my soul.

I've always viewed EIB as a somewhat tragically underrated band. Do you agree? What do you hope people take away from what you've presented as a band over the years? What is the musical/lyrical legacy you'd hope to leave the world with?

I do find it tragic that we are not popular and making a living doing what we love, but I can’t make the call whether we are underrated or not.  I love what we do, and I think other people should love it to. I feel we are saying things, I don’t always know what we are saying, but it always feels important to me.  This is made obvious whenever I get together with the current and past members of EiB.

I have been thinking a lot about my legacy, really more about my death, and even though I don’t ever want to die, I do feel that I have created enough material and made enough friends in my years, and have had enough love and compassion in my life, to leave this world happy.  I just want people to feel invigorated, and important, when they listen to our music, or watch us live. I want them to hear or read the lyrics, feel how it all relates to them, think about it, and let it affect how they move through their days. This all sounds positive, and I think it is, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t frustration, hate, chaos, depression and jealousy to overcome.  Perhaps our band can help people work through these things.