JOHN JUGHEAD PIERSON 2021

JOHN JUGHEAD PIERSON 2021

Tell us about this new project The Mitochondriacs. What inspired it, who

are the personnel, who is doing what, and what are the overarching goals

for the project?

John “Genome” Jughead - Guitar & Vocals

Eddie “Membrane” Pignataro IV - Drums & Percussion

Maria “Intercellular” Surfinbird - Backing Vocals & Bass

Marky Kobane produces and engineers from Bunker Studios

Eddie contacted me to just have some fun and record a song in Marky’s

studio. Eddie is a huge collector of music and we have had a music

exchanging relationship going for quite awhile. So I agreed. It was that

simple. We recorded a song in one evening. We had so much fun we did it

again a couple weeks later. We had not talked much about overarching

goals in the beginning, but I may speak more to that in the questions below.

But I will say here that I did mention to all the band members, and Marky,

that I felt I needed to donate any money made from these songs to some

kind of cause beyond us, I’ve been needing that in my life. They all agreed!

So that sparked me to think of this as a longer term project.

The songwriting on Love/Hate is compelling and fun - it is a great mix of

old school punk and 90s melodic punk with nods to the greats. What was

your songwriting process for this? I recall you saying that the songs were

written fast by design without lingering too long on particulars?

I have never called the work I have done unique, but when I write for Even

In Blackouts, I do not think of a type of song or style. I think in terms of

new chords I am learning, new strumming patterns, how I want to challenge

Liz, and I try to emulate whatever emotions and experiences I am having at

the time. With the Mitochondriacs I have decided to think of style first. I

always say that I don’t feel comfortable writing pop punk songs because I

have worked with people like Vapid, Kody Templeman, the Manges, and

Ben Weasel that do it much much better. I could never be that good. The

Mitochondriacs helped me to realize that I was chopping off a large section

of my more spontaneous creativity in its simplicity. I was cutting off my

ability to grow and get better at something that has been important in my

life. So now I try to put those feelings aside and just commit in both

emotion and structure to a more simple, melodic and aggressive form. I

still hate the songs once I am done with them, because I think they lack the

skill needed to pull it off and I don’t really enjoy hearing my voice, but they

are fun to write. And I can only hope I get better... because that’s the point.

Also the name came along while in the studio, it just popped into my head,

“Mitochondriacs!” I like it because mitochondria are the organelles in cells

which create energy. And I wanted to create bursts of energy with these

songs, so it made sense.

What was behind your idea to debut with a "digital 7-inch" release? What

does that concept mean to you? I was stoked to put out your digital 7" on

my mostly digital label!

I thought actual vinyl 7inches first. I looked into a couple small labels, who

all said yes, but that the time scale they had to deal within was too long for

what I wanted to achieve with this project. I wanted the release of the

songs to be almost as quick and spontaneous as I had written the songs.

When you have piles of cash that is a more likely scenario, but we don’t

have money, so the band camp digital idea came to me. But I never write

anything without it having to have levels in concept, which sometimes gets

tiresome because most people just don’t really care. But I do! I wanted the

two songs to speak to each other. And since records have two sides I

clung to the idea of them being opposite, so the record itself becomes the

“gray” area. So it is not a perfect fit to put it in digital form to hold this

concept up, but it is what we have so we are using it. The idea is once we

get a trilogy of these we WILL print them into a box set of actual 7inches

and their cover art and call it The Gray Box, which is a reference to my

favorite artist Marcel Duchamp.

You're donating the proceeds from downloads and purchases to charity.

What motivated you to do this?

For almost a decade now I have had this itch to donate income to help

causes throughout the world. For most of my life I have been a teacher, so

that helped to fill that gap, but I have not taught for about 10 years now,

and I feel that lack in my life to help others. Since I can barely get through

a day financially it didn’t seem realistic to donate my income like people like

philosophers Peter Singer and Sam Harris propose, so I figured my meager

way of helping out could be to donate money from special events and

projects I do. I created a non profit called The Punk Heart which sponsors

events and donates money to social awareness and treatment for mental

health. That has been going pretty good although very infrequently. So

with the Mitochondriacs I decided to go more global and donate to a Peter

Singer inspired foundation that collects some of the best and well used

causes internationally and they help to put your money where it can best be

served... so that is what we are doing.

What I should say, is that we DO somehow have to make some money

eventually. Marky is donating much of his time and studio to the project but

Me, Eddie, and Maria feel we eventually have to pay him something if we

continue on, so we are thinking of printing shirts where we can donate

HALF of the profits instead of the whole of funds brought in to international

foundations. Then we can feed the rest of the money to any bills we

accrue.

This digi-7" showcases your playing and singing in ways that are unique

to your catalog. You've got the Weasel guitar crunch with some EIB-vibes

in the lyrics and vocal delivery, but there's an altogether new element as

well. How would you compare The Mitochondriacs to your past projects?

I hinted above that I am more open to stealing styles with this band. As a

matter of fact I have been conducting interviews with some pretty famous

punk musicians over this last year who have admitted to stealing from me

and Ben and Vapid, so I thought it was time I started stealing from my own

former band too. So when I am writing I try to think back to the early days

of writing for Screeching Weasel, like Boogada Boogada Boogada days.

But back then I only thought in rhythm guitar and melody, Ben was the

lyricist. I did not try to attach lyrics. That is the element I have learned

since those early days (Mostly due to The Mopes and EIB) so I have added

that to the old punk style mix too. The Even In Blackouts feel you may hear

is only accidental, probably because it is me, and me writing them on my

acoustic guitar, since I don’t own an electric these days.

What's your general feeling towards the digital era of music? Do you

think we are doing a good job in the pop punk community of keeping up

with it while still cherishing the value of physical artifacts and releases?

I am glad that vinyl has returned so strongly. I think the younger

generations started to feel the lack in just having music digitally. There is

something important about music to make a mark on your soul, and I

personally feel that it needs to be made tangible in order to make a bigger

affect, whether that means collecting actually hardcopies or seeing bands

in person and buying merchandise directly form them, even though the

benefits to having a whole collection in a small piece of metal in my pocket

that used to take up a whole room is astounding! I have been feeling very

old and useless lately, which is devastating for me, but also in ways since I

can look past myself I see that I am seeing actual progress in music and

creativity, and to feel old is just a product of realizing that things move on. I

still feel there are things to learn from the past in order to not repeat our

mistakes but I am warming up to accepting all the progress that is being

Made.

I was out with Eddie last night and he started bringing up all these new

forms of music and how people are recording together but apart over time

and space and releasing them in strange ways, and it boggles my mind.

There is now so much I can never know, I have to get myself to place

where I am comfortable enough just to bathe in it and dab my fingers and

just be content with making small ripples instead of far reaching impacts.

Luckily our pop punk scene has shrunk since the height of Green Day

many years ago, so a sense of smaller community has come back, it is just

that there are so MANY of them now.

What was the recording experience like for Love/Hate? Had you worked

with Mark, Eddie, and Maria on any projects before? Did you play Mark's

guitar on the recording? He has quite a collection from what I hear.

I did play one of Marky’s guitars. I have no idea which, I have never

thought too deeply about what guitar is in my hands. I happen to like a light

body and a thin neck so that is about all that is important to me. I know

what I don’t like. I despise Mosrites and also fake Mosrites.

The studio is just fun. Marky has it arranged so everything happens in one

room, it has its drawbacks but it also has its perks. It helps to quickly form

a bond between the band members and the engineer and what they are

creating. It may be hard for me to listen to my own new songs with this

band, (but I do obsessively anyway, that’s just what I have always done.)

yet when I do listen to these songs I can relive the fun we had through the

sound... and that is a nice thing to have.

Did the songwriting bug bite you again after recording these songs?

Where is your inspiration these days - you work in a variety of mediums so

it's interesting to know how songwriting fits into your overall role as an

artist.

Brendan Kelly and I touched on this a bit with his interview. All the

creativity, all the projects are connected, whether you want them to be or

not. You can give into it or fight it but it will always be there. I have always

given into being not a master of one form but a dabbler in a plethora of art

and performance. At times it gets frustrating that I am not a master in any

one over the other, but perhaps I am a master at making connections

between the many.

Will there be any visual accompaniment to The Mitochondriacs, such as

a performance video or music video? Or perhaps something weirder?

I am at the beginning stages of weaving all of our intentions with metaphors

about mitochondria, so I am still at work making sense of it all. I do know

that I don’t like bands that have too much of a “character” to their band

personae, like Masked Intruder or The Jasons or The Residents, even if I

like their music, which I do, the approach to that kind of form just doesn’t do

anything for me, so I am trying to figure out how to balance the interest in

creating a world that is through the eyes of Mitochondria speech with the

reality of who we are. I imagine, since it is me, when it does come out it will

be considered weird or incomprehensible or needlessly complex...

especially for such simple music! (If you have noticed another form I am

playing with in The Mitochondriacs that has been in punk rock for ages is

Self Deprecation... And I hate that I even said that. How stupid of me!)

Coming off of your very cool series "The Horror of the Polycephala

Aporia" which combined elements of horror and humor, are you feeling

similar whimsical vibes for The Mitochondriacs? Where will it take us next,

lyrically speaking?

The idea like I said above is always to imitate or steal preexisting old

school punk forms, so I guess it could go in any of those directions. I don’t

think it will always be funny. I actually don’t think the HATE song is funny,

even though it has funny words like Testicles in Receptacles. I don’t like

the concept of HATE but it is perceived as the opposite of LOVE in most

cultures, I have some disagreements with this idea of opposing those two

concepts but it is what it is. I had to embody that feeling of hate to create

that song in the moment and it is a place I don’t like visiting. I had to

accumulate feelings not from any one specific person but from feelings I

had to dig up from events over my life just to accumulate enough rage to

put those words down. So to answer your question, I guess, it won’t

always be whimsical, but I can say it will be made quick and with as much

spontaneity as I can muster.

Any other "R4RE" details you'd like to reveal? Or appreciations! Good

luck with what's next and keep it coming, Mr. Jughead!

The next Horror Of The Polycephaly Aporia will be released very soon, with

guest Dr. Daryl Wilson from the Bollweevils. Jughead’s Basement Podcast

has really been taking off and I am dedicating most of my day to make it

better and better and to keep it frequent. That’s it!

Thanks Mr. Deeds!