PREMIERE // False Priest – I Can’t Contain It Anymore
Post by Misha
When I was growing up in Eastern Washington, all anyone listened to was country radio (or sometimes just old scratched up Garth Brooks CDs when we were too far up in the mountains to catch the AM frequency). It was there that I developed the soft spot for steel guitar and dipthongs that lives in me to this day. But when I came to California for college I discovered that not many people in the City of Angels shared my love of twang. The heyday of Wilco had passed and, along with it, the indie kids’ interest in country music.
It’s exciting to see yee haw celebrated again – not only for the new country acts emerging from this moment, but because it also means that country music has begun to cross pollinate the indie space again, imbuing every iteration of rock, RnB, hip hop, and electronic with the signature sounds of my youth. The latest instance that passed through my headphones was False Priest’s single “Turn,” a dark grunge / punk / country fusion that calls to mind the very best of late-90s alt-country (but with a little more shredding.)
I was so taken with the song that I slid into False Priest’s Twitter DMs to pass along my regards. This led to Evan sending me a link to the wonderful and surprising new album, and then to a sweet email exchange which eventually blossomed into an interview to coincide with the release of the album. I’ve left it in its minimally edited, conversational format. I recommend reading it with False Priest’s dense and many-layered I Can’t Contain It Anymore as a soundtrack, which you can stream below in full.
Can you give a quick intro to the band for new listeners?
False Priest originally started as a project between me and Sam Forester, our bassist, outside of a band we were in called Handshake. The original goal was the make music that was a lot more raw and intuitive than what Handshake was doing, which was very cerebral and, if I can use the word without sounding like I’m being rude, pretentious. It feels funny in retrospect, though, because I feel like we’ve sort of come full circle on that, maybe. I’m happy to describe I Can’t Contain It Anymore as cerebral and pretentious haha. I think there’s probably a lot of reasons why the lineup ended up solidifying the way it did. But the only important one is because we love each other and we like spending time together (even though we can get on each other’s nerves sometimes).
“Money is a huge barrier to entry for a lot of people just making art at all, let alone getting it seen. I imagine spaces that provide equipment and resources to people would do really amazing things for people.”
When we first started emailing we were talking about the strangeness of creating art in a time when digital community is often much more accessible than physical community, and how that can feel sort of isolating, and I wanted to touch on that in this piece. Can you talk about this dichotomy of physical, IRL communities and digital or social media spaces in the art world? What do you think communities (both IRL and digital) can do to help support and lift up artists?P
The IRL/digital dichotomy is something that’s confused and disturbed me for a while now. For the most part I think I’d describe myself as a very online person. Too online. I need to work on that. I feel basically totally mystified at the networks of people in the world who spend time face to face with each other, doing things, getting things done. It might sound like I’m joking when I say that but I’m being completely sincere. It’s crazy to me! I really have zero idea how any of that happens. Maybe it’s the sensitive only child in me that feels this way, but I feel like a total outsider to all that. Part of that, I think, comes from being from the Bay Area, where artist communities have particularly suffered because of inhumane rent prices rent and crackdowns on DIY spaces after the Ghost Ship tragedy. But I know there are cool spaces in the Bay where people go to see shows still. So I’m just confused, I guess.
I think money is a huge barrier to entry for a lot of people just making art at all, let alone getting it seen. I imagine spaces that provide equipment and resources to people would do really amazing things for people. But I have no idea how to lift up artists. All I know how to do is shout out stuff I hear that I like, but every time I do that I think of how much incredible work there is out there that I haven’t been able to find. What I know for certain is that no one person can fix the problem on their own. It’s going to take significant collective action.
Since that Vulture piece on the financial realities of being an artist came out the other week I’ve been thinking a lot about the challenge of making music (and art in general) more sustainable as an ongoing venture. If you could wave a magic wand, what would your ideal solution to this problem look like? (Not that you have to have a perfect solution for such a large issue, but what are a few practical things that would make your life materially easier as a musician that you would like to see implemented on a large scale?)
I actually just read this article this morning for the first time so its impression on me is still fresh in my mind! What I have to say about it is that this is something that has weighed really heavily on my heart for the last few years, and I don’t think I know what I personally am going to do about it. I have a really great day job right now, but like, it’s always been my dream to be a real musician, doing the damn thing. And these days, more than anything, I think I’m just too afraid of not having stability.
That said, I do think the problem isn’t just for musicians. I think this is indicative of economics in general in these bleak days of (hopefully) late capitalism. It blows that musicians and artists aren’t valued in our society, but also like, it blows that so many people I know are struggling to pay rent working two jobs, with no healthcare or any kind of sign that anything is going to get better. If I could wave a magic wand and bring a solution, the solution would be worldwide socialism, where everyone’s labor, whether it’s making food or building houses or making records or teaching kids or whatever, is treated with the dignity that we all know everyone deserves.
In terms of more practical, short-term ideas, I’ve really enjoyed a lot of the ideas that Mat Dryhurst has been putting forth about independence in the art and music world. He’s been talking about how as a culture we have been highlighting the idea of independence as this great ideal, but in truth most of the people with think of as “independent” artists have a huge, strong support network that they work with to get shit done. He suggests that we, as a culture, should keep this in mind, and shift our ideal from independence to what he calls “intradependence.” He talks about it much more eloquently than I can all the time on twitter, so I recommend checking him out. Also I’d like to add that if anybody has any ideas about this, I’d love to talk to you about it, hit me up!
“I think one of the biggest influences on me, maybe as a person, is the idea that the truth will make you free, even if the truth sucks.”
OK, on to some album questions 🙂
I keep listening and hearing different genres and homages in these songs. If you made a playlist of songs that influenced the album, what would be the first five tracks? And, additionally, did you have any non-musical influences (i.e. books, poems, visual art, etc)?
This is a really hard question! I started writing this album in late 2012 so it’s gone through a lot of versions influences over time. As far as non-musical influences, I think one of the biggest influences on me, maybe as a person, is the idea that the truth will make you free, even if the truth sucks. I don’t like a lot of things that are true about me, especially a lot of what I say about myself on this album. But they have to be said, because they’re true, and that’s the only way to begin to change. It’s something I know deep in my heart.
Uhh, songs that influenced this album:
- ‘Your Love Is Killing Me‘ by Sharon Van Etten – I think Sharon is one of the best songwriters around at saying shit that’s way way true even if it sucks. I wish more people talked about her in the same breath as people like Leonard Cohen or something, I think she’s just a master of her craft. I also love the production on this whole album, Are We There. I think personally, that album was one of the biggest influences on me for ICCIA. It walks the line between super intimate and totally open like a desert on a clear night, which is exactly the vibe I was hoping to achieve.
- ‘Almost Was Good Enough‘ by Songs: Ohia – Songs: Ohia have always been a huge influence on False Priest. They have the perfect blend of country and post-rock, which is not a common enough combination. If you’ve ever driven across the middle of America you know how cavernous and empty and open this country can be. Songs: Ohia sound like that, to me. Lonesome, dark night of the soul-type music.
- ‘PRIDE.’ by Kendrick Lamar – Kendrick has inspired me in a lot of ways but I chose this song specifically because it’s where we got the idea to warp my voice on “Jewish Dog” and “False Priest/Good Intentions.”
- ‘Data‘ by Katie Dey – I just think this is the greatest song ever made, no hyperbole. Katie is the greatest artist of our time, again, no hyperbole. The ways that she creates these extremely dense, thrilling sonic environments was a big influence on the density that we brought to this album, I think. I don’t know how much that comes across when you listen to our album, though.
- ‘Surrender‘ by Jonathan Richman – Jonathan Richman is maybe my favorite musician. I love him because there’s never a moment where you question whether or not he means every word he says. You always believe him.
What is the story behind the “Jewish Dog” recording that plays throughout the album? Is it an actual thing? I almost Googled it but then figured I might get a lot of depressing anti semitic stuff so I decided I’d just ask you instead.
Hahaha good call on not googling it, although I did that a while back and it’s not that bad, I think. The book those quotes are from, How To Raise A Jewish Dog, is very real. It’s a literal dog training manual, but with a lot of really stupid jokes about being Jewish thrown in there. I thought it was funny how this book, which I think was probably meant to be the kind of thing you read when you’re sitting on the toilet, actually did strike a nerve in me. I really do think that the inflated sense of pride and guilt that it describes are key to who I am as a person. It really accurately describes how I was raised. It’s kinda messed up! Anyway, we got our good friend Luke Weidner, who stars in the music video for our song “I Would Love To Speak In Tongues,” to read part of the book, and I think he does a lovely job.
Going through the track list, there’s some pretty heavy stuff in there. Was there a particular song that felt especially cathartic throughout the writing and recording process?
I think the last two tracks, “Afraid Of Your Heart” and the bonus track “Now We Can Talk About It” are the ones where I felt the most release. I wrote most of this album during a really bleak time of my life that I’m still not really able to talk about. “Afraid Of Your Heart” says part of what I wanted to say to everyone I knew from then. It doesn’t say all of it, because for some of those people, I don’t know if there are words for how I felt. But it says a good part of it, as directly as I know how.
As for “Now We Can Talk About It,” we originally wanted to just make a sonic bed underneath “Afraid Of Your Heart” so it wouldn’t sound so empty. It was the last thing we recorded for the album, just me, Sam, and Geoff Saba, who produced it. I was “playing” one of Geoff’s guitars by making it feedback and Sam was messing with a granular delay effect. We ended up letting that go on for something like 20 minutes, I think, because we just got totally lost in it. It was really beautiful, to me, how everything just melted away. I felt purified after.
And finally, anything that I didn’t ask that you wanna talk about? Any upcoming projects, tour, shows, etc etc?
Well I moved to Boston last August and the rest of the band is still in the Bay Area so I don’t think we’re going to tour, play live, or record much in the near future. I think I Can’t Contain It Anymore is effectively the final project in the False Priest canon. I intend to continue working on new music under the name Double Libra, and the first album for that project is pretty close to finished and will hopefully come out later this year. Tyler and Jake both play in Oakland’s greatest band, Everyone Is Dirty, who I think have an album coming out later this year, too. Kabir’s main project Sun Kin just released a gorgeous new EP called Dark Patterns and I know he also has an album that’s also in the works. And Sam has been playing with another hidden legend of the Bay Area, Daniel Bromfield.
Buy the album here