Birdbrain – Bliss – Interview

Birdbrain

Bliss
An interview with Joey Ammo
by Scott Hefflon
couch photo by Chris Johnson

It’s no secret within the Boston scene that you’ve been a staff writer for both Lollipop and Pit Report. I don’t even want to touch this one, so why don’t you just tell the story.
Being in a band for years, I know how important press is to a band’s success. I thought I could contribute something to the scene by seeing things from the band’s perspective. It’s like, I know the routine, I do it every day myself, and, in my opinion, I’ve been treated maliciously by the press in the past, so I know how that feels. Hopefully, I’ve helped out a few bands who deserved it.

What about the backlash of all this being a hypocritical circle jerk? How do you keep any objectivity when you’re playing both sides of the fence?
That’s a loaded question, pal. Well, I’ve been given the freedom to choose which bands I want to write about, and some weren’t getting the press they deserved. I try to keep my band separate from all that, and try to stay as objective as possible. But, for all that, all the fish in this little bowl swim in the same dirty water. Anyone who tells you otherwise is completely full of shit.

I met you about a year ago, a little after your first demo, Princess, came out. Now your CD, Bliss, is finally out. It’s been a long time in the making, so tell me about it.
It was the never-fucking-ending journey. What started out as a co-op situation between friends metamorphosed into one of the ugliest messes I’ve ever been involved in. It seems appropriate, since most of the songs on Bliss are about some kind of social suffering, but, I mean, this shit was mean. It’s still going on.

The tapes had to be pulled from where we recorded them originally, held up by threats, attempted injunctions, and other legal barrage, then transferred at New Alliance, re-mixed, spot-erased, cleaned and re-mastered. A friend’s band that was involved broke up in the process. We have a legion of sworn enemies now; the manufacturer we chose was grossly incompetent and held us up for months, and someone is tearing down our promotions and vandalizing our cars. I love being in a band.

Well, that sort of treatment really lends to the aggressiveness of the songs. Without being whatever-core, Birdbrain really takes punk/pop/grunge/rock/whatever and makes it’s ugliness sweet to the ears. If you were to do a song by song breakdown, what are your favorites and the stories behind them?
Funny you should use the word “stories,” ’cause that’s just what our songs are to us. The members of this band all grew up in the same town, and our perspective on life derives from there. The first cut, “Confession,” is a suite about Catholic guilt, and the suffering associated with that. The samples were chosen for those reasons too, like in this tune, where we use The Last Temptation of Christ. The hopelessness of small-town life is another big issue for us, with songs like “Hometown” and “Roslindale.”

Actually, I think “Roslindale” is one of the most sincere tracks on the CD. It catches like a grappling hook, and marches like a high school band in some shitty parade. I’d do that song as a single, but that’s one of your older tunes, isn’t it?
Such imagery! Yeah, it probably will be the single, and it was an older one, sort of our theme song in a way, but we still get pissed off when we sing it. Roslindale really was a sad place to have come from, but I guess it’s not all that different from any small town Americana. Some of the other songs’ themes may step on more toes, like “Circlejerk,” which trashes the industry, or “Soundking,” which, hypocritically, I guess, trashes the press and their influence over music. I’m always complaining about something though. It’s my nature.

Yeah, I know the feeling. So what about the rest of the band and what they’re about? I hear you recently picked up a new member.
More of a friend who’s come on board. We’ve been a three-piece since the beginning, although our originally bassist, Frank Barrientos, got married and retired. Then Jim Dennis, lead guitarist in the earlier-mentioned friend’s band, started gigging with us on bass, and recorded a lot of the album with us. By the time we pulled out of the recording situation, he decided to join permanently. Recently, we realized the music was expanding, and since Jim is a much better guitar player than I am, he switched to guitar, and we got his old band’s bassist, Joe McCarthy, to join our little tribe. It’s a huge improvement in the live sound, and he qualifies, since he’s also from Roslindale. Wait! I almost forgot to mention our poet/scientist/drummer Mike Benway, the darkest one of us all, and my personal inspiration. Is that answer long and boring enough?

That’s alright. But now that the CD is out and it looks and sounds tight as shit, what’s next on the agenda?
Aren’t we just too cutesy chummy here? I’m feeling queasy… um, well, we’ve got some good outside help finally, like a manager and a lawyer, and they’re good people. I don’t know, we like to play, we’re gigging out, starting to play New York, getting a little label schmooze, all that shit, but we’re like any other band. We hope people like what we do, and have fun at our shows, and if they don’t, fuck it. We’re sincere, and we’d like to progress in our careers, but we’ll probably keep playing no matter what happens, because we’re friends, and we enjoy what we do.