From the army stomp and eerily chanted line (“It’s so hard to believe what you’re looking for”) of Midtown’s latest album opener (titled “Armageddon,” the line is then echoed within the subsequent song, “To Our Savior”) even a casual fan can notice a band reincarnated.
After major label troubles and a near implosion, group leader Gabe Saporta (Vocals, Bass and Midtown’s primary songwriter) abandoned the familiar emo rock themes and sounds (what used to form Midtown’s aesthetic core on earlier releases under Drive-Thru and MCA) that pervade a million cookie cutter screamo releases.
“We had a lot of negative experiences with the record industry and our record labels and stuff,” says Saporta, uneasily recounting his group’s past experiences within the music industry. “And we realized that all the stuff that happens in the music industry is all bullshit and the more you pay attention to what’s going on in the business side of it, the more you lose focus on what is the most important thing, which is the music. So I just wanted to re-focus on the music and write songs and do something that I could be proud of and excited about by myself. I think what makes music last a long time is that there is something there underneath and that it can mean different things 10 years later than it does now and that you can find new things about it 10 years later.”
With Midtown’s latest album, Forget What You Know, Saporta was consciously looking to release “more than just a collection of songs.” And the album comes off as a slice of matured introspection backed by intelligent (and obviously matured) musicianship. Heath Saraceno and Tyler Rann unleash tight dual guitar attacks while Robert Hitt’s percussion reaches is greatly enriched and full of sonic textures. The band smashes through some brilliantly tangled compositions, especially on the all-out rocker “Help Me Sleep.” Ex-Marvelous 3 frontman Butch Walker produced the album, giving the group a much needed dose of grandeur, that pays off in both production value and sometimes all out excess. Although numerous interludes and a 13 minute plus closing drone (with a fittingly “emo” song title, “So Long As We Keep Our Bodies Numb We’re Safe”) seem to be blunt reminders that the group is looking to create something different from the usual emo core fare. Saporta has no problems with labeling his album a “theme record.”
“The whole theme of this record is that nothing is what it seems. And a lot of things we know are lies,” he says. “The thing I didn’t like about the last record (Living Well is the Best Revenge, which Saporta quickly sums up with, “I hate that album”) was it was just a collection of songs that were just okay. And I wanted to make an album that felt like a record from beginning to end. And for the people that just want to enjoy some songs it’s there, the songs are good, you can rock out to them. And for people that want to dig into an album and collect it, there’s just so much stuff for you to dig under the surface and look into.”
Forget What You Know benefits from Midtown’s horrific experience within the music business. After being rushed into an album they assembled from left over songs (Living Well is the Best Revenge) and touring without significant label support, the group basically wore itself down. But the band motored ahead.
“We were writing five times a week. We never gave up hope,” Saporta says. “We wrote 40 songs, but at the same time in the back of our heads we had no guarantees we were going to get out of our contract. We had no guarantees that anyone would want to deal with us.” But their homemade demos fell into the hands of Columbia’s Vice President of Rock A&R, Matt Pinfield, and Midtown was alive again.
“We’re really excited that we get a second chance to do this with songs that we can really stand behind,” Saporta says. Has their time at Columbia changed the groups mind about the music industry? Saporta curtly answers, no.
“They operate like a business,” He says. “They don’t really care- as much as they can talk about artist development and touring, and that they understand. But at the end of the day if their boss says, ‘Okay, we’re done with this,’ they move on. They can’t just work for something that they love. It’s really rare to find someone who will fight for you cuz everyone is scared of losing their jobs.” But Saporta is very happy with the way his band’s latest release has turned out.
Where Forget What You Know shines the brightest is in Saporta’s complete control of lyrical fragmentation and his near torturous distance from the subjects of his songs. Songs like “Waiting For the News” and “Is It Me? Is It True?” form vague love life storylines repeated until it’s obvious that the lines, “Sex is old, old and boring,” and “Even though we sleep together we’re alone,” don’t relate the story of one ill-fated couple, but are meant to be unanimous, post-modern truths of existence.
“I consciously wanted to move away from the typical girl stuff,” says Saporta. “It just got really cliché and old. I definitely think about the dynamic between men and women and relationships. How people interact in general, but I don’t want to approach it in the same way. I try to think about different questions. Like how society affects our dynamic, the things we expect from each other that are put on us by society.”
Hidden just below the surface of Forget What You Know is an interesting political rhetoric that will echo with our generation’s “Fight Club” philosophers. This thematic undertow is also magnified by the band’s joining Anti-Flag for the Punkvoter Tour. Forget What You Know‘s “Give It Up” is chock full of thinly veiled calls to action: “Don’t fall for mistakes that I’ve made, don’t turn away.” And the final echoing canon of “So Long As We Keep Our Bodies Numb We’re Safe,” allows the volley of “Please understand that you had all the time, all time in the world/ You didn’t listen,” to morph into just another surge of musical melody. Both tracks share additional weight when heard in tandem with election year politics. Voter apathy and emotional dissociation seem to be simultaneous concerns on Forget What You Know, or at the very least they can be easily interchanged within many of Midtown’s new songs.
“Some people are uncomfortable with the lyrics,” says Saporta, “which is great because I want to make people uncomfortable. I think music has gotten really way too safe. They think they’re supposed to be thrteatening, like “rip out my heart!” like that screamo bullshit. Sometimes you call for revolution but you say it enough times and it just becomes a cliche that people expect to hear. And they’ve heard it before. You’ve got to come up with new ways to say things.”
Midtown has always had some sort of political agenda (animal rights being a prime concern for the boys), but now their outspoken interests reach beyond the humane treatment of animals.
“I’m totally disillusioned with politics,” says Saporta. “I don’t believe any candidate. I don’t believe Kerry. I don’t believe Bush. When they talk they don’t discuss issues. It’s all completely disenfranchised. And when it comes down to what you believe about things, no one’s saying what they believe. That’s when they start getting vague. How do you know who to vote for? You vote with your f-cking emotions and your emotions are just toyed with non-stop in the media. All our fears are just played with all the time so we can vote for somebody. So we can legitimize a war where we are made to think that we’re in danger.” But for Saporta, disillusionment should lead to questioning the system and reevaluating information.
“The thing that is really important in this election is really how much deception there has been to the American people and how much we’ve just lost an understanding of what’s going on. We just need to regain control of some kind of level of truth.”
The Punkvoter Tour is set up to enlighten kids about the nation’s current political situation and create an informed public. During this summer’s Warped Tour, the Punkvoter registration tent successfully registered hundreds of punk kids to vote everyday of operation.
“It’s hard to talk to kids about policies, and about numbers and facts and figures,” Saporta says. “Kids understand that, kids don’t want to understand that and really those things can be twisted around in any which way. When it comes down to a war and people dying and all these conflicts of interest that are completely unethical, you really have to take a stand. That’s the way it works. As long as people are relatively appeased there is no cause for revolution, that’s why I get disillusioned with people talking about revolution, because there’s stupid things that are wrong and they suck, but our generation doesn’t have any real struggle. It doesn’t have any real war. So it’s hard to become passionate about those things.”
With a strong comeback album and a slot on a politically charged hot ticket tour, Midtown’s momentum won’t stop again any time soon.
“When you do a tour like this people look to you for answers and I don’t really have answers to offer,” says Saporta in closing. “The only thing I can offer is that people need to pay a little more attention to what is going on.”
