The
Lawrence Arms
Interview by MATT BETTINELLI-OLPIN
Photo Courtesy of FAT WRECK CHORDS
I found Chris playing Ms. Pac-man towards the back of UCLA’s
Cooperage Co-op about an hour before their free show with Rise
Against and the Ghost. “It’s my favorite game,”
he said, his score a testament to a lifetime of practice. Chris
makes up one third of Lawrence Arms, whose new album, Apathy
and Exhaustion, came out this February on Fat Wreck Chords (after
2 full-lengths and 2 split CD’s on Asian Man Records).
While some bands keep their music energetic and fun, and others
display pensive lyrical depth, few groups are able to combine
these aspects as well as Lawrence Arms. I sat down with Chris
(guitar/vocals) and Brendan (bass/vocals) behind the Co-op to
talk about the roots of their “mid-western beer belly despair
rock.” Neil was inside somewhere, he plays the drums…
Chicago
is definitely a pervading theme for you guys. How does living
in the city affect your music?
C- Fucking depressing winters affect the way anybody feels.
That ends up getting into the songs. The whole consciousness
of Chicago is in the winter, you go to the bar. You don’t
really go outside, and there’s not much else to do if you
don’t have a job.
B- There’s something great about Chicago, too. It’s
really ethereal.
C- It’s got a romantic quality.
B- Everybody that’s there just loves it there. It creates
a feel in the city that doesn’t exist in other American
big cities. I’m definitely a part of that, so my songs
reflect that. How do you spend your time at home, when you’re not
playing shows?
B- Read, drink beer, watch TV. I watch a lot of TV. Write songs,
hang out with my girlfriend. Shit like that, nothing too exciting.
Do I do anything exciting?
C- I don’t know.
B- We go out to breakfast a lot. There’s a big group of
us, and none of us have jobs, but a lot of us have girlfriends
who have jobs. So they all go to work everyday and we all get
together and go out to breakfast and sit around. Totally gender
reversal. It’s amazing. Who drinks the most?
B- I probably drink the most. Chris doesn’t even drink
anymore.
C- I haven’t been drunk since New Years. Was it a New Years resolution?
C- Naw, it’s been a long time coming. New Years helps,
but it was bound to happen. Could’ve been the other side
of the year, it’s just time for me to stop boozing for
a while. But booze obviously plays a role into anybody’s
life in Chicago. It’s dead of winter and the thing to do
is go to a dark, smokey bar room and fucking drink until you’re
shit-faced, go home and pass out, wake up at noon and watch
TV, get something to eat and then do it again. There’s
a bar on every corner in Chicago.
B- Now that we’re out of school and we’re old and
we don’t really have jobs or anything, booze is our culture.
I know it sounds pathetic, and maybe it is, but I don’t
think so. That’s where our network is centralized. It’s
like the fulcrum of our little society is booze. Maybe it’s
unhealthy, maybe there’re days where you end up with your
pants off…
C- Running through the streets…
B- Stuff happens. But for the most part, that’s everything
that’s at the center of my social life. Drinking can be
depressing, and that’s when you start thinking about writing
songs, and whoa, what do you know, every song is about drinking.
C- And now that I don’t drink anymore, I don’t have
any friends. No social life, no friends. I’m hermitized.
What are you listening to these days? What are you favorite
bands?
B- My favorite band is Guns ‘N Roses. When Chinese Democracy
comes out, I’m buying it. I don’t believe it’s
ever coming out, but I’m buying it. Willie Nelson is one
of my very favorites. A lot of rap, N.W.A., Ice Cube, Dre, Eazy-E.
Those guys are all stellar. The Coup, they’re amazing.
I love Outkast. The Pharcyde, Bizarre Ride, it’s so good.
Public Enemy. Tribe Called Quest, Midnight Marauders.
C- Don McLean, American Pie.
B- As far as punk rock; the Weakerthans, American Steel.
C- Propaghandi’s up there. I’ve been listening to
old big band stuff.
C- Not so much punk rock these days. We make punk rock, we play
punk rock everyday, and we listen to four sets of punk rock
a day. That’s my punk rock listening. I love the Ghost
and I love Rise Against and I’ll watch them every night.
That’s the equivalent of listening to two hours of punk
rock. If there’s something on the radio…
C- Shakira.
B- Oh my god am I a fan of Shakira. The Spanish version, I have
to change my underwear after it’s on. Britney Spears, yeah,
she’s hot, so hot, but…
C- Nothing like Shakira.
B- Christina Aguilera, she’s just so dirty that’s
it’s kind of sexy. Mandy Moore, all of these girls are
hot and that’s great, but Shakira smokes all of them so
hard.
C- She’s just so incredibly sexy without even trying.
B- She’s amazing. She’s a flawless human being, and
the way she does that little hip thing, wow.
C- The belly shake.
B- Not to mention that she can sing circles around those chicks.
Her voice is outrageous. (Pause) Okay, that’s probably
way too much of that.
Is “I’ll Take What’s in the Box, Monty,”
on the new album, a reference to Let’s Make a Deal?
B- Yeah, the song is sort of about my abject poverty and pathetic
existence. I have this girlfriend that I really like a lot and
I feel really, really bad that I’m what she gets. You know
what I mean? Sort of like I feel that she’s made this blind
choice, not knowing how it will turn out and what it could really
be if you lift up the box and there’s just me on the couch,
40 years old, I haven’t had a job for a long time, ‘see
you when you get home, honey.’ It’s a sad song, a
warning to my girlfriend: get away from me while you’re
still young. How do you like being with Fat?
B- It’s fucking great. How could we hate it? It’s
the coolest.
C- They’re super-nice.
B- It is the perfect label. They’re all about the bands.
Everybody says that shit, but a few people actually mean it.
And only a few people that mean it actually have money and smarts
and sense. It’s an amazing fucking combination. It doesn’t
get any better than Fat.
C- Did I just say ‘super-nice?’ Do you guys miss Asian Man?
B- No, because we still work really close with Asian Man. He’s
(Mike Park) got our back catalogue, and we still give him t-shirt
designs. We’re still on Asian Man, as much as we’re
a Fat band. Dual citizenship?
B- Totally. We’ve got dual citizenship. We’ve got
the best of both worlds, and those labels are excellent. Run
by excellent men named Mike. Who else would you put in the ‘Midwestern beer-belly
despair rock’ category?
B- Just us.
Chicago
is definitely a pervading theme for you guys. How does living
in the city affect your music?