On Not Going to Shit

When Sea Shanties become F-Shanties

It’s a hard-and-fast rule: 95% of bands who manage to put out 1-3 great albums go to shit. So many bands, including many we consider gods and heroes, experience this strange collapse after even moderate success. They end up cranking out strange, uninspired album after album, maybe because the financial/touring machine they’ve hooked themselves up to needs them to. And the result, to be honest, is really sad.

There’s one band I’m thinking of, who directly inspired the Dreadnoughts, and who made music that can only be described as earth-shaking. They truly charted new waters and pushed envelopes and did it on the back of songwriting that was incredible, powerful and consistent.

And then like the 3rd or 4th album came around, and, I’m sorry, but it was the musical equivalent of the air being let out of a balloon. Totally different, lacking the energy and drive of the original stuff, lacking the spirit. It’s been like that ever since, and it’s telling that the live shows feature almost exclusively songs from the first 3 albums. What happened? Why does this happen? Please, post your theories in the comments below. We’re stumped.

Some artists avoid this. Tom Waits leaps to mind, he made great stuff when he was 27 and when he was 57. But if you think of a great band or artist that’s been going for at least 12-15 years, it is almost a guarantee that they have lost their mojo. And it’s always been a fear of mine, that a certain age or stage would hit us and all of a sudden the juices would just run dry. And in the making of this new album, the thought was constantly haunting me: “are these songs actually as good as the old stuff, or do you just have to think that they are so you can pretend that you aren’t turning into that band?”

Fig 1.: Aging Punks in the Studio

Well, I’ve just had a re-listen to the final mixes after taking a long break from the new album, and I can honestly truthfully say that it is as good as our older stuff. Some people might not like it as much, some might like it more, there might be some mixed reactions and some enthusiastic ones. But I am 100% confident that no-one’s going to sincerely say “ah, they’ve gone to shit.” It’s great, it hits real hard and the songs are good. There are like 5 “A” songs, and 6 “B+” songs, and just a couple of “C” songs. C-shanties. Ha harrrrr.

Anyway, if we ever become that sad band, cranking out release after release so that the record company has a new t-shirt design to sell, please just take us out of our stables, pat us gently on our heads, brush our tangled manes clean, whisper a few sweet words into our ears, give us one last tasty carrot, and shoot us in the fucking head.