The Usual Boys: Navigating The Post-Punk Scene
The Usual Boys Press Photo
Starting with a fun question - what is the craziest thing that has happened to you on tour?
Ethan - Last time we went on tour we played a show in Sheffield and the only people in the audience were our drummer’s brother and his fiance, plus the promoter. It was really fun in the end actually because we played a really big show for a small crowd. The promoter had also bought a ton of beers for the three bands playing that night but one band cancelled and the other were 16 year olds - so the beer was for all of us. We did lose all of our merch somewhere in Sheffield though which was pretty bad.
Aleksi - It was the last show of really hectic touring so it actually ended up being a really nice end.
How did the band form?
Aleksi - We formed 7 years ago, originally I had a solo project back then and I reached out to Ethan and Patrick (drums) to see if they wanted to play as a backing band for one of my gigs. We started playing and rehearsing together and it just turned out to be a lot of fun. There was a lot of f*cking around back then, going to rehearsal spaces and drinking and playing really loud with no hearing protection. We just kept doing that for a while, eventually stopping the drinking during rehearsing and booking shows. After a while Rasmus (bass) joined, initially as a producer. We’re based in Berlin with most of our shows there.
Ethan - We try to get over to the UK at least once or twice a year, and it’s always really fun. Our London shows are always pretty well attended, definitely our second biggest crowd is in London.
Do you find that your individual music influences are similar or quite different given the range of nationalities across the band?
Aleksi - It's a tricky question to answer because all of our music tastes have changed over the years, we all listen to pretty different stuff and a lot of things that don’t necessarily blend together. Rasmus (bass) is into a lot of electronic stuff, some metal; Ethan and I are both really into jazz. It's all over the place, but it does end up making sense once it passes through the band and we bring a lot of ideas together that otherwise wouldn’t have been thought of.
Ethan - It’s sometimes like wrangling a cattle of ideas. We’re not always on the same page, we have to think about how to fit things together coherently - it’s all about the process which is nice. That’s why I’d say our project stays interesting.
What was the biggest challenge you faced as a band starting out?
Ethan - It’s so difficult to make it sustainable, we’re really lucky to have 4 guys who are all very much driven and happy to get stuck in. Those tricky situations teach you a lot though, for example we’ve built a lot of our own stuff - right now we’re building our own studio. You learn how to book your own shows, how to soundproof a room yourself.
Aleksi - One of the harder things is that we haven’t gotten any industry support, everything is done ourselves. It’s a puzzle to figure out how to do things cheaply and with our skill sets. Berlin is a terrible place to start a band, it has a really thriving music scene but it is hard to start out here, especially an English-speaking band - once you leave Berlin you’re expected to speak German.
Ethan - We’re not a British band, we’re not a Scandinavian band, we’re not a German band, so it’s hard to identify a ‘home’. Other than the cultural melting pot that is Berlin. People seek to see and feel their comfort zones and that can be hard when you don’t have a distinct hometown. That challenge is a good thing, you have to be interesting.
Aleksi - Another thing is that there’s been a big difference with the industry righting the historic wrong of a lack of female representation. That’s a fantastic thing and it’s been a long time coming. Our band is also about that, our name was very much an ironic thing - we want to push against that ‘lad culture’. Irony can be hard to sell over an email but our fanbase understands the intention behind that.
The Usual Boys Press Photo
Can you walk me through your creative process for songwriting? Is the process a collective effort?
Aleksi - As far as bands go our process is very much democratic, we do all bring ideas and work on songs together. Ethan and I lead the lyric writing I would say but everyone does contribute.
Ethan - Often if one of us does bring forward an idea it’s interesting to see how we all hack it to pieces, the idea will barely resemble what it was at the start of the session. At the start that was quite difficult, your ego can be fragile when you’re just beginning but now it’s liberating. You know that the idea you bring forward will be transformed by the end.
Aleksi - We definitely trust the process a lot more now, we’ve written a lot of songs - good and bad. We know that the process whereby an idea changes completely is actually a good thing.
Ethan - I find it very thrilling when I can hear that same process within another band’s music, you can hear that something is the result of 4 or 5 people all seeing something from a different angle.
Online your sound has been described very differently by audiences - alternative, indie, post-punk, rock. How would you describe your musical genre?
Ethan - For a while we were floating a completely new genre - new metal, new jangle.
Aleksi - I think we’ve moved on. We’ve moved now towards post-punk. All of these terms ‘indie’, ‘post-punk’, ‘alternative’ are umbrella terms really, trying to capture such different sounds, moods and vibes. The genres have moved so far from what they started as.
Ethan - The genre feels a bit tarnished now, cool ‘indie’ bands are being called ‘post-punk’.
Aleksi - It’s been a few years since that ‘bedroom indie’ saturation and now it feels like we’re hearing a lot more ‘pop-indie’, electric-feel sounds which to me is fresh.
Ethan - Our newer music is definitely leaning into a darker vibe, which lends itself well to the ‘post-punk’ genre.
How do you think the ‘punk’ scene has changed since the early 2000s?
Ethan - Post-punk revival is a really big thing at the moment, especially with Fontaines DC. They’re one of the biggest bands in the UK right now and are definitely a part of that punk sphere. ‘Punk’ music is a lot more musical and lyrical now which is interesting.
Aleksi - There’s been a really interesting change in the last 10 years I’d say. Pre-pandemic ‘post-punk’ sounds were very artificial in a sense, the soundscape was quite dark. Now I think, especially with UK post-punk bands, the instrumentation is a lot more natural and organic.
Ethan - There’s also a lot more sincerity in the sound now as well. A lot of bands acknowledged the ‘cringe’ of being in a band. I prefer the sounds now, cynicism gets quite boring after a while.
What are some of the themes that you explore in your music? Is there a specific theme or subject that your music keeps coming back to address?
Aleksi - I think there’s a few things, we touch on the idea of repetition a lot - especially in our first album. In a lot of our early singles there’s this idea of repetition, and how sad that gets. The feeling of constantly letting yourself down. Our newer music feels a lot more hopeful, still the idea of repetition is present though.
Ethan - A lot of the themes in ‘Failing to Be’ touched on those feelings of confusion especially at the age when you’re leaving/have left school. You’re put out in the world and confronted with the heroic, romanticised image that you have of yourself failing to materialise. It’s a cold reality. At that point our music was very much introspective, now our work is a lot more outward looking. Right now we are all immigrants in a foreign country, that makes you think about yourself and where you come from, it does shake up your identity quite a lot when you move away from home.
Aleksi - One thing that we do think about a lot and keep writing about is masculinity. We’re all quite sensitive boys and feel that all the ‘role models’ of cis-masculinity are negative. It can feel very alienating when those around you idolise people with questionable opinions. Music offers an outlet in terms of speaking about those feelings and things that we go through that aren’t necessarily represented in band punk music.
Ethan - Our band name definitely touched upon that concept, looking from the outside at the interesting developments in Queer Theory and Feminism but feeling that there isn’t the rubric or movement happening right now for men. Developments of that sort have been led by the right-wing. Our title ‘The Usual Boys’ comments on the lack of that alternative structure we’re looking for.
Aleksi - I think in our writing and music we don’t have a lot of the answers to those looming questions but it’s important to include those messages because it will reach an audience who understands and relates to that feeling.
What has been your favourite show/venue that you have played so far in your career?
Aleksi - Collectively, our favourite show was in London at the Victoria Dalston, it’s a really nice venue and the promoters there were great. We had a really big crowd, people were crowd-surfing and chanting our melodies in between songs. It felt very surreal.
Do you feel that you have ‘made your mark’ in music? If so, when was this?
Ethan - I don’t think that I’ve made my mark but that occasionally I’ve done something and felt incredibly proud of myself for that. You’re always evolving and so there’s always another mark to make. It’s a bit weird sometimes to listen to your own music but the reflection is nice - to celebrate yourself for coming up with that piece. There’s a lot left in the tank, definitely.
Aleksi - The music we’ve released feels like little snapshots of my life, of our lives, and that’s great to look back on. There’s always a feeling of wanting to express how I feel now, talking about what I’m thinking now so it’s never-ending. I feel more that I’m leaving loads of small marks. I’ve definitely accomplished something and I don’t have to prove any of that.
Ethan - It’s like creating a photobook, those songs capture such different people to who we are now and it’s amazing that we could have those moments recorded.
