“Oh, we all drink.”
Look, I didn’t want to offend Joyce Manor by assuming their new album, I Used to Go To This Bar, suggested anything about the trio’s imbibing habits. But vocalist/guitarist Barry Johnson put me at ease pretty quickly, as did his bandmates Chase Knobbe and Matt Ebert, who all shared plenty of boozy tales during our Zoom call just before the band’s spring tour.
If you’re not familiar with Joyce Manor — well, shame on you. Formed in Torrance, CA, in 2008, the band (with a rotating set of drummers) offers up quick-fire pop-punk songs, often under two minutes, that nod to Weezer, The Smiths, The Menzingers, fourth-wave emo and early-aughts alt-rock. Beloved by BrooklynVegan, Pitchfork and Rolling Stone (and yours truly), their seventh and latest album is also their most musically expansive and catchiest record yet.
And it also continues some boozy themes that have pervaded the band’s catalog, which includes the records 40 Oz. to Fresno and Never Hungover Again. Thankfully, the band seems to have a fairly healthy relationship with drinking culture. “I feel like we party hard, but we don’t really get dark,” says Ebert. “We still stay pretty jolly and, you know, don’t destroy things.”
Below, a few questions with the band about booze and beer, plus a few musical inquiries, including why their best new song is Shrek-like (in a good way).
InsideHook: What’s the story behind “I Used to Go To This Bar”?
Barry Johnson: It’s about when I first moved to Long Beach. I sold my car because I was paying rent and had no money. Long Beach was walkable, and I would end up at this bar that was close to where I live, not because I particularly liked it, but because I didn’t feel like walking to a cool bar that’s further. Then you end up spending kind of a lot of time there, just out of proximity. In the very opening line, you know this person likes to drink and is broke. You just kind of know a little bit about a lot about character very quickly, without really saying a ton.
Why make it the title track?
Barry Johnson: Mostly because it fit the album photo. That’s always the goal: to find a title that goes with the image. It’s an image from a buddy who tattoos [bandmate] Chase, he posted it. I thought it was somebody from an L.A. punk band. I asked him who it was, because whoever it was, I wanted to listen to their music. And he said it was his grandma, who had just passed away. I was like, I’m so sorry. A couple of days later, I asked him, “This is weird, and if you’re not into it, no problem. Is there any way we could use that photo for an album cover? It’s just such a great fucking photo.” And he was super into the idea.
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On “No Joy,” the indie-punk group finds love (and synths) in its own bleak wayDo you have a favorite type of bar?
Matt Ebert: People that we know kind of make fun of us, that we all have the same taste in a bar. We like an old wood-paneled bar, a little bit divey.
Chase Knobbe: Like a rock ’n’ roll bar with a home refrigerator.
Barry Johnson: I like finding a great rock ’n’ roll bar with a dedicated jukebox with like The Clash or “The Best of the Pretenders.” But I really like bars where you get a mix of people, where you have the neighborhood regular alcoholics, you have college kids, you might have some punks. You have hot young hipster people who are at a thing mixed with regular old alcoholics, and they know each other. I think it’s this third place for a bunch of different people. I actually hate when a bar feels like it’s a little bit too catered to me.
Your album titles (40 Oz to Fresno, Never Hungover Again, I Used to Go To This Bar) are pretty boozy-themed.
Barry Johnson: I think it’s because of all the drinking. (laughs) We’re beer and weed dudes. And we like to hang. We toured with Dashboard Confessional recently; they’re fun to crush beers with. Saves the Day, we’re super on the same page. We’re all, don’t get sloppy and just have fun.
Chase Knobbe: We all have the same drunk temperament.
Do you have a favorite bar?
Chase Knobbe: There’s this place called Route 101 in San Francisco that is the craziest bar I’ve ever been to.
Barry Johnson: It’s a “people having sex in the bathroom” kind of place. There are so few places left like that in San Francisco. And I also like this place called Snake & Jake’s Christmas Club Lounge in New Orleans.
Matt Ebert: The Low Tide Lounge in Portland. That’s really good. And the HMS Bounty in Los Angeles is amazing. It’s in the lower level of an old apartment building in Koreatown. It’s nautical themed and they still have a $5 beer and a shot special. But you can also get a steak dinner.
I think you’ve written four songs ever that break the three-minute mark. What’s with the short songs?
Barry Johnson: It’s not unusual for the world where we came from. Bands like Operation Ivy or the Descendants would write like a minute-30, a minute-40 songs, and it was not weird at all. I guess they’re all kind of short songs? Even once we started making less punk records, we kept that part of it.
Matt Ebert: The difference with those bands is that they would put out records with 17 or 18 songs, so you’d get a 30-minute album. We do nine to 10 songs, so it’s like 15-20 minutes. I don’t know if “polarizing” is the word for what we do, but it turns heads. Maybe it’s subversive. I know in the beginning we’d play a show and it would last for like 10 minutes.
My favorite song on the new record is “Well, Whatever It Was,” which one writer compared to the Shrek soundtrack. Is that a good thing?
Barry Johnson: Oh yeah. We called that song “Shrek V” [for a while]. It has that kind of Smash Mouth / Sugar Ray flavor to it. When I showed it to my bandmates, I thought they’d dismiss it and think it was corny. But they were into it. I don’t mind the Shrek comparison.
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