Last time CLASH spoke with Porches, one of few monikers for New York songwriter Aaron Maine, it was the post-lockdown period during which live music events began making a gradual return.
Two years on, things have changed. The live music scene is back with a vibrant punch, and so is Porches, with a new album to share.
The songwriter’s sixth full-length album ‘Shirt’ is a fantastical, frenetic montage. It shows Porches pushing his own experimental bounds; digging into himself, gritting his teeth and tearing out the arcane pieces for others to dissect. We had the opportunity to catch up with Porches about ‘Shirt’, touching on the fresh inspirations and murky emotions that were poured into it.
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So, your newest album, ‘Shirt’ is coming out soon. Where does the name come from?
Well, there was a joke that me and my friends made seven or eight years ago about a band being called Shirt.
‘Shirt’ feels like a pretty big departure in sound from your previous work, described as your heaviest album to date. What inspired you to start incorporating more punky, grunge textures?
One thing that inspired that was touring with our last record, ‘All Day Gentle Hold’. It was the first tour after the pandemic shut everything down, and no one was really sure if live music was gonna happen again. So, we went out and it just felt extra victorious and energised. Truly such a special experience to play live music in a room full of people. So I wanted to take some of that energy, bottle it up, and put it into what became ‘Shirt’. But I wanted to push my voice further, play louder guitars and have live drums. So when it’s time to play it live, we can really just have it feel super raw, and over the top, and unhinged. Just trying to take full advantage of getting a room together.
That was a big part of it, and I also think rock music is sort of how I grew up playing music. In bands, and sort of a punk DIY scene where I grew up, so a lot of that is super familiar to me. It felt like less of a departure and more of an embracing my upbringing in music. Why I was inclined to circle back there for some inspiration, I’m not really sure. But it was fun to try and bridge the gap between what I learned when I was 14-years old, and all the production knowledge that I’ve gathered throughout the years experimenting.
The goal is to try to make something that sounded like something you had never heard before, even though it was heavily rooted in American rock music. I still wanted to produce it, and squeeze it out, and make it sound more interesting and fucked than just a straight-forward band playing rock songs or something.
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What was that production process like? With very distinctive qualities in vocal style and natural, abstract lyricism, did you find the process to be much different compared to what you’ve done before?
Well, it was different in that I was trying to achieve this thing and I didn’t really know what it sounded like, but I had this idea of what it could sound like. The songs came relatively easily or naturally in the basic structure and whatnot. But when it came time to produce it and do the part where I wanted to take it a step further, that was uncharted territory for me. I enjoy that part of the process a lot. It’s a lot of throwing shit at the wall. Sometimes it sticks and feels super amazing. Sometimes it just makes the song sound fifty times worse than it did when you started that day. I think there was a bit more of a challenge production-wise for me that I set out to do.
Simultaneously, with the lyrics I feel like I was pushing myself into places that I haven’t really pushed myself before as well. There was no particular story or spot I was trying to touch on, but there was a lot of me just grappling with stuff. Whether it was sounds, production, emotions or lyrical ideas and stuff like that. To me, there’s a lot of tension and anxiety on this record and I felt like I should embrace that this time around, instead of trying to navigate around it. Just let it be what it felt like it was wanting to be and stick to that plot.
There were times where I definitely questioned what I was making and if it was too much, over the top. But at the end of the day, I’m really glad that I kept working towards what I imagined it could be and make this kind of whacked out album. I like to work, I like to obsess. And something about it felt like it worked well with that. At times it’s nice to let stuff breathe, sit and marinate. Something about being down in the basement and being in tweaker mode all the time weirdly felt like it served the album in creating this panic state at times.
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Were you able to identify where that tension, anxiety and panic came from?
Maybe if I had a therapist, I’d be able to say where that comes from. I will say that what I’m realising in talking in this album specifically is that most of the time when I make anything, it seems like the overarching goal is to paint as realistic of a picture of what is going on in my brain during that amount of time. It’s not necessarily about specific events or scenarios, but it’s this super abstract, collage painting of this internal landscape. Or something that I feel compelled to try and make into songs and albums, and then for whatever reason share it with people.
But you know, anxiety comes from a lot of different places. The state of the world, the country, personal relationships. It just felt like the kind of place that I wanted to be, to spend time in these darker thoughts. I did record it in this basement studio rehearsal space that I’ve been renting for a year and a half, and I think that had something to do with going underground beneath this cobblestone street in Soho. Even stepping into that place, it almost felt like I wasn’t supposed to be there. A little mischievous. And that was the first time I made a record outside of my apartment in years. I think that allowed me to really cut off. I mean there’s not even a window, so I can’t even see outside. And I’m also not surrounded by my bed or my clothes, or any parts of my material reality. So I felt like I was able to get extra lost and weird, and feel safe and cut off. Like a little freak den down there. That was exciting, I didn’t know what it was going to be like to make music down there. I think that also had a big part in these subterranean vibes.
You mentioned that you didn’t really go into making ‘Shirt’ with much of a story, but there are a few recurring themes and characters throughout the record. Did you place any symbolism to them, or would you say that they came about more naturally, creating a wider narrative on their own?
It does happen pretty naturally. I feel like when I’m writing a group of songs, a lot of themes just stick and pop up, and I find myself coming back to them just because they’re on my mind a lot. Working on this batch of songs, it’s less about trying to weave a specific narrative throughout the album. I feel like even within the songs, with the characters, I like to leave a lot of room for interpretation about who they are, who they might mean to you. Or if you relate to a character, or feel like in your relationship with someone, they are that character.
I do like that sort of feeling. I feel like the whole album begs a story, a specific story, and I really like that there’s not. It’s almost like this playground or a set that I’ve built for a play. All of the pieces are there. Even when I listen to it, I find myself having different thoughts about it and relating to the songs in different ways. I think that’s kind of how I’ve always written lyrics. I’ve never really been all that literal or that much of a storytelling songwriter. I’ve always been more interested in collecting these memories, experiences and dreams, and piecing them together in a way feels like all the parts are there, but there’s still a lot of room to insert yourself, your mood, or whatever into the song.
I try and paint this mood. It’s almost like the words are meant to be experienced physically or emotionally. Obviously attaching certain words and sounds to feelings. I think that’s what I’m realising I’m kind of interested in, and have always been in some way messing with language in a much less literal way.
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On the topic of symbolism, the video for ‘Joker’ being centred around chasing this lost dog stood out with a bit of a twist. What did that represent for you?
I’ve been trying to think about what that song means, where it came from and what the pound represents to me. I think I’m drawn to the pound. It’s this sort of place for rejects, people who have caused trouble, who are unwanted or lost. It’s a very charged up place. I like the idea that for whatever reason you ended up in the pound, there’s a lot of forgiveness in that song. I pick my dog up and I forgive him for whatever he ran off and did. I feel like I could be in the pound and feeling like I fucked up and forgiving myself, or can be experiencing that sort of thing with another person. I think that’s what that song is about, this push and pull between punishment and forgiveness, and being an outcast.
The idea for the video, the concept, was actually the director’s. Which is in a nutshell this picturesque look of me reuniting with a dog, and then at the end we realise that I had stolen the dog from this little innocent boy. I feel like that sort of concept where you think it’s this whole thing until the very end, and it’s become totally creeped out, evil or scary, is what the album feels like a lot of the time to me. It’s these picturesque scenarios pitted against weirder or less pastoral sides of them.
In ‘Joker’ and ‘Voices In My Head’, there’s a bit of a country twang. What drew your attention to that sound as a source of inspiration?
Well, even before getting into rock music, my dad showed me Neil Young, Townes Van Zandt, and a lot of these 60s-70s folk rock musicians. My dad lives upstate in Greenwich, New York, and I feel like those songs are super ingrained into my brain. A lot of my songwriting sensibilities came from drilling those songs into my head when I was super impressionable. It also felt like it widened the album in this way. By the time I wrote those more folky songs, I’d been working at the album for a while. It sounds concept-y, but it almost became like I was living in this world of ‘Shirt’, imagining ‘Voices In My Head’ being played on the radio in the car of Sally, and whoever’s driving is half folk, half pop punk. This bastardised to the max genre thing. I was thinking about it from within that world.
It felt very American. And I like messing around with my voice. ‘Voices In My Head’, I feel like I sing it in the voice of a tough, different character. It felt exciting to make something and experiment with my voice like that. That’s always something that I want. I tell myself I should do more on it, it’s such a crazy, powerful instrument. People kind of sing the same way for their entire career, which is cool if that’s your thing, but I enjoy putting a little more theatre into it. It’s just another tool to get these ideas and sentiments across. With ‘Joker’ it’s similar. Pop country over a club beat, that felt very confusing and satisfying at the same time to me. It was mashing up my all over the place influences of music and trying to make this thing that only I could make, that’s totally, uniquely Porches and me. It’s definitely weird. Some weird vibes, but I’m into that. I like trying to take it somewhere I haven’t been yet.
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Speaking of using your voice in different ways, ‘USA’ is a really interesting track on the record. You can feel a lot of frustration around the idea of The American Dream. Given the tension surrounding America’s political climate, do you, as an artist, feel a sense of responsibility to comment on what’s going on in the world around you?
I don’t feel that responsibility as an artist to be political. I’ve never felt that responsibility, it’s not why I got into music. It wasn’t to tell anyone how to feel or to sway anyone’s ideas about the world or other people, but a way to express myself to myself. In the beginning I wanted to make songs and no one was listening to them, so I wasn’t preaching to a choir. That song is maybe one of the only songs I’ve ever written that has any sort of political themes in it. I just wrote it on the Fourth of July in New York. That morning I went to the studio, and the patriotism of the holiday was very present in the air. It’s usually super hot and it’s just hard to ignore. To some people, it’s like “rah, rah, rah, let’s fucking go, America”, and some people find it, rightfully so, terrifying to have that sort of pride in the air.
I guess I was just feeling bad and thinking about that. I went down there and wrote this really intense song where I sort of assume both sides. The proud patriot and then this guilt, and bringing it back to myself where I deserve to feel this guilt and this fear, because my whole life was built on violence, racism and everything. I think that’s why at the end, it’s this tongue and cheek “you and I were meant to be”, but not in a beautiful,
connected way. It’s in a you get what you deserve sort of way. I was a little nervous to put it on the record, but then I was like, well what’s the point of making art and dedicating my life to making art if I can’t experiment, try things out and take risks?
I guess my worst fear is that people will think that I’m trying to edgelord them, or fuck with them, or something. And I’m really not trying to do that. So I think in line with the rest of the album, it’s been me trying to push myself in different ways and stick to my guns to try to make something really special.
Overall, is there anything that you want both new and existing listeners to take away from the album?
I hope it makes them want to start a band or something. I hope they just take away having a totally whacked out experience listening to it, run it back, and are inspired to make music or hang out with their friends. I feel like when I am really moved my music, I’m inspired to make music. So whatever version, if you’re inclined to paint, write, skateboard or something, you’re inspired to also create something.
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‘Shirt’ is out now.
Words: Kayla Sandiford
Photography: Eleonora C. Collini
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