A Place to Bury Strangers – You’ll Be There for Me

By starrymag | July 26, 2024

By: Maggie Stankiewicz

 

 

Q) How would you describe your sound?

A) I wouldn’t really. I’m not a good judge of what we sound like. I’ve been kind of living in this bubble for so long building this alternate reality of what music should sound like we are deep in a hole, and it is fucked up and desperate with a real love for the sound of something breaking.

Q) Who are some of your musical influences?

A) I grew up first loving a lot of bands like Minor Threat and The Ramones and then into bands like My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth and then into bands like Lightning Bolt, Arab on Radar and then into bands like Alcian Blue and the December Sound and then into so many more bands. But I feel like a lot of that shaped my love for live music.

Q) Talk about the story behind your latest single “You’ll Be There for Me.”

A) It is a song about being totally crushed that they wouldn’t even do the simplest thing for you despite being extremely close and coming to that realization.

Q) You released “You’ll Be There for Me” alongside another new release, “When You’re Gone.” What makes these two songs a great pairing?

A) They are both about totally depressing things and sometimes feeling sad is the way you want to feel.

Q) You released two other singles earlier this year with “This is All for You” and “Don’t Turn the Radio.” Is this a teaser to a full album or EP coming in the near future?

A) There might be, but these releases are actually post album releases of songs from the time period before the last album came out. They are sort of echoes of an album past. So, this is a post teaser. Terrible for marketing but real.

Q) What is your songwriting process? Your songs are very sonically eclectic. Do you write music before lyrics, or vice versa?

A) I’m sort of always trying to find something different so there is always a strong desire to just try something we’ve never done before. I don’t really want to have a method, so we’ve recorded while we write or had some ideas and went with them or something fucked up would happen to us and we’d have to do something about it. I just wanna hear another fucking good song.

Q) How involved is the band when it comes to the production side of the music that you make?

A) We make it because I always believed that the music was what you really were. I listen to music not looking at a photo or watching a video of a band. I listen to either a record or see a band live and I want that to be real, so I want it to be something we did. Not someone else making us something we weren’t.

Q) A Place to Bury Strangers has been making music for the last twenty years. What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned on releasing new music throughout such an illustrious career?

A) Do whatever you want to do. There are no rules. We are all just a bunch of people doing our thing.

Q) You’ll be touring in the summer. What are some songs you’re looking forward to performing live?

A) We’ve got some new ones that haven’t come out yet. Those ones, but I love playing all our songs. I don’t know how many there are but maybe like one hundred and forty or so. We play different songs every night. I’m up for anything.

Q) Where are some of your favorite places to perform and what is their significance to you as a band?

A) On the street, in an alley way, some bar that doesn’t want you there, some place in the middle of the day – I like all of these places because they are where you really have to bring it. You are up against the wall against all odds and still have to bring it. I love playing after a band that I know is gonna blow us out of the water. It makes me try so hard to make the show so fucking nuts that something magical and a bit scary happens.

Q) What artist are you currently listening to or hoping to collaborate with in the future?

A) OWLS – “Body Bags,” Pale Stranger – “Woodcutter”

Both sick tracks and would love to play with them.

Q)  What would you like to say to everyone who is a fan and follower of your music?

A) Thank you so much for believing in this fucked up version of what a sound should be.

 

 

All Questions Answered By Oliver Ackermann