Northern Transmissions: How has life been leading up to this 7th album cycle? What stuck out to you at this point for Protomartyr?

Joe Carey: My whole life. As far as the history of the band, when you get to your seventh record, there’s a feeling that you can’t believe you’ve been in a band this long. When we did the first album, I never expected to be in a band this long. Each one you expect it to be your last, so to be sitting and looking at number seven is pretty amazing. When we started, I was just a co-worker of Greg [Ahee] at a theatre where we held doors open, so I didn’t think that guy was going to be a part of my life for 16 years. That kind of thing where you stop and think about it is kind of amazing.

NT: Hotel Usona is the band’s 7th album. Did the formula change a bit for putting this one together?

JC: Yeah, what happened with this one was, usually Greg writes a lot of the music as the guitar player. With Alex [Leonard], the band kind of helps him along the way, but this time both Alex and I had children so we were a little busy. At that point, Greg was going to work on this title all by himself. I gave him the concept early on, so he knew he didn’t have to worry about me, and that he could write whatever he wanted to. I was probably mentioning it’s going to take place in a building or something, so once all the music came in I had to come up with what it all was going to be about. It seemed like when we started writing the actual album later on that America was kind of circling the drain for a while, so that was what it was going to be about. The hotel is going to be America and hopefully it’s going to be an interesting way to talk about the state of the world, the state of America without being too on the nose, and so Hotel Usona kind of came to be when I started writing the lyrics which was maybe two months before we started recording.

NT: “Sounds We Cannot Hear” comes across as observational, while “Feed the Sewer” comes across more symbolic of current events — both still equally real and visceral. Do you challenge yourself differently writing one versus the other?

JC: It’s mostly just challenging myself when I hear the music, since I have to think about what it’s going to be about. That’s when I can put my little writer’s cap on. Is this a first person song or is this a story song? Am I just going to go off of raw emotion? “Feed the Sewer” obviously is a big heavy song. If it’s a first person song, then it can be from the point-of-view of someone who is very manic or someone who has that power behind them. I’m going to talk about the situation and write something symbolic of the AI crisis that we’re going through. There’s another song on the album, “The Knife Dream,” that’s kind of slinky and scary almost sounding, so I knew that this is my opportunity to tell a scary story. It depends on what the music sounds like — if it sounds kind of warm and closed, then I can tell it’s a first person song. That’s the fun, getting to pick what each song is going to sound like lyrics-wise.

NT: From “The Old Hotel” to “Checking Out,” is Hotel Usona meant to be a focus on the warning signs that feel inescapable?

JC: It’s one of those things where Greg came up with the music and knew that all these songs were going to be connected. He didn’t know what order the songs were going to be in. That’s kind of another exciting part; it’s like putting a puzzle together. You have all these pieces musically and lyrically. It’s sitting in what order they’ll be in and early on we knew “The Old Hotel” would be the first song and “Checking Out” would be the last song, which is why I was able to call it “Checking Out,” and anything in between we’re figuring out the order which is good cause when people say it’s like a concept album — to me, those are like a play where there’s characters. This one is a little bit more loose once we get into the theme. Once you’re in a hotel, you can walk around in any direction. It’s not like a story we’re trying to tell with a beginning, middle and end, so you kind of go off of mood. We’re a band, for better or worse, that thinks of albums by side A and side B so we always try to reach some sort of emotional musical point by the end of side A and pick it up again or change course in side B. Again, that’s another fun thing to think about.

NT: What was the experience like working at Tarbox with Dave Fridmann?

JC: Well, [Tarbox Road Studios] is in far western New York, which is kind of between Cleveland and Buffalo if you know that area. I had never been to that part of New York before. It’s kind of out there. It’s one of those things where you’re in the woods and you’re basically in a cabin. Dave [Fridmann] would go: If you go on a walk, make sure you bring a big stick cause there’s wild dogs in the woods that will attack you. You basically stay in the studio the whole time. This is the longest time we had ever recorded. We did it in patches: two weeks, a break, then another two weeks. We actually had a whole month to record and that was amazing because of the way Greg and the band could work out all their ideas whether it’s dumb or not. We tried things out to see if it works. Later, we actually got to go back in and be a part of the mixing which we had never done. People who mix sometimes keep the band far away since they have their own ideas about how a song should sound, though Dave had us there. It was a pretty fascinating process to see how he mixes.

NT: What are some thoughts on touring behind the new LP?

JC: There’s excitement building up, and then there’s a lot of figuring out how we’re going to do it because unfortunately when a band gets better and better and starts adding more instruments, somebody has got to play that on stage. We started as a punk band which was very easy to play anywhere. Now, we think about needing a keyboard player and all that kind of stuff. We’re excited this time we have Fred Thomas. He’s from a ton of Michigan bands. He’s a musical legend guy that’s going to be playing with us as our fifth member, and hopefully we’ll be able to get a trumpet player or some form of horn player since a lot of these songs have that aspect to them. I’m excited, and hopefully it’ll go well.

Order Hotel Usona by Protomartyr HERE