In this age of newness fetishism, legacy is a peculiar thing. Conversations between music fans seem to invariably concern some hot, Noisey-approved young things, and the very notion expounding the virtues of anything more than a couple of months old can come at the cost of valuable cool guy points. Who even likes guitars anymore, bro? Perhaps the most tragic resident of this indie rock island of misfit toys are defunct Calgary noise concern Women.
Emerging in 2007 and releasing two of the finest records of their era, the four-piece disappeared back into the white, leaving devotees with only two near flawless documents to wear out our styluses. Thankfully, two former Women are back, with a couple of buddies in tow, to remind the world why they were one of the most vital acts of the previous decade. We had the pleasure of chatting with Viet Cong frontman and Women bassist Matt Flegel about pre-conceptions, crab fishing and the fallacy of post-punk.
The EP you recorded at the same time roughly as the album [Cassette] feels much more of a grab bag of sounds and influences where the album is markedly more coherent.
That’s a fair assessment I think. The cassette itself was very much a mixtape. It was made of the songs we had left over that I knew wouldn’t make it onto this record. They didn’t really make sense together. I wanted it to be in a mixtape style.
Do you think the eclectic quality of the tape itself is representative of the fact that you weren’t entirely sure what a Viet Cong record should sound like yet?
Oh absolutely. The thing is we will record any idea, any possible idea that any of us have. We’ll spend a week and a half recording something that we may never listen to again. We’ll try everything in terms of different sounds. I think that’s healthy. I don’t want to pigeonhole myself.
Considering your background with Women, there’s going to be a certain expectation. Is the fact you put the first Viet Cong release out with essentially no hype a conscious decision because of that?
More or less. I really just wanted to have something to sell when we were on tour. The EP was seven songs we figured we could just throw out there. It was originally meant to be a 200 cassette run, but then this label in the states [Mexican Summer] ended up putting it out as a proper record, and it’s on the internet now and everything. Not to say I’m embarrassed by it or anything, but I definitely didn’t intend it to be out there as much as it is. But that’s the internet I guess, I can take a shit and it’ll be on YouTube somehow the next day and that’s what I’ll be remembered for! But I’m happy to take advantage of fact I was in a band that some people know about though, a little bit anyway. I’m not trying to exploit it or anything but it’s something that I spent three or four years of my life doing. At that time that band was all we were focussing on. You don’t want to completely dismiss that.
I’d say that’s a pretty mature attitude to have though. A lot of people seem so eager to distance themselves from previous projects.
Who gives a fuck though? When it comes down to it, I’m doing my own thing now and I’m happy doing it. It’s going to progress in different ways and it’s not going to sound like the last thing you did. I don’t really see why people get so worked up over trying to get out of boxes that they aren’t necessarily in to begin with. I guess I didn’t really realise that so many people liked us. Goes to show that those three years weren’t a total waste of my life.
In all honesty, I think Women are one of the few bands of that era that are even viewed favourably anymore. It’s like people act like 2007 to 2010 didn’t happen and they’ve only liked dark techno their entire lives.
[Laughs] Hard rap, man. That’s what a fucking 30 year old white kid knows most about.
You guys are hardly totally confrontational in your style but there is a little element of that, even in just being oblique with song titles, or the cover art featuring Malaysian transvestites. Do you get a kick out of challenging people?
I personally do, but mostly when it comes to the music though. I don’t put too much thought into song titles or album art. I guess that’s why they can be pretty stark and bleak, I haven’t poured over these song titles for weeks at a time. It was the same story with the band name, we needed to call it something so that’s what we called it. Sure, it’s in your face, but it was very much blurted out as most of these things are. The music we scrutinise over endlessly, but that’s not something we do for everything else.
It’s funny that you say you don’t stress over that stuff because you come across as pretty laid back dudes where I’d imagine that from the music, people are expecting these super intense, blurred-black-and-white-photo type guys.
[Laughs] I guess. I dunno. We’re not leather jacket wearers or anything. We were recording a few nights ago and we were all dressed so nicely. I had on my nice shirt I got from my brother and Monty [guitarist] just got a nice shirt. I looked at us together and I said, ‘What the fuck man? We don’t look like a band! What are we doing? We need to go to the leather store!”
Speaking of a somewhat abrasive sound, when people talk about bands being ‘challenging’, do you think there can be too much of an audience focus? I like on the record how a song can turn on a penny and you seem to be constantly putting obstacles in your own way. Do you change things up mid-song to keep it interesting for yourselves?
I think it’s mostly for myself. But I’m a sucker for pop hooks as well. Once it ends up somewhere, I kind of enjoy taking my time getting there. I’ve played in enough bands at this point to know that it doesn’t take much to get sick of playing the same songs every night for a year, so I have that in the back of my mind while writing, to keep it interesting for myself.
One thing I keep seeing people saying about you guys is that you are a psych band or part of a new psych tradition. Do you identify as being part of a broader psych scene or is it just an empty signifier?
It’s as vague as saying we’re ‘post-punk’, which could mean anything at all. Post-Punk is such a vague term that I’m kind of happy to be lumped into it. The sheer breadth of styles that came from the post-punk era just span from one spectrum to another. And as soon as anything is longer than 5 minutes it’s psych, I guess! If there is one part you repeat over and over then it’s immediately psych or post-rock or something.
It’s a bummer you guy’s aren’t playing here on this tour. [Edit: Viet Cong are now playing on a later tour, this coming May!]
I wish, man, but that’s isolation for you, though. I’m moving to an island in two days so I’m gonna know all about it.
Where are you moving to?
We’re moving to Vancouver Island. It’s something I’ve talked about for a while but what really spurred it on is that my girlfriend got into school there so it was kind of the perfect excuse.
You should have said you were entering into some kind of romantic Bon Iver style isolation to write.
I’m going to isolate myself, I’m gonna have a shotgun barrel in my mouth 12 hours a day, and the other 12 I’m gonna be writing fucking hits
That’s the pull quote, man.
Nah, that’s not the plan. I am going to buy a fishing boat though. That’s my number one plan. Going to get myself some crab traps.
So the record came out January, meaning it’ll probably be ignored by all the end-of-year lists. Why then?
Honestly? It was scheduled to come out on November 11th, which we realised only after we had decided on the date, was Veterans Day in the States. So right at the deadline, the guys at Jagjaguwar were like ‘Dude! November 11th is fucking Veterans Day, there’s no way you can release a Viet Cong record on Veterans day!’
Jesus, and here I was thinking you were punks.
[Laughs] Punk enough. Punk in theory.
Viet Cong’s excellent self-titled record is out now on Jagjaguwar. They play the Workman’s Club on May 13th. Tickets here.
Words: Danny Wilson
