Speak Your Truth: Downtown Boys Discuss 'Cost of Living'

Photo: Miguel Rosario

Downtown Boys are a force to be reckoned with.

The Providence punks wear their beliefs and contempt for oppressors proudly on their rolled-up sleeves. They promote inclusive politics through their music and the Spark, a website run in collaboration with Demand Progress that introduces itself with the tagline “culture is a weapon, join the fight”.

The band recently landed their biggest blow to date with their third album, ‘Cost of Living’, which arrived last week through Sub Pop. With Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto on production duty, the five-piece have channelled their fury and fervour into songs that resonate long after the record stops spinning.

We caught up with vocalist Victoria Ruiz and guitarist Joey La Neve DeFrancesco on release day to discuss the inspiration behind it, working with a new producer, their label shift and adjustments to their songwriting process.

You put out your 2015 LP ‘Full Communism’ through Don Giovanni and the new record on Sub Pop. Why the move?

Ruiz: It wasn’t so much about growing in terms of getting bigger as much as it was being able to move into a different space. Don Giovanni is an incredible label. I think we would have done another record with Don Giovanni, for sure. I do think that with Sub Pop we’ve been able to break away from the dogmatic punk principles that often get put on us, instead of us actually deciding to take them on. Because Sub Pop have more of a spectrum of artists and wider catalogue, it gave us an even bigger ocean to swim in as a little fish. But by no means did it feel like a promotion or a step up, anything like that. It was a different space to try.

We obviously don’t want to be speaking to an echo chamber [and] we don’t want to be preaching to a choir. I think it has grown the space a little bit in which we play and in which we speak. And it’s scary, because ultimately for every one person who feels your music, you’re going to get at least one or [more] people who aren’t going to like what you’re saying, or what you’re doing. They’re not even going to give it the time to decide if they like it or not. It also meant really having to believe in what you’re doing, because it’s not going to be for everyone, or accepted by everyone.

How did you end up working with Guy Picciotto?

DeFrancesco: He’s fantastic. It was kind of a funny circumstance that led us to him. We knew we had to put this record out, record the record, and we didn’t quite have a producer nailed down yet. Someone we were going to work with dropped out of it, and so we reached out first to Allison Wolfe from Bratmobile, who is a friend of our bass player. She was not available to do it, but she actually recommended Guy.

At first he was like: “I like your band, but I don’t know if I can do this, I have a family now.” After some consideration he decided to do it. He believed in the music and project enough to agree to get on board. From the beginning he was really supportive and intuitively understood what we were trying to do. In the studio he wasn’t heavy handed or re-writing our songs or forcing us to do anything. He just helped us execute what we were already setting out to do, which is what I think a really good producer does.

Having someone with that much historical and artistic weight in the room telling you you did a good job, or the song sounds good, carries an enormous amount, you know? Also, because of that he was able to keep the mood up. Outside of everything that he’s done in his life he’s just a very kind, caring, empathetic person. He can also just be really goofy, play little games with us and tell us the gossip from 1992.

For ‘Cost of Living’ you stripped back the brass section and opted just for a saxophone. You also introduced synths into the mix. Why the change?

DeFrancesco: I think it was largely just wanting a broader palette to work with. I love everything that we’ve made as a band, but on the last record the sax carries every melody throughout. I think it’s more interesting and lends itself to more listens when there’s more instrumentation involved. On this record you have the guitars doing some of the melodies, keyboards allowing for harmonies and doing some of the melodies as well. I don’t think it’s hugely more complicated than wanting a broader musical palette to work with.

Prior to the LP’s arrival Victoria said that there was a lyrical shift compared to previous releases. Can you explain?

Ruiz: I think on ‘Cost of Living’ our lyrics are a bit more nuanced, definitely. I think they’re going for a wider spectrum of emotions. They’re going beyond just telling people what we’re about on a very large political level [and] getting into the nuances and difficulties of feeling really, really strongly about the political and also feeling really, really strongly about the personal and how those two things hold a lot of contradictions and contrasting elements.

On the song I’m Enough (I Want More) clearly we’re not saying we want more money, or more capitalism. That song is getting into when you are a political person and working on these things, speaking truth to power on this big level, you get a lot of expectations put on you and because you’re not a cis-gendered straight white man. People are so used to that being the baseline of what equality should look like. There are so many reasons and excuses for why your voice isn’t valid, for why you’re not enough, for why it’s not OK for you to be an imperfect person working on these big beautiful futures.

I think it’s getting at the anger of that and then getting into that we are, of course, anti police, of course we are anti capitalism and we’re working towards being anti racist. But what that means is having to navigate within all of those structures at the same time. In order to get to an end of an ocean you have to swim through it. ‘Full Communism’ was more talking about that ocean that people are throwing us into and ‘Cost of Living’ is what the swim is like. The complexity can be easily overlooked. People may see it as not as intense or not as punk, but only because it’s more of something else that we’re trying to get out.

Assata Shakur's poem ‘i believe in living’ is referenced on A Wall and Promissory Note nods to Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have A Dream’ speech. Are these materials that have inspired your music or that you sought out to complement the message of a song you had already written?

Ruiz: We always were influenced by a Sun Ra take to message in music a little bit more than a political punk take to message in music. Really, you’re thinking about this future that you believe in 100% and that you know has never existed, like justice and freedom. These things have never existed, but we believe in them and we know that they can. That’s a future.

With history, all of it’s shown that groups of people, whether small or massive, come together in moments of injustice and in fact that’s the only thing that history is shown to have worked. So believing in that - and being in that current songwriting moment of sitting down with a file of Joey’s music and thinking about lyrics, or going through emails of six years of our friendship and being like “There was that sentence in that email that worked and helped me get through that moment”, maybe that can be a song lyric now? - I feel like it was an excavation of a lot of thoughts and feelings. That’s really what put a lot of our lyrics together.

The outside influences you can tie back. There are literally people rioting in this country because the police are killing people, and Beyoncé’s ‘Lemonade’ was coming out. Or you went to that show, or that conference, or talk and heard a line about [how] people of colour are often asked to light ourselves on fire to keep white supremacy warm and that got you through. So of course that’s going to come into the music. That MLK quote, that’s from one of his speeches and Kendrick [Lamar] and Beyoncé both used it in their BET [Awards] performance. He talks about a promissory note and if we cash it in it’s worth the bounds of liberation and freedom.

I feel like there is no one way to get at any problem. There’s so many different degrees to it and that’s the way we write lyrics. It’s not linear. We try and go all around that circle of degrees, around every single feeling and every single issue and we let our lyrics reflect how many knots are in our heads.

The note accompanying the new record says: “Either you are comfortable and unfazed by the current reigning power structures, or you use your music as a vehicle for the dismantling of oppression and the creation of something better. No matter what your songs are about, you are choosing a side.” Are you saying that those who opt not to address politics in their music are choosing a side through inaction?

Ruiz: Choosing not to do something can have so many factors. I think, because of trauma, because of history, ancestry, there’s so many reasons we’re not all going to be able to do every single thing. We’re not all going to be able to take action on every single issue. I don’t think we’re saying you must take action on everything that’s wrong in the world. I think rather what we’re asking is that the things that we’re all directly affected by, that’s what we have power in. [It’s] really thinking about how to strategise and collectively work on something, and think about how to call in the pain and call in why there’s trauma in our lives and in our bodies and in our world.

I think what we’re really trying to speak to is that equality doesn’t exist, it’s like freedom or justice. [It’s] thinking about the power, the privilege and the entitlement that people bring into situations. We’re asking people to try and take action on trying to meet each other where we’re all at. Instead of throwing rocks at each other, think about how we can use the rocks to build something better.

The music and subject matter of your songs are very intense. Is it exhausting to perform night after night when on tour?

DeFrancesco: The bit where we’re on stage and performing obviously requires an enormous amount of energy and focus, but at the same time is a sort of release and the best part of doing the band. It also carries with it an enormous amount of anxiety and energy required to perform that labour. But being on stage when you’re making this immediate connection, and getting to make this loud sound and speak your truth, is I think the biggest reason that we do this.

Ruiz: The show aspect is the best part of it. People can see the band and who we actually are. Maybe we’re not actually saying the things that you thought we were going to talk about. Maybe we’re not the people you wanted us to be. Maybe we’re inspiring or maybe we’re totally not living up to your expectations. It’s the most honest time, that physical time.

Downtown Boys Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:

Wed October 11 2017 - BRIGHTON Haunt
Thu October 12 2017 - LEEDS Brudenell Social Club
Fri October 13 2017 - EDINBURGH Sneaky Petes
Sat October 14 2017 - GLASGOW Stereo
Mon October 16 2017 - DUBLIN Workmans Club
Tue October 17 2017 - LIVERPOOL Shipping Forecast
Wed October 18 2017 - LONDON Tufnell Park Dome
Thu October 19 2017 - SHEFFIELD Picture House Social
Fri October 20 2017 - MANCHESTER Deaf Institute

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