Song Stream: Boys’ Club – “Purgatory For Dogs”

With band members scattered between Edmonton and Winnipeg, emo/punk outfit Boys’ Club, regularly take on one of the biggest challenges a band can face: distance.

With a handful of shows, some significant overseas press, and four EPs under their belt, the boys prove that distance can make the band grow stronger.

Guitarist/vocalist, Zac Houston, gave us the scoop on their unique writing process, their new EP, Boys’ Club Lives Forever EP – Sept. 30th – and their new song “Purgatory For Dogs.”

JA: You guys have been together since 2012. Can you go through some of the growth and changes you’ve experienced since your start?
ZH: One of the biggest moments for us was when we got some decent press out in Germany for our Dolores EP. A website called BorderlineFuckUp.com really got into the Dolores EP. They said it was their favourite record that came out in 2013. We made it in their Top Record list so that was a big thing for us. This summer we opened for Meat Wave. That was one of the coolest moments.

It’s kind of tough to keep real steady progression because we only really get four months together at a time. With me living out in Edmonton and the other two back in Winnipeg, we don’t really have time to tour, or play a ton of shows. Whenever we’re together we write as much as we can and play as much as we can. We’re hoping with this new record, it’ll have some legs to it. We’re excited for these seven songs that we put together.

JA: How did the writing process work?
ZH: I come up with a skeleton for the song and then I bring it to Sebastian [Cox]. With the help of his drums we get the full structure together then Bernard [Cox] comes in and writes his own baseline. Fortunately, I ended up getting to spend a whole summer break at home, from May to mid-August. I had been working on a few riffs over the school year and because I’ve been playing with these guys for so long, they picked it up pretty quick. We also wrote some stuff on the spot at a jam. We spent three-and-half months together and we were able to put seven songs together, which is pretty cool. We like that pace.

It definitely makes us focus because we can’t say, “oh we have time, we can get to this later.” It’s, “we have three and half months to do whatever we can.” We’re always on a tight schedule, so we jam a ton and practice a ton so it definitely keeps you focused.

JA: You worked with Jordan Voth (Ones and Zeros) again.
ZH: Jordan’s been good. This is going on the 4th time we’ve gone back to him. Especially given the compressed timeline, it’s nice to work with someone that already knows you and the band, so you don’t have to go through that awkward getting to know you period. It’s nice that he knows what we like. He knows what we don’t like. I feel like he’s done a better job with us each time. We’ve gotten to understand each other better and it really came together with his help.

JA: Was there anything really different this time around?
ZH: The biggest thing is, sonically, the songs are cleaner and more melodic. There’s less gravelly punk. I lived with four other people out in Edmonton so I couldn’t really crank the amp, couldn’t scream along to it or anything so the songs were written in a basement pretty quietly in the middle of night; trying not to disturb anyone. So it definitely has a more a melodic 90’s emo-vibe. The biggest difference would be toning down the distortion and adding more melodic cleaner guitars and cleaner vocals. It’s a bit of a departure from some of our earlier stuff but it was fun.

JA: So tell me about “Purgatory For Dogs.”
ZH: It was definitely a reactionary song. I was trying to stay away from the strict Menzingers -influence we’ve done in the past. We wanted to do something more technical. Part of that came from me not wanting to sing anymore. I haven’t been singing at all since I’ve been out in Edmonton and I wanted to do something that was difficult on guitar that would then make it tough for me to sing. We were then going to have our old bass player come back and have him start singing but unfortunately, he moved to Thompson. It ended up being me having to figure out how to sing it while playing. I think it came together.

Lyrically, it’s about dealing with a relationship that had really started to be buried, and talking to another person and trying to come to terms with it and getting the usual stock “karma will work everything out,” “everything works out in the end,” the nice clichés, and the dissatisfaction with that. It’s the struggle with the belief that not everything works out. There really is no certainty. You can’t really put any faith in any karmic solution, so you just have to struggle through the chaos your life may be. It’s also trying to convince yourself that the world is chaotic and there’s no purpose, so try to live your life through that mindset but also still try to instil some purpose to your life. Thinking, “well maybe people like me exist – pessimistic and melancholy all the time- because it allows balance. It allows for joyful people. So maybe the world needs people like me.”

The majority of our songs have a negative outlook to them, but I’m always looking for different ways to put a spin on that. I’ve always enjoyed negative art more than positive celebrations of things. It’s all about the struggle to find meaning.

JA: Any other comments about the Boys’ Club Lives Forever
ZH: We got Nick Fondse from Sit Calm. He sang a couple of lines which was really cool. He’s a great friend of ours and that’s a band that everyone should definitely check out. Jordan sings couple of things on it. Jenna from Mobina Galore actually sings a couple spots, which sounds unreal. She made a lot of stuff sound a lot cooler than it would have without her. So even if you hate us, there’s a bunch of other really cool people who did a few things for us.

Follow Boys’ CLub on twitter. Like them on Facebook and grab a copy of Boys’ Club Lives Forever on Bandcamp

Snag a preview of the new EP with “Purgatory For Dogs.”