“When I started this project I was 22, I’d had a rough year and was writing my way through a lot of mental anguish. Now I try to write less internally and more about the things my friends are worrying about every day, which is to say, the wider world. I still write songs for the same reason, which is I have an extreme feeling I need to work through, just now it’s not about break-ups, it’s about bigotry.”
Self-proclaimed Speedy Ortiz ‘frontdemon’ Sadie Dupuis is discussing her shift in attitude towards songwriting. It’s the main reason the band’s third record, ‘Twerp Verse’ was scrapped and rewritten after their original recording sessions. The ‘Twerp Verse’ the public is about to hear is not the original album Speedy Ortiz had intended to release.
“In the Autumn of 2016 we spent around a week recording, but it wasn’t the album we wanted to release. We kept a couple of songs that still felt meaningful to me, but I spent the next few months writing a bunch of new songs. It wasn’t for lack of love that we scrapped the other songs, we really like them all, but we were thinking about what we wanted to do with this record and what was meaningful to talk about right now, and some of those songs didn’t feel right for the album.
“I’ve mentioned that those songs were ‘too lovey-dovey’, but I meant that they were too wrapped up in my interpersonal life. Some of them were quite old, too. We were recording one that I’d written in 2006, there was one that was very much an ‘angry break-up song’, and I just don’t really care about that kind of music anymore. So while I think the songs are fine, they weren’t what I wanted on this record, and that’s what a B-side is for.”
While the resulting ‘Twerp Verse’ is certainly shaped by social politics, don’t expect to hear songs overtly ranting about political injustices. The issues are there in the lyrics, but as with the rest of Speedy Ortiz’s back catalogue, you have to dig a little deeper to find them. A former teacher with a Masters in poetry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Sadie’s lyrics are often riddle-like, surreal and metaphorical with a good dose of twisted humour.
“Social politics have always had some part in shaping the lyrics in Speedy Ortiz because they shape my worldview, but I’ve always approached writing for this project in an oblique way. There are some moments on this record that are a bit more direct, but the lyrics are still very much about quotidian relationships, the people I see and think about every day. I’m not writing a song that’s directly about Trump, more about the ways in which I want the people in my community to do better and take better care of each other, things like that.”
‘Lucky 88′, the first single to be released from ‘Twerp Verse’ is the perfect example of one of those songs that deals with grassroots politics. On the surface, as Sadie coos “I don’t care anymore”, there seems to be a sense of apathy, but it’s more passive-aggressive, imploring the youth to do more to bring about change.
“I wrote that song at the Cy Twombly museum, he’s one of my favourite artists, and he has a series of paintings called ‘Untitled 1988′. I was there on Christmas Eve feeling quite disenchanted, but also feeling psyched about all the young activists I know. I was thinking about 1988 which is my birth year, and thinking about the ways in which the world is horrifying but how young activists are doing a lot of work to try and make things better. A Lucky 88 is a kind of slot machine, so it’s about having optimism that young activists can do better for the world.”
‘Lucky 88′ is also the poppiest track on ‘Twerp Verse’, an exhilarating pop banger that is all fizzing synths and skittering percussion. Though the album is still very much a Speedy Ortiz record – wonderfully off-kilter, grungy alt-rock – it employs more pop sensibilities than their previous offerings. Those sparkling synths creep into other tracks, perhaps influenced by Sadie’s electro-pop tinged 2016 solo record ‘Slugger’ under the moniker Sad13.
“I’m only half joking when I say we wrote ‘Lucky 88′ to be on the Riverdale soundtrack. I really like that show and had been listening to the soundtrack, and I like artists like Banks and Lorde, and I was thinking about those musicians when working on that song, but I don’t think its representative of how the whole record sounds. We’re thinking pop on a lot of it, especially because there’s a recurrence of synths throughout, but I think a lot more of the references are from the 70s and 80s, we were thinking of Squeeze, Blondie and Prince when we were composing.
“I wanted ‘Twerp Verse’ to have a fun sound as I do think some of its themes are a bit bleak, but I try to maintain a sense of optimism in delving into them. I wanted to do a record where even if the subject matter was serious or angry it could at least sound fun and be a source of joy and optimism.”
The poppier, more expansive and explorative sound also comes naturally from the fact Speedy Ortiz have now been a band for almost seven years and are no longer restricted by a lack of resources. “When we recorded our first record ‘Major Arcana’ we’d just been playing basement shows up to that point, and we didn’t have any money. We put together everything we’d saved for two years to record for four days, so there just wasn’t time in the studio for any expansive arrangements. Now we have more time and can afford more than four days in the studio we can fully see out the songs with the arrangements that were in my head when I first conceived them, which also means we can explore other genres.
“We got saddled with the whole ‘90s indie rock’ thing on the first record as if that was the only thing we’d ever wanted to do. Don’t get me wrong, I love that record, but everything we do we’re trying to do as honestly as we can hear in our heads. If we explore poppier sounds on this record that’s because it’s what we’re liking right now, if the next record is really heavy, that will be because it’s what we’re hearing in our heads. We don’t feel like we have to be tied down to one kind of sound.”
Re-recording the record and shaking up their approach to songwriting weren’t the only states of upheaval Speedy Ortiz were going through around the time of creating their third full-length. Guitarist Devin McKnight left the band to focus on fronting his new project Maneka, though the departure was on completely good terms. Devin doesn’t actually appear on ‘Twerp Verse’, and Andy Molholt of psych-pop outfit Laser Background now joins Sadie alongside fellow Speedy veterans Darl Ferm on bass and Mike Falcone on drums.
“Devin’s one of my best friends, and I feel really lucky that he played in Speedy for as long as he did, mostly because he’s such a genius writer it was unfair for him to be in a band where he didn’t get to write music. He’s so smart and talented that I’m so happy Maneka exists in the world right now. Andy is such a positive person that it’s really fun to play music with him as he’s down to try anything. He’s dedicated his life to making different kinds of art, so he’s interested in exploring new things, and he’s happy to try a million things before we get it right.”
2016 was a hell of a busy year for Sadie, and not just because of the changes surrounding Speedy Ortiz. It saw the release of her superb debut solo record, the aforementioned ‘Slugger’, a serenely self-assured album that afforded her to be more direct when it came to her lyric writing, addressing the issues faced by women while still being an irresistible listen.
“There’s a huge difference in the dynamic between Sad13 and Speedy. With Sad13 it was just me turning my home demos into a finished product, whereas with Speedy I have collaborators that I trust and who I can bounce ideas off. With Sad13 if I’m stuck in a certain area, I only have myself to rely on. The guys were all working on different things at the same time and were super supportive, and I got to play with an all-female band. It was a great opportunity to work with musicians I admired but hadn’t had the chance to be in a band with because of the nature of Speedy. I’m hoping to write another Sad13 record at some point this year as it was just so much fun.”
It seems somewhat cliched and almost lazy to ask the ‘being a woman in the music scene’ question, especially given Sadie has been leading Speedy Ortiz like an absolute boss for many years now. Yet on their previous record, 2015’s ‘Foil Deer’, it seemed Sadie had more of a defiant statement of intent to make with lyrics like “I’m not bossy I’m the boss, shooter, not the shot” on ‘Raising the Skate’, basically saying “I’m here and you better deal with it.” There’s not so much of this on ‘Twerp Verse’, so does this mean Sadie feels there’s been a positive shift in attitude?
“Either men just don’t act condescending towards me anymore, or I have such a filter for it now that I don’t notice it or forget it immediately. There’s so much positive stuff going on, for instance at SXSW this year all the exciting new artists I wanted to see were bands mostly comprised of women. There were women mixing sound, promoters or stage managers who were women, and I got to talk to a number of gear companies who were trying to reach out and feature women in their sponsorships.
“I meet men at our shows who tell me they’ve learned things from following our career, and that’s as exciting to me as anything. I think it’s important that everyone across the entire gender spectrum is working towards inclusivity, so I’m psyched to meet anyone who is working towards making the music scene better for everyone.
“I suppose in the same way, although my main objective for being in this band is still the same, to write and play music because I love it and it’s an outlet for me to deal with my feelings, I think the main difference is now we have a wider responsibility. I guess in the same way that when I started playing music and was teaching, I had a sense of responsibility towards my students and the ideas I was helping them explore. Now it’s my full-time job; I feel a responsibility with regards to who we hire, who we take on tour with us, who we agree to work with or even who we allow to advertise or write about us. We have the opportunity to hire people, so we try to be conscientious about making those choices inclusive and trying to change the dynamics of who gets hired behind the scenes and on stage in this indie circuit.”
