“Behind the mask, another mask!” shouts a skinny, bald man with a graying beard into the microphone. Thick, distorted guitars deafen everyone in the tiny room, as sweat drenches my face and I frantically shake my head to the drums. Sharp melodies contrast the song’s rolling crunch, creating the sound of catharsis itself.
Over the past decade, Thou has put out a dizzying array of full-lengths, splits, and EPs; but 2018 might be their most ambitious year yet. Over the summer, the Louisiana five-now-six piece released three EPs, each honing in on different parts of the band’s DNA. The 24 songs range from experimental noise on the House Primordial, to acoustic melancholy (with an array of guests) on Inconsolable, and thick grunge on Rhea Silvia. At the end of August, Thou released Magus (on Sacred Bones Records), their fifth full-length. A hearty 75 minutes long, the album showcases Thou’s signature contrast of abrasive, yet hypnotic music. And if that wasn’t enough, there’s even a new split 12” out in late September (that’s five releases in four months).
In addition to being Thou’s vocalist, Bryan Funck has been a key force in sustaining New Orleans’ punk and hardcore scene, promoting shows and selling every kind of underground music imaginable. Years ago, many of my early encounters with Funck revolved around him lugging crates of records into venues to sell for practically nothing. Inevitably, every night involved him interrogating me about if I was going to some upcoming show in town. When he finally wrangled my phone number from me, I joined a mass of people subjected to his routine show promotion texts. As the years have passed, he has shifted his focus towards his own artistic efforts in Thou and his record store Sisters in Christ, an uptown oasis for fans of heavy and obscure music. Thou’s long-established core of Funck, bassist Mitch Wells, and guitarists Matthew Thudium and Andy Gibbs continues to march forward, recently welcoming guitarist/bassist KC Stafford and drummer Tyler Coburn into the fold. I caught up with Funck to reflect on the band’s flood of releases, the rigidness of DIY ethics, and why Thou will always be a Baton Rouge band.
Thou is releasing a lot of stuff right now. Why such a heavy release schedule?
Originally, we were trying to do these EPs as a way to exercise our brains a little bit to figure out what we wanted to do with the full length, but then we ended up jumping right into the full length. But we were still set on experimenting: doing a drone record and doing an acoustic record… One of the things in the past that we’ve always run into, usually when we record a full length album—we usually do an EP along with it that’s essentially like the B sides or whatever, the songs that didn’t really fit in with the full length record musically. [They’re] not necessarily lesser songs, they just didn’t fit with the vibe. So a lot of times when we released those EPs along with the full length (or right after), they get glossed over or forgotten about. We put out music because we want people to pay attention to it, digest it, and think about it. We also wanted to flip that and hopefully encourage people a little bit more to pay attention to the stuff we’re doing on the EPs as well.
How was the creative process behind the EPs different from Magus?
It was a lot of the same. Rhea Sylvia is basically Matthew’s solo stuff that we just made into full band Thou material. We learned that stuff and recorded it probably a year or so before we were even done with Magus. Magus was more like our typical approach to things: we write the song, we practice it a million times, we might play it a million times, and then we go record it. So it’s pretty set what we think it should sound like, and we just try to capture that on the recording.
The other two [EPs], the House Primordial and Inconsolable, were a little different because we kept it a lot looser. We basically had rough ideas for both of them when we went in the studio, but we spent a lot more time crafting it into records in the studio… These other two records were more like the way The Body writes. They’ll have a rough idea of what they want and then are using the studio as a means to push the material a lot further. I think we tried to do that a bit with these two records. We were really open, almost to the point of improvisation when it came to the House Primordial. And then Inconsolable, the acoustic thing—the music was written, I had basically written rough vocal melodies going in, but we hadn’t really practiced it with anybody other than KC a little bit, although not the vocal parts; and Emily McWilliams a little bit but not really practicing, more like just giving her the demos and rough idea of how we wanted it to shape up. Those songs were just a lot of messing around in the studio to get a real rough version of how we wanted it to be. We[‘d] overdub stuff, put drums in, take drums out, layer a million vocals, put harmonies here, take off harmonies, changed all kinds of stuff. The people we got to come in and do vocals, we gave them a pretty rough idea of how we were thinking the song would go, and then if they had better ideas, we’d fool around with stuff until we came up with something that everybody was really happy with. So that was different. It was a little more stressful, but fun.
What was the hardest part about writing for other vocalists on Inconsolable?
It’s probably a toss-up between me trying to write lyrics that weren’t so obscured in wordiness, and behind distortion and screaming. [I was] basically trying to write more simplified straightforward stuff, but that I still liked and thought was good and could still fit in my concept of the Thou framework. And then, vocal melodies… I’m the least musically-minded person in the band so coming up with how I thought they should go wasn’t necessarily super hard, but then communicating that to other people was… Me trying to communicate music can be trying for the people trying to translate whatever crazy stuff I’m trying to tell them. Even if I tried to hum it out or sing it out, it’s still harder and I’m not the best person for giving directions, so I think that was probably a bit challenging. We picked people who are very patient and talented. If they didn’t like something I was coming up with or had a better idea, we were confident and could trust them to do something great. I felt like everybody pulled through.
[pullquote]”I’m always trying to keep the ego in check with this band.”[/pullquote]
Thou has been adamant that the new album must always be better than the last one. Does Magus accomplish this? And if so, how?
I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. I feel like I’m still too close to it. The thing with Heathen [released in 2014] was… we got through the writing process, recorded it, and then put it down. I want to say Mitch moved to California right after we recorded it, and then we took a little bit of a break and weren’t really doing anything Thou, and came back to it months later. Listening to it with fresh ears, it was easier for us—for me at least—to find the appeal in it. [With] Magus, we haven’t really stopped. We’ve been writing it for the last few years; we’ve been playing the songs out as we go. I feel like I’m still a little too close to it. I think the writing is better. It’s more refined. It’s less self-indulgent. Part of what I liked and what I thought was a strength of Heathen was that it felt like a more accessible record than past stuff we did. Even though it was still a heavy record, it had a sound that I thought was more accessible in some kind of way. I think Magus is heavier and a little meaner sounding than Heathen, so I don’t know if it quite has the accessibility that Heathen did. Hopefully it’s maybe a little catchier. I think we tended to basically write something that was vaguely similar to Heathen but more riff-oriented and leaner, like basically Heathen with the fat cut off. It’s hard to say, I think ultimately I’m going to feel like it’s better… What do you think, did you listen to it?
Yeah. I’ve listened to it a bunch actually.
Be straight with me.
I’m always hesitant to make definitive statements about one record being better than another. For me, I think so much of music is reflective of one’s self. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, where you’re at and what you’re into at the time.
If you look at a band like Nirvana, some people will say like “Bleach is their best record” and other people will say “Bleach is their worst record.” It’s very much reflective of the listener, more so than just the band.
Sure… so you’re not going to tell me what you think?
I think, hmm…
Did you like Heathen better?
I think I’m more accustomed to Heathen because I’ve listened to it so much more. I think I still need more time to listen to Magus to let it absorb in.
That’s a very politic answer.
But it’s true, though. It’s hard to compare something you’ve listened to for years to something that technically still isn’t even out.
Yeah, I’ve got you. For me, I’m almost sick of the Magus songs at this point because we’ve been playing them so much. There’s a couple we haven’t really played that I’m excited about relearning and playing because the other six, we beat them to death touring so I need to get away from it a little bit.
A few months ago you did a 12” with The HIRS Collective, where you both covered Nirvana tunes. How did that come about?
We both share a mutual love and we had been talking about doing a split or something for a while. Then the tour came up with them and Screaming Females so we thought we should do something, get it done for this tour.
At the time we were pretty tapped out creatively. It would have been hard for us to try to pull something else together and do it in time. We happened to already have a chunk of Nirvana covers recorded and 99% finished because a couple years back we did a Halloween show where we did a Nirvana cover set. Rather than just do the chunk of songs we already knew, we decided to learn like 10 more.
At another Nirvana cover set, there was a really upbeat energy that’s kind of unusual for Thou shows. At that time, you wished all Thou shows were like that. Do you sometimes feel kind of boxed in by Thou?
I don’t feel boxed in by Thou. To be honest, I don’t really think it’s anything we’re doing. We do play slow, doomy, sludgy music, but we’ve been playing the same style of music for the entire existence that I’ve been in the band. And we’ve had plenty of shows that were wild and crazy while we’re playing slow, doomy songs… I think it’s just the nature of our current audience, which is generally older people and/ or people who are very… I don’t want to say introverted, but very reserved— people who don’t want to dance around, touch each other, and have a good time. Or, if they do, it’s like they don’t really understand that they can do that without it being a violent sort of thing. I would love for our shows to be more like that Nirvana show you’re talking about… I don’t know what we could be doing differently. I’m not, and never have been, never will be, the sort of hype man, you know: “I wanna see some blood out there!” I don’t like all that stuff. It just seems really pretentious to me. I don’t really know how we can encourage people, any more than me making fun of them.
You recently shot a music video at the Mudlark Theater. Can you tell me about that day?
Yeah, super hot, incredibly hot. It was basically like a mock live set, where we took out all of the band members that would be most recognizable and added other people in. Basically, we gothed it out to subvert the metal vibe a bit.
Why did you shoot it in July? It’s so hot, especially in the Mudlark.
Part of it was, it was a last-minute idea. It was something that was banging around my head for a little bit, that it would be fun to do this thing in a way that wasn’t centered on the people that usually get a lot of the attention. And we needed to do it at a certain time where the record label could use it for something. It was a matter of figuring out when we could schedule it to where we could get Mitch (because Mitch still lives in Glendale, California). Then, around when that was banging around in my head, we got offered that Body show at Gasa. And so it was: “This is perfect. We’ll fly Mitch in, practice for Migration Fest, play the Body show, and shoot the video, take care of everything at once.” It was really only this past weekend it was super hot; literally the day we shot was the hottest day of the year. And then Mudlark too: I wanted to do it at a spot where it was like a DIY punk spot, a spot that had been very helpful for Thou and for me.
You’ve been an adamant supporter of DIY in New Orleans for what feels like forever now. Has that gotten more difficult to continue as you’ve grown older?
I’ve been thinking a lot about that recently. I think it’s more about me reevaluating what I personally want out of it, or trying to recognize what I’ve always wanted out of it and the best ways for me to get that and to use my time. In the past, it was all about putting on shows and hammering away at people as far as how I thought shows should go, and where they should be, and how much they should cost, and who should be playing, blah blah blah. As I’ve gotten older, I feel like that hasn’t really gotten me anywhere. It’s been mostly ineffective at getting me what I wanted out of punk. I’ve shifted to think more of doing the record shop. I get a lot more satisfaction out of doing the record shop than I have doing all these punk shows. It’s still a headache but it’s way less of a headache than doing the shows everywhere. I guess the other thing too is, I don’t make it out to as many shows as I used to. I think part of that is, in the past, I had a lot less stuff going on. I had more energy but, more than that, I’d go to a lot of things out of a sense of obligation. That would motivate me to go see a friend’s band or go to this space or support this promoter. Now, I feel like I can only do so much and I shouldn’t be flagellating myself with this Catholic guilt that I’m not being the most supportive person around… Right now, I’m really just trying to find a good balance between being supportive and getting out of the house, and also making sure I’m taking some time for myself and not killing myself or overdoing myself or misusing my time on other people’s projects and passions when there needs to be some focus on the stuff that I’m working on.
On Rhea Sylvia, you cover Crowbar. Thou is frequently compared to Eyehategod and Crowbar. How do you feel about those frequent comparisons?
I think it’s a natural thing for people who aren’t from here. I don’t really think we sound like either of those bands. We just toured with Crowbar. I guess I can see how people say it from the melodic sense. They have a lot of stuff that’s heavy but also has a lot of melody to it and a lot of stuff where they use a lot of harmonies with the guitars, which we also tend to do. So I can kind of see that. I don’t think we’ve ever sounded like Eyehategod, really. I mean, there’s a few crunchy riffs we have… the only comparison between the two of us is that we’re both socially/politically-minded bands and we both love feedback. We both love giving the audience a lotta shit but… I always thought we were a ways apart from those bands… I’ve always said that I think we sound more like a Seattle grunge band. I think we have more in common with those bands than we do the Metairie bands, to be honest. No disrespect to those bands. They’re great but I don’t think that was ever really what Andy and Matthew were going for, stylistically. It was never something that entered my brain. I was definitely more obsessed with hardcore bands and that kind of stuff when I approached writing for Thou.
[pullquote]”In the past, it was all about putting on shows and hammering away at people as far as how I thought shows should go, and where they should be, and how much they should cost, and who should be playing, blah blah blah. As I’ve gotten older, I feel like that hasn’t really gotten me anywhere.”[/pullquote]
How do you feel that Louisiana has shaped you musically?
I think it’s the DIY approach and getting it through your head that you have to just be creating art for you and not for the people who are immediately around you. I think if people do that, focus on that and focus on creating something that they think is good, it resonates with other people. You just have to get out of the city, get out of the state. A lot of bands make the mistake of wasting a lot of time and energy trying to cultivate an audience in New Orleans and I think that’s a waste of time. I think it’s a hard thing to do, to impress people down here. People are just apathetic. I think it’s a lot easier to cut your teeth writing music, putting out records, and going on tour. That’s the way to do it, refine yourself as a musician… I think you need to not be so concerned with Louisiana because people in Louisiana just don’t give a shit a lot of times, you know what I mean? And if they do, it’s a sort of flash in the pan thing where they care a little bit for a minute and then their attention shifts to something else, or they’re behind the times on something. A lot of times, especially with music and art, it’s stuff where it’s not even related to that. It’s like some new bar becomes a hip place, people decide, “Oh, kickball league: that’s my thing now. We’re all doing the kickball league [or] we’re all playing basketball now.” So it’s a lot of stuff where everybody’s into trivia night and bingo, stuff where it doesn’t really matter what you’re doing down here a lot of times, the sort of party culture thing. People are looking for a fix with that, so getting overly stressed with the New Orleans or Louisiana scene is just beating your head against the wall, essentially.
It sounds like you’ve eased up a little but for a long time you’ve been like a much-needed critic in the New Orleans DIY scene.
“Much needed?” You’re probably the only person who would say that.
I think it is much needed though, because you force people to critique themselves and think critically in a way that they aren’t accustomed to always doing.
See, I don’t know if that’s the case. I have a big mouth and I’m very straight with people. I think that that is offputting and it’s easy to just pooh-pooh that. It’s easy to brush that aside for a lot of people. Maybe some people are taking what I’m saying to heart, but other people take a joke that I make, some sarcasm, and take it out of context or whatever and hold that around with them for years. I’ll jokingly call somebody a poser or something and they’re going to hold on to that for their whole life. I don’t know how much help my criticism has been over the years.
What do you think the New Orleans DIY scene is currently lacking?
I don’t know. I guess I wish there was more crossover with scenes; but even that, I feel like it’s in a pretty decent place. I’m really happy to see a lot of the misogyny, homophobia, transphobia get stamped out. I love that. It’s a bit of a firestorm of moral purity right now— which might not be the best tactic—but I love seeing all that stuff get crushed and all those people get driven out. That’s great. There’s a lot more non-white, non-male-type people taking charge of things. That’s great to see… I guess I’m always going to wish there was more of a focus on non-bar oriented venues. That’s always going to be a big thing down here is the party atmosphere, which is pretty limiting… I wish shows were earlier, I wish they were a little bit more on time… I wish there were more zines. There used to be a lot more of that. Maybe that stuff’s online now. People are getting their fix on social media but I’m not really big into that stuff.
Thou has been together for over a decade now and you guys still have a pretty heavy emphasis on DIY. How do you see this continuing in the future? Is this DIY emphasis something you’re gonna still retain in 10, 15, or 20 years?
Yeah. I hope so. I don’t know if we’ll still be a band in 20 years, because I’ll be almost 60, but yeah, I think so. We’ve always talked about if the stars align and we ever got on some legitimately big tour, like arena rock tour or something opening for somebody, we’d still be playing basement shows and shit on the off days. We’ll still be doing whatever. The DIY thing to me is just a practical approach to things. it’s not the sort of militance I felt about it when I was 19 or 20. I feel like [that militance] has been tempered by years of actually doing those things, having that lifestyle, and seeing that whatever situation you’re in, that DIY mentality is almost always the more relevant, practical approach. It just makes a lot more sense to do things a certain way, especially as an artist. Taking control and retaining as much control as you can is always an important thing. So yeah, I don’t see us giving up on DIY anytime soon… It’s hard for me to even imagine what not being DIY would look like. Although, I don’t know if you ask Maximumrocknroll. I feel like there’s militant holdouts that would probably call into question a lot of things we’ve done: working with Scion, doing something with this or that label, like the EP on Deathwish has a UPC on it, all kinds of stuff that if you look at it on paper, is distasteful. But if you approach it with a certain attitude, and figure out how you can use it without compromising any of your ethics and subvert it in a way that’s helpful to you and the people around you, that to me is maintaining a DIY ethic. But Maximumrocknroll doesn’t agree.
When I was doing research for this interview, I came across Dan Fox’s interview with you guys (in the January 2012 issue) and he was mentioning the Scion thing too.
Yeah, I know. That’s the difference between us and some band that’s just going to grab the money and run, is we think about that stuff. We’re trying stuff out. If we don’t like it or we didn’t like the way we did something, we’ll change it, or we won’t do it the way that was not good for us in the past. Thou, in every sense, has always been sort of the great experiment for me where I can try out a lot of things, artistically and aesthetically, and just how to handle being in a band. We’re not adhering to a certain formula or anybody else’s set of rules. We’re still figuring it out as we go.
Almost all the Thou merchandise says Baton Rouge, Louisiana on it, but I don’t think anybody in Thou still lives in Baton Rouge, right?
Yeah. We were just talking about that. I think even if that is technically the case, that most of us all live in New Orleans right now, I think we would still claim Baton Rouge, if for no other reason than to be contentious and contrarian. But also because I think part of claiming New Orleans is that you’re using New Orleans as a way to uplift the band a little bit… and I don’t necessarily want to do that with Thou, not that I think we’re uplifting Baton Rouge. We’re probably not doing any good service to Baton Rouge… I like to do things that bring us down a few pegs as far as ego. I’m always trying to keep the ego in check with this band. I think that’s super important. The New Orleans thing: there’s something about it. Maybe it’s because all these bands that are from the Westbank or from Metairie or wherever—they all put New Orleans on their shit, and I just find that kind of distasteful. It’s like a thing where you’re trying to craft your identity with this mystique when I don’t want Thou to have that sort of mystique. The only reason we put Baton Rouge all over everything is because people always just thought we were from New Orleans, because when people hear Louisiana band, that’s the only place they know in Louisiana, so they assume you’re from New Orleans. The Baton Rouge thing for us, it’s always more of a response to that. I was very militant about putting it all over everything because we go on a tour and inevitably, on a flier or whatever, [it would] say we’re from New Orleans. I wanted to hammer home that no, four fifths of the band is from Baton Rouge, four-fifths of the band lives in Baton Rouge, all the people who are really crafting the majority of this music are from Baton Rouge, not New Orleans. It’s a big difference.
So you’re going to keep putting Baton Rouge on everything?
We’re gonna keep putting Baton Rouge on everything until the day we die.
For more info on Thou, check out noladiy.org/thou.
Photos TEDDIE TAYLOR | Illustrations BECK LEVY | Transcription MICHELLE PIERCE.
