The saga continues: Charles Bissell of the Wrens says that Automotive Colours is, the truth is, not achieved. The musician clarified this within the feedback of our current submit about no extra Automotive Colours music was coming, contemplating he’d informed a fan, “I simply not wish to do that anymore.” However this isn’t the case.
Right here’s what he mentioned in his first remark, explaining that his reply to the fan had not been utterly critical and that there’s really been progress with the fabric:
Stereogum…!
Whereas I do notice and respect how well-intentioned that is, and am simply very flattered (if regularly caught off-guard) that anybody is & writing something 20+ years after a final album – actually – that isn’t quiiiiiite what I mentioned…!
Granted, I do nonetheless consider the web/social media just like the 61-year-old that i’m, that my reply to somebody on-line is, nicely, my rely to ‘them’, not the world at giant essentially. Extra like a dialog overheard on the road, I sorta image nobody else as listening in, whilst I do know that they’ll hear me – and whilst i do know that on-line life doesn’t work that method.
And yeah, I did say “I simply not wish to do that anymore” however this was only a remark/reply, not a mapped-out press launch sorta factor. However I did additionally say that this was “the quick reply”. I assume one other higher shorter reply would’ve been “I haven’t needed to do that for a very long time however now, after taking the final almost-two-years off, and for a bunch of causes, I discover myself extra&extra enthusiastic about music once more”….or one thing akin.
A part of that’s because of the break for certain, however a part of that can also be because of the bonkers political dungheap we’ve discovered ourselves on this previous yr. I’ve began to see music (and yeah, releasing music) because the one factor I might do to assist out essentially the most, past simply donating or attending protests or writing congressional reps. So each in a sensible sense (doing profit exhibits/recordings, having extra SM followers to share Gavin Newsom memes with) and simply in personally sorta re-valuing the significance of artwork on the whole, to particular person folks, to me, on this local weather/world.”
To all that, coincidentally, Cory (Completely Kosher) & I simply caught up a bit final week, after greater than a yr, and are hopping on a name week now that kids are again in class, to catch up and hopefully start mapping out album launch stuff if we’re particularly productive (ha). Paraphrasing, ‘rumors of my (file’s) demise are drastically exaggerated’.
As for the breakup of the Wrens, he defined that the members had been engaged on a file collectively with out his data, which he came upon from a New York Occasions article. Right here’s what he mentioned:
Shoooot, okay, so I went forward and skim many of the feedback right here annnnnd…once more, I REALLY worth, the “please… launch the album, man.” place the place this all comes from. However I assume what’s laborious for me, and what I’m actually conflicted about & is definitely what I don’t wish to ‘do’ anymore, is discuss these things solely within the phrases through which they’ve put it. Or one thing…
When the opposite wrens left the band and put out their file, the framing & publicity marketing campaign of which was anchored on a pair very deliberate…truth-light bio factors…I made no official reply or rebuttal, which I ought to have, mistakenly pondering I might simply take the excessive highway or transfer on or that issues would get higher or no matter (though a couple of instances when folks would ask on-line, I did remark/reply with a couple-sentence abstract of what really occurred and THOSE seeds didn’t sprout ‘Gum tales – ha). And time having handed and having moved on, even all that may be superb besides that not having achieved that, it nonetheless frames how how all that is often offered, incl. right here.
Sooooo, admittedly years late however simply to set even a part of the file straight and setting apart so much, in essence the band breakup is fairly easy:
The wrens album was completed in June of 2019 however earlier than turning it in, I insisted that we lastly discuss long-running, however I felt not-insurmountable, points inside the band (and to be clear&truthful, a few of which had been actually mine). Each band has its issues, and in some methods, ours was actually solely an exception in how lengthy we stayed collectively regardless of these (fortunately although, I really feel that some good music got here out of all that alongside the best way). These calls solely actually bought underway in March of 2020, persevering with off & on by June 2021.
However – and that is the crux of all of it – whereas these talks had been ongoing, in that first summer time of 2020, they started going right into a pal’s studio, in secret, to interchange my components of their songs (that I’d spent years on) and recording a couple of extra songs to increase these to a full album, which they organized to launch by Sub Pop (who we had been signed with for that wrens album), all unbeknownst to me.
Then that September (2021) when the NY Occasions ran the piece that broke the information, I realized that they, w/ Sub Pop, had been framing their total album launch/press on primarily two factors, each false: first, that they had been releasing their album as a result of the wrens’ album wasn’t achieved (contradicted by the Occasions piece itself) and that I wasn’t concerned in any method with their songs.
And that’s it actually. Is it a serious crime on the planet, particularly right now’s world? After all not, I do know that. Was it on the identical time, extremely…tough for me? Sure. And stays so when i nonetheless see the story offered by that lens, years later, understanding I might’ve headed no less than a few of that off if I’d spoken up then.
(an apart solely ’trigger it’s talked about above: there was no ‘monetary dispute’. Whereas I received’t go into the band points themselves (it’s all the standard ugly divorce-y stuff), the band had all the time cut up all the pieces equally 4 methods, which by the ’90s when the division of labor inside the band was additionally fairly equally cut up, was good. As that work ratio modified within the years doing the meadowlands & then grew to become extra lopsided w/ this album, that grew to become extra&extra of an issue. However once more, I believed, a not-insurmountable one, as I mentioned to them repeatedly throughout these calls).
So to wrap, they didn’t depart as a result of they ‘lastly misplaced their endurance with me’. They left as a result of they didn’t wish to tackle any of the problems inside the band that had progressed to the purpose of actual dysfunction, and did it in secret w/ Sub Pop’s okay, and the horror of that divorce, and the wasted 30 years it represented, left me not desirous to do music once more for years. However after this break, that feels prefer it’s lastly altering.
It feels each good and horrible to be typing this lastly.
