Hooligan Chats: DIY Rules with excrucis
An interview with Andrea van den Boogaard
excrucis recently released their first full-length album - an eloquent protest against passivity, and a safe refuge for the cathartic release of grief and anger from the current period in world history. Impressive and electric as their post-hardcore sound is, however, it’s impossible to overlook how palpably caring they are in their approach to space-building.
The recent years of Chicago’s music ecosystem have been marked by a tide of artists coming forward to protest the city’s licensed independent venues, citing their pay-to-play models and exploitative and discriminatory talent booking practices. excrucis stands out in their remedy - they pack massive DIY rooms with audience members from across the Midwest, offer tickets at a sliding scale, give space for audiences to make new acquaintances in a judgment-free space, and push in-person reminders to support DIY, support those historically barred from the music industry, and support the fight against the corporatized exploitation of artists.
I met Linda Sherman, Dylan Jockel, Michael Dunne, and Jackson Watkins at Logan Skatepark on a Sunday afternoon to discuss their music and ethos as a band. Nearby, a father was teaching his son how to skate while a veteran dropped into the bowl beside them. We found a patch of grass to sit on and I pressed the record button.
italics - Andrea van den Boogaard
L - Linda Sherman
D - Dylan Jockel
M - Michael Dunne
J - Jackson Watkins
Could you tell me about what was going through your mind when you were making your album?
L: This is our first release as a band, ever. And I guess a good way to answer this would be to kind of tell you the backstory of the band, which doesn't start with me. It actually starts with these guys.
D: Jackson and I met because of a podcast that we both had music put on, in late 2020/early 2021. Then I was just looking up all the bands that were on this playlist, and saw that he was moving to Chicago. And then I was like, yeah, let's meet up and play music together. And that's what we did.
L: And then I joined in August of 2022.
Began and released an album within a year.
L: From from the time that I joined, yes. But it’s mostly because they had most of the songs already written.
D: I guess this is a very long winded way of answering this question - It was not an intentional process. We just started hanging out, writing music together and sometimes writing songs alone and mashing bits together like different sections of songs together. No particular method… And then I think by the time Michael joined it was like, OK, let's make a record.
L: Yeah, and then I wrote the lyrics and the vocals for the songs that were already written [instrumentally].
M: And there was a different drummer [before]. So when I joined, there were things to go on, and I kind of rewrote and contributed some new stuff. I hadn't played drums for about four years and it’s my primary instrument, so I was really excited just to get behind the kit and get back to making music with people.
In this kind of limbo - not fully post-pandemic, but post-lockdown state - Did you feel like the energy of this time was used for the album?
L: I think emotionally, I wanted to write something that felt a little bit more urgent and confrontational as a reflection of what was going on, socially and politically, since 2020. All of those feelings went into writing the music, at least from my perspective. So, yes - lyrically.
I was feeling really fed up and angry at the current climate. And seeing, especially with the pandemic, how much people struggle more now than ever before. And it’s like… Someone’s gotta say something. It feels weird to be in a band like this, and have a platform like this, and not say something about what's going on.
D: Historically, post-hardcore has been a genre that usually deals with this kind of stuff, or it gets super abstract and surrealist - That’s not really our vibe, I guess, we skew more towards social climate. And I think that tracks with my mindset when I started writing the compositional side of things, because I was really obsessed with the Seventh Seal. The first two tracks of the album were like snippets of dialogue like I transcribed from that movie, translated into English because it's in - I don't even know what language is - Swedish?
That movie is about a pandemic, and it's also kind of about the collapse of social order, and how ruling powers struggle to establish narrative and maintain control in those situations. So you get this sort of like, I don't even know, like mass hysteria.
That's something I'm really obsessed with in this day and age. It seems like everyone is going crazy. I think that's like kind of true. We've kind of lost meaning, the West… I guess people kind of lost their social narrative.
L: Yeah, I do think that there’s this fight for survival that people have to face, not just financially, but even emotionally with mental health. I wanted to tie that in as well, because I wanted to bring my own mental health journey into it too. It’s something that I feel strongly about, and I know a lot of people also deal with these things on a regular basis. So this kind of solidarity of nature, or even just wanting to come together and support each other - that's what I had in mind.
And Linda, you mixed the album. Can you talk about what it's like to mix your own music and how you nurture your headspace in that process? In other words… how do you not go crazy when you're mixing your own music?
L: [laughs] So I actually like, you know. Went crazy while I mixed this album. [laughs] And it's because we needed to have it done by a certain time in order to get the physical tapes made for our tour, and we had a show coming up. So I did mix the album in two weeks.
But I went to college for audio production, and I worked remotely, so I also just had a lot of time to not work at home, and just… work on the album instead. [laughs] I enjoyed having the control I guess, in the sense that I had a I had a vision for how I wanted it to sound already, and basically just made it happen.
And it’s the best when everyone else contributes their critique and explains how they want to replace the sound or have good feedback on it with everyone in the band. It can be really encouraging to share it. I thought that it was really fun to do that, outside of the kind of stress around it. And I enjoyed being able to make it sounds by pretty much exactly how how we wanted it to.
I think I can do better in the future to nurture my headspace around it. [laughs] Like, yeah, tight deadlines. Maybe not the best idea.
Can you talk about the decision behind choosing a space for your shows? And what factors generally go into that decision for y'all?
J: I think there's value in playing shows at all kinds of different venues, but a lot of us have a similar like take on DIY. Which is that I think it's the most honest way to express art in a public space, I guess.
I've always been involved with and helped run DIY spaces, and I think DIY is one of the environments where music feels less commodified to me, in the sense that a lot of people are involved with the process of putting on shows who don't make music, or don't have something to sell you, or don't have something that they are trying to promote, or don’t put their ego forward… but are instead just trying to embrace a space, make it operate, and build community. I think the choice to throw [our album release] at a DIY show was important, at least to me, for that reason.
But yeah, I guess more concisely in as few words as possible, just like… DIY rules. I think DIY is a a place where you can build community and I think that aspect of music is more appealing to me than like selling it. Because… Selling it fucking sucks.
D: I think like there's an argument to be made for problems existing in DIY related to accessibility or public safety or labor, I suppose, but at the same time, you are kind of faced with this choice: Playing in a “real” venue, real industry-type situation, means there are all of these different corporate interests, for lack of a better term, that are coming in and trying to skim money.
And none of that happens with DIY for the most part.
Sometimes the house takes a percentage, and that seems pretty fair considering, you know, people are mostly volunteering their time or getting paid very little to do this. But we can pass those savings onto people who want to come experience art. It makes the art cheaper, so you get to create an environment where like the ability to make art and share it with other people is convenient and possible.
DIY definitely bridges a gap despite some of those other issues, which are mostly caused by the fact that it's criminalized. There's a corporate interest in making [licensed] venues the only space where entertainment can occur.
And we do that stuff sometimes, but you know, it's not as fun. You definitely have to charge way more money. I don’t want someone to pay $20.00. That’s just way, way too much.
Not to mention the ableism, the misogyny, the racism, homophobia, exploitative labor practices of venue owners and talent bookers, especially in Chicago. That hinders community building as well. What would those venues have to do in order to make you feel that same kind of community and well-being that you facilitate in DIY? Do you think that's possible?
L: It's definitely very fraught. [laughs] And I think it's because of there needs to be an equal distribution of the money that's coming in and out of the show. Certain venues can do a better job of making that more equitable for everyone involved.
You're seeing this increase of pay to play, where a flat fee gets taken out of whatever money the show has made. And people just end up getting screwed. I get that they're trying to do it to preserve a guarantee of payment for their employees, but I don't think they're acknowledging that they are making money through other avenues anyways, like bar sales. Maybe you should use that money to pay your employees.
Because the bands are the reason why there are people at the bar in the first place. That’s ignored by a lot of these venue owners.
I don't think that it was always this prevalent. There used to be a lot of bars in Chicago that would have free shows, and bands would even get paid out from bar sales, and everyone would still get paid at the end of the night - including their employees. And that doesn't really happen anymore.
And the shows are not just $5 [anymore], which I think is the thing, too. It’s making the show so much less accessible to regular working people. Most people can't afford $15.00 .
D: Plus fees.
L: Plus fees! Yeah, yes, where it's an entirely local bill.
And this is how much money It costs just to even get in the door. Then of course, unless you're just someone who doesn't drink at all, you get a beer and that's another $5 to $6.
From a financial standpoint, DIY is always going to be superior from the level of accessibility and how much you don't have to budget for a night out. You can still have a really good time and see really great music, and it doesn't have to make me feel like it's something I can't enjoy on like regular basis.
D: I think if you want to zoom out for a second, a lot of this is just downstream of macroeconomic trends that are going on today. We're all in our late 20s, early 30s. We grew up in an era, I think, when the the housing bubble still hadn’t burst and there was ample free credit in the West for people to enjoy. And that meant there was more space in society for people to do low-cost entertainment and have nice things.
And as the market contracts and more and more extractive work is done, there becomes this massive effort to keep these businesses going, and they have to charge more money because the price of everything is going up. And they pass that expense on to the consumer. So then the consumer has less time to do it too. It's, like, part and parcel of the shrinking of our free time, and replacing that with demand that we do more labor for less and less pay.
So I view the kind of screws being put on DIY, and the expansion of bigger companies into a pseudo-DIY aesthetic, as being kind of part of the same process - which is just related to the rent being too high, essentially; The cost of living being too high, and that being downstream of people just, you know, sucking money out of workers.
So. How do you resolve that? Or can bigger businesses offer a space like DIY? I mean… I think so, but it has to probably come with an expansion of a social safety net or like a social democracy that makes it more possible to run a lower-profit business, I guess.
For musicians that are not integrated into a DIY community right now, could you give an overview of what that economy might look like for them?
M: For me, the kind of rewards of the DIY economy have never been economical. You know, we're talking about labor and we're talking about return of capital for your labor. But for myself, it's always been really just kind of like about validation - I don't feel like I'm alone with these ideas that I want to share, and the resonance of, whether it's eight people or 50 people, just having that direct feedback. It’s much more valuable to me than kind of any kind of monetary amount at the end of the day.
We were talking earlier about community, and how these bigger venues don't emphasize it. And I think that's the really big disconnect between DIY and corporatized venues: The reward. The reward of a corporatized venue is a paycheck, whereas the reward of like a DIY venue is that feeling - the nebulous feeling of community.
I think it's so valuable. You can't put money on that. Going out to Aurora, Illinois, and seeing people that you've never met in your life, and then you go back and you’re just, like, sending each other messages and keeping in touch. That's so valuable. You can't get that if you're playing in the larger venues.
So, you know, the economy, the paycheck of doing DIY - That’s just nonexistent. But it's got to be about more than just getting paid. And that's what makes it so difficult right now - we all do need to get paid a lot more. To be paid for your art is very special. But you know, you have to live in the city. And to be able to do it, have this residence with so many people, it has a number at the end of the day. So it's so much more difficult to give it your all when you have to care about having food at the end of the day, you know.
Yeah, the “One must Make a Living” song off the album really seems like it speaks to this.
M: Yeah. And you know, I I've been really lucky to support myself and to be able to put so much energy into making art lately, because of the amount of labor I did when I was young. You know, I was really able to buy myself this time. But now, that time is coming to a close, and the screws are being tightened, and I'm not as able to put as much time into the art. And then, you know, I'm getting less of the rewards that I really like out of it. The resonance. I don't have the time to go out and meet new people, and share my art with people, and experience their art.
So. I think that's the real crux of the corporatized venue, is that resonance isn't there, and it comes at a higher financial cost for everyone involved.
And so that's what's really cool about getting back in the circuit, especially with excrucis and with other projects, is being able to find people who share the same idea. It's like it makes something that is such an intangible dream, like having a space where people can play and that really is truly focused on expression, and it makes that more and more tangible.
I like the idea of a of a community-lead space. You see it in other spaces in Chicago, like Working Bikes down in the Little Village area. I think that's a space that is very successful in combining education and community access to a niche interest - building and taking care of bikes and stuff.
And then on the north side, they've moved all over, but you've got the Waste Shed, which takes donated art supplies and puts a value on them - a very accessible value. You can go to the non-corporatized store, and you can leave with your screen printing supplies and your cutters, all these different kinds of razor blades, your patches of fabric, that you can turn into whatever you want. And you're not shelling out for all this. I think they may have started less than 10 years ago, but they've already outgrown their space, like, three times.
And so it's just really cool and exciting to see that the community does want these spaces. Waste Shed really tackles of the visual art element of that, and one thing I'm interested in is how do you bring in the auditory art?
L: Yeah. I think a lot of spaces didn't have the ability to continue after the pandemic. You know, some places have stayed, and some places will continue to pop up. But it does require support from the community and the people that want to utilize this space, too.
I think I want to add too just how important DIY is for young people. Before I was 21 years old, I didn't think I had access to this type of culture. And the fact that it was available to me as a young person under the age of 21 was so important for me. And I think that that's important for a lot of young people who live in the city to have access to that culture, and feel like they can also be part of it, too. I only realized it was possible because of my introduction to the DIY community here.
You know, it changed my life, and I feel like it's really important to preserve that for the other young people who live here and maybe want to pursue music. It’s not, like, this secret club where you have to be doing a certain type of music or be a certain type of person. Anyone can be involved.
We've talked a lot about urgency and the foundation of values that has gone into excrucis and the spaces that you inhabit. What are you hoping that people can take away from your self-titled album?
M: I want people to take away from the album an energy and an attitude. I really want them to come out of it feeling a sort of catharsis.
Everyone's feeling a little crazy. And yeah, we are too. And this is what we did with it. And we hope that you identify with that that kind of energy and that attitude - It's unbearable what's going on right now and we're not the only ones who recognize it. You're not the only one who recognizes it, either.
I want people to take away an inquisitiveness; to try to find answers to not put up with the status quo. I think we do that through the energy of the music, and through Linda's vocal delivery. It's not subtle, it’s not passive at all, and I want people to to take that feeling of passivity and just put it behind. I want to live with more intention, and I think that that really comes through in this album, and I want people to feel that, and to reflect that energy into their own life.
L: There is also a lot of femininity wrapped up in my performance, and you know, I want to be representation that this can be very feminine and also pretty hard-sounding. It’s heavy but it's feminine, and it's cool because it's slightly different. I just think that femmes out there should have a place in heavy music if they want to, and there's no barriers there. I'm happy to be putting that out there.
J: I think the intentional urgency combining those two concepts makes a lot of sense to me rhythmically, too. I think a lot of the riffs that we write are pretty urgent - but they are also very thought out and very intentional. Translate that to the way that we act and behave in the real world, understanding that some things require a sense of urgency to address, but you can't just do things haphazardly. You have to be smart about the way that you're putting things forward.
M: I'd like to plug the communities who have already reached out and really helped us get as far as we have so quickly. Dave and Zegema Beach Records is huge. Tomb Tree is a hobby label of his who put out the album. Dave is a huge influence, and just a pillar of of making this specific style of music happen… And, you know, he puts it in Chicago for a reason. There are a lot of fans who share our similar sentiments here.
D: Shout out to Seth and Josef too.
L: Yeah, some of our really close friends have assisted us along the way with at least just capturing our sound like by recording us, helping us, mastering… It's nice to have so many people in our close friends group that are being supportive of us. Even people who aren't even into screamo, it's just transcendended that. People just liking us for our message, our energy, what we're putting out there… It’s like we're not just like a genre, we're not just, like, a screamo band. It’s cool.
M: We talked a little bit earlier about how DIY spaces allow people who are under 21 to come out and make art, participate in art, and so just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who we've interacted with, and a lot of younger, newer bands. We’re just like, so so thankful to see that this is still being propagated, and it's still growing, and we’re really thankful to all the younger musicians to come out and support us and in turn we want to support them. Really thankful to see it still going on and it's not going anywhere, anytime soon.
excrucis and their self-titled album is available on all streaming platforms. Their next album is soon-to-be announced and released this summer. They are playing at Empty Bottle on February 26, 2024. For more information, follow on Instagram @excrucis .