White Lung have recently shifted from abrasive punk to an electrifying, poppier sound, laced with tinges of metal and punk on their new album, Paradise, a crazed cacophony and triumph of an LP. Led by the visceral vocals of Mish Barber-Way, the Vancouver trio plays Sidewinder one week from today: Wednesday, July 13.
Austin Chronicle: White Lung recorded this album separately, you, Kenneth, and Anne-Marie working more on your own. How did that sort of isolation inform the outcome?
Mish Barber-Way: We weren’t going in like we used to in the past, which is all the songs are done, you go in, you record them, you maybe make some tweaks. We don’t have a permanent bass player. We have people who come on tour, so just by the default of us only having three members yet four parts to play things have to be done a certain way. This time it was a lot different. I liked the isolation.
When you’re writing a story, you don’t want your co-worker standing behind you as you’re trying to figure out what you’re going to say, as you’re trying to type it. That’s kind of how we all feel about our parts in the songs. Everyone is left to their own devices. I do not tell Kenny [William] what to do. I can make a suggestion and say, “I would like to try something like this,” but I would never tell him what to do just like I don’t appreciate if he tries to step all over my shit. We trust each other.
I spent most of my time alone. Anne-Marie [Vassiliou] would come in a bit with me some days, if she was bored, but it’s working things out. We were writing in the studio. You have to think of it as not just recording, but writing, and you need to have privacy to be writing. You need to be alone to figure out your part.
I wasn’t there for a lot of the bed tracks, which we did in San Pedro at the Cold War Kids’ studio. I had these completed songs that I would work on all day in the studio, then go home and perfect them at night. Sometimes I’d get it right away and record the damn thing. Sometimes it took a little longer, but it was a very interesting process. I like the separation. It works for us. I think that’s something we will continue to do.
AC: A lot of the lyrical content on this album is fictional. Why go that route, and do you think writing in that fashion is more difficult than personal content?
MBW: Yeah. My friend Ben, who’s one of my favorite short-fiction writers, once told me (when I was trying my hand at writing more fiction because I don’t do it that much), “Every character you write will have a piece of you, and usually your protagonist is you, with three or four things tweaked.” So the stories I decided to take on and create on this album are obviously things I can picture a portion of myself being a part of.
In “Kiss Me When I Bleed,” that song is very much me just playing this other part. That’s what Mish would say if this was her situation. I decided to do it because I was listening to nothing but really old country and blues, and there’s a storytelling aspect to those songs that’s so stylized and so image-heavy that there’s not a lot left to interpret. It’s the opposite of a poem – linear. Here’s what happens: “My wife left me, I shot her, and now I’m at the bar getting drunk.”
You know?
I love that old storytelling style. I wanted to do my version of that and the only way I could do that was through other people’s stories. There’s a big freedom in fiction. It’s fun with lyrics. I feel like I took on a different aspect with these kind of songs, where I wanted to be very direct and not leave room for interpretation.
AC: Would you ever write an album of purely happy songs?
MBW: Hmm, I’m not sure. I can’t say. I’m not opposed to it. But you know, the way I write about happiness is not the way that someone else would. Everyone keeps bringing up how dark this record is, but to me, there’s a lot of happiness on it. The last song on the record is the most romantic song I’ve ever written, except for “Wrong Star,” which I wrote for a friend on the last record.
I don’t know. I can think Paradise is a happy record and someone else doesn’t just by the default of it having a song about a woman who killed her own sister. That’s just life.
AC: You’re known for being outspoken, for always saying what’s on your mind. Have you always been that way?
MBW: My parents will tell you I’ve always been loud. I share a very small piece of me with “the public,” about 20 percent. I feel like there’s five people in this world who know truly who I am and that’s it. I am pretty outspoken. I’ve always been opinionated, but I don’t feel like I’m that stubborn. I’m willing to listen and have a discussion with someone whose views I didn’t think I agreed with. That’s one of the great things about learning.
I’m the oldest of four and I was the black sheep. I come from a huge family and everyone is extremely loud. Like our dinner table, if there’s a family thing, everyone’s drunk and screaming. You have to clap your hands sometimes to get some attention. That’s the fight of the Way family. You gotta scream to be heard. That’s just what it is. So that probably had something to do with it.
This article appears in July 1 • 2016.