Over the last few years Aussie punks Paper Arms have been up to a great deal, for those uninitiated the four piece have toured relentlessly with some of punk rock’s biggest names, including multiple European tours, sharing stages with the likes of Boysetsfire, Strike Anywhere and Chuck Ragan as well as appearing at the Big Day Out, Soundwave and Hits & Pits festivals.
Have signed to Melbourne’s Poison City Records, and Germany’s Uncle M records, the band have two incredible albums under their belt, and now the feather in the band’s cap will arrive on May 15, in the shape of LP number three Great Mistakes.
Recorded at Adelaide’s Capitol Sound studio, Great Mistakes is a triumphant follow up to 2013’s The Smoke Will Clear, written in spite of the loss of a founding member, and 800km distance that formed between the band and vocalist Josh Mann.
To celebrate the upcoming release of Great Mistakes the band have given us an advance stream and track by track run down of the incredible album, check it out below and pre-orders now available via Poison City Records.
Dedication
This song was chosen as the opener almost as a “full stop” to the last album. I danced around the issue of my marriage breaking up on the last album. Those themes just couldn’t help but creep in though, even if I tried to avoid them. But Dedication is definitely about that. My ex and I are still good friends, and I guess this song is dedicated to her. It’s basically just saying, “We weren’t right together. There’s no hard feelings. And this is the last song I’ll write about you/us.” I’m sure that will be a relief to her.
You Don’t Speak For Me
We’ve never really been an overly-vocal, political band. And this isn’t even really a political song. This is just pure frustration. I’m sure the majority of thinking, rational Australians have spent most of the last 2 horrible years wondering how an evil, comic-book villain came to life and got himself elected Prime Minister of a country… Even now, putting into words how much we hate this fucking guy, is difficult. Unfortunately punk songs aren’t long enough to go into every issue that I have with Tony Abbott and his government, so I condensed it down to one sentence. “You don’t speak for me”. It’s really cathartic to sing.
Great Mistakes
Self conscious party anthem.
This Time
So, most of this album was written over email since I’m now living 800kms from the other guys. But one weekend our new guitarist, James, was in town and came around for a writing session. At some point he got bored and proceeded to show me a song he’d written for a Black Flag-esque hardcore band that never saw the light of day. He played the riff that’s now the chorus of This Time, but at twice the speed. I heard something in there that reminded me of the music I grew up on and asked him to slow it down. Suddenly we found ourselves with a grunge song on our hands. At first it was just a bit of fun, but the more we played it, the more we realised it was a good song in spite of it’s novelty factor. It was one of the scariest songs to put on the record, but it’s one of the most fun to play and I’m glad we took the risk. This Time is an homage to the bands that raised us.
Pick Yourself Up
You know when you feel yourself slipping into a funk? Not in a good way? That’s a feeling I’ve known all too well over the last couple of years. I wanted to write something that would be an encouragement to anyone listening, who felt that way, to be proactive and to do something about it, if at all possible. I know, most of the time, we just have to ride those things out, but… I don’t know… on the off chance these lyrics could be the words someone needed to hear, I thought it was worth writing.
Wake And Run
I had no part in writing the music for this song. haha. One of the perks of the long distance relationship. I turned up to recording and this was waiting for me. I threw some lyrics on it and recorded it and stood back and realised that the lyrics were kind of heavy. Like they’d just spilled from my subconscious. (Not to get too weird). The lyrics (it seems) are about my past belief systems, the people that espoused them and my eventual distancing from it/them. That’s all I’ll say about that.
Blackout
One day I rang up our new guitarist, James, and said “please do something with a delay pedal”. Then this happened. haha. Lyrically it’s about taking control of the daily burdens that weigh you down and cutting them loose if you have to.
Volumes
This is kind of a classic Paper Arms punk song. As I’ve said, this album was written with 3 guys in Adelaide and me in Melbourne, sitting alone in my room, not socialising, trying to focus on getting the thing written. I feel like the line “The silence is killing me” may have been inspired by my circumstances.
Shifty
This is a song about my best mate Shifty. She’s an incredible human and I just needed to say it for the record.
Stumble Over
You might be noticing a theme on this one. Sometimes things are shitty, but you got this. “Head high, broad shoulders, we will not stumble over”.
Fader
This is the serious-musician-hobbyist theme song. I’m sure it probably applies to artists, travellers, students and a few other groups too. This is about that moment when you’re doing what you love and you realise you’re happy. Followed closely by the realisation that you’re flat broke and you need to go look for food in a dumpster. It seems like, unless your super passionate about a real job, people like us will always be walking the tightrope between passions and poverty*. (*in a first-world kinda way). “No money in my pockets, no savings in my crawlspace, no stocks up in the market, I’ve got a big fat smile upon my face.”
(Seriously though, buy a record or we’re eating dumpster food.)
Strings
Another song I threw lyrics onto, only to work out their meaning weeks later. I think I subconsciously wrote a song about the difficulties in finding a “significant other”. Seriously, if you’re in a relationship with someone that rules, you need to know that’s something pretty crazy. Hold onto that shit, because it doesn’t come along too often.
Factory Settings
There’s a whole group of people that have always just “fit in”. And then there’s the kid that stands out like a sore thumb in the high school class photo. That hangs out with the 4 other weird kids at school. That grows up and starts a band, and ends up being all of my friends… I think life would be so dull without the black sheep. This song is a tribute to all of the people who dance to the beat of their own drums.
Great Mistakes pre-order is out now via Poison City Records.
