The Callous Daoboys: Big Swings Onto Greater Things
At least within their relative niche, few bands have made quite the splash in the post-DILLINGER landscape like THE CALLOUS DAOBOYS. Their debut full-length – 2019’s Die On Mars – all but insisted on it, crammed full of bewildering and often hilarious twists and turns, and yet always delivered with confidence, conviction, and a ferocity that spoke for itself. It was more than enough to earn them underground darling status – something their relentless touring ethic and similarly chaotic online presence has only hammered home in the years since. It means there’s a fair bit resting on their sophomore effort – when isn’t there? – with the septet having since won the backing of MNRK Heavy as they prepare to unveil Celebrity Therapist this September. Nervous? Not a chance.
“I kind of view it as the next logical, more experienced step from Die On Mars,” offers vocalist and chief songwriter Carson Pace. He joins us from a crowded tour bus somewhere between Louisville, Kentucky (supporting Swedish metallers AVATAR), and Madison, Wisconsin, where the plan is to “hang out” before rolling onto Fargo, North Dakota. “I wanted it to be catchier but I also wanted it to be heavier, and I wanted it to be weirder but I also wanted it to be more accessible. I’m not the one to say if we found our sound – I think that’s for other people to be philosophical about – but I think this is the closest to our sound that we have ever been.”
As he continues, it quickly becomes clear that for a band who carry themselves with an air of constant unpredictability and spontaneity, Pace really is quite the thinker. “I’m very self-reflective with music,” he confirms. “I try to pay attention to what works and what sticks for people, and the biggest thing that stuck with people on Die On Mars was the Fake Dinosaur Bones breakdown with its big chant-along, sing-along thing. So we really focused on those and I tried to put one of those in every single song. I wanted there to be a hook in every single song, and a hook doesn’t necessarily mean a chorus, but I wanted every song to have something that was easy to scream or sing along with.”
“Those moments are extremely important,” he adds. “There are whole bands that don’t have one of those moments – whole bands that I love – but it’s really about looking at what works with your music and then going ‘okay, how do I make what works and also make what I want to make at the same time?’ It’s just about finding a balance, and I’m very proud of the balance that we’ve struck on this one.”
Pace is right to be proud. In Celebrity Therapist, the Daoboys have pulled off that rare feat of leaving an excellent debut in the dust. As the frontman promises, it’s an album that sinks its hooks in quick, especially for a genre that often struggles for accessibility and memorability. Whether it’s the disorienting spoken word meditation on déjà vu shared between all seven members of the band in A Brief Article Regarding Time Loops, the spine-tingling mid-section of the centrepiece Title Track, or the exuberant, saxophone-laden outro of closer Star Baby, this is a record that takes a tonne of risks and sees all of them stick.
“I’m so sure of myself in moments like that,” smiles Pace. “I am just like ‘this is us, this is what we do’. We’re THE CALLOUS DAOBOYS, we take big swings and hope they connect, and if they don’t connect, whatever – there’s seven more songs on the record. I love doing that, all my favourite bands do shit like that, so how could I not do that? Of course I’m nervous when I show people I guess, but by then it’s already recorded so there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Likewise, Pace was similarly willing to throw a lot of himself into the lyrics heard on Celebrity Therapist, inspired, as he puts it, by the “nakedness” of the likes of SILENT PLANET’s Garrett Russell, MEWITHOUTYOU’s Aaron Weiss, and MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA’s Andy Hull. It results in a work of striking honesty, one that often sees the frontman holding frustration, sadness, empathy and love in his hands all at once. “I think that I’m saying ‘fuck off’ because I love someone,” he suggests. “That might be the most pretentious possible answer, but it’s like ‘I love you, why are you being such an idiot?’”
With so much going on on the record, both musically and otherwise, it seems only fair that we ask Pace what it is that he wants people to take away from Celebrity Therapist. At first, he admits he isn’t sure, but he soon adds, “I want them to enjoy at least one part of it, because I’d like to think that there’s something for everybody on our record – my mom likes Star Baby for Christ’s sake. One thing to take away from it would be just to love the people around them for what they are, regardless of their political beliefs.”
“I think I’ve said this in other interviews before, but I want to be the reason that someone starts a band,” he concludes. “I want to be the reason that a thousand bands happen – not necessarily copycat bands – but I hope a thousand great bands start because of THE CALLOUS DAOBOYS.”
Celebrity Therapist is out now via MNRK Heavy/Modern Static Records.
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