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“Luckily, we’re a pretty polarising band!” Carson Pace, vocalist with Atlantan mathcore mavericks THE CALLOUS DAOBOYS is sat on the other end of a Zoom call, a few weeks ahead of the release of their hotly-anticipated – and utterly phenomenal – third album, I Don’t Want To See You In Heaven. Asked about the pressure of expectations following the smash Celebrity Therapist, he’s animated and passionate about discussing it and how they approached creating it entirely on their own terms. “People are already expecting the unexpected,” he smiles of their ability to upend expectations at a moment’s notice.
One of the big reasons for I Don’t Want To See You In Heaven’s success is that the band refused to replicate previous successes. “Pleasing people wasn’t a part of it,” Pace explains. “The pressure was to make sure that we made something good, the focus was on the song, and instead of being ‘let’s write a song with a big breakdown’, let’s make sure it’s an actually good song. That also happens to have a big breakdown,” he grins. The seeds started to be sown for this new era far earlier than people might realise, too.
“We finished recording Celebrity Therapist in September 2020. People don’t realise we sat on that for two years,” he begins, explaining that the writing process began before the actual release of Celebrity Therapist in September 2022. “I would say about 50% of this record was written last year, but the other 50% is from 2021 to now.” As we talk, it becomes clear that Pace and his bandmates have taken as much time as they could to learn as much and write the best songs they could. “So many people get caught up in trying to redo older songs, or fix their errors,” he starts, “but my philosophy has always been, you can always write something better.”
If it sounds simple on the surface, it was harder to put into practice, with the band bouncing demos back and forth, asking each other whether they felt songs were too indulgent or if they were on the right track. The ultimate goal was to create the best possible album they could. When asked if he feels this is a more mature record, he agrees to an extent. “It’s mature in that we are older now and have different tastes. When I was writing Die On Mars the only thing I wanted to do was be an insane mathcore band. We’ve done that, and I’m glad we kind of still are an insane mathcore band. But the philosophy of this album is that you only have one chance to immortalise yourself through art.”
A lofty goal, to be sure, but one that Pace is committed to pursuing. “We were like, how do we quit our jobs forever,” he admits simply, “This is the only thing I’m good at. I’m incompetent in most other areas of life. This is the only thing I like doing, I don’t like working a customer service job, I don’t even really like money. I like having enough to live, so I was asking, how do I keep this going and make something timeless?” If you’ve heard I Don’t Want To See You In Heaven, you know for certain that they achieved that goal.
Although, it perhaps isn’t a more mature record in some ways, Pace grinning, “I yell ugga ugga boo ugga boo boo ugga, so is it really more mature?” (referring to the wonderfully-named Douchebag Safari that also opens with a Wii Sports-esque jingle). Their ability to poke fun and have entertaining song titles is extremely intact – see also Idiot Temptation Force, for instance – but the music itself takes itself as seriously as Pace takes his desire to be in a band full-time, making art that he loves. “The goal was to make something so undeniable that it becomes our everything.”
The idea of immortalising themselves through art also became a way to frame the record; with two tracks, the intro Collection Of Forgotten Dreams and penultimate Opt Out, creating a museum setting that posits the existence of a Museum of Failure 300 years in the future, in which the album is displayed as an exhibit. The album then, naturally, asks the question of whether it was a failure at all, given the album has lasted 300 years and is now in a display. But just don’t call it a concept album, as Pace isn’t the biggest fan of the title.
“When bands of our ilk do concept records, I truly hate it. I think it’s so stupid. There’s something inherently fedora trenchcoat about concept albums,” he opines. “But then, [our album] also is, in the sense that it’s being presented conceptually.” The idea itself is one that Pace is very fond of, enjoying not only the concept of a Museum of Failure but the way in which a world can be established that the album exists in. “I’ve never really heard a band do that, and it was such a cool idea. Plus there’s all the packaging of the album like a museum brochure.”
There are still tie-ins; as the album’s press notes explain, the album does examine failure in a sense, but it also chronicles Pace’s own feelings and mental state over the course of its creation. There’s lines singling out working at Guitar Center (“I don’t care if my former coworkers see this, that was the worst job I ever worked in my life. I hate Guitar Center!”) but there’s also an entire song dedicated to the love and gratitude he has for this iteration of the band, as the mid-career FALL OUT BOY echoing Distracted By The Mona Lisa shows.
Throughout its many twists and turns, from the JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE-referencing Lemon to the mathcore freakouts of Schizophrenia Legacy and flirtations with beatdown hardcore on Tears On Lambo Leather, despite the disparate threads that make up the album and its frequent, baffling turns across a myriad of genres, it’s a remarkably cohesive piece, not only because of its conceptual framing device.
There’s clearly been a huge amount of dedication and work gone into the album, with Pace’s declaration that they didn’t want to repeat themselves ringing particularly true. There’s no Star Baby to close, sure, but Country Song In Reverse is without a doubt one of their finest-ever moments, as its twelve minutes ricochet from mathcore to lounge samples to ambient and brass-infused post metal.
One recurring theme across I Don’t Want To See You In Heaven is sacrifice, and how much Pace and his bandmates are willing to give up to make THE CALLOUS DAOBOYS work without the need for a day job. Distracted… is the clearest summation, in some ways, of this. “That’s me saying you people [his bandmates] make all of the sacrifices worth it. I’m so grateful for the people I’m in a band with, I don’t think every band gets this lucky. We are, truthfully, just six people that love hanging out with each other so much. They get on my fucking nerves all the time, but they’re my family and we truly love what we do together. I’m proud to say I’m in my favourite band.”
I Don’t Want To See You In Heaven is out now via MNRK Heavy. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS121 here:
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The post The Callous Daoboys: Welcome To the Museum of Failure appeared first on Distorted Sound Magazine.
