No Joy talk new song "Hellhole," upcoming tour & more in BV Q&A
No Joy will release their new EP, Creep, on February 24 via brand new label Grey Market. The songs on this one, which were produced by longtime collaborator Jorge Elbrecht (Violens, Lansing-Dreiden), bring the band’s poppier elements to the fore, while retaining that distinctive No Joy shoegaze sound. “Hellhole” is a great example of this that even finds the band dipping a toe into dance-y rhythms. The song makes its premiere in this post and you can listen below.
No Joy’s short East Coast tour starts next week, hitting Brooklyn’s Sunnyvale on February 25 with Mercury Girls and Journalism (tickets). For these dates, Elbrecht will be playing in the band. Singer-guitarist Jasamine White-Gluz told us, via email, about changing things up for this tour, the very shoegazy EP format, their new label, dream remixers, and more. That Q&A is below.
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Why isn’t “Hellhole” a Spinal Tap cover?
If you play it backwards it is.
“Hellhole” is almost what might be called danceable…would you consider remixes and who would be your dream remixer?
I definitely like remixes! We’ve done a few before. A few years ago we did one with Tim Gane from Stereolab and last year we did one with Nate Harold. Personally I don’t like going out dancing (more of a sad sway type of girl) so my dream remix would be less dancey. I would probably be extremely dead if Trent Reznor remixed one of our songs, or maybe if Enya started doing remixes (does she???)
This is your second EP in less than a year. Not to throw around the old “shoegaze” descriptor, but the EP was considered by many the preferred format of the ’90s era “OG” shoegaze bands. Thoughts?
You probably won’t believe me but I didn’t remember that fact about the OG’s until just now. The idea for the EPs wasn’t really that thought out or trying to follow a trend or anything. We just wanted to put out some limited EPs because there always feels like less pressure associated with them, you don’t have to necessarily do the huge PR hustle/tour that comes with putting out a full length. Plus, we had a lot of ideas floating around that we wanted to get out of our system before buckling down to record another full length album. It’s kind of like a public exploration of ideas, wanted to play the field a bit before settling down on the next LP. There’s one more EP coming out after this one, and its pretty fucked up.
“Fucked up” how?
It’s a collaboration between just myself and another musician who i really admire and EXTREMELY VASTLY different than anything I’ve ever done.
What can you tell us about new label Grey Market who are putting out the ‘Creep’ EP?
Grey Market are a new arts collective run by John Rubeli, an amazing guy with tons of really valuable insight in the music biz. The idea with Grey Market is that everything is totally transparent. In this industry, it’s very easy to run into debt you didn’t know you incurred, especially when working with bigger labels and bigger budgets. With Grey Market, it’s all on the table. Everything is what you make of it, John is just there to help and facilitate. He also handles all the mail order himself and approaches everything from a totally grassroots level. It’s really ambitious and the lack of bullshit is really refreshing.
The new, very metal No Joy logo — first seen on last year’s Drool Sucker EP — is rad. Tell us about that?
It was designed by our good friend Jacob Cooper at 600Lines in LA who also designed our very nice alien shirts. He is the best and super talented and really understands us deeply. Some people can’t read the logo and think it says NOOV. That’s cool too.
The video for Creep‘s first song, “Califone,” sure is something. Do you have a favorite part?
I have a lot of favorite moments. I think the peekaboo with the dental mirror is pretty funny. Tom Cruise getting his head chopped off is also great. Poop falling on Trump’s face is also obviously amazing. I always laugh when I see myself attempting to skateboard in bellbottoms on green-screen. The director Ben Clarkson did a great job.
No Joy are known for being really, really loud live. With the somewhat new direction of Creep, will there be any change-ups for this tour?
These shows are going to be different, I’m telling you in advance so you are not shocked when you get there. I changed up the live set a lot over the past few months. There are different members and more technical things going on which allows us to play more material we could never play before, especially a lot of singles from Wait To Pleasure that were so electronic based. Our producer extraordinaire Jorge Elbrecht is also filling in on guitar, which is incredible and really fun for us. It’s still hella loud, but there are a more sounds to fill everything out. I was getting bored of playing the same kind of set, so I challenged myself over the last few months to learn new live techniques. These are really going to be the first couple shows where we are testing it out, so please be kind!
NO JOY – 2017 TOUR DATES
Feb-21 – Boston, MA – Great Scott
Feb-22 – Providence, RI – Columbus Theater
Feb-23 – Baltimore, MD – Metro Gallery
Feb-24 – Philadelphia, PA – Kung Fu Necktie
Feb-25 – Brooklyn, NY – Sunnyvale
March 16-17 – Austin, TX – SXSW
March 18 – Dallas, TX – Not So Fun Weekend Festival
March 19 – San Antonio, TX – Burger Records Hangover Festival
March 20 – Hot Springs, AR – The Valley of the Vapors Festival
