SPOTLIGHT: Grunge-gaze Band Bedridden Rips on Debut Album ‘Moths Strapped To Eachother’s Backs’
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY ALEAH ANTONIO ☆
Photography Credit: Sam Plouff
“NEW YORK KICKS MY ASS EVERY DAY — Honestly, the city is not nice to me at all.” Jack Riley of Bedridden tells me this en route back to Brooklyn, New York. He’s in an Airbnb somewhere between there and Texas, just having finished a SXSW showcase with Julia’s War label mates YHWH Nailgun, Her New Knife, and others. This is the first thing he mentions when I ask him about his new record, Moths Strapped to Eachother’s Backs, out today.
“Through how busy I am, interpersonal relationships, not having time to work on those things, I find ways to cope in a negative light sometimes. It’s a pretty hectic and angry and charged record,” Riley says. “It’s much more serious, I guess, and kind of somber in a lot of ways.”
The album has the angst that all slacker rock has, but is more melodic and fuzzed out than a somber record would be. It’s kind of how The Smiths–one of Riley’s favorite bands–pair their catchy pop hooks with lyrics about misery and woe.
Since moving to New York from New Orleans, Riley has moved to different spots every year he’s lived there. Between band practice and writing songs, he waits tables for the greater part of the week. Making a living in New York isn’t a glamorous time—anyone who has tried to do it on their own knows this—but it makes for a lot of stories that Riley pours into his new record.
“There was a hurricane about to hit New Orleans, and I packed up my car the moment I heard. I just drove to New York with nowhere to live… [I] went homeless for 15 days and finally found a place and got a job,” Riley says.
Photography Credit: Sam Plouff
Riley, originally from the suburbs of Illinois, moved to New Orleans for college where he eventually met bandmates Nick Pedroza and Sebastian Duzian (Bedridden would eventually round out with guitarist Wesley Wolffe). He played in various hardcore punk projects like Waste Man before involving himself in shoegaze. He was “killing himself in New Orleans,” partying all the time and avoiding his guitar whenever he wasn’t forced to play for band practice. It inspired him to move to New York, a place where he would be pushed to work down to the bone, to take musicianship more seriously.
I can’t help but think of J Mascis, who started Dinosaur Jr. after his hardcore band Deep Wound dissolved, and whose band draws a lot of comparison to Bedridden. He too eventually moved Dinosaur Jr. to New York, saying it was the “first place where [the band] was accepted.” Jack Riley found the same kind of solace in Philadelphia, the home base of Julia’s War Recordings, the label of They Are Gutting a Body of Water frontman Doug Dulgarian. It explains his track, “Philadelphia, Get Me Through,” where Riley flees to the city to escape from his problems in New York.
“I met Doug when he was doing a TAGABOW tour through New Orleans in 2019, and they stayed at my house. I moved to New York and we made a demo that we put on Bandcamp of all the songs that are on Amateur Heartthrob recorded on a four-track… He heard the demo and he was like, ‘This is so sick,’” Riley tells me.
Amateur Heartthrob, Bedridden’s first EP, is about Riley being a self-professed “kind of a jackass.” It’s filled with sticky riffs and 2000s hooks, like the daydreamy “Clara’s Mouth.” Momma’s Aron Kobayashi Ritch produced the EP. a friend Riley made while dating now ex-girlfriend and Kobayashi’s bandmate Allegra Weingarten. Kobayashi returned for Moths Strapped to Eachother’s Backs quickly after he finished producing Momma’s new record (also out this month). He emphasises that muddy and analog feeling of slacker rock that makes Bedridden distinct.
“He’s really good at what he does,” Riley says about Kobayashi. “He’s so quick in the studio producing and stuff. You need something from him, he can do it in two seconds. We worked really well together.”
When naming the album, Riley reflects, “Last year I was way too reliant on other people—my partner at the time, my friends. I was strapped to them in a weird way—and flying in circles. This album is about that time.”
“I hope that people can listen to it and sift through and relate to it… It’s kind of buried in word play, but I think a lot of it is relatable,” Riley says. “I hope people [who] listen to it are like ‘I’ve had the same experience as this kid.’ Read the lyrics, drawn to it. Maybe one day we can be friends.”
