Music comprises few mysteries lately. A lot much less ones that go away extra questions than solutions as they reveal themselves.
Ghillie fits, cult accusations, employed actors, and flights of fancy, they’ve all been part of the Armed‘s journey — till now. Whereas their latest choice to be front-facing in regards to the who’s and what’s concerning the curious Detroit collective, for these lengthy ingrained within the insanity of all of it, it is barely tougher to embrace the reality.
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For album 5, Excellent Saviors, the band are toting honesty. In numerous interviews, vocalist Tony Wolski (who has passed by numerous pseudonyms together with Adam Vallely and Clark Large) has been open to his place within the band and the way the concentrate on their shenanigans was starting to really feel trite. Plus, it does not harm to place the main focus squarely on the music — a core part of the Armed that has delivered with each shapeshifting launch. Nonetheless, that does not imply there’s not an entire lot to unpack. Right here, we have compiled some data to present you a headstart — although, as they’ve brazenly admitted themselves, generally the reality is extra complicated and stranger than fiction.
Who’re the Armed?
A seemingly simpler query to reply in 2023 than any of the final decade they have been lively. The idea behind the Armed is easy — a rotating solid of creatives producing melodic and punishing hardcore. From Converge’s Kurt Ballou to Queens of the Stone Age’s Troy Van Leeuwen, the varied lists littered in regards to the web are an infinite scroll of musicians with numerous footings in rock and hardcore. They now journey the lands as a six-piece — Wolski, together with Cara Drolshagen, Patrick Shiroishi, Kenny Szymanski, Randall Lee, and Urian Hackney.
However that is simply the framework. Constructed round it is a lore that twists and turns with each music video, or passing interview reply. The fact they as soon as would have had you imagine is that they’re a gaggle orchestrated by key protagonist — and occasional antagonist — Dan Greene. Inside their music movies, the bespectacled, cult-leader-looking determine cuts a menacing aura. However that is the place issues get intricate. Enter The Armed Multiverse.
Their beginnings stem from the hardcore band Slicer Dicer. After their dissolution, the members took up the mantle underneath this new pseudonym. A pure evolution into the Armed’s course took maintain. In 2009, the group’s debut album, These Are Lights, got here firing on all cylinders. Blended by Ballou — an integral participant, and purported key orchestrator to the Armed — the years between 2009 and 2015 are the place the Armed actually started to emerge.
It is at the moment the band toiled throughout a stable block of EPs: 2010’s Widespread Enemies — which options the prequl of latest single “Liar 2”, the far less-groove-laden however infectiously biting “Liar” — 2011’s Younger & Lovely, and 2012’s Spreading Pleasure, with numerous shops favorably evaluating them to Dillinger Escape Plan, because of their incisive fashionable tackle hardcore. Attempting to discern simply who was concerned at this stage is less complicated mentioned than executed. Whereas there exists an interview with the band from a restricted launch of Widespread Enemies — the place Tony is certainly Tony — the fragments of data dotted in regards to the web not often supply any glimpse behind the scenes.
Their 2015 Untitled album is the closest the Armed have remained to their hardcore beginnings. Most significantly, it is the place the Armed actually start. Self-released on their very own label, No Relaxation Till Break, the constructing blocks for the complicated, enthralling, and even cinematic imaginative and prescient of the Armed started their ascension.
Quick ahead, and 2018’s Solely Love moved to new sonic plains. Bringing synths into the combo, this bolstering of the Armed’s sound is matched by their growth into the cinematic world. Each single started bringing to mild a brand new character, from interpretive dancers to loners looking for salvation, the puzzle items started altering form and have since refused to stay in place.
Who’s Dan Greene?
Dan Greene exists. However he isn’t the figurative Dan Greene. In latest interviews, Wolski has confirmed that Greene is an individual, however the symbolic avatar of the Armed’s exploits taking part in out on display isn’t him. The true Dan Greene is allegedly on the quilt of Untitled, together with cameos in sporadic movies (“Liar,” “Paradise Day,” “ALL FUTURES”) – the identical individual additionally bares a resemblance to {a photograph} posted for the Armed’s 2021 AMA.
The fictional character’s story is equally as beguiling. Purportedly performed by photographer Trevor Naud, the video for Untitled‘s “Paradise Day,” the primary entry into the Armed’s cinematic mindset introduces one Dan Greene as a pissed off workplace employee ignored by colleagues, finally freezing at a karaoke session. Zoning out and unleashing hell upon the observe, the fragments of his thoughts start to fracture, setting the groundwork for his future escapades.
“Nowhere To Be Discovered” from Solely Love finds chaos ensuing underneath the manufacturing eye of Greene, a reveal accomplished close to the top of the seemingly innocuous video that quickly devolves into insanity and dysfunction. All through the cycle of their third album, the growth went from world-building to reality-destroying, pushing boundaries with weird ideas that grow to be tougher to dissect the extra you come.
Greene was even the topic of a spiritual tome launched alongside 2021’s ULTRAPOP, an concept cemented within the group’s 2022 dwell album ULTRAPOP: Reside At The Masonic. A live performance movie that performs out like a Shyamalan entry into the musical world, all of it fantastically removes you from actuality and retains you guessing whereas the band shift and form between collaborators with ferocious depth.
However for essentially the most half, Greene beguiles as a stoic determine. Typically painted in a normy mild — an workplace employee with a abdomen filled with stress-ulcers — the Armed movies give him an outlet to bounce, scream, or menacingly mug for the digicam, typically taunting the band (Reside At The Masonic) or himself (“Sport of Measure”). The deification of the determine is vital within the rabid fandom, with the trustworthy pinup references and potential meanings across the collective’s releases. It might appear that his place within the Armed’s story has each been overstated and understated over time. He was the purported puppet grasp, songwriter, and vocalist — although having by no means graced a stage along with his presence — however his true goal is to be a conduit for no matter insanity or course they discover, typically to his detriment, together with the dying of his skateboarding buddy within the video for “FT. FRANK TURNER.”
Are they a cult?
In a phrase, no. Whereas the pointed-Infinity image that adorns their releases wouldn’t really feel misplaced on a gritty Netflix documentary, the Armed have at all times been about neighborhood. It is the place they’ve fostered their fanbase, notably in riotous home reveals, and the place the concepts they ship typically root themselves in. Whereas the fanbase relishes within the cult side that is typically been inspired by the band’s movies — notably Reside At The Masonic — it is much less cult and extra of a spiritual expertise for these on the within. Their reveals have come to be nothing wanting Sunday Service for the trustworthy, with many carrying “My Title is Daniel Greene” title tags, or lore-branded merch as a Bat sign of types.
2021’s ULTRAPOP sought to develop upon this aspect of their imaginative and prescient. Discovering the band actually altering their physicality by bulking up and turning themselves into ripped purveyors of demonic white-noise pop, the rollout was handled just like the founding of a brand new motion that the orchestrators unflinchingly imagine in. The Discord server that got here off the again of the world-building fourth album now performs host to bringing their followers collectively. By way of memes, cataloging, and indispensable fact-finding, the Armed trustworthy unfold the great phrase with the power of an keen, erm, cult.
No good fan military could be something with no signature, and within the case of the Armed’s trustworthy, you’ll typically see a singular phrase imposing itself on any band-related submit: refract. A catch-all which means nothing but means all the pieces. It signifies inclusion with out exclusion. You possibly can select to refract or to not refract. However if you happen to’re on board, it’ll imply greater than any definition.
Exploits
There is no finish to the Armed’s trolling and toying with each their fanbase and any passerby. Whereas each article is fast to say the utilization of actors and stand-ins each onstage and in interviews, there isn’t any finish to the collective’s on-line quirks. There’s even a video of Greene auditioning (fairly nicely, to be truthful) for Stone Temple Pilots (with Wolski on guitar) earlier than an abrupt gearshift into chaos.
For Solely Love’s single “Function Fashions,” in collaboration with Grownup Swim, they recruited one Tommy Wiseau (the man from The Room) to look in a ghillie go well with and react accordingly to his first hear of the music. Which, if you happen to’re acquainted with his vibe, is an unbelievable addition to the Armed canon that feels as creepy because it does enlightening.
“FT. FRANK TURNER” is probably their most publicized stunt thus far. The 2019 single was introduced to a lot confusion from all not concerned, including Frank Turner. Even that includes a vocal line from Turner — from a session he confirmed he carried out with Ballou (cementing his place within the Armed canon), the paintings comes adorned with Frank Carter (Gallows (UK), Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes).
Additionally they come toting reality-show familiarity. “Closely Lined” sees Greene interrupt a packed bar in a seemingly unstaged transfer they replicated with “Liar 2”’s latest video that includes a beat-up trying Greene dancing on a road in broad daylight underneath the watchful eye of himself whereas the band intersperse glancing over like a hidden-camera present earlier than all leaving waving goodbye to the viewer. The fourth wall is one they’ve at all times bent and damaged, typically with on-the-nose antics because the aforementioned or with broad audience-prodding maximalism (“AVERAGE DEATH”).
Whereas the long run for the Armed could also be certainly one of reality and honesty, the truth of them being a collective that feeds off of response means the goalposts can change at any time. Excellent Saviors is supposedly the closing of a trilogy of albums inspecting popular culture — an artwork collective mission if ever was one — so no matter’s coming may very nicely change face totally. The one certainty is they are going to proceed to refract.
