Font’s 2024 debut album, Unusual Burden, grew from the identical writing course of as Speaking Heads’ Stay in Gentle — rhythm first, then structuring and retooling the songs. The end result was a collage of clamorous, intensely pleasurable dance-punk that turned anxiousness into contortion, anchored by frontman Thom Waddill’s distinct yowl. They spent the following two years recording the follow-up, in the present day’s American Bully XL, in a course of simply as dense however extra chopped up and freaked out, making a world spun from their very own unfastened curiosity, a producer’s strategy to hip-hop, and a willingness to revisit outdated concepts however make them new. “The recording was a part of the writing, and the writing was a part of the recording,” they are saying, having constructed most of the tracks once they headed to Lengthy Seaside for 3 weeks in the summertime of 2025 to put down improv periods. Due to that, the songs go like this: layers change between recorded takes and sections from their time in Lengthy Seaside; components of the identical loop are eliminated and reintroduced; vocals are drenched in Auto-Tune. Once they completed the album in Austin, their hometown, over the following six months, they landed on a set rooted in Texan spirit — a rolling panorama of mutated sound, neighborhood, and sufficient perception to make artwork in their very own manner, on their very own phrases.
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Talking with AP, they boil it down additional: “We had been guided by most of the identical questions that guided our first report: The place does the acoustic finish and the digital start? What’s the connection between darkish and lightweight, despair and euphoria, the self and the opposite? Though these are all basic to the band, American Bully XL is the results of our taking these questions from the stay stage and into the studio, the place we discovered to open the music to nonetheless extra questions: What’s a tune? What’s Texas? What’s an instrument? What does it imply to be a person? What’s a recording? How might you?”
The band play a home present tonight in Austin — RSVP to assert your spot. Till then, dig into their track-by-track breakdown under.
“Dangerous Religion”
THOM WADDILL: This tune appeared to essentially assume its kind after we had been sequencing the report and Tony put it on the very high. The tune type of assembles itself from chaos. It’s about having a fragile grasp on actuality and never realizing what senses to belief.
JACK OWENS: This tune got here from an impulse to essentially simplify the songwriting. All of us play a reverse of what we’re used to right here. Easiest groove. Easiest bassline. Easiest refrain. Fast.
“Punish Activity”
WADDILL: We had this beat floating round for some time. I had the one-note vocal a part of “Love It If We Made It” by the 1975 behind my head after I was writing the vocals for this tune. We had that first verse for months and months; the tune didn’t have an actual refrain till a few 12 months later, in a model of the tune that glided by the wayside for some time. I’m all the time rewriting shit, and generally it sticks, and generally it doesn’t. Musically, I feel this tune says one thing concerning the relationship between darkish and lightweight, chaos and cohesion, rage and euphoria, which is a relationship that we maintain coming again to, I feel. The best way opposites stay in one another.
ANTHONY LAURENCE: I don’t know what this tune is about, however I do understand it existed in a number of kinds throughout a number of information throughout a number of years. The ultimate model contains the start of a model from pre-Dutch Inside tour, the bridge and finish from a stay retrack post-tour, and the choruses from yet one more model that was beforehand ignored. I practically misplaced my shit organizing this one, however as soon as the shapes had been there, it was quick to construct out. A breakthrough I used to be nervous about presenting to the fellows was the inclusion of the refrain sections since they had been from a model of the tune that was largely ignored, and we’ve by no means performed these sections stay. I bear in mind having to pitch the thought exhausting. Thom’s intro lyrics kinda bonkers, too.
“Evening Sight”
WADDILL: This tune is about overindulging and simply kind of getting wild with it. We wrote this the spring earlier than we wrote the remainder of the report. Roman introduced this superb pattern and sample to the band, and the tune grew from there.
“Midday Room”
WADDILL: This was one of many first songs that got here out of our periods in Lengthy Seaside. We knew there was one thing new in it — one thing extra adjoining to rap, however ballad-like, too, one thing that Matt Berninger might sing on. Anthony’s manufacturing on this tune early on within the Lengthy Seaside periods actually set a tone that guided the path of the report’s sound and course of. The lyrics are about being on the finish of the pier with somebody the place every thing stops making sense and turns into pure ache.
LAURENCE: This tune was early within the course of and, looking back, confirmed me what a big manufacturing theme could be for the report: unintended and curated interplay of texture. The instrumental of this tune is loopy to me; it’s a continuing name and response of swells, blips, chops, and many others. present out and in of dialogue with the bigger instrumental. Regardless of the musical equal of the cut-up approach is.
“Wilderness2”
OWENS: In processing the absence of an extra drummer within the band, I actually wished to tilt the rhythmic needle again to simplicity. I discovered this beat within the hours of improv recordings that we had upon returning to Austin from California. Thom and I met up and made the bridge with out having a melody. We shifted notes round till it felt prefer it was persevering with to develop. I feel it made nearly a vocal impediment course for Thom to navigate when writing the melody after the actual fact. The horn sound is so harmonically dense I’m nonetheless uncertain of what the chords are precisely.
LAURENCE: This tune nonetheless doesn’t make sense to me however from a manufacturing standpoint was hilarious. Will depart it there.
“Cling”
WADDILL: I introduced the chorus and a few chords into observe at some point, and all of it flowed out from there. Anthony helped with the verse lyrics. He’s a sneaky nice lyricist. And I really like his manufacturing on this tune — he stacked the vocals in a manner that enhances the remainder of the report’s Auto-Tune. I’m pleased with these lyrics — I had this chorus in my again pocket for months.
LAURENCE: I liken this tune to the title observe in its recording immediacy. There are ghosts of first concepts, and layers are continually switching between recorded takes and recordings within the room of playback of these takes. I had a imaginative and prescient of leaping into a special demo-space for the center part like that one lengthy Jockstrap tune. There’s bleed in every single place on this tune, however when it got here right down to finalizing, I had to make use of an AI web site to isolate the piano of the unique demo from all of the noise of different tracks since we made the tune with every thing taking part in by the mains the entire time. There’s a looseness that’s an unintended signature of a few of my manufacturing, which on good days I really like this tune for and on unhealthy days makes me really feel like an fool. I must learn the high-quality print on that AI web site additionally, as a result of we’d not personal the tune anymore.
“Texas”
WADDILL: Throughout our final week within the studio in Lengthy Seaside, the Kerr County Floods occurred again in Texas. Just about everybody I do know from dwelling was only one or two levels away from somebody who misplaced a beloved one within the flood. So the state was on our minds after we got here up with the preliminary thought collectively in one among our final improv periods within the studio, which is that mattress of synths and drums you hear to start with of the tune.
For months, we simply referred to that concept as “Texas.” I used to be intimidated by writing a tune with that title. It wasn’t till I moved as much as Brooklyn that spring that I discovered the chords and lyrics to placed on high of it. I used to be listening to a whole lot of nation, like lots of people do after they transfer away from Texas. I didn’t have room for a lot gear within the tiny room I hire from my roommate; simply his acoustic guitar and a mic.
LAURENCE: I produced this largely like a hip-hop tune insofar as I solely had a couple of present components to make the instrumental for Thom to work off — a bizarre e-bow half interacting with a Moog line, some noise synths, and a drum beat. So all of the methods of eradicating/introducing components of the identical loop, pitching up the identical components at completely different sections for variation, and many others., from making numerous beats paid off right here. Thom’s guitar, vocals, and Roman’s bass turned it right into a tune.
“You”
WADDILL: Jack began taking part in these solo units final 12 months with simply his drum rig and vocals. We went to see one at Gap within the Wall the place he performed a model of this tune he wrote the day earlier than. He gave it to me, and I added a couple of samples and wrote the lyrics and refrain in a few hours. Then down the conveyor belt: Roman added bass, Tony produced it. The benefit with which we wrote it felt like a breakthrough.
Lyle Lovett lurks on this one for me. He’s a grasp of hiding stress in easy language and easy tune kinds. This one and “Texas” had been the ultimate two songs written for the report; I consider these two songs as a secret pair.
“Bang Bang”
WADDILL: Recording this tune was enjoyable. I’m actually pleased with the pad sound we made right here, which is identical Prophet synth patch thrown by amps in several rooms and captured with completely different mics. There’s this rough-fabric high quality to the way in which the resonance turned out that I really like. I actually love Roman’s bass half, which needed to make sense of regardless of the fuck I assumed I used to be doing on the keys.
There was one thing eerie, one thing each dense and expansive, concerning the ascending chords and Jack’s beat and Anthony’s samples. It jogged my memory of the swamps and bayous and humidity of my hometown close to the Texas Gulf Coast. I’m attempting to replicate that within the lyrics. Taking part in video video games or no matter inside whereas this all-encompassing pressure, this suffocating fixed presence, bears down on the home windows and fogs them up, and inside you’re simply roiling and going loopy and feeling such as you’re going to blow up.
OWENS: This tune helped solidify the path for lots of the percussive writing on this album — considering of drums and noises I’m utilizing as hooks or refrains. The house on this tune allowed for rather more rhythmic readability, which I feel carried over into the rest of the report.
LAURENCE: I bear in mind a big manufacturing effort on this one was coaxing a vocal efficiency out of Thom that rose and different within the appropriate manner — slight variations in vocal grit, quantity and depth escalation, and melody to let the tune earn its runtime and get the purpose throughout. I additionally suppose it’s swag to have a minute-and-a-half intro. It reveals we’re studying endurance, and I’m enthusiastic about what which means for future works.
“Atom”
WADDILL: A kind-of hymn conceived on the drumset and upright piano in Anthony’s dwelling studio. Hymns to me are all the time infused with this sense of certainty and cohesion, and singing them is concerning the eager for that state. Tony went off with the samples right here. BFFs Walter and Sowmya (Felt Out) function on this tune — Walter’s taking part in EWI, and Sowmya’s singing harmonies. I consider this tune and “American Bully XL” as twins. There’s one thing about the way in which Jack can stay in an odd meter that brings out a particular facet of the band and appears to provide us license to be candy.
OWENS: I feel everybody within the band counts this another way.
LAURENCE: This tune samples a tune that we wouldn’t be capable to get clearance for, so I cannot point out it right here. For the heads to determine.
“American Bully XL”
WADDILL: We wrote “American Bully XL” the month earlier than we recorded Unusual Burden. Initially, it was a drum machine dance beat with tambourine and side-chained synths. Jack had simply written the weird and hypnotic beat. Roman’s chords had been easy and candy. I had seen the title phrase in a information headline concerning the U.Ok. outlawing a sort of pit bull, and I assumed there was a type of pathos in that exile. After “And I tempo the slats/And I watch you thru the cracks/Like an American Bully XL,” the remainder of the tune got here rapidly. The tune had a brand new sentimentality, directness, and confessional high quality that didn’t appear to have a spot on Unusual Burden. We put it by varied rewrites and iterations over time. At one level we rewrote it like a large stadium-rock tune.
We nearly by no means performed it stay. Nevertheless it unlocked the door that will ultimately open into the report. The lyrics are about loss and grief. It was the primary instance we had {that a} Font tune might maintain extra straight emotional materials. Anthony had a manufacturing imaginative and prescient for the tune stripped right down to its barest acoustic kind. Riya Mahesh (Quiet Gentle) occurred to be on the town that weekend, so she got here by to report backup vocals. Tony put the tune as near the ear as attainable. The subsequent day, he despatched the report to Al to be blended. It was like leaving by the identical door we got here in by.
LAURENCE: I used to be in a position to spherical out the manufacturing in a short time on this tune as a result of I used to be without delay on the high of my sport, creatively, simply having accomplished the remainder of the album and too fatigued to care about specifics, which is an efficient combo. And the tune didn’t ask to be massive. All textural and structural layers had been first passes thrown collectively and carved away like most issues. This tune samples a webcam video of an older gentleman singing “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls — the entire vocal chops. Dripping in a tragic sweetness.
