Junior Battles are a fantastic band that released a great record just this past Tuesday via our friends over at Paper + Plastick Records. If you have yet to, you can purchase Idle Ages here. Sam and Aaron from the band were kind enough to write up a track-by-track guide for the album as well for PropertyOfZack, so read up on the meaning behind all the songs below!
Seventeen
Sam: This song is actually a mash-up of two separate demos; one was a slow, dark song about how I feel like a miserable sell-out now because I do things like work for a TV station that used to run content that I sometimes found homophobic, or because I helped make an ad for Jeep. The other was an attempt at bringing some brevity to what was quickly becoming a pretty sinister album, lyrically. We were trying to find a way to make both work, when it became clear that kind of made an interesting pair if we just sped up the sad slow one. So the record starts with this positive blast of self-affirmation, before turning into a song about how you see the world in one very narrow, specific way when you’re a bright- eyed, idealistic teenager, and as you grow up, you need to find a way to function in a society and city that doesn’t follow all the rules you think that it should.
Twenty Five
Aaron: I first started writing this song about a year and a half ago. I had just graduated from University, and I had just quit my first “real” job. I was going through a time in my life where I was the most directionless, the most broke, and as a result, the most medicated I’ve ever been. At that time, I was unhappy with where my life was going, and I didn’t know where I wanted to be, or what I wanted to do. So, I was getting wasted a lot and feeling sorry for myself. I’ve since turned 25, and I’m happy to report that I’m generally pretty upbeat these days, and I’m feeling good about my situation. I think I just needed to put what I was feeling out there, and doing that was honestly very therapeutic for me. Musically, I have been playing with that intro riff for literally 4-5 years, and I was really happy to find a home for it. I was trying to write a classic sounding skatepunk song with a contrasting huge, epic chorus. I’m not sure if we totally succeeded, but I liked what the other guys in the band brought to the table musically, especially Justin’s super busy bassline in the instrumental sections.
Nostalgic At 23
Aaron: This song came together in a really interesting way. We worked on the music as a group, before there were any lyrics or vocal melodies. By the end of one practice, we had an instrumental demo that was mostly figured out, but we had no idea what to do with the vocals. Sam recorded some lyrics on top of the first verse and the pre-chorus at home, and sent it over to me. He didn’t send me his lyrics, so I had to interpret them as best I could on the shitty demo recording. I wrote the rest of the vocals based on what I thought his original sketch was about. As a result, we have some back and forth vocals happening, with a couple of contrasting ideas. There’s a weird key change during the chorus, that I think suits that lyrical exchange. The main theme is that premature nostalgia is a farce. When friendships fall apart and grow distant, you spend most of your time rehashing the same old inside jokes over way too many beers, and talking exclusively about the past. It’s fine to a point, but you can’t have a healthy friendship that’s just stagnant. “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”
Sam: There are bands that actually believe in things, and even if you don’t agree with everything they stand for, you have to respect their passion and the severity with which they approach their art. And then there are bands that angle themselves as “political,” and after a year or two, it becomes pretty clear that it was all just empty posturing. There were some bands in the city we’re from that I really looked up to as a kid getting in to punk, and when I think back on the empty sloganeering of those shows and records that meant a lot to me, I feel bamboozled and furious as a person that really did believe in those things.
Birthdayparties vs. Punkroutine
Aaron: Like “Nostalgic,” this is another song about navigating those personal relationships that have grown distant. Maybe you were really close with someone in Highschool, or University. A few years later, you see one another once every six months. Then suddenly, your twice-a-year plans get trumped for band practice or tour (or hanging out with your family/girlfriend) and those people have a hard time understanding because they don’t have context for it. And you feel like an asshole. The whole lyrical idea of “living in a haunted house” or whatever, it’s not really meant to be spooooky, it’s just that unsettled feeling and the guilt that follows you after you blow off someone who used to be a really close friend.
Alternate 1985
Aaron: In the shortest terms possible, this song is about getting over yourself. I go through these moody phases where I become jaded, and selfish, and difficult to be around. Once you become a little more self aware of that, you almost have to talk yourself out of it. This is about facing that revelation, and getting over the mindset that the world owes you something. Musically, this song is a bit of a Frankenstein in terms of sounds and arrangement. I wanted the intro riff to be soaked in 90’s altrock, the fast palm muting is rooted in skatepunk (duh), and then there’s a fast Soca or Indian beat that I like to throw into my songs once in a while (see: “Roads?” from our self-titled 7”).
Send The Pilots Away
Aaron: Idle Ages deals has a few running themes, and I think this song deals with a little bit of each: Being frustrated with yourself and your relationships. Infatuation with the past and false nostalgia. Getting over yourself and making amends, and finding a positive outlook at the very last minute. It’s all here. The big outro of this song is meant to be a bit of a foil to “Twenty Five,” in that it answers the question posed (“Will I be happy?”) with “I guess I’m happy for now, but we’re just tired and loaded.” And yes, the chorus is definitely a Bad Religion homage.
Architecture
Sam: The great thing about doing a full-length is that you can do things like this. This started as a bridge in a demo for a song that we ended up not using, but I really liked how it sounded and made an attempt at recording it as this isolated snippet of song. It ties back in to trying to find some lightness in a lot of the record’s negativity, reminding yourself that you always have the power to change your own life and your own world.
With Honours
Sam: A lot of these songs are about looking at yourself and the sacrifices you’re willing or unwilling to make in your life in order to be happy; this is one of the accusatory, outward-looking songs that addresses sacrifices you’ve seen others make that you think they shouldn’t have. People who just got a B.A. in English instead of trying to become a writer, or who got a job they hate and gave up pursuing their real passion.
Living in the Future of Feelings / No Plan
Sam: At some point, it started to feel like the record was a kind of unbalanced picture of the things we’ve really gone through over the past year. This song is a pretty straight-forward pleasure cruiser about how much we love being able to do this thing we care so profoundly for. It’s an attempt to celebrate the idea of making sacrifices to live a life that fulfils you, and ultimately makes you happy. The title of the song is actually taken from our bass player, Justin’s, unreleased solo album; it was all recorded on the Friday afternoon of Fest in our hotel room into Aaron’s phone. “No Plan,” which is basically just us and Tyler from the Decay screaming endlessly, is a song from that record. So you have a pretty good idea how the rest sound.
Passing Out
Sam: I was once asked to help a family friend consult with some business partners of his about a new “indie music venture.” We met in a boardroom and discussed music in the most clinical, commercial terms that I left disgusted at myself for having even been there for it. It really disturbed me that I was willing to sit through an entire meeting that primarily consisted of breaking down the thing I care about most in the world into a marketing commodity. I work in the music industry, and I generally work for wonderful people, but that was the day I realized that there are things in this business I’m not comfortable with, and that it’s important, and sometimes impossible, to determine where to draw the line on what you’re willing to do to pay your rent.
Radio
Sam: There’s a lot of weird metaphors going on in this song, and I kind of don’t want to explain all of them because I think it would ruin what makes it interesting. Some of it is pretty obvious, but I think some of it can be interpreted in different ways, which is kind of how I’d like to leave it. Because I’m such a pretentious, snotty, horrible rock star. I like to think it functions as the reconciliation of all the concepts of the songs preceding it, and beyond that, it’s all you.
