OK they didn't really say anything about K-Pop Demon Hunters, I just wanted you to click on it.
A long, long time ago (last year), I was rehearsing with Onesie, the Brooklyn indie rock band I’ve played guitar in over the past several years. Between songs, you could hear muffled drums coming from the next room, and our frontman, Ben Haberland, made a comment about how that was Sleater-Kinney’s new touring drummer we were listening to practice next door to us. I’m a fan of Sleater-Kinney and thought that was pretty NEAT-O!!
That said, I didn’t learn until recently that this mysterious individual was also a certified member™️ of a band that practiced in that same room. Fast forward a couple months, and Ben sent me a song by their band, Freezing Cold, entitled “Backlight". I was immediately hooked, and have had it on repeat ever since.
Turns out, “Backlight” is just the first song on their new LP, Treasure Pool, out now on the legendary DIY label, Don Giovanni Records. The album covers a ton of sonic ground, but if I had to boil it down to entice you, imagine The Weakerthans were into really big heavy '90s rock. I got the band to sign up for bandNada (Jon, do I get commission for this?) and to let me punish vocalist/guitarist Jeff Cunningham over Zoom about every single song on the new record. Additionally, we talked about the band’s impetus, how Freezing Cold differs from the band members’ previous projects, and, for better or worse, Ben Haberland.
Ben [Haberland - Onesie] sent me “Backlight”, and I liked it so much that I felt the immediate need to know more about Freezing Cold. How did you guys start?
Thank you. We started with [Angie Boylan - drums] and myself. I've lived in the area my whole life, but left to live in Philadelphia for three years. When I was coming back, I needed a practice space or somewhere to put my gear. (laughs) Angie had a spot in the old Sci Labs - we've been friends for a very long time. So I contacted Angie to see if there was any space in her practice space, and was like, “also, if you want to jam, I'm looking to start a band when I get back to New York.” We wrote some songs, brought in our friend Nick who played on [first album] Glimmer, and played some shows.
There's kind of the pre-COVID Freezing Cold era and the post-COVID era. During COVID, we wrote through voice memos or GarageBand. I would send something over, and Angie would play drums on it. [Leanne Butkovic - bass] joined the band just before COVID. We had a run of shows planned for March 2020. Obviously, those did not happen. So we kind of went into hibernation, remote writing. Once we started playing in person again, we hunkered down and wrote two songs, which was the Stuck on Hold EP. After those two songs were recorded and we had heard what we sound like in this formation, we wrote Treasure Pool. It came out August 1st. That puts us through the very, very brief history of the band.
Are you all Long Island people?
Angie and I are. We both lived there until we were about 18. Leanne's from Ohio.
I ask because I know that Angie said she grew up listening to Ben’s bands, and I heard you were in Bridge and Tunnel. Correct?
Yeah. But before that, I had been seeing Ben’s bands since I was… I mean, I have been watching Ben play guitar since I was in middle school. He was in this band The Disenchanted - a band I really, really liked a lot. They would come down from Albany and play Long Island - I actually never knew Ben was from Long Island until he told me. I just thought he was from upstate somewhere. He was a couple years older than me - just enough that him and his friends seemed very, very cool. They were proficient in their instruments in a way that most of my friends were not at the time, because we had literally just picked them up the day before.
So The Disenchanted is a band whose 7”s I loved. Anytime my middle school band got to play with his band was a big deal to me. Live, they were very, very good. I still have The Disenchanted t-shirts and patches tucked away. I would encourage Onesie fans to dig through The Disenchanted catalog. I don't want to characterize it or try to explain it, but the screaminess of it and the melodic portions of it hit the nail on the head for me. I know that's a tangent, but it was a very, very cool band.
No, I love it. When I met Ben, we just talked for, like, three hours about Propagandhi and Dillinger Four. Then he told me about The Disenchanted, and also Celebrity Roast.
That was a good one, too. [Those bands] were a big part of the Traffic Violation Records [scene]. Are you familiar with that record label?
No!
Well, a lot of the way that I got into DIY punk was introduced in some way by Traffic Violation Records. The first 7” I ever had was on Traffic Violation, the Striped Basstards/Splurge split. The Basstards later did a split with The Disenchanted. So there's Ben's early work and my introduction to DIY punk - the mail order, obsessive version of it. Like, I used to call Ben on landlines to try to book [The Disenchanted] all the time. I was a true punisher with that shit.
I'm a bit younger than you, so I missed most of the mail order era. But I probably did Asian Man Records mail order once or twice.
Cash mailed in an envelope, right? That's how I probably purchased The Disenchanted 7”. $4.53 in an envelope.
Did [Freezing Cold] make the Don Giovanni connection through Long Island DIY punk stuff, then?
Not necessarily. Angie’s old band had released a record on the label, so she had a relationship with Joe.
Right on. So, I have described your band as if The Weakerthans were really into 90s alternative rock, in a good way. But I feel like there's a lot of variety in there. Did you have a sonic template for yourselves when the band started, or is this just what happened?
I don't know that we had a sonic template, but we definitely knew the history of each other's musical releases and could kind of talk that out. I think we wanted to do something we hadn't done before. I've done bands where I'm doing a lot more yelling and I didn't necessarily want to do that in this band. But I mean, the way you describe it makes complete sense. We're both really into a lot of 90s bands. Leanne definitely is as well. And I mean, Leanne's influence on this new record is large.
Is there any influence in general that you would like to [reveal], or would you rather leave that more ambiguous?
I don't feel like there are particular bands that we’re citing. It'll be more like, “oh, I like the way that this transition works.” It could be something from a Hum song, and it could be something from an Everclear song, oddly enough. Like, “Hey, I heard this Everclear song, and the pattern that they write in just makes sense.” I feel like we've overcome a habit of over-complicating things. I have certainly been in bands where instead of AB-AC, we're doing ABCDEFG, and there's no repeating parts at all. At the time we thought that was the coolest shit ever - and maybe it was! But [now], we're looking at a song and trying to figure out what we like about it before we discuss it as an influence for something.
A way we do a lot of writing is just bringing in a part - I might bring in two or three parts, Leanne might bring in a part, and we'll have five or six things to choose from. There's really no song we have that a person brought the whole thing in. And things are not so delicate that if someone plays something that someone else doesn't like, we can't [express] that. I feel like everybody really likes writing songs with the rest of the people in the band. So if I bring in a part and someone's like, “hey, that's not really for me,” I'm not going to be so upset about it because I want everybody to like everything that we're playing. If we're going to put all this time into this project, we should all be satisfied. I'm lucky that my bandmates contribute amazing parts that would never occur to me in a million years!
It obviously involves a lot of trust in who is writing what part. Do you guys write parts for each other as well?
No.
Does Angie ever come in with a drum beat and then you write around it? I feel that not many bands do that.
We've done that before. There's a song called “Measures” on the album that started with a drum beat. I love writing to drums as the first thing. It's a very cool… “exercise” is the wrong word. But I feel like people that play guitar are very much, you know, “I'm fucking John Denver in my room and I'm putting this whole piece together” (laughs) where instead, you can just write guitar to a beat, and you'll end up writing things you might not have if you were trying to do a singer-songwriter type thing.
I do think that you have a singer-songwriter vibe to your songs, but maybe it's just your voice. Are you the one who writes the lyrics?
Yeah.
Makes sense. Your lyrics come off pretty personal and I think that that works in your favor. But there's a lot of exploration in your sound and I'm assuming that that's because all hands are on deck for the music writing.
Totally.
What's the story with the new LP, Treasure Pool? Where’d you record it, and with who?
We recorded it at Lakehouse Studios in Asbury Park, New Jersey with our friends Eric [Bennett], Marissa [Paternoster], James [Sleeman], and Evan [Rudenjak]. Eric mixed the whole thing, but it was mastered at Sun Room Audio by Dan Coutant. We did it in three sessions - originally, it was going to be an EP. So, we would just record three songs in full, and then come back a little while later and do three more songs. Then we thought we would just have a long EP, like, six songs. Then we realized we were much closer to an LP than we thought, so we went back and wrote three more.
As we were recording, we had the luxury of looking at them in context of a record. “Okay, what should come after this? What could we add to this?” And “what are we repeating if we write another song that sounds like this?” I feel like a lot of songwriters have patterns and things that they go to muscle-memory wise. If your bandmates are paying attention, they’re like, “oh, you already did something that kind of sounded like that. I think you've used that chord one too many times.” So with having stuff already recorded, we had the luxury to do that.
How did the artwork come about?
Leanne was the driving force. They were really into stained glass art for a while. [They] took this piece of stained glass, painted the words on it, then our friend Lauren photographed it. Then Leanne flipped it over, painted the tracklisting on it so you can see through that piece of glass, and photographed that. And then our friend August took the photo that's in there. So a lot of it was really, really done inhouse. It's a lot of friends adding to the fire.
All in the family!
Very much so.
Did you notice a theme to the record at all?
I didn't. Angie pointed out a water theme. At one point, there were a lot of nature metaphors. There's a lot of characters in there, but nature definitely seems to be one. Telling a story that might have nothing to do with nature in itself, but using different natural elements like the woods or the ocean to make the point. I [also] feel like there's some musical themes, but it might be beyond me to explain them.
I mean, you guys cover a lot of ground. But I think what makes a band more cohesive is having everyone's input on everything.
I agree.
You were saying that you were kind of scream-singing before in other bands, and you're not in this band. Did that change the way that you approached lyric writing at all?
No. However, I will say that one thing that I struggle with now is that I have less, or what feels like, less room. Like if you looked at a page of lyrics of my old band, it might be quadruple the length of a Freezing Cold song, just in word count.
You're saying that you used to write more wordy lyrics?
The delivery allowed for it. It might be my lack of creativity, but now it does not feel like the delivery allows for it. When we did the liner notes, I was like, “wow, this is short.” Whereas music I listen to or other music that I've been a part of, the lyric sheet might be the size of a dictionary or something.
**I know what you're saying. Let's get into the songs on Treasure Pool. “Backlight” is the first one I heard, and one night I just had it on repeat. It's so catchy.
Thank you!
You’re a very good three-piece. You have your main riff in “Backlight,” but Leanne really dictates the “chord structure” of the song.
I agree. “Backlight” was one of the last ones we wrote for the record. Leanne actually commented, like, “hey, I don't know that we have an opener on this record.” So we wrote that in the room. I think that we brought in the guitar part and just kind of went from there. When we recorded it, I don't think it was 100% going to be the first song on the album. But, you know, when it's one of the last things you record, you're excited. Lyrically, it was sparked by finding this box of disposable cameras that I hadn't developed, but then [I] started developing these photos. Some of them are like 20 years old. You might go through the photos in your phone and, you know, these are all things that happened in the past week. But when you're looking at these old photos that you haven't seen before - these snapshots of your life - it has a variety of different kicks in the ass. It’s definitely the poppiest song on the album, too. It’s the song we ended most nights with on this tour.
Nice. For “Off Season” - this is the song that reminds me of Hum, except it goes into that acoustic part that overshadows the rest of it for a second…
I'm glad you noticed that acoustic guitar. That's one of my favorite things on the record, because it's the kind of thing that I wouldn't usually think to do. But it's in the same tuning as “Backlight,” except “Backlight” doesn't have those heavy chords. And that gives it some of that Hum or kind of heavier, slower rock vibe.
[Lyrically] It's like a little vignette of trying to find a certain calm. I would like to think that you can close your eyes and picture being at an empty beach town - waking up early, trying to find a little bit of peace and the feelings that go with that.
Do you mess around with a lot of alternate tunings?
On this record there's two tunings we use. “Off Season” is in one open tuning that probably 60% of the record is in.
The open tuning thing surprises me. Treasure Pool isn’t one of those records where every song in the same tuning sounds the same.
Yeah, I think the open tuning becomes apparent when it's more noodly, because your fingers bounce around in the same patterns of what's allowable. But when you're just messing around with different chords, it might be less obvious. We go back and forth a lot, so on tour, I take two guitars.
“Half Static” is the other one where the bass holds down the basis of the song - the skeleton of it, I guess.
This song is dramatically different. Leanne is contributing not only that bassline, but the vocals in those choruses. Before I was talking about something that I would never think of - Leanne's vocal arrangement. If I had written vocals for that part 50 times, this wouldn't have been one of them. And that makes the song, honestly!
It is a dramatic [change]. I wrote down “indie shit” in my notes. (laughs) You kind of jumped from a heavier thing into… I wouldn't say twee, but kind of. It’s cool you guys can do all of that.
Oh, thank you. I was like, “what if we just don't take the chorus effect off?” And I love what my bandmates play. It's about the need for distraction and the lack of comfort that can come with being alone with your own thoughts. As valuable as it can be to be alone with your thoughts, you're always creating a static to allow for yourself not to deal with the stuff that's really important.
100%. Like technology and whatever you're distracting yourself with.
Totally.
Track four is “You Already Know” - this is the one that really made me realize Freezing Cold is kind of a power pop band.
Yeah, it has a power pop feel to it that made us a little hesitant at first, just because it's really on the nose. Then it comes to like, okay, we love the song. It resembles Glimmer, in my opinion - but in a good way. Taking a lot of like the power poppy elements of that album, but adding, you know, a woodwind section at the end too [which is also on the last song of the album]. That's Leanne and Angie.
Oh, really? What are they playing?
Saxophone and clarinet. Being our next door neighbor, did you ever hear woodwinds or anything when we were doing that shit?
I don't think so, but that’s so sick!
It's loud in there, but you probably wouldn’t hear it. Anyway, the two of them just relearned those instruments [Angie played clarinet in high school, and Leanne played saxophone] and recorded them on the album.
On to “Golden.” Is that Leanne singing on the chorus?
Yes.
Tell me about this song.
I feel like we've been on the fence about this song. On this [last] tour, we took it out of our set, put it in our set... There's [keyboard] on it, and for the first time on this tour, we brought a laptop. Angie would press a button [on the laptop] and all of a sudden the keys would play through the PA. Angie taught herself all of the technology things that usually evade us, as people that are very tied to our instruments and resist technology. But I've really come to love this song. It creates a different vibe, especially after the song before it. And that line, “a Band-Aid used as a bookmark” is literally written from using a Band-Aid to mark a spot in a book. Leanne contributed a few of the lyrics as well, which are fantastic and tie a lot of it together. They do a lead vocal part there, and the song flows into “Silhouette,” which takes the song into a bit of a different world.
“Silhouette” being the album’s interlude.
Yeah. During our live set, we've been doing that as well, but playing the recorded version [from the laptop] while we tune up or switch guitars. It’s probably one of the shorter songs on the album, too. Also, “Golden” is the title of the current most popular song in the world, which is a song from K-Pop Demon Hunters.
Moving on to “Eclipse,” tell me about this song. Big rock vibes here.
Yeah, definitely big, big rock vibes. We take it in a lot of different directions, I think, and it's a song that thematically deals with time and uses being lost in the woods as a way to demonstrate time slipping out of your hands or feeling stagnant. Marissa [Paternoster] from Screaming Females, Noun, and Universal Girlfriend plays on the bridge and adds an amazing dynamic to that portion. We're thankful and honored to have that. Marissa was a big part in recording that song at the studio as well.
Going back to The Weakerthans comparison, I noted “descriptive lyrics” for the song “Measures.”
Angie brought this drum part in. Has a bit of an ESG influence - just a really catchy drum beat on its own, made without any other accompaniment around it. It's just like a dancey, good-as-hell part, so you have a very dancey, fun song. It starts with describing the lobby of a therapist's office and untangling things as you're preparing to untangle things and kind of focus on the drifting dust in the room and things like that - the hyper focus on the minutia of something before getting into the big of it.
Man, I should describe a therapist’s office in a lyric at some point. The last time I went and saw a therapist in person, the office carpet reminded me of a church that my grandparents went to in the 90s and kind of smelled like it too. It was the same color, even. What a weird experience.
You have a concept album right there, right? Any small thing. Your therapist’s office has multiple, multiple meanings for sure.
The next song, “Win/Lose,” is like a power pop Springsteen.
I certainly like touching on an Americana vibe. This does that sonically, but also in the storytelling of someone shutting the gates on their small business and the community around that. Some specific images, like the money hanging on the wall with people writing “good luck” on it and taking those things off the wall.
Was it inspired by an actual business?
Not anyone in particular, but largely businesses that are local to me, some of which are still open. It's not a story about a particular person, but more of a story of something that you certainly see and has a tragedy to it. The character in this one is trying to put a bright spin on things. Just like, oh, now they'll have all this free time or whatever, maybe not dealing with the possibility that the whole thing could be in financial ruin.
With a lot of these songs, it sounds like you're singing from a character's perspective.
Even if I'm saying something about my own feelings, I still create my character - the protagonist, if you will.
I can't do that unless there's a real person I'm writing as. So I’m curious, where does that come from for you?
I don't know. I would like to think that as people living in a community, we can relate to one another. I may not relate to what someone is going through every day, but we might have this thing in common that we've been happy before. We might have the thing in common that we've been sad before. The things that made us sad or scared might be entirely different. But if I can say something that's relatable by creating a character, it might make for a better song than me rather than me singing about my day.
It's a rough go of it to hear 11 tracks of like, "here's my day." And that’s not to say people don't do it well, but I don't do it well. I was talking to you about my therapist's office - that could have been any therapist’s office. That could be any person going to a therapist. It doesn't need to be me. But those characters might be based on someone I've met or thought about - I don't know. I don't do a lot of naming people or anything like that.
“The Day,” is actually a really great closer. You were saying earlier, the other instruments are sax and clarinet.
Correct, and keys. Angie and Leanne played keys at different points on the record. I am the only person on the album with the singular boring instrument. (laughs)
Was the song written as a closer?
I think once we started writing it, it showed itself to be the closer. Once we realized that, we were like, “fuck it. Let's make it 4.5 minutes long and have all these different movements to it.” (laughs) That is something that I remember saying. “We'll have movements.” It would be very pretentious for me to pretend to understand orchestral music, because I have no concept of it. But, it’s something that we did there.
It starts with acoustic guitar, which is not something we do often. We had been talking about incorporating woodwinds in some of the songs and it felt natural for it to be there. Then it has this long outro. In the studio, those guitars were so loud! Recording feedback and loud guitars to actually sound loud and distorted is really hard. Like, I've recorded a fair amount in my life. And one thing that I realized is making loudness come across on recording is very hard to do. The loudness of a screeching ass guitar is still going to come through at the same decibel level as if I was singing the ABCs when you put it in your headphones or on your turntable. Eric knew how to do that, though. We had the Hiwatt head, like, screaming.
Right, right.
There's probably like three sentences worth of lyrics, but this song tells a story of people being afraid to leave the safety of their employment because they're tied to their healthcare or… you know. But they don't know how because they're kind of forced by this system that we're a part of to hold on to these benefits for dear life. And that's the song. Then it kind of trails into a long instrumental outro that I really like. I hope that if someone does get to the end of the record, they will indulge us in listening to the end, because I really do like that portion. And I think we recorded it last too, so it really had that final feeling.
Awesome, thanks for explaining all of that. Before we end, what does Freezing Cold have coming up?
We're going to try to play to support the album as much as possible. A big part of that for us was the tour we just did, including our release show at Trans Pecos. Just kind of getting the record out there more. A lot of it's still in the planning phases.
But I think this year will probably be the most Freezing Cold has played out. And we're going to be writing still - I think we're always writing! Maybe we'll do another fun cover or something.
I was later told that Freezing Cold’s fun cover will not be “Golden” from K-Pop Demon Hunters, but it will probably still be really cool.
Listen to them now and go see them on November 7th at the Sultan Room. Purchase Treasure Pool on vinyl via Don Giovanni or at a show.
