The Bronx: Choose Your Own Agenda

"I don't know if it's a good or bad thing, but we're not really ‘planners'," says the Bronx's guitarist Joby Ford. "Being in two bands I think has its p...

"I don't know if it's a good or bad thing, but we're not really ‘planners'," says the Bronx's guitarist Joby Ford. "Being in two bands I think has its plusses and minuses, but probably one of the plusses is being able to step away from something for a little bit and focus on a completely different style." The Bronx are back. For the last four years, the band's minds have been elsewhere, making an album and touring under the guise of their Charro-outfitted alter-egos Mariachi El Bronx. They put a shift in crafting tunes around rhythmic guitars and bright horn sections, not particularly troubled by thoughts of when they'd change gears again. Mariachi El Bronx was made to help them ward off creative stalls and keep things running smoothly, and after ‘Bronx IV' their second project did just that. Then, sometime last year, the balance began to shift. Now, The Bronx are ready to step back into the hardcore ring and do some damage. "You get a lot of energy from going back from one band to the other. After spending a ton of time with El Bronx and doing a bunch of shows and writing a bunch of music it always feels good to go back to Bronx and make a badass record, and let out some aggression," notes vocalist Matt Caughthran. "They definitely feed each other that way." The lighter, more optimistic project fuels the fire of the Bronx's rage, and after their time away they had plenty of furious energy in reserve. This time, though, the record felt a little different. While their new album ‘V' is as sharp as ever, it's also a swirling mass of lyrical themes and sonic influences that can be difficult to pick apart - even to the band themselves. Since Joby is a graphic designer by trade, the band have always done their album art in-house, and each cover is more or less an exact match to what he hears on the record. So when it came time to design his latest piece, Joby realised things had shifted. "I'm more of a graphic guy than a fine artist, but this album I broke out my art supplies, which I haven't done for a long time. The sounds on this record, I didn't want to do a graphic thing, and so I used alcohol inks – it's just pigment mixed with alcohol, so it evaporates fast and kind of blends," he explains. "The songs and the process conjure up this idea in my head, and I didn't want super clean lines."

"Every time I pop something open on my phone I think the world's gonna end."

In the Bronx's own thousand-word picture, ‘V' isn't exactly clear-cut. But then, neither is anything else these days. "I guess that's our lives; things are bleeding into each other now. Everything is smearing into everything." Joby considers. "It's just constant. I kind of stopped looking at the internet. Every time I pop something open on my phone I think the world's gonna end." ‘V' encapsulates the mess of life in 2017 – the constant barrage of bad news and worse people, endless iPhone notifications and news updates. In the past, the Bronx have aimed their anger at the state of music, older punks losing their edge, or the instability of the future. But this isn't an ‘old man yells at cloud' type of deal. The Bronx use anger to move past the things that bite. To stand up again. ‘V' sees the band widen their scope of their rage, but what are they pushing back against these days? Matt considers this for a moment. "Politics is one of them. Depression is another one; religion is yet another one. And just shitty people in general, you know?" he decides. "Those are the four main offenders." "Hating the fact that no one can get along," Joby adds. "That's probably the general disgust. The world is just insane to me. Maybe it's the fact that we're older and we're just more focused on all of the things that are happening. No matter if you want it to or not, I think that your surroundings or the things that you put into your eyes or ears do affect what comes out of your hands or voice." Still, Matt is careful to point out that The Bronx have no interest in making other people's minds up for them. They're the vessel, a conduit for anger and confusion. "I've never been one to get on the soapbox and say what's right or wrong, because that's one of the major problems I had with religion growing up. Everybody deciding who was right and who was wrong, who's going to heaven and who's going to hell," he says. "I'm not trying to tell anybody how to vote or how to live their life, but things are pretty fucked up right now. "It's definitely a time to use your brain and to arrive at your own conclusion of how you want to believe and how you want to move forward. That's what this record is all about. It's a weird place in the States right now. But it's a good time to make music; it's a good time to bury yourself in electric guitar and feedback and scream your face off." Joby agrees. "It's a politically charged time, and so I think thirty years from now, forty years from now, people will look back on this period of music, and there'll be a common thread," he says. "A lot of... I don't want to say protest songs, but people are just being like, ‘What the fuck'." He laughs, a little bit bewildered at humanity's ability to make a mess of things. ‘V' is the Bronx trying to make sense of that chaos, while championing what they believe is worth fighting for. In a time of anger and upheaval, the album is their immovable object in the face of the world's unstoppable force. "It is a form of resistance," Matt decides. "It's also a statement that this isn't gonna stop us. It's about being proud of what you do and who you are, and where you wanna go to. It's about your own agenda. It means a lot, man. We had to fight hard for this one. The Bronx personally have gone through a lot in the last couple years, so this record is us in the trenches fighting for what we believe in." While both Matt and Joby are happy to note that the actual process of writing and recording ‘V' was smoother than ever, outside of their music the band faced their share of obstacles. "Personally I went through some hard times with my own mental health, and it's something that I think you have to be proud of fighting through," says Matt. "You have to make it matter, otherwise, it'll weigh you down."

"To write about putting a gun in your mouth and doing all that shit, it's liberating."

Recent single ‘Sore Throat' directly deals with this struggle, capturing a manic mind as it unravels. Despite lyrics like "send me an angel", ‘Sore Throat' isn't what you'd call a cry for help. It is the help. The Bronx are coming out swinging. "It helps me to write through it. It helps me to put anger in it, you know? Honestly." says Matt. "I feel relieved to be able to talk about stuff like suicide, because it helps me put a leash on it. It helps me control it. "For me, that's where I believe in punk rock. Growing up that's what drew me to punk music, and that's what I fell in love with. It was always super raw and real. There's a certain sort of power that comes from that confrontation. That's what I believe in," he adds firmly. "So for me, being able to write about putting a gun in your mouth and doing all that shit, it's liberating. A song like ‘Sore Throat' is badass because it's just fucking in your face, there's no bullshit involved with it. There's no fucking theory; there's no therapist, there's no nothing. It's just pure rage. That's the place where I think you can draw a lot of power from, that you're able to control it." This year, with the loss of both Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington, this semblance of control has felt all the more valuable. The Bronx know the weight of their work, and they aren't about to take it for granted. Matt's making sure of that. "Life is a heavy thing. It's a heavy, heavy thing. It's beautiful, but it's also very fucking intense and very fucking heavy. It's something that I find empowering to take head on and write about, and try to smash it," he says. Taken from the October issue of Upset, out now. The Bronx' album 'V' is out now.

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