Chicago-born Alkaline Trio frontman Matt Skiba met Joe Steinbrick years ago at the rock venue ‘Fireside Ball’ (in Chicago) whilst Steinbrick’s previous band, F-Minus, was in town recording. A short flight between cities, and with loads of mutual friends, the guys would hang out whilst touring and during time off. Although it was not until Skiba eventually moved to Los Angeles two years ago that the band Heavens was conceived. Saving money and consequently sharing a house paid off for these musicians. One afternoon Steinbrick played a couple of soundscapes he had created for Skiba, and the rest, as we’re told, is history.
This can’t be true; it can’t be so simple and easy; or can it? It turns out the story of Heavens is. Skiba comments “The initial idea of it came together really fast but as we started to make a record and more songs were written it got a little more involved. We wrote it over about a years time”. He adds however, “The front of the record, about six or seven songs were written really fast”, once he had heard those original soundscapes, so within a matter of days. It makes you think (and possibly feel a little jealous) that those soundscapes and Skiba’s songwriting talents must be pretty impressive, having heard Heavens’ debut album Patent Pending along with their other projects, it can be deduced both men are exceptionally gifted musicians.
Heavens was developing just as an Alkaline Trio tour was about to take place, so Skiba wrote the rest of the tracks whilst he was on tour. When queried, he remains confident that he was easily able to keep both bands separate due to the Steinbrick’s amazing tunes and that his vision of Heavens has not changed since day one. With both artists being in successful bands (Steinbrick plays in Thieves Like Us), the album, which was wholly self-funded, took about two years to come to fruition.
Patent Pending is enchanting. The combination of Skiba’s eccentric, heart-rending lyrics and intense Sisters Of Mercy-esque vocals, Steinbrick’s minimalist instrumentation and the additional production generates a sound that has the potential to affect you corporeally. Skiba describes Heavens’ sound and his lyrics by saying that “I think people enjoy being miserable a little bit, just like people like being scared a little bit. It’s a similar thing to any emotion you feel; you like to feel alive. I wouldn’t say any of the lyrics are introspective, I think if anything they’re very violent. Some things are more symbolic than others. It’s written from my mind by left from my heart. To me it’s more like storytelling and I think it’s always nice to have a back beat and something people can dance to.”
When further queried about the passionate lyrics along with the intermittent odd syntax (in lyrics such as ‘My knife wants to hide, deep inside of you’ from ‘Counting) Skiba states that the structure of the sentences are not intentional but rather he likes to “try and write something that’s interesting and puts someone in a certain place”.
Heavens’ sound emerges as Art Punk due to the emphasis on the experimental yet also the minimalist, akin to that of Television, or the band Skiba’s been listening to non-stop for months, Talking Heads. Patent Pending is in essence a haunting rock album. Songs such as ‘Patent Pending’ and ‘Counting’ have a traditional punk rock drilling energy to them, whereas ‘Heather’ and ‘Dead End Girl’ differ completely with layers of instrumentation and consequently possess a modern, romantic ambiance to them.
Skiba couldn’t be more flattered when I list the comparisons Heavens has drawn, from Joy Division to Sisters of Mercy. He additionally believes Interpol are a tremendously good act and is grateful for the comparison to his contemporaries. Along with drawing inspiration from the aforementioned bands Television and Talking Heads, Brian Eno also gets a mention. A contemporary (besides band mates and friends) that inspires Skiba vastly is Peaches. Having seen her perform recently, he was stirring with excitement down the other end of the phone when he told me he got to meet her and “I told her she should win a Grammy for the (album) title Impeach My Bush”. Apparently she agreed.
After such lengthy discussion about the lyrics and sounds, I was curious as to how and why Skiba believed Heavens was an apt name for this new band. He replies; “Initially the band was called The G.O.D., an acronym for The Garden of Earthly Delights” (a 1504 Dutch triptych), the Bosch painting but it turns out there were bands called G.O.D. As it turned out Joe (Steinbrick) kinda grew the sound around the name” and Heavens was the next option. Skiba revealed that his reading of this particular artwork inspired the first track ‘Gardens’. For example, the lyrics ‘This garden’s growing hunger like your growing fly trap smile… We do or kill most anyone to be… Blood drops from the sky like acid rain’ undoubtedly refers to Hell presented in the triptych in the third panel.
The album title Patent Pending came from one of the lyrics in which Steinbrick’s wife, who will be playing with Heavens live, believed reflected their form and style of art. The live line-up will mainly comprise of Steinbrick’s band mates from Thieves Like Us, along with a few relatively new musicians.
With an obvious passion for visual arts, I asked Skiba to elaborate upon Patent Pending’s cover art. For Skiba and Steinbrick , “The artwork is definitely really important to us. It’s also really hard because it’s so important, it’s like the music, it’s hard to step outside of it and see it from a different point of view. We want the cover to be right because it’s representing something you’ve worked on for so long”. Specifically, regarding the faces and the darkness of the image on the cover, “The line in the song ‘Patent Pending’ talks about a guillotine and if you look at the reflection it strikes me as looking like the heads are coming out of gallows and it’s kind of a ghostly image and I think that that’s representative of the band”. So what do you think? Have a listen to the album whilst viewing The Garden of Earthly Delights, and see what makes Skiba and Steinbrick tick.
