The title track relates the sentiment that no matter how honestly you interact with the world it can still work against you, but Pug points out it isn’t totally downbeat. “In the lyrical coda of that song there is a little bit of transcendence from the weight of things earlier in the song itself.” In this coda he repeats the phrase “I don’t want to care about it anymore,” indicating that adamant dismissal must be made of bad times to become free from them. When speaking from a negative perspective a writer has to be careful not to fall into a self-involved grumble. Pug proposes that making creative interpretation of personal worries can itself be a transformative process.
“I can sit down and listen to an entire Elliott Smith album and I think a lot of people listen to that and say ‘Oh man it’s really gloomy songs,’ but I never heard his songs like that. I think just the very act of writing a song about it himself is a small exercise in mastering that feeling, or having some control that he might not have in everyday life.”
The record’s narrative outlook begins to open up with Ours; a determined pledge to create a better future rather than be distressed by past afflictions. Interestingly, Pug reveals this song was a last minute addition and very potentially might never have existed. “Normally when we go in for an album I really like to have everything completely written before we get there. We did sessions for about three weeks, which was the goal in recording. We recorded and we mixed all the songs and we still felt like the album wasn’t done yet. We knew that it needed something and so I really had to work and work, and nothing was coming. Then one night, I was getting ready to go to bed, I had this idea which ended up becoming Ours.”
The sunnier aspect of this song could be a reflection of its chance conception and the subsequent ease with which it was recorded. “I wrote it very quickly and we went in later that week and recorded it. And it also recorded itself,” Pug says with a touch of surprise, elaborating, “It was just a few takes, where the other songs took a bunch of takes. Everyone seemed to instinctively know where they needed to be on that one and it ended up tying together the album really nicely.”
Despite the apparent strategic structuring of The Great Despiser, Pug explains that the character-driven thematic evolution was not something he set out to achieve. “I’m always surprised at finding what a coherent thing that certain characters worry about is. I certainly didn’t set out to write a record with any coherence. I just wanted to write ten good songs.”
Pug inhabits characters in a number of his songs and this narrative ploy allows for an extension of subject matter, leading to insights that otherwise may not have been reached.
However he confirms that the emotional substance of his songs is always a product of experience. “I’m not gifted enough of a writer at this point to write about emotions that I haven’t been through myself. I’d say that everything I’ve written up until this point I’ve been through them one way or another.”
Joe Pug’s music incorporates elements of folk balladry and traditional country and can be classed among the categories Americana, alt-country and heartland folk. Pug explains he has to moderate the music he listens to because whatever he pays attention to often inadvertently reappears in his own writing. “I really feel like whatever comes in one ear, for better or for worse with the way that I am, is going to come out of my mouth or come out of my pen eventually. So I’m very careful. I don’t like to just toss on an album out of nowhere because if it’s shitty and I listen to the whole thing I’m going to vomit that out at some point.”
His selective listening practice is a contrast to the common indecisive ‘all songs on shuffle’ default induced by digital media players. Pug does listen to a lot of music but he maintains that it must be regulated to be beneficial for his artistic fortunes.
“I really try to curate what I listen to because I know it’s eventually going to become grease to the mill for my own projects. That being said, you know, I listen to people all over the scope of American music. I’d like to think that the parts that I find inspiring or moving enter into my music.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
