HCTF premiere - American Culture: For My Animals

Denver's outsider lo-fi noise rockers American Culture know all about driving around the States to gigs in ill-equipped basements to play another show. They dubbed their fans "animals", not in a degrading but loving way, and wrote a song for them. It became the title track for their third studio album, For My Animals, due for release in March 19th via Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records (vinyl, cassette). Recorded on a 4 track cassette it sounds a bit murky, but that is intentional and part of the charm. Songwriter Chris about how the song was written:

I don’t want to feign modesty here (isn’t put on modesty even more pretentious than bragging?) but this is super hard. Writing about a song I made? It’s always awkward to talk about your own. It’s especially tricky to talk about this stuff because we have a policy in this band (perhaps our ONLY policy) to never think too long, never fuss too hard on a song. If it starts to be labored or over thought, we throw the whole idea out. We might be lazy but we’ve found that the best ones just kind of write themselves. The happy accidental songs are the only keepers here. Our practices are more about finding jams that songs can grow out of. I usually take those loose sketches home and make the poetry part as I’m drifting off to sleep or as I’m waking up from sleep.

I remember trying to really pound on my guitar like Daniel Johnston does when this song was first born. The lyrics, generally, are clearly about just trying to do good even though you’re kind of a fuck up. That’s also why I wanted to record it on a 4 track cassette machine. Like, as hard as you try to be better and polish yourself, you’re still just this fuzzy, wobbly sketch of a thing. Also… listening now… some of these lines… there’s a few inside jokes here. We tour a lot and have developed a very delirious kind of sense of humor with one another. If you’ve ever spent too much time in a van with your friends you know what I mean. I’ll throw in little inside jokes about tour at practice or even at shows just to make the band laugh. Anyone who has done much DIY touring knows the agony of staying with a punisher. Some drunk dude begged you to come over and stay with him and then proceeds to keep bright lights on and read you his poetry (or play you his pro-tools mixes) all night. Always good for a laugh the next day though. But yeah… I just want to be good enough for my dogs. They’re perfect.

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