An indie gem, a commanding catharsis, and a humorous horror movie music video. These are chapters of Smut’s brand new album Tomorrow Comes Crashing. While Tay Roebuck and the new Smut lineup maintain the DIY ethos that their music has charmed music-junkies far and wide since their debut, their latest effort is a fine-polished victory that boasts a chaotic process that feeds the album a harder, faster, more punk sound.
The album featured a lot of first for the band. First time with new producer Aron Kobayashi Ritch in Brooklyn, a quick turn-around of two weeks for the recording, two new members in the band, and all of this was on top of both Tay and Andie of the band getting engaged/planning a wedding/and getting married two weeks before the musical retreat.
It is this physical chaos, the mental stress and ups and downs that fight their way into the album. A tension builds and builds with Tay’s haunting shrieks. Her vocals wafter up and down if only to give us time to breathe.
But it ends not with a bang, but with a whimper. Two softer songs, “Spit” and “Sunset Hymnal” give an emotional release that lingers way after the record stops spinning.
In an interview with lead vocalist Tay Roebuck, she talks about the frustration in the album especially in the lead single “Syd Sweeney” named after Euphoria actress Sydney Sweeney as well as the hectic process of putting the new album together and the emotion that went into it.
Smut are Tay Roebuck, Andie Min, John Steiner, Sam Ruschman, and Aidan O’Connor. Their newest album Tomorrow Comes Crashing is out now via Bayonet Records.
This interview was done via Zoom and was edited for clarity and length.
Antonio Villaseñor-Baca: How are you feeling [about the album release]?
Taylor Roebuck: Very excited. I feel like a lot of writing music is creating, hurrying up and then waiting for it to happen, you know? So I feel like it’s exciting that we recorded it last year and now it finally gets to be released and we’re just really proud of all the songs. I’m excited to be able to play them for people.
Tell me a little bit about the process of this album. A new lineup and a very quick turnaround in terms of the recording process that was not even done in Chicago; can you talk a little bit
about that and on top of that you recently got married?
Yes, me and Andy are married.
Congrats! Tell me a little bit about all these changes going into making a new album and the quick turnaround period for it.
Yeah, it was really chaotic. We started writing this album with our new drummer, Aidan. And we had our old bass player in the band while we wrote the first couple songs, and then she left the band. And it was awesome because Aiden played a couple practices with us and filled in for a show and we all were like, ‘he’s perfect’. But once John joined the band, it felt like the rhythm sections sort of reignited our excitement. And then it was just absolutely hammering out songs, one after the other, because we all were excited and felt refreshed having these two people who work really well together as the rhythm section. And during all of that, Andy proposed, so then we were also planning a wedding on top of everything, which me, Andy, and like my sister really did most of it ourselves building things; and we did it in a relative’s backyard.
It felt like all of our hands were on everything. The band was at the wedding party so it was crazy and exciting to all meet up for the wedding, then all drive back to Chicago the next day to go to work for two weeks, and then just drive to New York to start recording the album. We joked about how that was kind of like a really weird honeymoon to have to be like ‘all right let’s go sleep on a floor with all of our friends for two weeks and just crank out these tunes.’ But it was awesome. I felt like that sort of happy exhaustion lent itself well to recording. And we also got to meet Aron (Kobayashi Ritch) who produced the album in that period of time. Everything together really felt like this perfect mix of a lot of emotions and a lot of stress and a lot of work that hopefully paid off.
That’s really funny. Like the one thing I kept seeing like everywhere is the main ethos for Smut is the DIY aspect. The wedding sounded very DIY putting all of this together with that turn-around too, so that seems kind of kismet.
Yeah, it all is who we are, I think.
With such a quick turnaround for the album but also so quickly after getting married, having new members in the band, was there a sense of newness? Is there something that felt like charting new waters when it came to making the album this time? And /or did the context of how fast and in which you were making the album, did that change the music when you were in the recording studio and putting the album together?
I think that’s a good question; for us I felt like it was that sort of chaos that led the album to sound the way it does because it was like a very transformative. Like, you’re right, so many things were changing. And that, in a sense, is what is all over the record in my mind. I feel like lyrically there’s a lot of looking back at the past, looking at the present, hoping for the future- just bouncing back and forth and every emotion, negative or positive that we were feeling was immediately getting put into the music because of how quickly it was being turned around. I think that’s why there’s this balance through the album of stuff that sounds pretty and stuff that sounds happy and then I’m like screaming my head off the next song over because it was just a really emotional time. I think all of that together leading up to recording felt cathartic when we finally got to record it, like every member of the band really poured in their heart out on every take of every song. It felt good, but catharsis can feel good and it can also feel really scary. We were just crossing our fingers and hoping that it doesn’t sound like we’re insane at the end.
You mentioned the lyrics and this is something that I really wanted to focus on. The song itself, the music video, I love that it has this almost dorky, almost campy, but like horror movie vibe. You’ve said that it’s taking the perspective of a woman that was misunderstood, or about being a woman and being misunderstood. Can you talk a little bit about the significance and the power of that song in the album?
Yeah, so “Syd Sweeney” is directly inspired by the actress. I just felt like she was the latest-at the time of writing it- in a long line of female entertainers who exist in this very strange pattern where it’s like the new hot thing and everyone puts them up really high on a pedestal. And yeah, they’re an artist. They’re creative. They’re doing their job. They’re working and it’s almost like this weird switch flips off as soon as they can be seen as a sexy character and they just start getting ripped down and torn apart. It was this really weird idea of frustration as a woman in entertainment. I think a lot of women and people in general can relate to this; it’s weird to try really hard to be good at something and then the thing that you’re creating is not what people even care about. It’s how you look or how you’re presenting it, like the dressing of it, the aesthetics of something. And when you’re working really hard to make art, you have to get over this idea that people are just going to be able to absorb the art without judgment. I don’t know.
I just felt like there’s a very self-conscious thing in being a female musician and I was frustrated because I don’t want to worry about the way I look, I just want to sing the song and let people feel the feeling and I’ve always had kind of a beef with the need to be aesthetic in a way.
It’s just, it’s scary to be vulnerable in that way and to voice that frustration, and also to exist as a woman in music, and know that as soon as you put your art out there you are opening yourself up to criticism on the stuff you make. But who you are as a person, the way you look, everything about you is now open season for people to judge you. And it’s such a scary idea that I was like, ‘yeah, horror movie. It’s gotta be a horror movie for the music video.’ And it is campy and it’s fun. We were having a blast. But I also think that the underlying tension of the song is still there.
Oh, yeah, no, 100%. I think it shifts in and give it another layer of the song itself. I do think it’s perfect, not just Sydney Sweeney right now, but all the actors that would kind of encapsulate that but also I mean she’s like so famous for that like scene in Euphoria where she’s like about to scream and I love the way you described that because I remember having one of those conversations and at the time she was like what the fourth main character on that show and the conversation just ended up mutating very grossly…
Yeah, where it’s like she’s a character on a show and I mean, I’ll say it, it’s the moment her boobs are out. Suddenly, everyone’s got an opinion and absolutely like hates her guts or like is like really way too into her. And it’s like she’s just acting, she’s doing her job. And yeah, you can see she’s in a sexual scene, but that doesn’t make her suddenly not a person, you know?
I remember it turned into like people started like asking her about her family like way too much. Genius marketing move, but now that she’s selling those soaps with like infused with her bathwater, I wonder if there’s a note of irony that you feel not necessarily with the song, but doing a deep dive into the lyrics from the album, you have the line: “She tried it all and climbs the ladders / Acts her heart out, split in shatters / Connects to the youth and the girls in the water”.
Yeah, that I could not have guessed in a million years, but that’s hilarious. I actually I’ve never made that connection but that’s really funny. I kind of just meant like the reflection of self, like
seeing yourself and other people but I mean she did make that bathwater. That’s true and you know what? People are mad about stuff like that. I’m just like, let her do what she wants. Who’s she hurting if some freak wants to buy that soap. Go ahead.
So I think that frustration was so precariously carried throughout the album. It was so important to a lot of the songs, but there was also so much contrast and I think that’s part of what is so unique or what I loved so much about your voice and your vocals on the album. The final two songs, they kind of stood alone on their own and seemed to have a little bit of a conversation on their own. Can you talk first about the contrast? Why have these very soft moments instead of just you know piling on with screams and anger? What is the lyrical “I”? and what were you trying to show with this?
With our music, I do write very emotionally. We could write a lot of just pretty and soft songs. We could write just a lot of really heavy songs. But I wanted to be very emotionally honest on the album and it feels to me like I like the dynamics of all these emotions being true at once. Yeah, some days and on some journeys and especially when a lot of what we were writing about was being a band. You have really good days and you have really bad days. If you are on a tour, you might have the most peaceful morning of your life, and then the car breaks down, and it’s the worst day of your life, and then you play a show, and then there’s a triumphant feeling. And I just wanted the dynamics of an emotional life to be represented. There’s a lot of embarrassment and vulnerability in making music.
And I had to think about if I’m feeling a specific feeling, it is universal because I think all feelings are felt by everyone at different points. If I’m feeling really like bitter and jealous and ugly feelings, I can and should write a song like that because someone will be able to relate to that and find solidarity in those feelings. So for the album, for me, I really wanted to express all the emotions that I could. And hopefully it takes a sort of journey through the album, that dynamic shift of having like your high moments, and your low moments, and your quiet moments, and your loud moments. That was like a really big thing we wanted to focus on.
Right on. I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but for the first several tracks of the album I get a very rolling-with-the-punches type of vibe like “hey this this is what’s going on and it sucks” but it’s like reaching the hand out for the listener. And the last two songs, it felt like a letting go.
Yeah. No, I would totally agree.
Why let go at the end? And what are we letting go of?
I feel like that’s a really good observation. First, thank you for being very insightful about this album. I don’t know, I feel like the album has a lot of push and pull. We are going to do it as long as we’re having fun and then yeah juxtaposed with the end, where with “Spit” I’m the angriest I am on the entire album and that felt like a good resolution of ‘Who am I kidding?’ Sometimes it feels insane and I’m pissed off that the struggle is sometimes a lot to bear. And then it’s sort of like throwing a tantrum in a way where you’ve had enough, you’re throwing your fit, and then “Sunset Hymnal” starts. And to me, it’s sort of like a release and acceptance of being, and that’s like the end of the day. You can’t do anything about it, and not in a negative or pessimistic way, but just like the catharsis and the expression of getting it all out is very freeing and, to me, “Sunset Hymnal” is a very freeing type of song. That’s my favorite song on the album right now. I think it really just like soars at the end and to me it’s accepting but is accepting that things might be okay as well.
And it’s so interesting because I got the press releases and it was so easy to like snap back into the automatic framework of this as the the post-wedding album. This is the Smut version of/or Tay’s version of the love song. And it was like, ‘well, yeah, if it is about that, it wouldn’t be about letting go.’ But even the name of the album (Tomorrow Comes Crashing) is almost the same thing, inquisitively looking forward to the future.
Yeah. Andy came up with the album title and I don’t know we all just felt like it was perfect because similar to a lot of things on the album, you can read it a lot of different ways where it could be optimistic; yeah, tomorrow’s gonna come crashing and tomorrow in a big exciting way could but also I don’t want tomorrow to come crashing. I feel like there’s a lot of different ways you could just view. It could be sad, happy, angry, it could be nervous but no matter what it’s chaotic. I feel like crashing as a verb is violent so it’s like ‘ready or not like tomorrow’s coming whether you like it or don’t.’ For us, it really fits the way the album sounds to me where it’s a hopeful kind of chaos, which is all we can feel right now.
By Antonio Villaseñor-Baca.