Posted: by The Alt Editing Staff
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On Friday, PONY will release their third LP. Clearly Cursed is their brashest, most confident album yet; all throughout the hooks and melodies feel natural, as though they’re half-remembered from childhood car rides, and these songs represent PONY’s tightest embrace yet of electronic elements. The core duo of vocalist/keyboardist Sam Bielanski and guitarist/keyboardist Matty Morand push their songwriting to its farthest edges; the subdued dance-pop of “Brilliant Blue” is worlds away from anything they’d done before, and the snotty “Hot and Mean” is the most abrasive song PONY’s put out in years (not to mention one of the catchiest). Bielanski’s never sounded better (compare the vocal runs on the back to back “Blame Me” and “Clearly Cursed” for proof), and Morand lays down some of the band’s best riffs all across Clearly Cursed, occasionally drifting into Kevin Shields territory. It’s another massive step forward for PONY, and we spoke to Bielanski and Morand about the making of Clearly Cursed.
In press materials, you have said that Clearly Cursed was a bit more collaborative than previous PONY albums.
Matty Morand: The people who played on the record have played in the band since 2021, but this is the first recording they’ve done with us. Joey [Ginaldi], who plays drums, was newer to the band. PONY functions like a basketball team. We’ve got starters and bench players, and we’ve got starters now.
You’ve said before that, while working on Velveteen, the song “Who’s Calling” was the one that unlocked what that album would be. Did you have a similar experience with any of the songs for this one?
Morand: We recorded in two chunks. The first was “Freezer” and “Every Little Crumb,” and for me “Freezer” was the one that set the tone. It maintains the heavy guitars and drums, but we mix in the synth parts and the drum machine alternating in and out. The electronics blend with the traditional PONY vibe.
Is that why those two were the first ones out?
Sam Bielanski: At the time, we wanted to get back into the studio and get the dust off, and to release stuff before the tours we had coming up. Those were the most realized demos, and they were the ones that our collaborators would have an easier time with. There were less blanks to fill in.
Out of the songs left on the album, which are you most excited for people to hear?
Bielanski: “Clearly Cursed.” It’s a jangly little pop rock song, and I’m also excited to hear “Brilliant Blue.” “Sunny Something,” too. It’s hard to pick! It was hard to pick singles.
Morand: I think my favorite is “Hot and Mean.” It’s always stuck in my head.
So everything but “Blame Me!”
Morand: That’s the one that we got hung up on the most.
Bielanski: We changed it so many times.
Morand: The demo is quite different.
Is that normal for you guys?
Bielanski: No, the way that one changed isn’t. We’ll start with a verse and chorus and set it aside to write a bridge, but the verses changed. The chorus changed. How long the verses were changed! I changed the melodies. I changed the bridge!
What was it about that one that was so tricky?
Morand: I know a song is working if I’m singing it around the house. That was one, but the question was how to make that element as strong as it can be.
Bielanski: My hesitation was that I didn’t want it to be a rock song. I didn’t want a butt rock song, a dad-style song! I was worried it was going that way so many times. Now I like it, but you have to just keep beating it until it works. A lot of people would quit, I think.
Morand: We did have others, but we kept coming back to it.
Bielanski: I was ready to scrap it, but Christian [Beale] and Joey said it was their favorite, so we had to keep it.
Morand: What was once the prechorus became the bridge, and then it kept switching up. We initially wanted to write a Sheryl Crow song.
Primarily your influences seem to be, whenever you talk about them, Sheryl Crow-era.
Bielanski: That’s when I grew up. I get a lot of inspiration from films, so a lot of what I wrote lends itself to that sort of thing. But we like all sorts of stuff.
Morand: I used to be resentful of the ’90s comparisons we get. Why is it always Veruca Salt? But our drummer Joey, who’s younger than us, made us a playlist of stuff, all sorts of stuff. All the things we like on there is the ’90s stuff.
Seeing the tours you’ve been on, there’s pretty much no other bands who ever sound like you guys. Do you intentionally try to push outside the box you tend to be put into, or is this just the way things shake out?
Bielanski: We’d absolutely love to tour with bands that are in our world, but that’s never been offered to us. We’re almost always the fish out of water band.
Morand: Usually on a hardcore show!
Bielanski: We love it. Touring with Drug Church and Modern Color was life-changing! It’s not a choice we make, but we’re grateful. It’s awesome, because it ends up shaping how we approach music, I think. Playing with bands that don’t sound like you makes you better.
Morand: Live music’s supposed to be exciting, and you’re supposed to be swept up in the moment. Indie rock bands, I think, don’t always do that. I want people jumping around. If I see a band and you sound just like the record, why? I’ve got the record at home, and I’ve got a couch at home.
Bielanski: When you get fans from it, too, you know you left your pussy out on the stage. Playing with Drug Church felt like we were earning the fans. We had to work for it. That was fun for me.
Morand: And that is real shit. Those people are diehard music fans, and they’ll ride for you.
So it sounds like people react really well to it.
Bielanski: I think so. We’ve never really toured with bands in the same wheelhouse, but we’d look forward to it.
Morand: The bands who sound like us are cowards. They won’t take out a real rocker.
I think the shift from TV Baby to now, it nearly sounds like a new band. Velveteen is a nice bridge, but you’ve come quite far. Was there an intention to move away from the style of the earlier stuff, or was it more natural?
Bielanski: I think largely we just write what we write. One thing we try to do is always try something new and move out of our comfort zone. Whether that’s listening to different stuff or just practicing differently, it’ll trickle into what we’re writing. We also dedicated ourselves to learning more about production. Making TV Baby, a song was just drums, bass, guitar, vocals. I tried to write the synth parts for that, and I didn’t even know what I was doing.
Morand: It was truly humbling.
Bielanski: I tried to do it. I could not do it! Since then, we’ve spent hours locked in our rooms and learning how to produce, how to play synth, how to edit drums. We’re always learning, always growing.
Morand: I think we’ve gotten better at just realizing our vision. I think the world of PONY was a lot smaller then, too, because of our skills and experiences. We’d write those songs together after Sam brought in a vocal part. The first time you’d really hear the song was in the studio. Every song on Clearly Cursed had at least three stages of demoing. Some of these songs, for the first time, are instrumentals I wrote that Sam’s singing on. We got better at doing what we wanted.
Bielanski: We also realized you don’t have to fit the industry standard. A lot of our demos, things in there, made it onto the record. Some of it is apple loops chopped up and put through filters.
Morand: There’s one apple loop, I think, that made it on.
What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned since PONY began?
Bielanski: I learned to ask for what I want without being afraid of being annoying. I want it to be good, to be perfect, and a lot of the time I’d have a room of guys saying it’s fine.
Morand: Not me!
Bielanski: Not Matty! But I’d be too scared to say I didn’t like something. I’ve learned to advocate for myself and my art more.
Morand: Yeah, I’ve learned not to settle. In the past it’s just been that a song is done, and it’s done. But now, how can you elevate a song?
Bielanski: Yeah, we’ll get the mixes back and rerecord parts. We’re so annoying! But the end result is better for it.
Sam, what’s your favorite of Matty’s contributions to the album?
Bielanski: Honestly, the song “Clearly Cursed.” Matty wrote it, and I sang over the instrumental. I heard that and I thought I need it! It’s so much fun. Matty’s my favorite guitar player. Matty writes the most beautiful melodies!
Matty, what’s your favorite of Sam’s contributions?
Morand: I’ve said this forever: Sam is one of the best songwriting currently existing. The lyrics, the melodies, the harmonies on this record, that’s a rare talent. We’d just listen to the vocal stack in the studio and wonder how you’d even come up with it. That last chorus of “Hot and Mean,” the harmonies, I’m in love with it. It’s some Brian Wilson shit!
Starting with Velveteen, Sam, you mentioned that you began looking to movies and books and TV for inspiration more than your own life. Was that a one-off experiment, or did you continue with that approach here?
Bielanski: I did like that way of writing. It felt like an easier way to write at the time, but when playing live I didn’t connect with those songs. I didn’t feel like I was honest. It was more like I was in a musical. I tried to do the opposite for this record, but I still tried to find inspiration in new ways so I didn’t just trudge up traumas. “Brilliant Blue” was named after this ingredient I kept seeing on blueberry bottles at work. “Swallowing Stars” is a personal song, but I lifted that from a book I read as a kid. This cowgirl Rosie was sipping spiders, and I didn’t realize that was a drink from New Zealand, so I said that if she can sip spiders then I can swallow stars. It’s different now. I try to be more personal, because it’s more fun live, but I look for inspiration in nonconventional ways.
Morand: Books and movies still come in through the visuals. We do everything, everything but the mixing.
I didn’t realize you had complete creative control. What’s the most fun part of that?
Bielanski: If it doesn’t go our way you get so pissed off.
Morand: You can’t blame a photographer for fucking up!
Bielanski: We’re good at pivoting now, though.
Morand: We did new press photos a few days ago. We put the camera on the tripod, put up the lights, and then went to the computer and realized they sucked! So we did it again.
Bielanski: I love making the videos. I know in my head how the song should look, and I’m a control freak, so it’d be hard to let someone else do it.
The big star costume from the “Superglue” video I love.
Bielanski: Thank you. I made that.
I know you wrote “Sucker Punch” about the Sopranos episode “Pine Barrens.” Have you finished that show by now?
Morand: No!
Bielanski: I do want to, and I loved it, but it’s meant to be watched one episode a week. You can’t watch two a day. It’s too violent and too traumatizing. We were eating dinner and watching it but I had to take a break. We haven’t gone back.
Morand: It’s heavy.
Bielanski: It’s not made for the way we watch TV now.
Do you know how it ends?
Bielanski: No!
Morand: Kind of.
I saw that you had to postpone your Star 99 tour. Is that an issue you’ve had to deal with in the past or is that due to recent events?
Morand: It’s a change in the system. We applied for visas in May. It was a 90-day wait time. Now the site says it’ll take nine months. The visa lasts for a year at most, and you need to have shows booked by then. That’s just crazy. We’ll need to learn European.
Is there anything else that US-based PONY fans have to look forward to?
Morand: An announcement pending. We’ll be back!
Bielanski: One way or another.
Morand: We love our American fans. We were embraced there before anywhere else.
What do you want fans to take away from Clearly Cursed?
Bielanski: I want this to be a companion for people. I want people to feel like it’s okay to deal with their nasty feelings.
If you were to go back to the Sam and Matty working on TV Baby and play this album for them and tell them this is where they’d end up in a few years, how do you think they’d react?
Morand: I think about this a lot, actually. It’s so easy to feel discouraged making music, and I think I’d just be proud.
Bielanski: Yeah, I’d be so happy we’re still doing it.
Clearly Cursed is out February 13th via Take This To Heart.
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Zac Djamoos | @gr8whitebison
