Butter The Children gets a lot of shit for its name. Even me, a self-described stan for the band was apprehensive to listen. But when my friend (Hi Graham!) wouldn’t stop raving about them, I finally looked up their bandcamp page, and the rest is (as they say) history. But their name is the central topic for the first few minutes when they all come slowly straggling into the Alt Citizen office. Brooklyn Vegan had just posted about their new EP that day and the comments section was a minefield of disdain for the band’s name or the usual rampant sexism and misogyny saved for bands that happen to have female members. Inna Mkrtycheva (vocals) and Jordyn Blakely (drums), the two ladies in question, arrived before J Boxer (bass) and Ray Weiss (guitar) appeared but they seemed to be taking the comments with quiet dignity.
The only real seething came from Weiss, which is something that (I later learn) is to be expected as he is the neurotic, indignant member of the band — which is also part of his charm. The quiet/loud balance found in speaking to Butter The Children also describes their music. They manage to sound refreshing in a sea of shoegazey post-punk and it is mostly due to the intuitive balance struck between Inna’s monochromatic delivery against Ray’s scrappy, high-strung guitar. It also doesn’t hurt to have Jordyn and J keeping it all in check. After a few rants against the patriarchy and misogyny we headed up to the roof for a few smokes soundtracked by siren after siren — fitting, as most of what we discussed is their new EP, True Crime.
Just from listening to “Spit It Out” it seems like last year’s (self-titled) EP has been “forgotten” in a way because it sounds so completely different to me.
Ray: Well we recorded some of the same songs [from that EP] that’ll eventually be on the full length. But that first EP was basically before we started playing [with] Jordan or Jon. It was almost a completely different thing.
Inna: Yeah it was a completely different lineup.
Max Kagan (previous bassist) was still in the band right?
Inna: Yeah it was basically the three of us. Me, Ray, and Max recorded that EP and we went through like 4 or 5 drummers before we found Jordyn [laughs.]
Ray: I felt like some of the songs on the old record didn’t really match. There was maybe two or three songs that felt like they were out of place.
Inna: Yeah. “Prognosis Negative” and “Vermin $upreme” just kind of didn’t fit.
Jon: Also Pat Dillett is a completely different engineer.
Ray: Yeah we recorded with Pat Dillett who [worked with] They Might Be Giants, David Byrne & St. Vincent, and Notorious B.I.G. We just tried making this album a focused, darker thing.
Inna: It was a whole sort of thematic thing.
If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to Max?
Jordyn: We’re all still friends with him. He started his own band, he didn’t want to be obligated to us in a contract. I think that freaked him out.
Ray: As soon as we got signed he dropped out.
Inna: But he’s going to be subbing for Jon at [some shows.]
So he’s very much part of the family still?
Ray: Max has been one of my closest friends since I was in middle school. I was totally bitter about it for a long time but that’s because me and Max were married for so many years.
Jon: Yeah. First when things weren’t very good it was like watching my parents get divorced. I spent so much time with both you guys and then it was just like, “Oh fuck, they hate each other!”
With the lineup change did the writing process change at all?
Ray: I usually show them my ideas and then we kind of hash them out and sometimes they’ll tell me something sounds like shit so we don’t use it.
Tell me about True Crime.
Ray: Inna wrote all of the lyrics. They’re all about miserable, fucked up shit or about our friends dying. Which is the same thing.
Inna: Well a lot of it is about — there are some songs that aren’t but there are some songs that are — about true crime cases. There’s a song about Amanda Knox and there’s a song about Casey Anthony. I used to work for a suicide hotline. Somebody called and was saying that he was going to kill himself over the phone. That was bad. That was the only time that happened [there.] It was mostly people who were…
Ray: Jackin’ off?
Inna: There was a lot of that. People were jacking off or people would just call in every week. This guy who was 56-years-old would call in every week.
Ray: So our album is about that 56-year-old guy.
Inna: Yeah, it’s dedicated to Stanley. Every week he would say the same thing: “Hi, my name is Stanley. I am 56-years-old. I’ve never held a woman’s hand or had a girlfriend.” He was talking about how lonely he was. It wasn’t gross or anything, he was really nice. It was really sad. Then he turned 57 and he was like, “Hi, This is stanley I am 57…”
Jon: How long were you with that?
Inna: I did that in high school when I was like 15-16. At my high school we had to do volunteer work to graduate but then I just wound up staying there.
So True Crime is about the people that would call in?
Inna: It’s about the one guy who threatened to kill himself over the phone. I still don’t know what happened to him so it was just this weird…
You didn’t find out over the phone?
Inna: He was crying and stuff. The thing is, there’s a lot of training involved in that. You’re not supposed to say certain things. You can’t even say, “You have a lot to live for,” or “I’m sure there are people who would miss you.” You can’t say any of that. The only thing you can say is, “I really hope you don’t do that.” Once the person starts saying, “If you hang up the phone I’m going to kill myself right now!” You’re not allowed to call an ambulance — none of that — because it’s anonymous. So I had to pass it off to a supervisor because it got really intense.
Before today’s Brooklyn Vegan incident I had already found a comment from a while ago. I’m always fascinated with what people say while they are safely tucked behind a computer screen. Anyway, this one kind of stuck out. Soysalami says “Butter The Children? Butter The Children? Never thought that I’d hear a band name worse than Freelance Whales. Guess that’s some sort of accomplishment.”
Jordyn: People always ask us about our name. I used to be kind of embarrassed by it and be like, [shrugs shoulders] “I dunno…” Now I’m like, “Yeah, it’s our fucking name and it’s cool.”
Jon: I like tons of bands with stupid names. I don’t really care.
Ray: It’s more of a function of what’s googable really. There’s nothing else called Butter the fucking Children on the internet.
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Interview by Alex Martinez. Follow her on Twitter at @xxalexm.
Photos by Jenny Regan. Follow her on Twitter at @jenny_regan.
