Shame on Food for Worms, a Collection of Songs for You and Your Mates

Jonah Krueger
·15 min read

The post Shame on Food for Worms, a Collection of Songs for You and Your Mates appeared first on Consequence.

Five years ago, Shame was the band to watch. One of the surprisingly plentiful punk-adjacent bands coming out of the United Kingdom at the time, their 2018 debut, Songs of Praise, introduced the band as scrappy, energized, and ready to follow their whims. Drunk Tank Pink, their follow-up, showed growth in sound and scope, diving deeper into the cavern of youthful spunk and finding new pathways to explore along the way. Tomorrow (February 24th), the band returns with their third outing, Food for Worms — and it’s one for the mates.

“I think Drunk Tank Pink was pretty introverted. And through the course of that album, I guess, you get all of that out,” frontman Charlie Steen tells Consequence. “There’s only so much [time] you can spend inside yourself, or looking inwards, especially if it’s not selling.”

Whereas Drunk Tank Pink gave Steen space to exercise feelings of emotional turmoil, romantic woes, and existential dread, Food for Worms (surprisingly, given its memento mori name) finds a more contented catharsis. Opener and pre-album single “Fingers of Steel” establishes such a tone right out of the gate, reading like a pep-talk or heart-to-heart given to a friend who’s in need of advice. The airy piano, guitar stabs, and call-and-response vocals only serve to drive this feeling even further.

The band seems more interested in the idea of having fun this time around. Later tracks, like the wah-wah-laced “Six Pack” or the empathetic, anthemic “Adderall,” prove as much; it’s as if you can hear the smiles on their faces through their performances. It’s surprising, then, to learn of the strenuous process of recording, which was done almost entirely live in the studio with seasoned producer Flood behind the boards.

“It’s fucking hard,” Steen says of doing take after take. “It’s like Flood’s bootcamp, we’ll get sort of really healthy and shit like that. Constantly fucking working and being on our feet. ”

But even those unfamiliar with the technical differences in how Shame made Food for Worms and its predecessors will likely feel the difference. And for those who are familiar, it makes a damn good case to catch the band in concert.

Of course, it’s Shame, so the record isn’t all rainbows and sunshine. The acoustic guitar-driven, Smiths-esque “Orchid” brings a level of emotionality akin to tracks from Drunk Tank Pink, and “Different Person” is as angular and angsty as the British post-punkers have ever been. As Steen will tell you, the indirect therapeutic nature of songwriting is nearly inevitable in a “classic sort of male British fashion” sort of way.

And yet, friendship isn’t all rainbows and sunshine either. The record being interested in friendly relationships doesn’t mean it’s blindly positive. Rather, it derives its meaning the same way those close derive meaning from each other. Closer “All the People” says as much: “All the people that you’re gonna meet/ Don’t you throw it all away/ Because you can’t love yourself.”

Stream Shame’s Food for Worms below, followed by our full conversation with Charlie Steen. Shame is also set to tour behind the album, and you can grab tickets for their upcoming dates here.

Perhaps the most eye-catching quote I’ve seen from you about Food for Worms is that it is the Lamborghini of Shame records. Expand on that.

I think it’s something you just want to take on the street and rev up. And I don’t know shit about cars, but I know that I want to drive a Lamborghini or a fast car like that at least once in my life. And I feel like everybody feels the same way. Even if they don’t say it.

Do you think it’s an album that would work blasting while driving a Lambo down the road?

Yeah, I think songs like “Six-Pack” would. “Fingers of Steel” has that sort of attitude to it. “Alibis”? Yeah, I can see that. I can see quite a few of them.

The other aspect that stands out about this album is that you looked outwards for inspiration, writing about your friends and experiences outside of yourself.

I think Drunk Tank Pink was pretty introverted. And through the course of that album, I guess, you get all of that out. There’s only so much [time] you can spend inside yourself, or looking inwards, especially if it’s not selling. I think it’s still where I’m at with writing and stuff like that. It’s one thing to write from yourself, and it’s another to write about yourself.

What I’ve been saying about this stuff is it’s about friends and mates and stuff like that. There are all these films that I love, like Withnail and I, if you ever heard of that film, or even at the moment, you have Banshees of Inisherin, they’re all about friendship. And to me, they are some of the most romantic films I’ve ever seen. But there aren’t that many songs. And it wasn’t directly like, ‘Oh, here’s a gap in the market.’ It was only sort of after writing it. We wrote it in three months. So, it’s the most concise album we’ve ever done. And I think for that reason, musically and lyrically, all the themes just kind of link.

Does that change the experience of playing the song? Playing a song where the lyrics come from a different mood or mindset?

I think they have to be true and honest to yourself so that you can get up and sing them with conviction. But a lot of the cases can be like you’re saying, you don’t necessarily want to bring yourself back to a time which makes you feel uncomfortable, especially if you have to play them every night. So you kind of have a level of detachment with them as well. But it’s very cathartic and it’s very therapeutic in the way of a very classic sort of male British fashion. It’s your way of, maybe you don’t talk about it as openly as you do in the songs. This way of talking to yourself but still being a bit cryptic because we’re not that forward-thinking yet.

On Drunk Tank Pink, things are sort of about breakups stuff like that, with certain people in mind. But at the end of the day, there’s a reason you wrote it, and it’s because you want to say it, and so you’ve got to do it. It’s your sort of duty to yourself. Don’t write if you can’t say it.

Tell me about what it was like working with Flood and recording almost the whole record live in the studio.

Yeah, it’s all recorded live. There’s only one song that isn’t, and that’s “Orchid,” but the last song on the album, “All The People,” was literally one tape that doesn’t have a single overdub on it. We always wanted to do a live album, because that’s where we think we are strongest, when we’re live. First album, we didn’t have enough time. The second album, we weren’t tight with the songs. They were written in a deconstructed way of recording them into Pro Tools and shit like that.

So, that was one thing we knew we wanted to do. And when we first met Flood, I don’t know if we were like, ‘we want to do this live’ or if he said it, but that was something we were both evident on. And It’s fucking hard. Everyone used to do it that way. At the beginning of the recording, not much really got done. We had to become comfortable in the room. And then it was all trial and error. Flood is a man who kind of tries everything under the sun, round the block and, eventually, you end up at the same point.

At first, he wanted to put me through an SM58, which is just like a standard live gig mic, and Josh’s bass through a PA, which was like how it was in our practice room. And then gradually over time, it was just lots of takes and takes and takes and takes until we got comfortable, and then it was like ‘Okay, go in’ but there was no kind of telling. It wasn’t the most organized thing in the world. Before, you do it bass, drums, then guitars, then overdubs and vocals, you kind of do one song a day. With Flood, it was like 10 minutes of this song, and then 14 minutes of that, and then three hours of this one, it was all very sort of ramshackle.

Whatever felt best to work on at that moment?

Yeah. It’s like Flood’s bootcamp, we’ll get sort of really healthy and shit like that. Constantly fucking working and being on our feet. A real standout that was massively helped by doing it live was the song “Yankees.” That song, playing it live, was super slow. And we were practicing it in the evening time, we were playing it, playing, playing, playing, and then came in and we were like, ‘Oh, that take’s really good. We’ll confirm in the morning. That’s the one.’ And we listened to it and it was so fast. We were like, ‘It sounds so much better like this, at this speed.’ And if it probably would have come from us being at the end of the day, like wanting to go to the pub.

It’s fucking way better at the speed. So it’s the kind of thing that if you set a BPM up, you’re not going to have the same effect. You’re not gonna make these mistakes, but it has certain difficulties, like you having to play 750,000 fucking times.

I wanted to ask about the visual side of this album too, starting with the album art, just because I find it so striking.

First of all, we couldn’t be happier with it. Couldn’t be more fucking grateful to Marcel [Dzama]. It seems ludicrous how easy it was. Nothing like that has ever happened to us So I was very sort of fucking lucky. We knew we wanted artwork. Our manager, Cal, with a very good eye, sent through photos of his. And we were like, ‘Yeah, that looks cool.’ Cal reached out to him. He was like, I heard the boys, I heard shame on KCRW. And he was like, ‘I liked it. I’m really down.’ And we sent him the demos. We didn’t want to inform anyone on what they wanted to do. We were just like, it will cause too many arguments. We all want different things. We just sent off the demos, like ‘Listen to it and come back’ and he came back with seven sketches.

We were like, ‘That’s the front. That’s the back. These are the single covers. Thank you very much.’ It was just so quick and awesome. It’s the first time we’ve ever decided on artwork while recording an album. Usually, it’s weird and the most painful thing right after the album and there’s a massive deadline hanging over us and it’s all just so dramatic. And we were really lucky and, I mean, he didn’t take any fucking money for it. Which is really really great. We got him store credit at Rough Trade. Yeah, like 1,000 bucks or something like that and the signed versions of the album.

And then when it came to the music videos, were you guys just straight up like, ‘Yo, this song? We’ve got to have Napoleon as a video game character, it’s gonna work, just trust me?”

“Six-Pack” was kinda like that. It was, again, Cal, our manager. We’re just like, ‘We want to do an animated music video. We have never done that before.’ You need a lot of time to do that as well. And Cal was like ‘I know this guy. He’s fucking sick. Gilbert Bannerman,’ who’s the person who did it. Messaged him, and Gilbert was like ‘Oh, I’m not really doing music videos anymore.’ He’s working on other stuff. But then Cal sent him track and he was like, ‘Yeah, I want to do this. I have an idea for it.’ And was just like, ‘Yeah, it’s gonna be Napoleon Bonaparte going to the gym and trying to be like the sexiest world Dominator.’ And we were like, ‘Wicked.’ We met him in a pub. And I was just fucking way too drunk when I got there. And I was just sort of shouting at him that Timothée Chalamet had to be in it, which he isn’t, because I sort of feel like there’s no video on earth that Timothée Chalamet is appearing in. And yeah, he’s fucking great. And we just left him to it.

And then the “Fingers of Steel”, that one was done by James Humby who worked with us before, and I fucking love him. And I had the idea about click farm factories. I wanted it to be this sort of Soviet-style, Mao-esque sort of building factory with hundreds of workers in there getting brutally beaten and also smiling. And Humby made [work with] the budget and took the reins on it. And again, we just let him do whatever he wants. He’s so fucking funny and so great. We couldn’t really be happier with that, with both of those videos, and it’s put kind of a bit of pressure on the next thing, which is going to be “Adderall.” So we want to get that one right, which we’re doing at the moment.

Being a fan of you guys and other British punk-adjacent acts, I was curious if this kind of “post-brexit punk” label that gets thrown around to bands of your ilk feels like a real scene or if it is more something that kind of exists only online? And does it ever feel limiting to be branded like that?

It doesn’t feel limiting. It just feels pretty interesting. Because even when we started the band, which was a few years ago, it didn’t seem like there were that many bands. They weren’t our age as well. We were quite a bit younger. There’s like Fat White Family, Childhood, Palma Violets. But we all met when we started the band and they’re all fucking lovely and then when we started playing more, all these bands kind of came out that we sort of went to school with. Like Goat Girl, I went to sixth with her. I did drama with her. I went to art school with her for the year of a thing called Foundation, which is just one year. It’s like a playgroup, basically, after you finish school and you’re 18 to 19.

And then Fontaines D.C. are our very close friends. They’re a little bit older, but not much. We met them pretty early on, they toured with us. And there’s Black Country (New Road), Black Midi, you know, all these are the sort of bands we know and you just see because we play the same festivals, and we knew them from foreign idols as well. They’re all fucking lovely. It seems that we’ve known that for quite a long time now. And some of them you see more than others in London, and some you only see when you’re playing festivals or touring. But I think in that sense, it’s really nice. There isn’t anything competing or anything like that, or any sort of category. It’s more like, just sort of nice people, friends.

I know you have sometimes had a complicated relationship with touring, and that you are also set to start touring right after the album drops. How are you feeling about the upcoming dates? Have you learned anything to enjoy the process more?

Yeah, it was 2017, I had those panic attacks and stuff like that. But that was after, you know, 165 days of drinking really cheap lager and doing really cheap pub gak. I know the only thing I need is rest. More than I’d like to admit.

But no, I’m really excited. And, you know, hopefully people enjoy the album over in America and sort of turn up to the shows and shit like that, because we really fucking love playing there, it’d be great to get to a certain level over that. The crowd is so, so optimistic. And I’m really excited. I mean, you’ve also got to remember, this is the first time we’ve toured on a campaign since Songs of Praise. So we’re fucking excited. Literally as soon as the album comes out, we basically go on tour. It’s been so long since we’ve been playing shows with material that’s fresh to people who are coming down to the shows. So that’s the most exciting thing about it. As you do with every album, we’ve had these songs for a while now. And that’s gonna be the sort of payoff, hopefully.

And you went through the Flood bootcamp, so they should be tight as hell right?

Exactly.

Food for Worms Artwork:

Shame on Food for Worms, a Collection of Songs for You and Your Mates
Jonah Krueger

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