In modern punk and hardcore, Defeater is one of only a few bands able to bridge the gap between the worlds of headstrong aggression and insightful introspection and narrative. The melodic hardcore quartet, led by vocalist and long-time Seacoast resident Derek Archambault, has once again challenged genre conventions with “Abandoned,” their fifth installment in a series of intersecting concept albums. On “Abandoned,” Archambault expands the cast of characters in an incredibly complex web of tales about a New Jersey family in the wake of World War II. Drawing on influences from Modern Life is War to Bruce Springsteen, Defeater’s Mike Poulin, Jake Woodruff, and Joe Longobardi lay a powerful groundwork for lyrical accounts seemingly taken from the pages of Salinger, Faulkner, and McCarthy. With a nod to the diverse show bills of yesteryear, they’re set to celebrate their first release on Epitaph Records on Friday, Oct. 30 at 3S Artspace with Rude Awakening, Threshold, and Youth Funeral. The Sound caught up with Archambault in Dover to discuss the new album, selling out, and political correctness in hardcore and punk.
What are you most proud of in “Abandoned”?
This record was the first in our five releases that we all had a hand in. Which sounds insane, but we piecemealed most records together to the point where we were constantly working around other schedules. … I helped write for the first time with music, and that’s the part I’m most proud of — that we all had a hand in this record. Also, we took some chances as far as songwriting; there’s a lot more instrument parts on the record, which we never really did — just having a break within the song that I’m not yammering over. A lot of the time I’m so worried about getting the point of the song across that I just use every single moment in the song besides an intro and an outro to hammer home the lyrical content. So there’s a lot time where the guys get to do something instrumentally. So that’s another thing I really like about this one. And it’s a darker, heavier record.
At this point, “Empty Days” is the black sheep within our flock of records. That one’s crazy melodic and much more math-y and out there and it has the acoustic EP at the end. That was our departure; it was good for us to get that out of the way early on in our career. For the most part, a lot of bands like to take that chance six years into their career or whatever. They put out a few records and then they try to do something different and people shit on them for it. Somehow we avoided most of that. We lost a lot of fans with that record because we were no longer a regular hardcore band, but we were attracting a lot more different kids by being more melodic and having the acoustic thing at the end. I think for the people that stuck with us or maybe returned with “Letters Home,” we definitely got our bullshit record (out of the way).
Your lyrics form a narrative from the perspective of a family following World War II. How did you conceive of that?
It started because of a conversation that Jay and I had when the band wasn’t even a band yet. We were just talking about the ideas for “Travels.” He had the whole thing written and recorded with their old band, which Mikey, our bass player, used to sing for. When Mikey quit and moved to Hawaii, there was no more band, but we had this record recorded. We were talking about lyrical content and really all he said was, “I would like this to be a concept record.” Then we both cited Cursive (as) a band (whose records we) really enjoyed because everything was, within the records themselves, a concept. He had some ideas for some lyrical content; there’s a lot in there about his step-dad. Obviously, I put a different spin on the actual story, but there’s all different personal things from the band that were going on at the time. Also, I told him I wanted to put it in a certain time period, and then beyond that, it was just all in my head and I started to write the story.
“Travels” especially, I’ve never really talked about this in interviews, but I was telling this to my friend Mark down in Florida, he was asking me about the overall story. He never knew that all the records were about the same family or core group, because there are people outside the family, but he just thought that they were in the Cursive vein — they were all concept records within the record. He didn’t know they all intersected, he thought only a couple did. “Travels” essentially, is the basis for everything and in it’s own little way, this weird, kind of existential way that all the puzzle pieces fit in. It’s talking about more things than just what the plain lyrics are saying. Every song is based off of a (Bob) Dylan reference and every song has tons of other Delta Blues references. So there’s a bunch of Robert Johnson, bunch of Blind Lemon (Jefferson) and Willie McTell lyrics and stuff like that. I stole from so many different people, and Guthrie too, I made it the foundation for all the other records. Each song is supposed to show you where it ties in later on in the story. I just got to do whatever I wanted. That’s what I love about this band. They just let me tell this story that only exists in my head, I don’t have it written down anywhere, I don’t have it mapped out on a storyboard or anything. They let me do whatever I want and I’m really thankful.
What role do your experiences play in creating these characters and narrative?
There’s a lot of me in every record — my ideals or my habits or things that have gone on in my life. Not to bring up the drinking again, but that is why there’s a lot of heavy drinking in the records. The drug abuse is about friends or family members who’ve also gone down that road, or myself included. Everything is embellished reality, it’s fiction laced with fact and vice-versa. No matter what, I put more of myself in the records than I even am really conscious of.
I think there’s a lot of stuff that comes out in the writing process that is influenced by other writers or songwriters. There’s stuff that I’ve realized, as I’m finishing up a record, I’ll read through everything and I’m like, “Holy shit, that’s a fucking Springsteen line. How did I not realize I was doing that?” It’s awesome and really flattering that I get to use the band as my vessel. I get to mash up all my favorite songwriters and writers and put it into this new (thing) — everything’s a rip-off of something else, but I get to do it and it’s fun as hell.
Your work has focused a lot on religion; what’s your personal history with religion?
I’m not a devout atheist or anything. I don’t want to say I’ve struggled with doubt or with faith because, for the most part, I don’t really give a damn. Logically, I can’t see an afterlife, but in the back of my head, it’s a great wish and a hope that something is beyond this, but logically it doesn’t make any fucking sense. A lot of it stems from the people that I’m writing about too. My family members have become these characters. They were people of faith or maybe they’re not. My dad’s dad, I’ve written about him a million times in these records, he was not a man of faith at all. And his wife was very Catholic. Yeah, I think it’s the relatability too. My dream is to have anybody who picks up a record to be able to read the lyrics and connect to it on any sort of level. Talking about lack of faith or wishing that there is something else is something that everybody thinks of and talks about. At some point in your life, you go on either side. It’s mostly for the sake of the story — I’m not trying to tell people to stop believing in God, or to believe in it. It keeps coming up because it’s such an easy topic to talk about within the storyline, because, especially in the time, there were more god-fearing Americans.
I’ve heard you mention McCarthy and Salinger — how much of an influence are other