PREMIERE: Pay for Pain Announce Self-Titled Debut EP with “Fallen Angel”

Former Tigers Jaw members Adam McIlwee, Dennis Mishko, and Pat Brier go cow punk.
PREMIERE: Pay for Pain Announce Self-Titled Debut EP with “Fallen Angel”

Former Tigers Jaw members Adam McIlwee, Dennis Mishko, and Pat Brier go cow punk.

Words: Mike LeSuer

photo by Bedford Towers

April 27, 2020

Back in 2013, Adam McIlwee, Dennis Mishko, and Pat Brier departed the cult punk group Tigers Jaw to move onto new projects, McIlwee rebranding as emo-rapper Wicca Phase Springs Eternal and Mishko and Brier devoting more time to their less classifiable rock project Three Man Cannon. After reuniting a few years back in a new iteration called Pay for Pain, the trio are now announcing their debut, self-titled EP for Dark Medicine records, dropping in early June.

The first taste of the jangly collection of garage rock tracks takes a decidedly cow-punk turn—opener “Fallen Angel” is a stripped-back track comprised of drums, bass, a very Western-inspired guitar, and McIlwee’s familiar pallid monotone. “The song personifies the band in a lot of ways,” shares drummer Brier. “It’s dark and moves through different levels of intensity in a fluid way.”

“The entire band is just about doing things the way we want to do them, it’s pretty loose but that’s part of the appeal for us,” McIlwee notes in a press release. “I think it’s a bit of a combination of all our current and past projects, but we didn’t really talk about what kind of band it would be. We just started playing and writing, and anything goes.”

Stream the track below—the Pay for Pain EP is out June 5 via Dark Medicine, and you can pre-order it here.