On Deer Tick’s latest LP Emotional Contracts, the Providence-bred group doubles down on the ragged folk-rock that’s made them one of the most celebrated and enduring groups in rock’s varied ecosystems. The quartet—consisting of vocalist/guitarist John J. McCauley, guitarist Ian O'Neil, bassist Christopher Ryan, and drummer Dennis Ryan—has been at it for almost 20 years, but they sound as energized as ever before on the new record. That’s not to say the band hasn’t developed or grown their sound in the six years since their last project. Rather, this is also likely the most inventive and emotionally adventurous album they’ve ever shared.
The album, in McCauley’s words, loosely revolves around one key idea: “Every song is about a deal you’ve made with yourself at some level,” he revealed in a press release. Whereas early Deer Tick records may have taken this concept, fermented it into a cocktail, poured it into a flask, chugged it, and then puked it up hours later, the band is strikingly contemplative on Emotional Contracts. There’s less black and white here and far more gray. McCauley and his bandmates explore the moments in between—those that may not immediately scan as anything, but eventually linger the longest.
To offer more insight on the band’s new album, we had McCauley, O’Neil, and Dennis Ryan walk us through the origins of each song on Emotional Contracts. Stream along, and grab the album here via ATO Records.
1. “If I Try to Leave”
John McCauley: I started writing this one on the piano but I thought I sounded too schmaltzy. I just had a few lyrics and the top line written. I started fooling around with five-string open G tuning, made popular by Keith Richards…though I don’t know any other guitarists personally who use it. Anyways, I was immediately mystified by this tuning and my guitar playing on this song is clearly an homage to the man himself. Noodling in open G gave me the chorus, but I needed help wrapping this one up. I had Ian come over to work on it with me. The overall theme of this song is family and how I’ve come to rely on it. I need my family as a grounding force in my life. My survival depends on it, and I like it that way.
2. “Forgiving Ties”
Ian O’Neil: Recently, an English teacher and friend of mine asked me what a “Forgiving Tie” was, and I thought it was kind of obvious so I’ll start there. In this song, I’m not asking for reconciliation in the wake of a traumatic event, I’m just trying to find a way to move forward for the sake of myself and those closest to me. The verses themselves imagine a kind of dreamscape reality where, through metaphor, the narrator’s good time is destroyed and a new reality settles in.
John suggested he sing the “inner thoughts” portions of the verses and it was a great decision. Trauma can cloud your memory and warp your reasoning process, so I was trying to give the manic and/or reasonable inner perspective a voice as well. Of course, by the end of the song, they’re further from despair and closer to hope. The character development in the song is akin to what I go through in the songwriting process. I’m trying to get closer to hope. It should be noted that Dennis swooped in and wrote the second verse when I was stuck! Also, the chord progression in the chorus was kicking around many other songs until it finally worked here.
3. “Grey Matter”
John McCauley: I met the wonderful Steve Poltz on the Cayamo Cruise, just as COVID was beginning to ruin people’s lives. I was having terrible writer’s block and Steve is known as one of those guys who can write a great song and loves to collaborate. I guess I was very fortunate to meet him when I did because it turned out we were neighbors!
In the early days of lockdown Steve would drop by and we’d work on songs. He released me from the grips of a years-long writer’s block and we wrote three songs together (two of which appear on Emotional Contracts). I suppose this song is kind of saying, “Fuck whatever happened in the past, now is the time to grab life by the balls”—a theme that runs through a few songs on this record.
I like the lyric “Take a ride on a falling star” a lot. We all know what’s going to happen to this falling star. It will burn up in our atmosphere, or maybe slam into the Earth. Either way, it’s done. Like our lives, we know where all roads lead, so enjoy it while you can.My guitar playing on this one was heavily influenced by Slim Dunlap. The Matt Wallace mix of The Replacements’ Don’t Tell a Soul (part of 2019’s Dead Man’s Pop box set) really made me appreciate Slim’s contributions to the band. It goes by unnoticed on the 1989 Chris Lord-Alge mix. Slim’s solo albums are pretty great too.
4. “If She Could Only See Me Now”
John McCauley: I worked on this song in one form or another for over a decade. Jeez. It started as kind of a jazzy number. Besides the titular lyric, nothing about it was the same. It was absolutely terrible, but I couldn’t let the idea go. After many, many rewrites and reconfigurations, the song was finally done. I was so excited to have finished it that we released a live version of it in 2021. We made a really kick-ass studio demo of it, though. That made me want to give it the full studio treatment. I think it turned out really well and was deserving of its place on the record.
I purposefully left some information out of the narrator’s story: Why can’t she see him now? Is she living in another country? Did she die? Is she in a coma? What does it mean when the narrator says they have “finally been set free”? Did they find religion? Did they recently get released from prison? There’s plenty of room for interpretation. Hell, I don’t even know what this guy’s story is!
5. “Running From Love”
Dennis Ryan: In the early morning hours of January 11, 2021, I awoke from a deep slumber—a dream-filled slumber. In the dream, Deer Tick was performing our song “Running From Love” at an amphitheater in Rhode Island. I had never received a song in a dream, so I was pretty thrilled, though surprised by the song. It was a bit more frank and on-the-nose than my conscious writing mind tends to be. For that reason I decided it was worth pursuing, especially as it arrived very close to fully formed. After going back and forth with it myself, I shared it with my bandmates and was encouraged by their support and enthusiasm. I’m surprised a song made it out of dream and onto a record, but glad to have been a part of that process.
6. “Once in a Lifetime”
John McCauley: First off, I beg your forgiveness for the overused title. OK, thanks.
This one came to me in three parts. The first part I wrote was the chorus. I bought a used piano accordion and immediately got to work figuring out the mysterious buttons. I wanted to understand that side of the instrument as quickly as possible. Once I figured out how to do a basic I-IV-V chord progression, I began really noodling. By the end of my first day as an accordionist I had written and recorded the little riff in the chorus.
The second part I got was the verse. I wanted to link that accordion riff with something else. I stumbled upon the verse riff while going through voice memos on my phone, which I find hilarious. A younger John would have deeply disapproved of the use of a device like a cell phone to catalog his creative thoughts! But alas, I’m getting old and lazy and embracing the 21st century. Without my phone, that accordion riff would have been lost to the sands of time. I’m glad I whipped that iPhone out to record myself playing classic rock riffs on my drop C Jazzmaster! The future is now!
Alright, now I got two parts that work together. Deer Tick starts jamming. Still high from the excitement of breaking my writer’s block with Steve Poltz, I feel the lyrics and the idea for the bridge come on suddenly. I seize the opportunity to write it all down and record the demo with my band. And that’s pretty much what the song is about: seizing the moment. You are going to die. Time is running out. Do something!
7. “Disgrace”
Ian O’Neil: There’s a throughline from “Forgiving Ties” to “Disgrace”—but notably, in this one, the narrator (me) is further down his own road of regret and shame and on a path to ownership. The song takes place between the moment you awake from some kind of horrifying dream and the moment you’re plunged into reality, where you’re not sure what’s real, but your emotional reaction from the dream is very briefly carried into the real world. As artists, I believe we shouldn’t let our feelings control our lives, but we shouldn’t let them go so easily. We should use them to create a more complex and interesting version of ourselves and our work.
8. “My Ship”
John McCauley: Steve Poltz started playing this really interesting chord progression, alternating from a Westerberg-like ballad to a George Harrision-y ballad. Two bonafide kings of chords. Steve also gave me the perfect jumping off point for the lyrics. “It’s been a long time since I saw you.” Now, maybe because Steve’s old band, The Rugburns, was based out of there, but my mind immediately went to San Diego. I could see the narrator of the song. He’s a haggard middle-aged barfly. He no longer resembles his younger self. He’s sitting at his barstool in his usual haunt. It’s around the holidays—maybe Thanksgiving, maybe Christmas. Doesn’t matter to our narrator, he’s got nowhere to go. He doesn’t talk to many people, he just sits there and drinks. What made him this way? I don’t know, but he’s a loner.
To his complete surprise, a person he hasn’t seen since they were both teenagers walks in. (I never specify if it’s an old friend or a high school sweetheart or whatever. That’s up to you.) I imagine this person is in town visiting family for the holidays. They moved out of town a long time ago, and now they’re wildly successful—the opposite of our narrator. The song is his inner-dialogue. It’s decidedly not an uplifting song. But this guy was very happy to see—though not talk to or be recognized by—his old acquaintance, whatever their relationship was.
9. “A Light Can Go Out in the Heart”
Ian O’Neil: This song marked an important change in my approach to writing that I hope I can continue to pursue. The title had been kicking around for years, but it wasn't until the pandemic and losing my mother to cancer did I find the other words to deliver the message. I wouldn’t go as far to say her death or any specific relationship was an inspiration for the song, but there is truth in the idea that some things, some lives, just don’t end happily. There is no guarantee to a long life or a successful relationship. I reflected that sentiment in the characters of this song, seeing them go through a long life of partnership, parenthood,and yet none of life’s most significant bonds could keep them from falling apart. But there’s something bittersweet about that inevitability and that’s the feeling I get singing it. Also, Jon Fridmann played some beautiful French horn on the bridge and John’s baritone solo is tender and smokin’!
10. “The Real Thing”
John McCauley: This song was born out of a jam session. Ian started playing these chords which became the music for the verses. I liked the cyclical nature of them. Bouncing up from a low drop-tuning D chord to a D chord an octave up, hitting a few nice chords in between. I had that piano riff written already and felt like I could find it a home in this song. I toiled over the lyrics for a while. Originally titled “The Last Book on the Shelf” (good news for “The Last Book on the Shelf”: it became a different song. No longer a divorce song, it’s more of a “What the fuck decade is this?” song in response to recent book-banning activity in classrooms and libraries across the nation. It will likely be released as a B-side). I started writing about a couple going through a divorce. It would be a sad song about packing all your belongings into boxes. The problem was I’ve never gone through a divorce! Having no firsthand experience with the subject matter, I decided to change course.
Alright, look…I hate talking about mental health. At this moment in time, it feels like everybody wants to talk about their mental health and I’ve just never been that kind of person. But I’ll lower my guard, and say that this song is about clinical depression. It’s something that has been hitching a ride with me since adolescence. It’s wrecked me so badly on some days that I felt much more qualified to explore it as subject matter (I implore anybody struggling to reach out to a friend, a loved one, a doctor, or a crisis hotline). I find that, like most things as you get older, it takes a lot more work to keep ahead of something like depression. It’s far from impossible, though, and it’s worth the extra effort. At some point while careening toward midlife, the precious nature of living hit me like a brick. I can now confidently declare that life is worth living.
I used to never really care about what was going on in between my ears. I never cared if I was healthy. I never really cared if I died. I’ve come a long way…a much longer way than a nine-minute song, but the length of this song represents, in-miniature, the epic scale of a life, through all its ups and downs.
