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BACKSTORY: The political punk band formed in 2018, and have since established a reputation for hard-hitting live shows and rage-fueled messages about social injustice
FROM: Atlanta, Georgia
YOU MIGHT KNOW THEM FROM: Their collaborative work with Ty Segall, who produced their second album, 2023’s Bite the Hand That Feeds
NOW: Their latest album, the Segall-produced I’m Nice Now, was released in October by Domino Records
Depending how you say it, the intention and meaning of I’m Nice Now, the title of Upchuck’s third full-length, changes significantly. Stress the middle word and it suggests a calm after the storm—and that the band’s frontwoman, Kaila “KT” Thompson, wasn’t particularly nice before. Stress the last and it’s more of a threat, a warning that her personality could easily change, so you better watch out. Of course, both things can be true. And both are.
Formed in 2018, Upchuck—completed by guitarists Michael Durham and Alex Hoffman, bassist Ausar Ward, and drummer Chris Salado—have made a name for themselves by raging against not just the machine, but the status quo and the systems that keep that machine in place. That rage isn’t just for show; at times during our interview, Salado gets so angry he finds it impossible to contain it. It’s understandable; after the band filmed the video for their single “Un Momento,” a rare song which features his vocals, ICE deported some of his Mexican family members. “I hate my voice,” he admits, “but it gives me a platform to speak for my people. It gives me a platform to speak for Hispanics. So as much as I hate how I sound, it’s a matter of what message I’m putting out there; it’s a matter of defending our people and giving Hispanics a voice, because sometimes we get lost. And I ain’t giving you no fucking sweet shit, I’m sorry. I’m not giving you what I think you want to hear. I’m going to give you what I’m going through, and what my culture’s going through.”
He pauses, briefly. “Sorry,” he apologizes again. “I’m not aggressive at you. I’m just aggressive on the issue of my little voice that I have in this band.”
“I’m Nice Now is about that preservation factor. It’s about how we’ve got to make sure that we’re sane and good and correct to continue to deal with this fuckery that’s continuing.” — Kaila “KT” Thompson
While it’s the first time that Salado has sung—vented, let loose, explored such visceral catharsis—on an Upchuck album, doing so is business as usual for Thompson. And yet, as that title suggests, there’s a shift in attitude, too. The songs on I’m Nice Now are just as charged and intentional as anything on 2022’s debut Sense Yourself or the following year’s Bite the Hand That Feeds. But there’s an extra dimension to them, too, an extra layer of human emotion. Because in addition to the anger, there’s a vulnerability, a sense of loss, a fragility, as well as some added self-awareness. The album itself begins with “Tired,” a track that sounds anything but, yet which laments existing—as a band and as people, especially people of color—in the world as it is today. After all, the system is designed to make you tired, so there’s less likelihood of rebellion.
“The whole thing of I’m Nice Now is about that preservation factor,” explains Thompson. “And it’s about how, at this point, we’ve really just got to make sure that we’re sane and good and correct to continue to deal with this fuckery that’s continuing, and that’s going to get worse. And we need to preserve that. So, it’s like, ‘I’m nice nowww,” she says, adopting a tone somewhere between a growl and a snarl. “But it’s so that I can continue to at least hug and love.”
Upchuck / photo by Alden Bonecutter
At the same time, Thompson is aware that Upchuck’s music will generally be heard by people who share the band’s politics, rather than those with views that are diametrically opposed. It’s something she considers on “Tired,” with the lyric “I guess I’m preachin’ to the whole damn choir, huh?” But instead of being downtrodden about that fact, she’s resilient, and takes comfort and solace in the fact that there are people out there who feel the same way she does.
“It’s like, ‘Fuck—at the end of the day, we’re in this bubble, and I’m sure it’s only us that are gonna be listening to this message.’ But at the same time, it doesn’t feel hopeless, because I can see it. I’m physically seeing it. Even at Green Man Festival, where we just played in the UK, there are thousands of people in front of us, just feeling and releasing with us, and I’m like, ‘Damn, OK—we’re not alone. There are others!’ But then we leave our bubble and then we realize there’s a lot of fuckery. We leave this little part of Atlanta and it’s Trump’s world. It’s MAGA.”
As much as the political is tied to the personal with Upchuck, there was one significant, solely personal event that deeply shaped the making of this record: the death of Thompson’s sister. Her loss is something that “Forgotten Token” directly addresses, but it also underpins the album as a whole, as her sister’s spirit and influence are present in the album from beginning to end. “Making this record helped me deal with that better,” says Thompson, “but you never really process or deal with that. I think it’s kind of beautiful how that’s a song that everyone feels the most, even without knowing what it’s about. But her death gave me a lot more fuel on the preservation factor, because she was such a stan for us. She worked a corporate job at Neiman Marcus, and she was like, ‘KT, you’ve got to talk about this shit.’ And I am being heard at the end of the day, and I am able to express, and that’s such a privilege.” FL
