Tag: Friendship Commanders

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Friendship Commanders Share Two More Fierce, Earnest Anthems

Nashville-based duo and JOVM mainstays Friendship Commanders — Buick Audra (vocals, guitar) and Jerry Roe (drums, bass) — will be releasing their fourth album BEAR on October 10 through their new label home Magnetic Eye Records. 

Co-produced by the duo and their longtime collaborator Kurt Ballou, who also tracked the instrumental performances and mixed the material, BEAR’s songs are unified in a theme that runs throughout in various ways: the ever-elusive idea of belonging, where it occurs and where it absolutely doesn’t. 

Written around the realization that she had essentially been kicked out of womanhood, Friendship Commanders’ Buick Audra wrote BEAR‘s material as a way to document her awarenesses while cataloging other areas of human connection: art, outsider culture, and dark rock venues — all places where empathy and creativity grow wild. She and her bandmate Jerry Roe arranged and performed the album specifically to have two sides to it musically: heavy and light. Salt and sugar. Fire and air. Lost and found. 

Last month, the JOVM mainstays excitedly shared two singles from the forthcoming album: “MELT,” a breakneck yet bold, heart-worn-on sleeve anthem that expresses the sense of betrayal, confusion and heartbreak in a sort of et tu Brute? moment. “KEEPING SCORE,” a defiant war cry of an adult, who has learned to parent and protect her childhood self — and an adult who is willing and able to defend young girls, who remind her of her younger self from the insults and ill-treatment she received when she was their age.

Building upon the momentum of the forthcoming album’s first two singles, the Nashville-based JOVM mainstays have shared two more singles: “X,” continues a remarkable run of bruising yet proudly heart worn on sleeve anthems, rooted in lived-in personal experiences. In the case of “X,” the song is built and informed by the bitter ache of unexpected and tragically unfair loss of a dear one, way too soon.

Written a few weeks after the sudden death of the band’s longtime friend and collaborator Steve Albini, Buick Audra says, ” I was grieving, but I was also watching a generation grieve in ways I’d observed my whole life—stoically, strongly, sentimentally, and somewhat individually. This song is a loving send-up to that lost generation. We wanted the track and visuals to honor some of the artists who raised us creatively, including Steve. The camera I’m holding in the second verse was his. Very moving to have and include it here. He was a young Boomer, but the absolute King of Gen X. Missed and loved.”

“MIDHEAVEN” is arguably one of the more widescreen songs of their growing catalog, a song loose enough that it lets the forceful and dexterous instrumentation and Audra’s powerhouse vocals breath while continuing to showcase the duo’s unerring knack for crafting arena rock hooks and choruses. “MIDHEAVEN goes wider; it gets into this idea of being born under a certain set of stars, and whether or not that has anything to do with who we are. As a person who feels like a lifelong misfit with a nature I can’t seem to change, I’m curious about where that starts. Is it written from the start? I’m willing to believe anything at this point. Some days, it’s tempting to blame it all on the sky.”

“I wanted the video for ‘X’ to have the vibe and look of those by our favorite bands from the Gen X/Grunge era while still being its own thing, so it’s lit, shot and performed in a way that honors that spirit without aping anything too closely (hopefully)! Everyone wanted to appear tough and cool while also not seeming to take what they were doing too seriously.” Friendship Commanders’ Jerry Roe says of the video for “X.” “There’s such a particular mood of the era that no one has captured since. It was the best time for the medium of music videos honestly, and it was a lot of fun to try and channel it. I find it moving to watch in a way that surprises me.”

“‘MIDHEAVEN’ stands out in our discography for being so instrumentally driven. The vocals and melody are just as integral a part of the song as any song in our repertoire, but large portions of this track are just the two of us ripping at each other and it’s an absolute blast to listen to and play.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Friendship Commanders Share Two Fierce, Earnest Anthems

Nashville-based duo and JOVM mainstays Friendship Commanders — Buick Audra (vocals, guitar) and Jerry Roe (drums, bass) — will be releasing their fourth album BEAR on October 10 through their new label home Magnetic Eye Records.

Co-produced by the band’s members and longtime collaborator Kurt Ballou, who also tracked the instrumental performances and mixed the material, BEAR’s songs are unified in a theme that runs throughout in various ways: the ever-elusive idea of belonging, where it occurs and where it absolutely doesn’t.

Written around the realization that she had essentially been kicked out of womanhood, Friendship Commanders’ Buick Audra wrote BEAR‘s material as a way to document her awarenesses while cataloging other areas of human connection: art, outsider culture, and dark rock venues — all places where empathy and creativity grow wild. She and her bandmate Jerry Roe arranged and performed the album specifically to have two sides to it musically: heavy and light. Salt and sugar. Fire and air. Lost and found.

The JOVM mainstays have excitedly shared two album tracks from the forthcoming album: “MELT,” is a breakneck, yet bold, heart-worn-on-sleeve anthem that showcases the duo’s unerring knack for paring arena rock-like bombast, complete with enormous riffs and thunderous drumming, with earnest, deeply lived-in lyricism and songwriting. “MELT” features what may arguably be among the most syrupy sweet melodies they’ve recorded of their growing catalog while expressing a sense of betrayal, confusion and heartache, a sort of et tu Brute? moment for the song’s narrator.

Directed by the band’s Jerry Roe with cinematography by Roe and Jarad Clement, the accompanying video for “MELT” was shot at Nashville’s DRKMTTR, where the band has built their own community and features familiar faces and friends from their music scene. It captures the sweaty joy of going to a show and bonding with both new and old friends over your love of a band; of that shared sense of a band or a musician singing songs that seem to speak about you and your life, the things you’ve felt and the things you’ve seen.

“KEEPING SCORE,” will further cement the JOVM mainstays heart-worn-on-sleeve ethos but while being a breakneck and defiant, war cry of an adult, who has learned how to parent and protect her childhood self, and is willing and able to defend young girls, who remind her of herself when she was their age from the insults and ill-treatment she received.

The accompanying video for “KEEPING SCORE” was directed and edited by the band’s Jerry Roe and features cinematography from Roe and Jarad Clement. Shot at Franklin, TN-based Westlight Studios, the video features the duo performing the song in a cinematic black and white, with stylish lighting.

“‘KEEPING SCORE’ was the first song written for BEAR. I think of it as the mother of the album,” Audra says. “When I was a kid, the mother of my best friend, a boy, singled me out as a problem for her son and all the other boys in our skateboarding crew. She was afraid I was corrupting them somehow. She called around and spread non-truths about me to the other parents, some of whom I’d never met. It was devastating, humiliating beyond words. Years later, I realized women in my own generation were doing the same thing to little girls who knew their sons. Little girls! Age seven, eight! Being called ‘hussies’ by grown women! Color me horrified. Color me involved. Now that I can speak for myself, I will also speak for girls like me. Someone should. The propulsive riff on this song is my war cry.”

“‘MELT’ is about realizing I’ve never really fit with my own kind, something I’ve only come to terms with in the last two years or so,” the Friendship Commanders frontperson continues. “I’ve spent so much time and energy trying to be a woman among women, but at the end of the day, I’m just always over here being too loud. Too much. And yet, somehow also not enough. It’s a stunning paradox. Musically, the song has a sugary quality to it, which is also referenced in the line, ‘that’s how they punch you, sugar over fists.’ This track beats me up because it’s so painfully true, but it’s also a delight to play.”

“These songs were so exciting to hear when Buick played them for me for the first time – pretty unlike anything we’d ever done up to this point in terms of energy and propulsion,” the band’s Jerry Roe adds. “Our music has tended to move either fast or slow while somehow feeling heavy at all times, and these songs lean and move forward in a way that’s much brighter and quite joyful, even through the subject matter. To play them almost feels like being flown through the air towards a gigantic bullseye made of fiery confetti! I can’t wait to play this new album live.”

You can preorder the forthcoming album here.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: JOVM Mainstays Friendship Commanders Share Urgent, Steve Albini Mix of “Outlive You”

Nashville-based duo and JOVM mainstays Friendship Commanders — Buick Audra (vocals, guitar) and Jerry Roe (drums, bass) — released their Kurt Ballou and Friendship Commanders co-produced third album MASS last year. MASS is a concept album […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: JOVM Mainstays Friendship Commanders Share Earnest and Rousingly Anthemic “We Were Here”

Released this past Friday, JOVM mainstays Friendship Commanders‘ Kurt Ballou and Friendship Commanders co-produced third album MASS is a concept album that thematically is about time, memory and frontperson Buick Audra’s personal experiences of leaving Massachusetts, a place she left because she no longer felt comfortable or welcome. 

In the lead-up to the album’s release, I managed to write about five of the album’s singles:

  • “Fail,” a grunge-inspired ripper built around fuzzy power chords, thunderous drumming and enormous mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses paired with Buick Audra’s expressive, Ann Wilson-like delivery. “Fail” manages to simultaneously evoke a cry for help and a desperate attempt to connect with another that just seems to fall a bit short. The duo explained that the song was written to honor the memory of Spore‘s and Sunburned Hand of the Man‘s Marc Orleans, who committed suicide in June 2020. “We chose to make the song energetic, dissonant, and big, just as he would like it. Bit of a departure for us from our usual doomy vibe, but it’s still the same band, we think,” the band says. 

  • “High Sun,” a 120 Minutes-era MTV alt-rock/shoegazey-like single that’s a a bit of a departure from the doom-influenced heaviness that they’re best known for. “When I moved away from Boston, I hauled an enormous amount of shame along with me. I had experienced these weird, high-impact moments that were not only troubling on their own, but the aftermath saw me painted as an outcast in my former social groups,” Friendship Commanders’ Buick Audra explains. “And I was young enough to believe that I was the problem. I had been in one controlling relationship in which being different was treated as disobedient, and I was punished for it—publicly. Being a person who was wired to take on blame, I absorbed it. But now when I look at the story, I see the manipulation, the dynamics that repeated themselves. They were experts at making people feel like outsiders, experts at deflecting responsibility. I wanted to drag it all out into the daylight with this big, fuzzy song. I’ve been waiting a long time to say this.”

  • “Vampires,” an earnest, arena rock-like anthems — with the new single being built around fuzzy power chords, thunderous drumming, enormous shout-along worthy hooks. Much like its predecessors, “Vampires” is informed by and fueled by deeply embittering and at times humiliating personal experience. And as a result, the hurt and disdain at the core of the song is visceral. “There was a season at the end of my time in Boston where I was being turned into ‘The Problem’ by someone who wanted to control me and couldn’t; it was a moment where I could have played small and gone along with what she wanted, as I had once done,” Audra explains in press notes. “But I didn’t. I played big. I kept what was mine instead of giving it away—which included parts of my identity. And while the result was a scorched earth reality that impacts my sense of self to this day, it also ended the whole thing. I learned a valuable lesson in that season: don’t fuel the narcissists. Keep your power for yourself. It’s what they hate. And if they’re going to drag your character out in front of everyone you know, you might as well burn it all down for the warmth.”

  • “Still Life,” a stormy and forceful ripper built around Jerry Roe‘s thunderous drumming, Audra’s towering walls of guitar and her powerhouse vocal, which in this song express hurt, confusion, simmering anger, defiance and pride within the turn of a phrase. The band explains that the song outlines a series of interactions in which one person is told to be quiet about their injuries, to essentially “walk them off,” even when those injuries might be life-threatening. 

MASS’ sixth and latest single, “We Were Here” continues a run of earnest, heart proudly worn on sleeve anthems built around Roe’s thunderous and forceful drumming, Audra’s roaring guitar work and powerhouse delivery paired with the duo’s unerring knack for enormous, arena rock friendly hooks and choruses.

The duo explains that the song look back to a time spent in a city, where you felt like a different person. And as a result, the song is fueled by a sense of loathing, shame and discomfort — but from a deeply universal position: If I had known then what I know now.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Friendship Commanders Share Stormy “Still Life”

Slated for a September 29, 2023 release, Friendship Commanders‘ Kurt Ballou and Friendship Commanders co-produced third album MASS is a concept album that thematically is about time, memory and frontperson Buick Audra’s personal experiences of leaving Massachusetts, a place she left because she no longer felt comfortable or welcome.

So far, I’ve managed to write about three of the album’s released singles:

  • “Fail,” a grunge-inspired ripper built around fuzzy power chords, thunderous drumming and enormous mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses paired with Buick Audra’s expressive, Ann Wilson-like delivery. “Fail” manages to simultaneously evoke a cry for help and a desperate attempt to connect with another that just seems to fall a bit short. The duo explained that the song was written to honor the memory of Spore‘s and Sunburned Hand of the Man‘s Marc Orleans, who committed suicide in June 2020. “We chose to make the song energetic, dissonant, and big, just as he would like it. Bit of a departure for us from our usual doomy vibe, but it’s still the same band, we think,” the band says. 

  • “High Sun,” a 120 Minutes-era MTV alt-rock/shoegazey-like single that’s a a bit of a departure from the doom-influenced heaviness that they’re best known for. “When I moved away from Boston, I hauled an enormous amount of shame along with me. I had experienced these weird, high-impact moments that were not only troubling on their own, but the aftermath saw me painted as an outcast in my former social groups,” Friendship Commanders’ Buick Audra explains. “And I was young enough to believe that I was the problem. I had been in one controlling relationship in which being different was treated as disobedient, and I was punished for it—publicly. Being a person who was wired to take on blame, I absorbed it. But now when I look at the story, I see the manipulation, the dynamics that repeated themselves. They were experts at making people feel like outsiders, experts at deflecting responsibility. I wanted to drag it all out into the daylight with this big, fuzzy song. I’ve been waiting a long time to say this.”

  • “Vampires,” an earnest, arena rock-like anthems — with the new single being built around fuzzy power chords, thunderous drumming, enormous shout-along worthy hooks. Much like its predecessors, “Vampires” is informed by and fueled by deeply embittering and at times humiliating personal experience. And as a result, the hurt and disdain at the core of the song is visceral. “There was a season at the end of my time in Boston where I was being turned into ‘The Problem’ by someone who wanted to control me and couldn’t; it was a moment where I could have played small and gone along with what she wanted, as I had once done,” Audra explains in press notes. “But I didn’t. I played big. I kept what was mine instead of giving it away—which included parts of my identity. And while the result was a scorched earth reality that impacts my sense of self to this day, it also ended the whole thing. I learned a valuable lesson in that season: don’t fuel the narcissists. Keep your power for yourself. It’s what they hate. And if they’re going to drag your character out in front of everyone you know, you might as well burn it all down for the warmth.”

“Still Life,” MASS‘ fifth and final single is a stormy and forceful ripper built around Jerry Roe‘s thunderous drumming, Audra’s towering walls of guitar and her powerhouse vocal, which in this song express hurt, confusion, simmering anger, defiance and pride within the turn of a phrase. The band explains that the song outlines a series of interactions in which one person is told to be quiet about their injuries, to essentially “walk them off,” even when those injuries might be life-threatening.

Directed and edited by the band’s Jerry Roe and stylishly shot by the band’s Roe and Jarad Clement with lighting by Clement, the accompanying video features the band performing the song in a bare studio with the camera circling them in an intimate yet dizzying fashion.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Friendship Commanders Share An Earnest and Anthemic Ripper

Nashville-based melodic heavy duo and JOVM mainstays Friendship Commanders‘ forthcoming Kurt Ballou and Friendship Commanders co-produced third album MASS is a concept album about time, memory and Massachusetts based on Buick Audra’s personal experiences of leaving someplace one no longer feels comfortable or welcome.

In the lead-up to the album’s release, I’ve written about two of the album’s singles:

“Fail,” a grunge-inspired ripper built around fuzzy power chords, thunderous drumming and enormous mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses paired with Buick Audra’s expressive, Ann Wilson-like delivery. “Fail” manages to simultaneously evoke a cry for help and a desperate attempt to connect with another that just seems to fall a bit short.

The duo explained that the song was written to honor the memory of Spore‘s and Sunburned Hand of the Man‘s Marc Orleans, who committed suicide in June 2020. “We chose to make the song energetic, dissonant, and big, just as he would like it. Bit of a departure for us from our usual doomy vibe, but it’s still the same band, we think,” the band says. 

“High Sun,” a 120 Minutes-era MTV alt-rock/shoegazey-like single that’s a a bit of a departure from the doom-influenced heaviness that they’re best known for. But “When I moved away from Boston, I hauled an enormous amount of shame along with me. I had experienced these weird, high-impact moments that were not only troubling on their own, but the aftermath saw me painted as an outcast in my former social groups,” Friendship Commanders’ Buick Audra explains. “And I was young enough to believe that I was the problem. I had been in one controlling relationship in which being different was treated as disobedient, and I was punished for it—publicly. Being a person who was wired to take on blame, I absorbed it. But now when I look at the story, I see the manipulation, the dynamics that repeated themselves. They were experts at making people feel like outsiders, experts at deflecting responsibility. I wanted to drag it all out into the daylight with this big, fuzzy song. I’ve been waiting a long time to say this.”

“Vampires,” MASS‘ latest single continues a run of earnest, arena rock-like anthems — with the new single being built around fuzzy power chords, thunderous drumming, enormous shout-along worthy hooks. Much like its predecessors, “Vampires” is informed by and fueled by deeply embittering and at times humiliating personal experience. And as a result, the hurt and disdain at the core of the song is visceral.

“There was a season at the end of my time in Boston where I was being turned into The Problem by someone who wanted to control me and couldn’t; it was a moment where I could have played small and gone along with what she wanted, as I had once done,” Audra explains in press notes. “But I didn’t. I played big. I kept what was mine instead of giving it away—which included parts of my identity. And while the result was a scorched earth reality that impacts my sense of self to this day, it also ended the whole thing. I learned a valuable lesson in that season: don’t fuel the narcissists. Keep your power for yourself. It’s what they hate. And if they’re going to drag your character out in front of everyone you know, you might as well burn it all down for the warmth.”

Directed by the band, the accompanying video for “Vampires” is split between footage of the band performing the song, the band’s Audra first dancing with — and then killing the vampires that have been terrorizing her.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Nashville’s Friendship Commanders Share Grungy Ripper “Fail”


Nashville-based melodic, heavy duo Friendship Commanders — Buick Audra (vocals, guitar) and Jerry Roe (drums, bass) — have released two albums 2016’s Dave, 2018’s  Steve Albini-produced Bill and two EPs 2020’s Hold On To Yourself and last year’s Release The Rest, an exclusive vinyl compilation of singles released since 2020, including “Stonechild”/”Your Reign Is Over,” which continued their ongoing collaboration with the engineering and mixing team of Kurt Ballou and Brad Boatright.

The Nashville-based duo’s forthcoming Kurt Ballou and Friendship Commanders co-produced third album MASS was recorded in Ballou’s Salem, MA-based studio, GodCity. The album’s second and latest single “Fail” is grunge-inspired ripper built around fuzzy power chords, thunderous drumming, enormous mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses paired with Audra’s expressive, Ann Wilson-like delivery. The song evokes both a desperate cry for help and a desperate attempt to connect with another that sadly seems to fall short. The duo explains that the song was written to honor the memory of Spore‘s and Sunburned Hand of the Man‘s Marc Orleans, who committed suicide in June 2020. “We chose to make the song energetic, dissonant, and big, just as he would like it. Bit of a departure for us from our usual doomy vibe, but it’s still the same band, we think,” the band says.

Directed, edited and shot by the band’s Jerry Roe, the accompanying video features Audra, Roe and Daniel Skiver, and is split between the band playing performing the song in a bare loft space and intimately shot footage of a desperate man, who’s at the end of his rope.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Nashville-based melodic, heavy duo Friendship Commanders — Buick Audra (vocals, guitar) and Jerry Roe (drums, bass) — have released two albums and an EP so far, 2016’s Dave, 2018’s Steve Albini-produced Bill and the Hold On To Yourself EP, which was released earlier this year.

Recorded with mix engineer Kurt Ballou, Hold On To Yourself EP finds the band crafting their heaviest batch of material to date while being a sonic and stylistic departure — with the EP’s material introducing a layered, studio polish instead of the raw, mostly lived-tracked approach of their previously released material. Thematically, the EP found the band examining the world around them, including their part in the world’s massive problems and potential solutions, and challenging the patriarchy while also delving deep and discussing being an adult, who has survived childhood trauma. Interestingly, enough the EP’s title essentially summarizes Audra’s message to other survivors — and has been a personal mantra for the Friendship Commanders’ frontperson; she has a habit of writing the phrase “hold on to yourself” every morning as a reminder. “This has been especially true during times of dealing with unsafe family members, abusers, or unwell people,” Audra says in press notes. “With a past of self-abandonment, holding on to myself has to be a focus in everything I do. It’s a good reminder and I always need it. It just seemed like the right set of words for this record.”

“Stonechild”/”Your Reign Is Over” is the first bit of new material since the release of Hod On To Yourself and continues their ongoing collaboration with the mixing and engineering team of Kurt Bailou and Brad Boatright. And although there is a sort of sonic through-line between HOTY and the new singles — with all of the material centered around sludgy power chords, thunderous drumming and rousingly anthemic, mosh pit friendly hooks. However, the new singles find the band moving into new emotional and thematic territory while tackling even tougher subjects. “Stonechild” manages to the outrage over injustice and the ache of unjust loss while “Your Reign Is Over” expresses frustration and a desire to get out there, snatch control from the old bastards fucking things up and making it a better world — right now.

“Stonechild” was written about the circumstances of Stonechild Cheifstick’s death last July 3rd. Chiefstci was a 39 year-old, Chippewa Cree man, who was part of the Suqamish Tribal community and father of five, who was killed by a white police officer. “Through a friend of mine who lives on the Port Madison Reservation, I connected to articles in local publications about his death, all of which I read with horror,” Audra says in press notes. “My brain kept going back to facts of the story: He was murdered by a white police officer . . . At the location where the community was gathered to enjoy the 3rd of July fireworks, at a waterfront park . . . Families with kids were everywhere and witnessed his death . . . And they still held the fireworks after he died. The song was written to acknowledge a life, question a death, and stand in solidarity with a community that has lost someone. We, alongside the people who knew him, demand justice for Stonechild. With this song, I am also asking questions to all of us about how we’re actually moving through this world, injustice all around us, systemic racism normalized and ignored. Are we helping, or are we hurting?”

“Stonechild” also features s spoken word section txʷəlšucid, co-written by Casey Fowler, who is a member of the Suquamish people; Zalmai Zahir ʔəswəli, who is part of the Puyallup; and Chris Duenas, who’s also part of the Puyallap people. Fowler recites the section in Lushootseed, and does on on behalf of Chiefstick’s family.

“Your Reign Is Over” encapsulates the general frustration and despair most of has have felt so deep this past year. We’ve had a pandemic that has rampaged communities, economies and entire industries with millions here in the States out of work and in danger of losing their homes. There’s the continued struggle for racial justice and gender equality, which have been on the forefront of the country’s consciousness during a summer of protest and unrest. There has been continued environmental calamities — and we’re in the middle of arguably the most consequential presidential election in the past 150 years. We’ve seen the destruction of people and the environment; the hatred and strife. If you’re like me — or like the band — you’re exhausted and fed up. And as a result the song calls out the greedy, the selfish, the destruction, demanding that they get out of the way for new voices, new ways of doing things, new thinking and new systems.

On June 19, 2020, the Tennessee legislate voted to pass the most restrictive abortion ban in the country. The vote took place in the middle of night — without the public knowing. As it turns out, Buick was in the state capitol building for the vote. “As an activist who advocates for bodily autonomy, the fact that our largely white and male Republican super-majority legislature took the extra steps to hinder the rights of so many – the middle of such a vulnerable time – really blew my last fuse,” Buick says. “There’s no way to dress that action up as anything but deliberately harmful. Such action is rooted in racism, classism, and sexism There’s some junk science in there, too. I haven’t written much this year, but I have written this work to say that this chapter is over. We can no longer allow any of the above to go on. This election needs to flip the state of Tennessee, and also the presidency.”