Iron Chic: "We can either kill each other or help each other"

Iron Chic have always been fond of pop culture references. Whether it’s a nod to college rockers the Gin Blossoms (‘True Miserable Experience’) or Ghostbusters (‘Bustin’ Makes Me Feel Good’), they possess the ability to bounce emotions and meaning through cultural touchstones. ‘You Can’t Stay Here’, the Long Island punk outfit’s third album is no exception. And it just might be their finest moment to date. It hasn’t been an easy ride to get here. In 2016, life in Iron Chic ground to a halt following the passing of founding guitarist Rob McAllister. With plans to produce an album that year, it’s taken the group 18 months to process their grief – much of which is worked through on ‘You Can’t Stay Here’. The result is an album that ruminates heavily on the issue of mortality, but is, ironically, the most life-affirming listen of the year. It ends with ‘To Shreds, You Say’, a line culled from Futurama. Here, Professor Farnsworth receives a telephone call. He picks up the receiver to be told about the death of an old friend: “Did he at least die painlessly?” asks the professor. “To shreds, you say? Tsk tsk tsk. How’s the wife holding up?” A pause. “To shreds, you say…” Like much of ‘You Can’t Stay Here’, it’s a song that meditates on the notion of mortality, yet it possesses that same irreverent, existential viewpoint with which Iron Chic are synonymous. Any doubts about the subject matter dispelled by the telling – and crushing – title. Writing the album was, understandably, a challenge. “It was hard,” acknowledges vocalist Jason Lubrano. “I also had some other personal things going on over the last year too, and that also informed the lyrical content of the record. But it was also cathartic in a way. “Some of the songs were written with Rob before he passed. It’s all really weird. In a way, we want to honour him, but at the same time, we want to let our feelings out. And that’s all going on at the same time.” Iron Chic have always excelled in these moments of opposition; the big, weighty, philosophical questions set to bouncy three-minute indie-punk anthems. This time, with the lyrics informed by events close to home, it has led to songs that question the meaning of life in a more pertinent and personal way compared to the abstract, cosmic nature of ‘The Constant One’ or ‘Not Like This’. That said, the focus remains very much on the big picture. After all, Lubrano is a man who can take an intangible concept, such as that of ‘Spooky Action at a Distance’ (ask your friendly neighbourhood quantum physicist) and make it relate to a punk song. For all the sombre affectations, there’s still hope to be found in Iron Chic’s work; questions of shouldn’t we be doing more – or something better – to assist our fellow human beings.

"I wish more people would look beyond the petty day-to-day shit."

“For me, I do wish more people would just kind of pull out and look beyond the petty day-to-day shit that people argue about all the time,” says Lubrano. “If people could take a step back and look at things, it would help make people more empathetic to an extent. We’re all just sitting on this mudball doing our thing, and there’s not much else we can do. We can either kill each other or help each other. And people just seem to go for the shittier option a lot,” he says. “I don’t usually have a lot of intent when I go into writing, though. I don’t wanna say it is a stream of consciousness because it’s not, but I let it just pour out. It’s like putting a puzzle together. I know there are ideas in my head and there are words that rhyme, and if I can pick the right words to anchor everything, it all falls into place. “A lot of the time, the songs don’t even really mean anything until they’re done, and I can ascribe a meaning to it, and I’d say that’s been pretty consistent throughout.” And while you could get bogged down in the message – after all, Iron Chic’s lyrics are best digested with a PBR and 200 other singing, swaying patrons – it comes back to this idea of making everything relatable. Here, the group’s song titles help to centre proceedings, providing context for those willing to dig. ‘You Can’t Stay Here’ is no exception. ‘Planes, Chest Pains and Automobiles’ riffs off the classic John Candy comedy ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’, while ‘Let’s. Get. Dangerous’ was the Darkwing Duck’s catchphrase. These all help to show the mindset of the group, providing a peek into the creative process. It does kind of feel like cheating though – like taking a peek behind the wizard’s curtain, as it were. “Picking song titles is hard sometimes,” considers Lubrano. “I generally don’t like picking a lyric or a line and making it from that. But, if something doesn’t pop into my head, I will just go down an internet rabbit hole myself. If there’s a particular theme, I’ll Google it, or go on Wikipedia and see if anything pops out. But it’s a lot of comic or movie references and stuff like that. “I don’t get upset if people do or don’t get the references though, but I like there being little Easter eggs for people. Some are more obvious than others. The first song [‘A Headache With Pictures’] is also a Futurama reference. We did that on purpose to bookend the record – we thought it was quite funny,” laughs Lubrano. The titles represent playful and knowing breaks of light when set against the considered lyrics and sombre theme of the record. While ‘You Can’t Stay Here’ covers themes such as death and grief, it isn’t the first punk album to tackle this topic recently. Touché Amore’s ‘Stage Four’ was a similarly powerful rumination, as was Pianos Become The Teeth’s ‘Lack Long After’. Combined with The Menzingers midlife crises on ‘After The Party’, it feels like punk music has grown into lyrical maturity. “I think it’s just the fact that so many of us have now grown up with punk music our whole lives – or at least since we were teenagers,” considers Lubrano. “You have a lot of older people still active in making music and enjoying music, and I think that comes across now. You have a lot of people thinking about their lives, and I think that means punk can be a little bit more emotionally vulnerable now.” Punk lifers in the truest sense (Iron Chic’s history dates back to the likes of Latterman and Small Arms Dealer), it feels like the group are on the cusp of something special, breaking out from the US underground into a wider arena. ‘You Can’t Stay Here’ is an album that resonates thanks to its depth and complexity, tackling big themes with candour. While the very essence of Iron Chic has always felt like a shared, communal experience, it feels like this community is going to get a little bigger rather soon…Taken from the November issue of Upset, out now. Iron Chic’s album ‘You Can't Stay Here’ is out now.