Interview by Tucker Hughes

Photography by Abbey Braden

We met up with Titus Andronicus at the household of Mr. and Mrs. Graetzer, parents to bassist Ian in Glen Rock, NJ, just a short walk away from the actual giant rock the town is named after. With a fresh batch of brownies in the oven and the batteries recharging for their Spiderman helicopter, the punk rock poets sat down with us to talk with ’SUP about Goosebumps, Seinfeld and seeking revenge in delectable ways.

The band takes its name from the brutally violent Shakespeare play and writes songs like Alexander Pope prose carved into a study hall desk. Like Bright Eyes with balls, Titus Andronicus will break your heart and your nose and still have you shouting along with the chorus. Their latest album The Airing of Grievances is out worldwide on XL Recordings.

Titus Andronicus has had up to 11 members at one point.

Patrick: Just for one show. We peaked at 11 and then didn’t ever need to do it again.

What is the complete story of the evolution of Titus Andronicus then as far as band members?

Patrick: This is like, our fourth official long-standing lineup. This is version 4.0. Me and Ian [Gretzer] have been in all four incarnations. Andrew has been in –

Andrew: Two of them.

Patrick: Ian [O’Neil] is brand new. Eric has been around since incarnation number three.

Ian Graetzer: It looks like he got a haircut too.

Andrew: He did, nice looking hair today.

Eric: Thanks guys.

Patrick: D.I.Y. haircut.

Eric: It’s true. I cut it myself.

Patrick: An indie haircut.

Eric: I really believe in cutting your own hair. Go to a barber? It sucks.

Ian G: That’s cool I guess. But I don’t want to do it.

Kevin: I got a haircut from the barber the other day [points to his head]. I’m just saying.

How do you guys keep such a unified sound with all your rotating cast members?

Patrick: Do we?

Andrew: I think it’s easier to do that because so much of the work as far as what the songs are going to sound like comes from the mind of one guy in the band.

Patrick: Me! Patrick! The greatest one of them all.

Ian G: Also when the lineups change, it’s only like one person. It’s not like we’re starting off from scratch.

Patrick: It’s not like we go around at like, jazz clubs looking for new members, or pick up guys at bluegrass hootenannies. It’s just a steady stream of regular rock and rollers, regular punks.

Ian O: I know for me, personally, I already knew what the band sounded liked. So coming into the band I already had it in my mind that I would respect that sound because I liked it so much. I can assume that most people coming into the band knew what it sounded like before and kind of wanted to uphold that.

Patrick: We are all friends anyway. Our pool of applicants is always our best buds.

Ian G: Then the hazing comes.

Patrick: Then the water boarding. Hell Week.

Ian G: If you make it out, you’re in.

Ian O: My version of hell is this probably carrying my amp head through Brooklyn to the New Jersey Transit and all the way here. I remembered, because I sold it today, just how painful it was to carry that so far. I didn’t anticipate that.

Ian G: You thought that was a bad day until you finally got here and we waterboarded you with malt liquor.

Patrick: Then pulled your pants down and put that ping pong paddle up your butt. And not the handle. You’ve been shitting pancakes ever since.

Kevin: What is that a reference from?

Patrick: Beer League. No, Beerfest. Not Artie Lange’s Beer League. Both awesome movies.

Kevin: Artie Lange is signing books next week at Bookends. Did you know that?

Patrick: I’ll be there.

Andrew: The interesting thing about the unified sound thing is that when we are driving in the van and go to listen to music it becomes apparent that we don’t listen to the same [music]. I’m stumbling over words here. We haven’t gotten much sleep.

Patrick: Yeah, we woke up in Chicago yesterday and drove all the way home. Then Ian [O’Neil] demanded that we drive him all the way to Greenpoint. Gave him door-to-door service.

Andrew: It was his 21st birthday though.

Eric: That shit’s not going to fly in the future though. You got your one free pass.

Patrick: Next time you can hitchhike.

Andrew: So yeah we all have pretty different tastes in music. There are some things that we all like. Fortunately the one of those things that we all like is the music that this band makes.

Ian O: One thing that I think is interesting with the lineup changes is Eric coming in and me later after the band had been around so long. We all had specific tastes in music before joining Titus Andronicus and usually if you are in a band with people your tastes kind of grow in similar directions. Especially if you spent a lot of time with those people.

Patrick: I mean if you’re inclined to join Titus Andronicus in the first place chances are you know the lay of the land. Not too many surprises.

Eric: I think it is surprising though, some of the abums we like to listen to in the van.

Patrick: Like The Proclaimers! Sunshine on Leith.

Eric: You ever listen to that album? It’s awesome! You completely dismiss it because you think their only song is going to be “I Would Walk 500 Miles”. Not the case at all!

“Cap in Hand”!

All: “Cap in Hand”!

[All then shout the title of every track on the CD simultaneously...]

1. “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)”, 2. “Cap in Hand”, 3. “Then I Met You”, 4. “My Old Friend the Blues”, 5. “Sean”, 6. “Sunshine on Leith”, 7. “Come on Nature”, 8. “I’m on My Way”, 9. “What Do You Do?”, 10. “It’s Saturday Night”, 11. “Teardrops”, 12. “Oh Jean”

[Mr. Graetzer walks into the room]

Eric: Hi, Mr. Graetzer.

Patrick: Without this guy the band couldn’t exist. He and his wife have been incredibly generous to us over the years. Letting us use his pool house. They let us borrow the Jeep for our first ever tour. Always make sure there are enough pretzels and Oreos for us, and Mountain Dew.

Eric: Let’s not forget they created Ian, who plays bass in our band.

Patrick: I guess that was okay too.

Bass players are secondary to pretzels?

Patrick [to Ian G]: Well, what have you done for me lately?

You guys have that frustrated garage-punk sound. Do you feel like that comes from working in the suburbs?

Patrick: Suburban America, youthful aggression. Suburban Americans are just naturally inclined to rebel for some reason. Even though we’ve got it made. We’ve been forced to adapt, we have become great at manufacturing things to become angry.

Ian G: I think I would be more pissed off if I lived in some cow town in the middle of Texas.

Patrick: That’s true, it’s amazing that there are not more punk bands coming out of Ozona, Texas or Lyman, Wyoming.

Eric: The rest of Titus Andronicus will actually have you believe I don’t in fact live in the suburbs but that I live in the hills.

Patrick: It’s true. He is a mountain man.

Ian G: He grew up battling the lake people.

Patrick: And getting terrorized by the Jersey Devil.

Kevin: That’s south Jersey.

Patrick: Whatever. Before Eric joined the band he had never seen a car before.

Was he also shocked by running water?

Eric: This toilet flushes?

How do you think Shakespeare would describe a Titus Andronicus show?

Patrick: Zounds! Merrily these merry-making lads, these minstrels of mirth, these plucky peons –

Eric: You better watch your iambic pentameter over there.

Patrick: Okay fine, then he wouldn’t describe anything. Because he’s dead. But I hope that he would recognize that… um…. I don’t know… that we rule. Just like him we want to be crowd pleasers. We are humble craftsmen just like he was.

Andrew: But more likely than not he would say something incredibly insulting in Elizabethan English.

Patrick: But in a way so beautiful that we wouldn’t notice.

Ian G: I think anything created after 1850 would seem pretty damn strange to him.

Patrick: Well this punk rock thing is a pretty recent invention in human history. I was thinking about it the other night when we were watching No Age and we were all bumping into each other. People weren’t really doing that up until not too long ago. I wonder how they survived. That’s probably why there was so much more mead-drinking. We are really blessed to live in a time when you are entitled to scream in a stranger’s face, slam yourself into them, throw your body onto their head and trust them to pick you back up. It’s a beautiful thing. We have come a long way baby.

What a beautiful new world.

Andrew: Punk is really just a blanket term for any subversive culture. I hope we are a little subversive and Shakespeare would appreciate us for that.

Patrick: Yeah, because the theater was not considered high art at that time. In the same way that we think of his work as the pinnacle of human achievement so too will we look back at like, I don’t know, Crass in a couple hundred years. Iggy Pop. Municipal Waste. Fucked Up. In the 2200’s they will say, ‘Wow. Genius.’

I think it’s safe to say GG is already a god.

Patrick: You don’t see too many guys in bow ties nursing a glass of ’86 Dinkleberry wine and extolling the virtues of GG Allin. But one day, you’ll see.

Ian G: I think the immediate connection though between Shakespeare and punk rock is the interest in the human condition.

Eric: That play also has more abrasive themes than some of his other plays. Really pretty brutal.

Patrick: He was kind of like the original horror punk.

What is the plot to Titus Andronicus?

Patrick: Well this general has vanquished the Goths in this big war and he comes back is all like ‘Okay, time to take it easy.’ Then his enemies seek revenge on him in a variety of delectable ways. And in the end everyone is dead.

Is that also how you would describe Titus Andronicus the band too, “revenge in delectable ways”?

Patrick: Yeah, basically.

Do you guys get inspiration from any other literary figures?

Patrick: No. We all like different books. I like comic books. I’ll just say that.

Eric: I like the Fear Street series by R.L. Stine.

Not Goosebumps?

Eric: Nah, that shit is for kids.

Patrick: If I can draw a correlation here between rock ‘n’ roll and children’s literature, I remember back when I was in Cub Scouts we had meetings from three to five on Fridays. For the first 90 minutes we would do some Cub Scout activity like make papier maché or some damn thing and then from 4:30 until the end all the kids would insist on watching Goosebumps, the TV series. I never wanted to watch it, and that is the beginning of me being alienated. A proud tradition that I have now parlayed to great fortune and fame.

Eric: Are You Afraid of the Dark was the best of that genre and time period.

Patrick: 9:30? On SNick? I’d crap my pants.

Kevin: Right after Ren and Stimpy!

Patrick: 9:30 when you’re that age might as well be 3AM. Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society.

You have been quoted as saying, “Titus Andronicus never sing about love, only hate. Titus Andronicus have no hope for the future. Titus Andronicus believe only in nothingness. Everyone in Titus Andronicus was born to die.” You guys seem to be having a lot of fun onstage, why so down?

Patrick: All those things are very fun. I just got excited. That was actually written in response to an earlier bio that I had written and everyone agreed it was so shitty and pretentious that I had to go way off the other way. But hey, that is just the way that it is. What are you going to do? That is the card that we are dealt as humans. You can piss your pants about it or you can say this is how it is going to be and as long as I am here I am going to enjoy it. I’m not going to hide in my basement with my dick between my legs. Maybe I shouldn’t
say dick. My tail. Get out there and live. It’s a town full of losers and I’m pulling out to win.

Your last album was titled from a Seinfeld reference, how does that fit into that nihilist philosophy?

Patrick: Seinfeld is a pretty dark series. When you separate yourself from how much you love the characters they are all really quite awful people. But we love them so much. Seinfeld is kind of like Charles Bukowski like that. You love them more the more horrible they get because they are just so flawed just like us.

Eric: We love to watch people fail.

Patrick: Exactly. It’s a very human show.

The entire last episode was about how horrible they actually were.

Patrick: That episode was actually based off The Stranger by Harold Bloom. In the last few chapters he goes through a trail where all the people he has been an asshole to get up and talk about what an asshole he was. Just like Seinfeld. On Seinfeld it was a lot more funny because it was the Soup Nazi and The Lady with the Marble Rye and Poppy.

Kevin: They went to prison in the end.

Patrick: That is another thing that we will look back on in a few hundred years and say is one of the pinnacles of 21st century achievement.

So what’s next for Titus Andronicus?

Patrick: Isn’t someone going to take our picture?END