More Horns, More Members, Same PROTOMARTYR

Interview by Ali Williams
Sixteen years into a band, creative expansion can become a logistical problem. For PROTOMARTYR, the latest version apparently comes with horns, extra personnel and the growing realisation that every good studio idea eventually turns up on the tour budget demanding its own seat. The Detroit post-punk veterans are preparing to release their seventh studio album Hotel Usona on September 25, frontman Joe Casey dialled into HEAVY to chat with our Ali Williams about their new release and upcoming US tour. When asked how he would explain PROTOMARTYR to the uninitiated, his first assessment is brutally economical. “Really shitty. No, it’s great.”
He offers a slightly more useful version immediately afterwards. “I guess it started out as punk, and then we got better at our instruments, and so people call us post-punk now.” There is also Casey’s considerably harder-to-misinterpret summary: “We’re a loud yelly band from Detroit.” Fair enough. Sixteen years, seven records and an international audience later, PROTOMARTYR have earned the right to keep the sales pitch brief. The new record, however, has given the band a few fresh problems to solve. Guitarist Greg Ahee has pushed beyond simply making the guitars heavier, bringing trumpets and horns into the equation in an attempt to find weight somewhere other than the volume knob. “Greg the guitar player wanted to use horns because he wanted to try to be heavy in a different way, as opposed to just cranking up the guitar,” Casey explains. “Sometimes big massed horns can be scarier or louder than the guitar.”

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