We got together and talked with Erik Garlington from Proper. about their new singles "Don't" and "Aficionado", as well as Erik's contribution to the Nervus song "Between The Lines" from the "Sunday, Someday" project.

Erik 0:00
Oh, do y'all have like a podcast intro, like a jingle?

Koji 0:03
Yeah, there is a jingle. We edit it in later.

Em 0:06
We put it in post.

Erik 0:07
What is it?

Em 0:08
Uh, it sounds like this…

“SUNDAY, SOMEDAY” guitar jingle theme song plays with Koji singing
♫ Sunday… Sunday, someday… Sunday, someday… Someday soon… ♫

Erik 0:58
Oh, nice.

Koji 1:01
Oh, I see what you did!

Erik 1:03
Very artful. Maybe Monday.

Em 1:06
That's great.

Erik 1:07
Yeah? Okay.

Koji 1:08
I think you nailed it.

Em 1:09
That was really thoughtful.

Erik 1:10
[Laughs] Okay, thank you.

Koji 1:11
That was really inviting. I liked it.

Erik 1:14
Yeah?

Koji 1:15
It's open energy.

Erik 1:16
Thank you!

Koji 1:17
Yeah, it's good. [Pause] Eric, we're living in a global pandemic and a waning uprising, but the shit is still real in the streets.

Erik 1:24
It is.

Koji 1:25
Could you tell us, in the face of all of that, how you've been making space for joy?

Erik 1:29
All right, for joy... god, for joy, specifically, it's been my wife and I, like, getting time together. This is the most time we've spent together in years, because tours come up, doing some type of side hustle that requires me to go two states over and be gone for a week, and her working a lot, and me working a lot. And so, the joy is that we have time for each other now, like we've learned — we've unlearned —so much that we just dealt with because of capitalism, like we're not going to go back to those things, is what we tell ourselves like… Oh, she's not gonna work a 14 hour shift, get five hours of sleep, and then go do that again for three days in a row. There was no reason why we needed to be doing so much for so little in return from this workforce that just doesn't appreciate you but wants all of your loyalty. Unlearning all of these capitalist things that we spent the last the last 28 years of our lives just being told are normal. So just getting to that happiness and you know, getting outside, getting a dog, having family, movie night type things. But for the most part, the bigger scale has been unlearning all of this shit that we don't need to live with and that we just thought was normal because that's just how it's always been.

Koji 2:40
Can you speak more to what you've been deprogramming from? Like, what is the stuff that you're unlearning? And also introduce your roommates; your two cats and your puppy?

Erik 2:49
Yeah! [Laughs] Um... really just, like, the work-life balance, which I feel like is a bullshit term, that it shouldn't be a balance but... on the weekends, it's like, I'm not sending emails, I'm not doing interviews, I'm not doing any... even though the band doesn't feel like work to me, it's... it's just fun... just not doing it on the weekends. Like, it's just our time. Or just, yeah, like getting the dog on a good routine. And figuring out how to make dog treats and dog toys and getting this whole cool world because we've only had a dog for about four months now. Figuring all that out, like how long it takes to get a pig skin and get it ready for my dog. It takes about 15 hours, by the way! It's not worth it. Just buy things like that. Or we've been working out and getting into better shape because we drank so much at the beginning of the pandemic. I alone gained about 40 pounds. And I was just sluggish. And I couldn't sing like I used to and I couldn't... I just couldn't operate how I used to. We kind of busted through that and have been like, you know, we're gonna work out and eat a little better. But like, I'll have a beer if I want it. And not do any, like, kill myself crash dieting things and not beat ourselves up about, like, the societal standard that 30 is the decline. So for me, it's been a lot of centering myself. Nikki meditates. I wake up and stretch. And I don't read the news anymore in the morning. I go to the gym, do some fun stuff, take the dog out. But a lot of getting back to that simple living thing that everyone romanticizes about, but still in New York. So... a whole healthy balance of being centered, not living to work, giving other people time. Deprogramming — that has been the biggest thing for me.

Koji 4:29
Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, it's an inspiration because I think if you grow up in the west, and especially in the so-called United States, and you're a racialized person on top of that, each community has their own way of pushing grind culture on you.

Erik 4:44
Yeah.

Koji 4:44
You know, for me, being Asian, it's that model minority myth, and really valuing being invisible, being a great assimilator. And I think the logic that you learn around wellness is a carceral one, so it's all built around guilt and shame.

Erik 4:59
Absolutely.

Koji 5:00
And we have, like, such punitive language, so I think a great thing to make social in this time is that intention, whether around healthy relationships and companionship, whether that's with your cats and dogs and capybaras at home... [Laughs] Or with your friends, your family, your romantic partners, and then that piece of intentional eating and intentional movement as reclamation and as revolutionary practice. You know, we start with joy because joy is not some sort of binary, it's not like a flat happiness, but joy is a space that can make room for the whole spectrum of the human experience. And, I think, to be able to feel that...

Koji 5:40
You live in a very different New York than the one that you moved to, right? And New York is so physical, you're walking miles a day, the hours are longer, the city never sleeps, that puts a stress on your body. And yeah, it's a stress you eventually normalize.

Erik 5:54
Yeah.

Koji 5:55
And I think this time has really been about figuring out how to understand where the stress is, where the trauma is, how we've been keeping that in our bodies, how maybe that's been keeping us from being fully present in our relationships, whether that's in the organizing space, or in a romantic partnership or friendship. But yeah, bringing intention to every space is such a practice. And again, making it social, having a community like this of cultural workers, of artists and organizers who are sharing notes on how to be well. You know, the state does not want that. So I think it's a powerful thing to see your example and I'm stoked that you're feeling good.

Erik 6:35
Thank you!

Koji 6:36
One year out, you know?

Erik 6:37
Yeah!

Koji 6:38
It's amazing.

Erik 6:39
I cannot believe it's been a year, like... yeah, it's really hard. It's a hard thing to talk about because you never want to be preachy, you never want to sound like, “I did it, so you can, too!” Because then you're just doing another thing where you be like, “Pick yourself up by your bootstraps!” So, you know, people ask me, like, how I've been and how Nikki and I've been doing this, and... outside of organizing, it's really just like, “Oh, that's great!” And then, like, if they want to talk about it some more, you keep going into it, like, “Going more zero waste was our thing this year.” So, it's... it's a lot harder than I thought it would be but there's plastic in so much shit that it doesn't need to be in. But yeah, just trying to have those conversations with people. Because obviously, I want to know how my friends are doing in my pod and how their friends are doing in their families. So, you tell one friend about this, you know, recyclable thing that they never knew is recyclable, and then they tell their friend and their friend. So just a general word of mouth of wellness and trying to create your own new normal is what we've been trying to spread.

Em 7:32
Yeah, I completely feel you on that. I think, like, we're presented with this kind of false idea that as consumers, we have the choice. But if the choices are plastic or plastic, then that is not an open choice, you know? And it's not easy, obviously, it takes time. But they want you to not have time. You're in the shop for what, two seconds, and you've got to go, “Right, do I want the plastic one or the one that's got less plastic in it? I guess the one with less plastic... But I don't have time to do this because I need to go home and do something else to make money so I can buy your extracted shit.”

Erik 8:05
[Laughs] Yeah. Especially the thing for marginalized people... Like, I was a chef before music, so I post a lot of food things, and the amount of times some of my poorer black cousins or my poorer Mexican cousins are just like, "Why are your eggs brown?" or "Why are they blue?" And like... they just never knew. They just always thought eggs are white, that they come that way, that you have to refrigerate them. They've been like, “You don't put your eggs in the fridge?” Or like, “What is this? What is this? Why does your steak look like this? This cut that you have, that means it's bad.” And I have to be like, “That doesn't mean that. That's just what you were taught.” So it's a lot harder to try and, like, talk to marginalized people about these things because you don't want to make them feel outsided. You don't want to make them feel othered at all, because they already are othered. Everyday is like, you know, having those conversations and figuring out with the different person how they want to be fed that information.

Koji 8:55
Yeah. And I mean, like, you don't have to convince someone what an egg should look like. You can have the analysis that it's colonial food standards that have removed all of our traditional knowledge. You know, like, they've disconnected us with food sources from forms of care. And that's just a natural result that there's going to be this gap that is manifested in so many ways that ultimately makes our communities less safe. And yet, in social situations, you need to be present with where people are at. And I think that that's something that we're learning is that, you know, you can have all the beautiful movement language that you want. But if you're not able to keep it real when you're meeting your neighbor and having a conversation then how far does all that theory, all that history go? And there's only so far language can go, right? That's why we're all artists of some sort — multidisciplinary artists, at that — trying to create in different spaces because there's certain things language can't do, especially for us speaking English when this... it's not their language. It's not mine.

Erik 9:55
Yeah.

Koji 9:56
Yeah, it's the only one that I speak and I feel like, you know, we're able to commune when we cook, and when we do our food, make our spaces, make our art. I don't even think people need to understand that that's what they're doing. But people got to be doing, you know, because that's how we'll get free, is practice. What do you think, Em? You know, we're having this conversation across the Atlantic, what's on your horizon? What do you see being in the UK?

Erik 10:22
Yeah, like going back to the new normal, like you were saying?

Em 10:25
I actually feel really grateful for the fact that I am not touring to live right now. It put a lot of things in perspective for me about things that Nervus were doing, in particular, that are industry standard, that are extractive, that are exploitative, and that are against what we, kind of, purport to stand for. And I think that you get sucked into this whole industry trap of the grind, where “it's not ideal, but... it's not ideal, but... it's not ideal, but…” and it's just a long catalogue of “it's not ideal, but…” And a lot of people would say, “Well, what have you compromised on?” But you don't exist as a band without having to compromise, right? It's part of the process, it's part of actually collaborating. That's what it is — it's compromising. It's just that when you start working with other people whose interests are not necessarily aligned with yours, and money starts to get involved, those compromises tend to be more on an ethical basis than they are on an artistic basis. And because you're used to this sort of back and forth of compromise, it seems normal, because what you're doing is you're working in an environment where it is generative, it is healing. That is what the music space feels like to me when I'm making it. Not the industry, but the process of making music. And then the way that interfaces with the industry, you are still in that mindset a lot of the time of it being generative and healing. And you're making compromises in a state of mind where you feel like, “No, this is going to be a good thing.” And making decisions that feel like the lesser of two evils. It's the Coke and Pepsi thing, right? It's the...

Koji 12:00
Republican or Democrat.

Em 12:01
Yeah! And you don't see the liberation there on the shelf next to Coke and Pepsi and Joe Biden. You don't see...

Koji 12:09
[Laughs]

Em 12:10
Liberation isn't shown to you as an option, but it is there.

Koji 12:13
Yeah.

Em 12:13
But you don't get to see that. You get to see, “Oh, well, you got to sell t-shirts. And you can either do it this way, or do it that way.” But then you realize that you are just thinking colonised thoughts, like, all of these things that we kind of just do and are excited about. Because it feels like this is going to help us move onto the next thing and I think, like, growing in that sense is so attractive because growing feels like progress. But growing is often regression. And it is, like I say, extractive and exploitative. So to be able to take a step back from that and to be doing music, as an amateur again, and saying, “Fuck professionalism.” And doing things in a way that isn't necessarily independent, because we are all interdependent, but doing it in a way that actively rejects that mass production, mass consumption model that we're taught is normal.

Koji 13:07
Yeah, I love that, the idea of not being an independent artist, but an interdependent artist.

Em 13:13
“Intie.”

Koji 13:13
Yeah, intie. We're an intie band.

Erik 13:16
I think a lot about, like, how many people perceive me as difficult because I don't want to play the game and I don't want to send some bullshit email and I'll turn down a good offer. And they're like, “Oh, wow, too big for his britches, huh?” And it's just this weird thing where you're just expected to do this because X-Y-Z band did it. Even though from the jump, you're like, “We don't want to be X-Y-Z band!” And the machine is just like, “Well, that's weird! Why didn't you tell me that?” And you're like, “I did!” And you're just expected to be, I don't know, polite, for lack of a better word, when it's just like, “I make punk music. You knew this.” I feel like there's this whole divide of all these straight white dudes that are still in charge wanting you to kiss their boots and, you know, “give respect to get respect” type bullshit.

Koji 14:01
They saddle us with the production of their power. And the relationality that we have ultimately speaks to that lack of directness that we feel in conversation with cis straight white gatekeepers, you know? And our inability to be able to, like, have space that we can exist in.

Erik 14:19
Yeah.

Koji 14:20
That's what we're doing in being in community with one another; it's allowing our beingness to unfurl. We can talk about all the ways that we make ourselves small to survive, you know? And I think, on the other hand, there's a place we go where our identity is not about who we are in opposition to; to be closer to wholeness and to heal. And what I think is beautiful about listening to your respective work is we're able to name that but also in the naming, we're able to reach towards that future where we are able to be whole. And I think it's a shame that the industry that runs alongside music is another individuating machine divorcing us from, again, care and nourishment, and is ultimately so destructive and extractive and exploitative, to your point, Em. I'm amazed that we're... we're here at all. That's the true rebellion. Because I think when people think about like... white punk to me is, I don't know, cis white feminism in a way that it's like, “I'm gonna rebel and what I mean by that is create a hierarchy that fucking serves me.”

Erik 15:27
Yeah, absolutely.

Koji 15:27
[Laughs] And I'm like, you know, if your fucking rebellion is not in the service of black and queer liberation, well, fuck your rebellion. It's not rebellion at all, you know?

♪ “Sunday, Someday” guitar transition jingle plays ♪

Koji 15:45
I'm really eager to talk about the song that y'all did because you talk about how violence is being produced in society and I was wondering if you both could unpack the words that you wrote in “Between the Lines.” Because that song, I mean, it came out today as we're taping this, and I'm getting so many texts from people being like, you know, they got chills listening to it. And I know it really moved me and it's one of those songs that's almost hard for me to finish mastering because it's just so emotional. So I was wondering if you could just expand on what you're talking about in the song.

Em 16:19
Eric, would you like to go first?

Erik 16:20
Shit, okay! Yeah, um... [Laughs] My part... so Em came to me with the general idea of what she wanted, and I've never done a feature, so I kind of, like, wrote way too much — as I tend to do — but way more because I was just like... it has to be perfect, DO IT! You know, trying to channel my inner Kendrick Lamar or something, like, getting way too into it. I kind of sat back and narrowed it down and was like, “No, I want to say this. Why am I going out of my way to make it so grandiose when I can just talk to someone?” So then I had the idea of making it a conversation with me and, like, someone I probably would have went to high school with in Mississippi, or Alaska, or Missouri, the places that I went to high school. And I had the thought, like, “Where are they now?” and, “What do they believe now?” And with this... just ridiculous uprising of QAnon, the craziest most batshit thing I've ever heard in my life, I was just like, yeah, this is clearly an issue. My high school friends — well, not even friends — but just talking to them, and going through their Facebook feeds and seeing how many of them genuinely believe that QAnon is real and genuinely believe that Trump was a good person. And not even to say that Biden is a good person because he's an absolute piece of shit, but for them to believe that Trump is Jesus, pretty much. And... it's always.... whenever an issue comes up, they want to bring up black on black crime, as if that's not the most ridiculous thing ever. It's bullshit. But they always run back to that. They run back to the fucking stock market, as if that has any relevance on who's president and what they've done this week, if they took a shit or not today yet. So, just go back to that and what I would say to them if they would, for one, let me talk for more than 30 seconds before they cut me off. And, for two, they actually want to think critically about what's going on in the places they live — again, Missouri, Alaska, Mississippi — and how they can get out of their problems. So my focus point was just, you know, my liberal wet dream