"The one thing that I know for certain is I need this music and these people to survive." (An Interview With Eric Butler of Mom Jeans.)
As we breathe into this fleeting moment between winter and spring, the Half Mystic team wakes to reach for a song that at once dances like sunlight and falls like rain. Mom Jeans. compliments this teetering gray-space perfectly. Please join us in welcoming Eric Butler, the head of of Mom Jeans., to the H/M blog!
H/M: Mom Jeans. is currently working on your third album, Sweet Tooth. How has the creative process for Sweet Tooth differed from your past albums and vinyl split projects?
EB: Previous MJ releases have definitely been less collaborative with regards to songwriting. While touring and playing shows have always been extremely collaborative processes, with everyone putting in work and opinions and exerting their ideas on band decisions, our first album Best Buds and the 7” vinyl split we released with the band Graduating Life were written mostly by myself and [bandmate] Austin [Carango]. Our latest release Puppy Love was written almost entirely by me. The rest of the band—Austin, Sam Kless, and Bart Thompson—have never had this much influence in the songwriting process before, which is really exciting. The result is I think we’re writing the best songs that we’ve ever put out. Everyone involved in this album (including our engineer Ryan Ellery) wants to make a record that we can be proud of first as individuals, as well as together as a band.
Many of your songs reference popular culture, such as Brian Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim comics in “Scott Pilgrim vs. My GPA,” the Star Wars franchise in “Now This Is Podracing,” and the television show The Office in “You Can’t Eat Cats, Kevin.” What connections do you draw between popular media and music?
Pop culture plays a big role in our music just because I’m kind of a classic millennial in that I really enjoy consuming content. Whether it be television or movies or YouTube, I spend a large portion of my time exposed to that media, and I think that’s a common theme in the lives of most people in our generation. The way we consume art is changing so much, and it almost feels like the concept of having a common nostalgia about old TV shows or movies that you grew up with is starting to go away. It’s not necessarily a bad thing; I’m ultimately happy that we have access to all of these resources at our fingertips, but sometimes it feels like we were the last generation of kids to have grown up all watching the same cartoon on Saturday morning, or all talking about American Idol in middle school. For me, making references to specific pieces of pop culture that have managed to resonate with me over the years in Mom Jeans.’ music and aesthetic is a path to preserving that feeling and ultimately finding even more joy in our creation process.
Mom Jeans. was originally founded in California, and its influences are clear in your songs. What draws you here?
We all grew up here—Sam, Bart, and Austin have lived in California for their entire lives, so it’s definitely rooted in their fundamental selves. I was born in Canada and spent my first 10 years of life in the Midwest. I moved to California when I started the 5th grade, but I experienced all of my formative years—high school, college—here. Because of touring all the time and having lived in other states, I have a huge appreciation for California. It’s a hugely unique place that’s difficult to describe until you live in proximity to it, particularly (in my opinion) the San Francisco Bay Area.
But of course the flip side is that California has a lot of problems, and while we like to champion ourselves as the symbol of “coolness” with our legal weed and liberal policies, at our core we’re a very hypocritical state. Inequality runs rampant, housing is disappearing, half of the state is on fire, and we somehow have a surplus of money while schools are run with old textbooks and music programs are shut down. There’s too much to unpack in one breath, but it’s a really complex relationship to have with your home. A lot of people deal with it by moving away, and we all have tons of friends who have done that and found it incredible for their mental health. For myself, and I believe everyone in Mom Jeans., we don’t feel the need to leave. We would rather be some of the people that make California a better place if and when the shit starts to hit the fan. The Bay Area really is my home—I’ll travel anywhere, experience anything, but this is where I want to be for the rest of my life.
Your lyrics often discuss the dirty and raw parts of grief and loss. Why is it important to you to explore these subjects?
Before people started really caring about this band, music was a huge outlet for me in vocalizing my feelings. I have a tendency to internalize, and songwriting allows me to vent without actually speaking to anyone, putting myself in what feels like an extremely vulnerable state. I’ve always done that just for me, and while I appreciate how it helps our fans feel understood or less alone, these songs will ultimately always be me talking to myself and providing myself with an emotional outlet.
What pulls you to the acoustic, melancholic feel that permeates your discography?
I was originally drawn to that sound because of the bands Modern Baseball, the Front Bottoms, Owen, and Marietta. I loved the way they were able to combine acoustic guitars into a rock or emo song, and still maintain this intense beauty. I wouldn’t say we ever successfully executed it quite as well as them, but it was important to me to include acoustic guitar on the records because playing songs acoustically is how I learned how to write in the first place. Keeping the songs unplugged feels to me like a way to stay connected to our roots.
What three colors define your music?
Blue, yellow, and pink.
In “Pickle Bart,” you sing about a person who is willing to lift you up and hold space for you. What other things bring you joy?
To be completely honest, music is one of the only things that brings me pure joy and makes me feel alive. Lately, though, I’ve been spending a lot more time with my partner and my family, and that has been amazing. I’m also distancing myself a bit from the ideal of being a “musician”, trying to understand more about who I am beyond the art. Touring on this scale gets exhausting and isolating sometimes, and I have a hard time prioritizing myself and my health over what I perceive to be “best” for the project. I’m taking the time now to figure these things out so I don’t eventually burn out and create a situation in which we aren’t willing or able to continue this band on our terms.
Many of your songs have sequels, such as “Vape Nation” and “Vape Nation 2.0.” What conversations occur between tracks?
The songs have a tendency to evolve as we take them out, tour on them, and perform them over and over again. Sometimes a song changes enough that we feel like recording it again to capture the new energy we’ve found from playing it live. It’s also a lot of fun to continue thoughts through songs and albums, because while your sound will change, there are callbacks you can make while writing to reminisce on where you came from. I try to do that a lot with lyrics and song names.
What hopes do you have for Sweet Tooth? For the future? For this week?
I really hope to just write songs that make me feel good. This band has taken me and my best friends in the world to so many places, and given me so many experiences that I never thought I could have. I feel incredibly lucky to be in a position where I can share my art and have people respond to it so overwhelmingly, and I think that’s forced me and the rest of the band to operate in a way that’s not entirely serving ourselves. But this year we’re taking some time off of shows and touring to reevaluate what we want out of this band and this life, because the one thing that I know for certain is I need this music and these people to survive. Once we’re back in a place where we’re really able to do things in a way that prioritizes our happiness, rather than money or success or listenership—pressures that all artists feel regardless of how hard they try not to—we’ll put out the new album and hit the road. Until then, we’ll be writing songs, spending time with our families, and enjoying each other’s company without worrying when we’ll have to hop back into the van.
Bio: Mom Jeans., headed by Eric Butler, released their first full length album Best Buds in 2016 and their second album Puppy Love in 2018. Mom Jeans. is comprised of four members, including Austin Carango, Sam Kless, and Bart Thompson. Other musical projects by the band’s members include Just Friends, Graduating Life, Snooze, and Natural Flavor. Their third album, Sweet Tooth, is forthcoming.
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