Imperial Teen has never been in much of a hurry. At this point, five or six years between albums is simply part of the San Francisco-bred band’s rhythm. These days, it’s a necessary consequence of Roddy Bottum, Will Schwartz, Jone Stebbins and Lynn Truell building lives in different cities while maintaining a productive musical relationship that stretches back more than three decades. Out today, All Over You (Merge), Imperial Teen’s seventh album, is a snapshot of “where we are now, where the world is now, who we’ve become and the geography of our collective consciousness,” says Bottum, also known for his role as the keyboardist with Faith No More.
Songs developed across multiple writing and recording trips, sometimes separated by long stretches of time. But once the four musicians assembled, scarcity created its own momentum. Bubblegum harmonies, electronic beats, grungy guitars and power-pop hooks collide without much concern for parameters. While there are more serious concerns beneath the exuberance, Imperial Teen has never seen world-weariness and pleasure as competing impulses.
Here’s more on each track from Bottum, Schwartz and Truell.
—Hobart Rowland
1) “Overdrive”
Bottum: “For me, it’s all about the ‘six foot, fit, six pack, no fat.’ That comes up in the song, and it kind of sums it all up. We’re addressing physicality and objectification and the insanity of sharing ourselves. There’s a lot of glamour in our world. We’re part of it, we’re opposed to it, we love it, and it’s ridiculous—but we’re living it. The concept for the video is the death of the American mall and what the trajectory of that means to us as a culture. Somehow, it ties into what the song means to us. ‘I don’t want a baby that looks like that’ is a line from a Sex Pistols song. It’s our cheeky punker reference.”
2) “Hands All Up”
Schwartz: “This song was birthed as a demo I made with (producer/songwriter) Kool Kojak, which happened in a few minutes with a verse part and a chorus part. The four of us worked on it in a session in Los Angeles and built it out into a structure and added a bridge and a breakdown. It’s about the four of us and our individual life challenges and divergent dynamics and the way we kind of come together and make it work. Being an artist, one tends to be in so many different contexts. Sometimes you’re a rock star in someone else’s eyes, and sometimes you’re a worker among workers—or one can feel discarded or disregarded. We just keep doing it no matter what, because it’s our community and it’s just what we do.”
3) “All Over You”
Truell: “This song came out of a New York City session with Will and Roddy. When Will texted the demo to the band chain, we were swayed by the charm of it. Lyrically, it brings up cultural fads and their persuasiveness and how relentless they can be. For me, it stirs up a delight in melody—but also an internal tug of war in wanting to indulge in and also reject the mainstream in search of something more fulfilling. The percussion was fun to do spontaneously in the studio with claps, glass bottles, snare brushes and careless swats on the tom drums.”
4) “A Single Chair”
Schwartz: “This one was conceived in a New York computer session with me and Roddy. Then Lynn and Jone galvanized it with the driving drum and bass parts, juxtaposing that with angelic ‘ahhh’s. It has a feeling of isolation and the dichotomies we have to deal with all the time, between trying to navigate living with technology while keeping it analog and organic. It’s kind of like exiting the compartments and parameters and grids in a spiritual sense and finding joy in the simple with ourselves and our friends and our pets.”
5) “Get You Home”
Truell: “One of the first ones written for this album, it originated from a session with Will and me in Denver a couple years ago. As different sets of us got together, the song found its stride. It’s about challenges in friendships, love and locations, and how we’re continuously finding our way—both emotionally and geographically—while still being mindful to take care of each other.”
6) “On The Island”
Bottum: “This song is really odd. It’s kind of a fight—the narrative of a couple that can’t see eye to eye … Maybe it was the push and pull of songwriting. Will and I were going back and forth at Will’s house in Los Angeles, and the exercise was to kind of just do. Create. On the spot. We went back and forth, and somehow Will was singing about an island girl. It didn’t make sense at first, but now I really relate to it. It’s kind of Moana or Little Mermaid to me, kind of tragedy but also an uplift of hope and choice.”
7) “Kiss It Goodbye”
Bottum: “This feels like old-school IT. There’s that relentless, clean guitar melody that never shuts up. It goes back and forth between me and Will vocally, and that’s old-school IT also. A lot of time, we’re guilty of being tongue in cheek—but this song is really sincere. Will sings, ‘You had it all, then you blew it, carefully, patiently.’ The notion of fucking things up on purpose with precision, care and love—I love this sentiment. Why does everything have to be achieved in a perfect kind of way? Blunders are beautiful. Mistakes are blessings. Wrong is magic.”
8) “Probably So”
Bottum: “We used to call this song ‘Bliss.’ It’s what we were aiming for. We usually try and have the songs finished before we start recording. In this case, it was us in the studio writing and orchestrating and figuring it out. It’s hard to do it that way, because the clock is ticking. It makes me kind of nervous hearing it. It brings up a kind of panic, a weird counterpoint to the early title, ‘Bliss.’ There’s definitely nostalgia in it, too. We reference Jeff and Steve from Redd Kross. There’s pining and a longing for an era that’s gone—and optimism, too.”
9) “Have A Shout”
Bottum: “This is one of the early ones Will and Lynn started in Denver. The background vocals are almost louder than the lead—because they’re so good. You can really hear Lynn’s voice. There’s a pause in the song we put in when we were recording. The solo Will plays is kind of genius. Simple, restrained, poignant. Hearing it takes me back to when we recorded that guitar. The memories from sounds are so specific. Listening to this now, this song honestly feels like a cry for help. The majestic toms near the end are epic. Good work, Lynn.”
10) “Bringing It Down”
Bottum: “This song makes me cry. It sums up the beauty and hopefulness that it takes to be in a band. Doing what we do is a struggle—it’s a struggle that takes compassion and understanding and compromise and a constant flex of sincerity. We do it well … We’ve been at it for so long. The song is about survival and creation. There are themes of drowning and flying and navigating an urban globe. ‘Let’s stitch it up with a needle’ is referencing the insanity of trying to fix what’s broken, what needs help or what needs nurturing with the crude tools of a needle and a thread. How apt. We work with what we got—what can I say?”
See Imperial Teen live.