Today’s interview is with Louis Rabinowitz (@louisrabinowitz on twitter), who talked about a band about which I knew essentially nothing going into the conversation, Gang of Youths. I loved chatting with Louis and learning more about Gang of Youths’ music, and I really admired and appreciated how open he was about what mattered to him about these songs and the experiences and emotions they speak to. In doing these interviews, I’m always fascinated by why the things people choose to talk about matter so much to them, not just what they love about them; Louis more than delivered in this regard. His answers were extraordinarily thoughtful and honest, and I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did.
Our conversation has been lightly edited for clarity. TW for discussion of suicidal ideation in the first and final answers.
Ellie: Without trying to pitch them, why do you love Gang of Youths so much?
Louis: Haha, where to start? No, seriously, where to start? I think I have a personal reason and a critical reason for loving them, and I'm way better at explaining the personal one, so maybe I'll find my inner musical critic along the way.
It always sounds so clichéd to talk about music 'speaking to you', but that was kind of me and Gang of Youths, wandering about Oxford in my first year, confused about almost everything except the music I was listening to. It was clarity, I guess? Their music doesn't pretend to come from an emotionally orderly and straightforward place, even though they routinely turn out some of the most verbose and purely enjoyable lyrics I've heard. It springs out from all this messy emotion and insecurity that feels so honest that it's sometimes almost a touch uncomfortable to be listening into it. Dave Le'aupepe puts absolutely everything into his songs, and it shows — so much of their discography draws directly from his greatest traumas, from contemplating suicide to losing his wife, and sometimes it just staggers me that he not only made this out of it, but felt comfortable with putting it out into the world. It's like the ultimate symbol of reclaiming your pain and hurt, and that's always been so admirable to me.
Also, on a less emotional level, their music is just freaking brilliant to listen to. Huge riffs, massive choruses, sudden needs-a-footnote literary references — every song feels massive, with most of their output lasting beyond five minutes. The way that songs like 'Do Not Let Your Spirit Wane' and 'Say Yes to Life' build to an emotional crescendo slowly but surely... man. Hearing it live is something else, too, but there's probably room for another question in there (they were my first gig!). It's a little bit Springsteen and a little U2, but that feels like only the jumping-off point for a sound that becomes totally their own.
E: Would you say that part of the appeal of Gang of Youths for you, then, is that kind of maximalism you describe? The emotional honesty, the references, the massiveness, the crescendos, etc — is there a sense in which that feels overwhelming (that touch of discomfort you mention)? Or does it just find a way to work?
L: I think so, yeah! I like how much it pushes back against sarcastic detachment, which I am guilty of several times a day. Like, there's a huge part of me that cringes a little when I tell someone that their songs are called things like 'The Heart is a Muscle' or 'Say Yes to Life'. I worry they'll think they're a kind of cheesy motivational quote band who trade on schmaltzy obviousness and clichés. I think it took me a while to push past that, too, to find the earnestness as part of the appeal rather than something to politely excuse. It's part of that ever-present worry about being cool, I guess! It's taken me a long time to feel confident enough to openly enjoy stuff that doesn't care about being cool, but it feels like Gang of Youths were part of that.
Catharsis seems like the right word to use? Especially live — I've seen them twice now, and experiencing those moments where the songs peak with an audience just as invested as me? It makes me miss gigs a LOT. Gigs are already this place where you can cease to give a shit about what other people think, and Gang of Youths are the patron saint of not caring what other people think, so it makes a hell of a combo especially if you're the kind of person who wouldn't be seen dead doing that otherwise.
E: I relate a lot to struggling with genuine emotion in that way — I personally find that I frequently enjoy art which couches its feelings behind irony or detachment or sarcasm or whatever, as if approaching these feelings at an angle helps me get closer to actually encountering them. Examples which come to mind are, for example, Community or some Talking Heads songs. What do you think the directness of Gang of Youths offers which that doesn't? What does it feel like to be able to access these feelings through a band which, from your account, is a lot less self-conscious than you?
L: I think that I don't want to feel detached and sarcastic and ironic all the time, I guess! It can be an exhausting way to see the world, and the fact that I went through university primarily as a snarky observer was the root cause of my not having a super great time there. It's been my hope for these past few years to break those patterns, and learn to care openly more, both about the people and things that matter to me. There's so much I value in the world, and it'd be a bummer if I spent all my time here going 'hey, that just happened' like a second-rate MCU character who's given all the joke lines. Gang of Youths are something aspirational within that, really. They're a sign that you can care, even to the point of risking being embarrassingly overearnest, and you can still be cool. The good kind of cool, I mean, not the other one. Dave Le'aupepe is an unbelievably cool man, and you can see that live, and he does it by being absolutely 100% too much all the time. I'd like a tiny bit of that for me, I think!
E: Do you think Gang of Youths' music has helped you in learning how to open up in that way?
L: Yes. Sort of? Uh.
Definitely not a cause and effect kind of thing. I started listening to their music in the autumn of 2017, during my first term of uni, and I remained an anxious mess um... until now, really, but a Totally Anxious Mess for a while after that, basically. I'd love it if their music inspired me to be my best self, but I was a pretty lame version of myself as I walked around Oxford with their music pumping into my ears constantly.
But it helped, I think? I mean, the fact that they were my first gig. That feels like a brick in the road to expressing myself a bit, even though I was so embarrassed about seeing them that I didn't tell my family the name of the band for ages after I booked my ticket. Without going to gigs I wouldn't be as invested in music which means I wouldn't be talking about it as much, and honestly that means I'd have way less of a sense of myself, so, I guess the answer to your question is actually yes? See, that only took me like two paragraphs to explain myself. As you can see, self-expression is still occasionally a struggle.
I think it also helped me come to terms with my emotions in a way I don't know other stuff would have done. The idea 'it's okay to feel things intensely and in a way that is valid and makes you not a total freak' was something pretty foreign to me for a while, and after listening to their music, it wasn't so much. The line in 'The Heart is a Muscle' where it goes:
'Cause I wanna open up/
And try to love someone
'Cause I wanna overcome
And try to love someone
Really weird to me beforehand! Still weird to me now. Like, I'm at least a little bit embarrassed typing this. But knowing that feeling isn't weird meant a lot to me. It's let me be comfortable with myself — okay, more comfortable with myself, it's all relative — in a way that I think 2017 Louis would hopefully have been surprised by. A lot of things have happened in 4 years, so it's not all Dave Le'aupepe's doing, but at least some of it is.
E: I really like, honestly, that it wasn't a matter of you listening to this music and being transformed — realising 'oh, I guess it is fine to feel things and be straightforward about that!' — but instead was a process that their music helped you with — a kind of conversation. I suppose that's also present in the lyrics you sent — 'I wanna', not 'I will'; 'try to love', not 'love'. Do you think that theme of trying is a big part of Gang of Youths' music — and what you like or find helpful about it?
L: Yes! Totally! And I really love that. Their music is honest that this stuff is hard, and that it's like 95% wanting to do it and 5% actually achieving it that really matters. So many of their songs are not so much about grief and trauma into something beautiful as trying to do that - there's a sense of 'this is the best I could do as a flawed human being still stuck within myself and the things that weigh me down'. It feels realistically unpolished, I guess. We all imagine eliminating pain by replacing it with beauty, but it often doesn't work out like that. But I like that Gang of Youths just acknowledge it, and don't succumb to perfectionism or fetishising suffering — even if it means their music is wordy and knotty and long enough (almost all of their songs are over five minutes, which I love, but obviously that's not super helpful for radio) that it lands a skosh outside the mainstream.
There's a verse in 'The Deepest Sighs, the Frankest Shadows' which are some of my favourite lyrics in anything ever:
See, I'm not so assured
Nor unusually strong
Or outstandingly brave
I'm more just fumbling around in the dark
For the bulk of my day
To me, that was really... validating, I guess? The idea that you don't have to be the best, or hit a certain target, or push away your issues in a certain amount of time. That making mistakes and half-thought attempts is just kind of the natural human state, rather than anything like a failure. I think that's something we all need to come to terms with as people, I guess? None of us are 'special' as such, 'meant' to do amazing things. But we can try, and it might work out, and we're all capable of that. That's helped me through a lot of stuff, I think.
E: A thing I'm interested in is that all of what you've said about their music seems to return to this sense of maximalism, of effort, of earnestness — of, I suppose, this deep desire to push through and work to make things better for yourself, even (especially?) if it's hard. Desire seems important in this, I think, both for you and for the band. I do a lot of thinking in my academic work about how desire is something which, essentially by definition, is always going to exceed its object and can never be fully satisfied, but which isn't for this reason useless. The attachment and commitment that it creates — with the idea of a 'better' version of ourselves, for instance — can be productive, even if we might end up disappointed that we didn't end up becoming a perfect version of who we are. Do you think that model of desire fits with what's important to you about their music?
L: I think it's about knowing. As in, there's no way of knowing that you have definitely improved yourself, and definitely no way of knowing if there is some perfect (or close to) version of you way out there somewhere in the future, so the only thing to count on is the act of trying to improve because that you can absolutely measure. And yes, 100% that's something which resonates with Gang of Youths! 'Magnolia', for instance, tells the story of a time Dave le'aupepe considered walking out into a busy motorway. The song isn't saying that he absolutely beat all the thoughts that fuelled that near-act, at all — it's more just saying that he chose not to do that thing, and he chose to be here and write this song and release it so people could share in his experience, and that itself is enough.
And yes, there's so much disappointment in their work — failed relationships, failed self-improvement, failures to fit into society — but an acceptance of that as a part of life. and I love that so much. It's such an antidote for that 'setting targets for yourself' culture about mental health problems and therapy and all that — which I totally fell into for a while. I felt like I needed to get better by a certain point, and felt constant disappointment (and still do) that I got to a certain place and still wasn't out of the woods. 'I've done this much work and I'm still here!', basically. Gang of Youths' music takes that sentence and repeats it, but in a way that emphasises that, yeah, you're still here, and isn't that impressive? Not even in the way that 'Magnolia' discusses, but just 'here' in the sense of continuing to engage with the world and others and the belief that happiness is possible. This is absolutely philosophy-wank of me, but I think accepting that is the only way to be happy. Self-perfectionism — desiring the absolute best for yourself — is always going to fall short. You have to work in the falling short as a perfectly valid and neutral part of life. I mean, it's still annoying. I'm saying all this and I'm nowhere near there.
I don't think I'd be able to blab about all that for as long without Gang of Youths. Which is a blessing or a curse or both.