Features

Hailing from Philly’s underground, Five Hundred Bucks is the brainchild of Jeff Riddle (formerly of The Holy Mess) and drummer William Francis Orender (Captain, We’re Sinking). With a sound that crackles like a metal detector in a junkyard, the band delivers some excellent melodic pop-punk on their latest album, Pest Sounds. Recorded with Andy Clarke and mastered by Troy Glessner, Pest Sounds shines with frenetic energy and earworm melodies. We caught up with Jeff to talk about the band's new album.

PRT: In your bio you describe your new album as ‘the bastard child of burned-out idealism and a four-month songwriting bender in a garage’. I guess it’s easy to lose faith these days, but is idealism out the window entirely for you?

Jeff: With the US going full oligarchical fascist state, actively funding a genocide abroad, eroding civil liberties by the second, trying to strip gay and trans people not only of their rights but of their personhood, deploying ICE and the military domestically to tear families apart and put people in concentration camps, and setting up a surveillance state to quell protest or dissent of any kind, it feels like faith has gone to heaven in a hand basket while the rest of us have gone to hell on a fucking rocket. 

PRT: Did you really write the entire album in just four months?

Jeff: Bill and I were asked to write the songs for a movie called Bloody Axe Wound written and directed by my friend Matthew John Lawrence, who also wrote and directed another movie that we wrote the music for called Uncle Peckerhead. We wanted the songs to be good and made the decision to take a break from playing shows and just write. Bill and I got together in my garage once or twice every week with a blank slate and just chased whatever ideas came out. Creatively it may be the most fruitful experience I’ve ever had. We ended up writing around 40 songs over a period of four months. We knew not everything would fit the script and the tone of the movie but we just demoed all the ideas anyway. In the end we had all the movie songs written and more than a full album of material sitting there. This new record has fourteen songs on it. 

PRT: With lyrics about generational addiction, dead friends and Southern doom, you tackle quite some heavy stuff on the album. Is writing lyrics your form of therapy?

Jeff: Absolutely. I think I was really going through it when we wrote these songs. I was in a very dark period personally. I think also a lot of childhood trauma was bubbling to the surface not only in the lyrical content but also my personal life. A lot of stuff that I pushed down and never properly dealt with including deaths of friends and people that were close to me as well as a few that I resented. I lost a couple of life-long friendships and that took a huge toll on me.  I naturally gravitated towards that stuff thematically, albeit rather unintentionally. When I zoomed out after all the songs were there I realized it’s almost a snapshot of a period of time. There’s sort of a cast of characters there. Some sepia tone memories, good, bad, and observational in nature, like I was outside of myself watching a movie of someone else’s life. All the ingredients are there — generational addiction, dysfunctional relationship between parent and child, the situations and people that surrounded me growing up in South Carolina 20-30 years ago, losing your innocence at a young age, fighting to move past all of the things weighing you down like the negative internal voices of self-sabotage and self-pity and self-doubt. Hence the title “Pest Sounds”.  All of those feelings are made manifest in the cover art which is a monkey on a person’s back holding a gun to their head. Writing this record was a very painful but ultimately cathartic experience for me. 

PRT: Musically, things are decidedly more upbeat. What is it about that juxtaposition that appeals to you so much?

Jeff: I’m a sucker for a pop tune and a little bit of sugar makes the medicine go down. 

PRT: At the end of opener ‘King Of Pressure’ you use a clip from American Movie. Which made me wonder, if Pest Sounds was a movie soundtrack, which movie would it be for? Or what kind of movie would it be?

Jeff: Probably American Movie. It’s a great story of a delusional person plagued by a lack of cash, unreliable help, and numerous personal problems but they believe in what they’re doing so much that they persevere despite a barrage of difficulties and setbacks and ultimately get their movie made. 

PRT: I really like how cohesive the album sounds, even though there are plenty of unexpected moments to be found in songs like ‘(Low) Wasted Genes’ and ‘Promises of Gold’. Did you already have a clear vision of what you wanted this album to sound like?

Jeff: Pretty much. We demoed all the songs at my house. I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to recording, I’m basically like a monkey at a typewriter with my recording gear, but I’m good enough to record a competent demo that articulates the idea. I actually really love demoing stuff and just fucking around with it until it’s right, so when we went in to record we already knew exactly what we wanted to do. Some things changed here and there and I’m always open to switching the dynamics up or following any creative idea in the studio, but for the most part we just knew what we wanted the songs to sound like and tried to execute that to the best of our ability in the studio. Studios are expensive, especially when you’re putting the record out yourself. You gotta know what you’re going in there to do so you’re not just wasting time. Also our friend Andy Clarke who recorded the record is just the best and he was so great and collaborative to work with so going in to record with someone who gets what you’re trying to do is worth its weight in gold. 

PRT: How come you released the album yourselves rather than via a label?

Jeff: I guess out of necessity. I sent our first record out to a couple labels and never really heard anything so I decided to release it myself. With “Pest Sounds” I didn’t even send it out to any labels. I just wanted to release it. It’s a labor of love and we put a lot of work and thought into every aspect of whatever records we release.  I heard a commercial fisherman say once, “What would I do if I won a million bucks? I’d keep fishing til all the money was gone.” Putting out your own records is kinda like that. I’m definitely not opposed to releasing something with a label but I’m not good at shopping a record around or trying to “sell” myself. This record just came out a few months ago but I’m already writing and demoing stuff for the next record so we’ll see what happens with the next one. 

PRT: You will be on tour with Signals Midwest in October, after which you will be heading out to Florida for the Fest. What else is up for Five Hundred Bucks? Any plans to come to Europe anytime?

Jeff: I think we might be doing some shows in the southeast in winter but right now we are planning out what we are going to do next year. We are trying to get out to do some shows on the west coast. We really want to come to Europe and are talking seriously about how to make that happen. We’d like to find a label over there to press Pest Sounds.