Features

Personality Cult may have started out as a solo project, it has since grown into a full-throttle punk force. Hailing from Durham, North Carolina, the band burst onto the scene in 2018 with a self-titled LP on Drunken Sailor Records, and quickly caught the attention of discerning punk label Dirtnap Records, thanks to a well-placed tip from mutual friend Jeff Burke. Their 2020 follow-up, New Arrows, landed just as the world hit pause. Now, with their third album Dilated (and second for Dirtnap), Personality Cult is back with their most ambitious and dynamic work to date. Recorded in New York City at The Daisy Chain and produced by none other than Jeff Burke and Ian Rose, Dilated is a high-energy record that expands the band’s sound while staying true to their razor-sharp songwriting roots. We sat down with Ben Carr to talk about the making of Dilated, the journey from solo act to full band, and the attraction of a personality cult..

PRT: Personality Cult started as a solo project before evolving into a full band. Was that transition challenging? 

Ben: The guys in the band have been playing in a bunch of projects for a long time and were my buddies prior to us doing this, so naw, it wasn't tough. When you have a group of people who really know how to be in a band, it's not that hard. There's really no egos involved and it's understood that we're just trying to create the best art we possibly can. Probably the hardest decision we have to make is where to eat while on tour.

PRT: What kind of adjustments did it require?

Ben: For the first record, I played everything except drums. I took the same approach for writing the second and third records, but demoed everything with a drum machine so everyone would have parts ready to go when we got into a room together. I don't know if I'm in a position to give anyone advice, but: You should always pick people to be in a band for a reason, not just because you know someone who can play an instrument you need. The parts were all written for New Arrows and Dilated, but everyone added their own way of playing things and we spent time editing parts together. A great example is the ending of, "Perfect Crime" on the newest record. Colin Swanson-White came up with that twelve-string part. It's one of my favorite parts on the record and I think it really makes the end something special. Again, there shouldn't be any egos. Everything done should be to serve the song. If you ask some jackass to join your band who wants to play guitar solos for 20 minutes on a 28 minute long record, that's on you, man. Everyone, past and present, in Personality Cult is someone I deeply respect both musically and personally. 

PRT: Your second album dropped just a month before the pandemic hit. How big of a bummer was that for you?

Ben: A pretty fucking big bummer. It feels weird and frankly inappropriate to complain about it all when 7 million people died due to Covid, but yeah, it was less than ideal. We were in the works of booking a US tour, maybe a European tour, and were ready to hit it hard, but then the bottom just fell out. I want to say I was disappointed, but I feel like that just diminishes what every person on the planet had to go through. It was a big bummer to not be able to play shows. A lot of conversations with my buddies were: "So cool…we're broke, sequestered away in our respective homes, and hoping we don't die. What do we do?" Well, the answer is to write a bit and take care of yourself. In some ways, we're incredibly fortunate because the record actually came out before everything shut down. 

PRT: I read that you were already writing album three back then. How come it took until now to finish the new album?

Ben: It's really two-fold:

I write songs in spurts rather than consistently. I'll spit out three songs over the course of a month, then I won't write anything for another month, then I'll scrap half of what I've done, and the cycle continues.

I also have to wake up and go to a job I don't necessarily care about to pay for rent that is three times higher than what it was pre-Covid. There are very few bands out there who are making a living off of music alone. The time we're afforded is limited because we (by we I don't just mean Personality Cult) have all of this other bullshit we have to do to make sure we can eat. If Personality Cult was given a steady salary, I'm sure we'd put out records faster than we have in the past. 

PRT: Jeff Burke engineered and mixed your last album, and this time around he produced it. For those who don’t know the ins and outs of studio roles, what’s the difference? How did that change the dynamic?

Ben: Kinda depends on the definition of "producer". An engineer will typically spend their time ensuring a band gets captured in the way they want and then allow the band to do their thing. I wanted some help with tonal stuff and to have someone say after a take, "Hey, that sounds fine, but it was off and we should probably do it again." 

I feel super decisive with other people's work, but I'm a bit neurotic and tend to clam up when I have to make decisions about my own music. I needed someone to either thumbs up or thumbs down a decision, or to tell me I was pushing a fruitless idea too hard or second-guessing an idea that was actually good. Sometimes when people hear the word "producer" they imagine someone directing the band completely, helping with songwriting, and taking total creative control. That's not a wrong idea but that's not what Jeff's role was on Dilated. Jeff definitely helped with some creative decisions and offered up ideas and clarity, but he didn't influence the songwriting. I've worked with Ian Rose (engineer) forever and Jeff for New Arrows, so we were all comfortable being honest and had the time to experiment. Jeff spent a ton of effort mixing and I can't thank him enough for his work, but he didn't fundamentally change the songs. 

I'm not really interested in writing the same songs over and over again and I hope Dilated feels different from our previous efforts. 

PRT: You’ve said you fell in love with the studio while making this album. Did any of the songs change drastically during the recording process?

Ben: I fell in love with the studio in the sense that I started to appreciate the nuances that go into making a record. I used to just stick a mic on an amp, play the guitar part, and move on with my life. It used to be a means to an end and now I actually like the more technical aspects of the process. To be perfectly clear: there is nothing wrong with a Shure 57 on an amp and a million great records have been made like that, but it's like learning how to draw so you can decide when to draw a stick figure instead of only being able to draw one. I also used to have a mindset of, "Eh, fuck it, we'll figure it out later." I don't take that approach anymore and I make sure I'm paying attention to how things are mic'd, how they're played, and how the songs are arranged. It's changed the way I write and I get more excited about the process now.

I then focused on building up a legitimate studio at my house and have been doing some engineering for other people, which has been really fun and rewarding. I recently helped a buddy record a giant pipe organ in this huge church and I probably wouldn't have had the knowledge or gear to do that prior to making Dilated. I realized I was spending a lot of money on complete bullshit. I became a bit of a hermit (sorry for the missed texts, friends!) and used the money I saved to build up a zone that's realistic to make good-sounding records in. I spent a lot of time building up a mic locker, sound treatment, outboard gear, and learned how to use a DAW beyond just basic functions. 

PRT: With people like Trump and Musk dominating headlines, your band name feels especially relevant. Why do you think people are so susceptible to personality over substance?

Ben: I think it goes back to Rupert Murdoch and how he transformed "news" into entertainment and used the Milton Freedman economic playbook to brainwash an entire generation. These absolute psychopaths made their twisted ideas into a 24/7 newscycle and shifted politics into a football game. Our team is good and your team is bad, and we want our team to win, right? Well, if you want your team to win, you're going to LOVE the captain of that team. It's horseshit at the highest level. 

People like what is easily digestible and I think Trump and Musk are so fucking easy to digest before it turns into tomorrow's diarrhea. They use the classic fascist playbook of blaming someone, something, or an entity for all of a populations' problems and then will promise to enact policies to "fix" those "problems". I think us on the left tend to underestimate how truly effective and calculated their strategy is. It's so much easier to accept that immigrants, LGBTQ, and anyone not white are the problem rather than objectively assessing that our economic system continuously causes everyone except the select few serious damage on a daily basis. It couldn't be corporate greed or a flawed system that hurts us, it's gotta be drag queens reading books, right? It’s nostalgia for an age that never existed, or when it did, it was at the expense of anyone not white and religious. Leave It To Beaver bullshit. Trump, Musk, and their cronies capitalize on people's fears and they do it effectively. While I was incredibly despondent, I wasn't at all shocked that he won the election. 

Trump and Musk are legitimately evil people, but they're symptoms of the greater issues, not the diseases themselves. They make it easy for an average racist to say the quiet part loud. When people feel empowered to spew their bullshit, they will idolize the catalyst that allows them to do so without serious social repercussions. Now, Trump supporters will find no fault in him because they feel free to allow their deepest bigotry to shine brightly in their homes without curtains. This then creates a positive feedback loop where well-intentioned liberals categorize the Trumps and Musks of the world as cancer; that once chemo, radiation, and surgery happens our body will function healthily and happily...all while ignoring root causes. You can't be "fiscally conservative and socially liberal."

In short: We're all completely conditioned to accept advertisements, and that's all Trump and Musk are. 

PRT: The new album is once again out on the almighty Dirtnap Records. Do you have a favorite Dirtnap release?

Ben: Dirtnap rocks. I have nothing but good things to say about Ken and I'm proud to be a part of it in the small way we are. My whole goal is to have a couple kids hear what we're doing and inspire them to pick up some instruments. I distinctly remember hearing Guitar Romantic when I was 13 years old and it being a pretty big eye-opener. It was fun but tough and I don't think it will ever leave my record collection.

PRT: Now that the new album’s out, what’s next for Personality Cult?

Ben: We'll be doing a short tour with Radioactivity in August up to the Dirtnap fest. Hopefully a few more tours after that and then some new songs. Toying with the idea of a seven inch or two. I'm currently working on a record for a new project I'm calling CHYRON and everything's tracked except for vocals, so that will hopefully be done in the next few months. Colin Sneed and Johnny have a band called Future Fix that is super good and Colin Swanson-White will have some more stuff with DE()T coming out soon which is also fantastic. I'm also trying to do some more engineering and mixing work, so if anyone reading this needs another ear in the room, give me a shout.