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We are very happy to premiere 'Heartsick,' the new single by Denver Colorado's Poor Me. Following some atmospheric guitar chords that help set the mood, Poor Me let loose with a solid pop-punk tune that offers equal parts punch, groove and early 00's hardcore edge. They throw everything but the kitchen sink at the song and somehow manage to let everything fall into place nicely in just over 3 minutes. 'Heartsick' is the first song taken off the band's upcoming album 'Stalemate,' out Sep 3. Scroll down to hear the song or read on for a short interview with vocalist Brett Delaney.
“I never quite arrived at a clear message when writing Heartsick," says vocalist Brett Delaney about the song. "The result came after countless revisions, and often felt there were conflicting themes being corralled into the span of a few minutes. I was in a different writing mood every time I revisited the song, and the process culminated in a patchwork of phrasings with inconsistent tone for my protagonist. I ended up putting the song down for more than a year. But there is something to be said about revisiting things way down the road that is refreshingly unfamiliar. Reading through the lyric sheet with new perspective, the conflict was more attractive. Angry, compassionate, and full of optimism, she also edged toward giving up. I immediately knew the song was about forgiveness. Forgiveness probably isn’t something most come to overnight. It often isn’t even fully realized when we are ready to make amends with those in our lives who have wronged us. It takes time because different feelings are valid simultaneously, and even with apologies made and accepted, we may not have arrived at whatever cure we were seeking. At some point, though, we have to put things in the past.”
Formed in 2010 in Denver, CO by Brett Delaney (vocals), Nick Chmel a.k.a GIR (drums), Nick Butler (guitar), Jason McWhinnie (guitar/backups), and Mike Goyn (bass/backups), Poor Me is an alchemical merging of charged aggression and killer songwriting. They bark melodies that stick like glue. Their songs crescendo into big choruses and bigger pits. Catharsis comes and goes in a mass of sweating bodies, fists raised to the stage. This is skate punk dragged into the now—where fast drums, muscular riffs, and razor-wire lyrics unite to document a world more fucked than ever. This is Poor Me.
PRT: What has the history of the band been so far, how long have you been around and what inspires you to keep going?
Brett: We've been around since 2010. I was running a small venue in Laramie, WY while going to school and playing in a thrash metal band. Given Laramie's a college town, the band inevitably broke up, and I was looking for something else to work on. The friend that was co-running the venue introduced me to Nick, so we met up and wrote some crappy punk songs, cycled through several hobby musicians; and somehow ended up putting together Readymade. We all moved to Colorado for work over the following years, trying to stay relatively clustered so we could keep the band together. We transformed into a five-piece before Cosplay, snagging some great players from other bands that were breaking up, and have continued to write what feels right. I think we all feel the band is an essential escape from working to pay the bills, and a vehicle to comment on the more caustic and unsavory tendencies we see in society. We often spend huge chunks of practice talking about world affairs, trying to find perspective, and using our friendship and support to write songs that hopefully spur some thought in the people that give us a listen. There's a lot of fucked behavior that doesn't warrant the celebration we often see, and there's an unwillingness to exercise empathy and coexist that drives a lot of song topics. We think people immediately sense that in our music, and that sharing is both cathartic and informative when we chat with people who like what we do. It's easy to keep going.
PRT: Who are some experiences that inspired this first single off your upcoming new LP?
Brett: Sometimes it's difficult to continue pushing back against zealotry you know is unhealthy or harmful to people, especially when the framing of political debates and cultural hostilities are so ingrained. It can get exhausting when you know withdrawal is the simplest way to escape. I've always believed we need to address people's stubbornness and anger, though - challenge them when they're being an asshole. That's the idea that started Heartsick. . You hope that through attrition, you can change the way people come to understand and respect others' experiences. That way of thinking boils down to tenacity. But I began to have sinking feelings about that kind of micropolitics during the Trump presidency. Getting worn down starts to compromise your ideals. We make mistakes. Sometimes we adopt tactics of the opposition to level the field. The protagonist in Heartsick is attempting to find a cure for the maladies of society that she sees, and she sees a choice between the immediacy of removing a problem and the longer haul of finding the cure.
PRT: "Heartsick" has a bit of a classic pop-punk vibe with a little bit of melodic emo/hardcore mixed in, do you have any bands from those eras in particular that influence you?
Brett: I always have a hard time answering questions like this one because I don't actively think about how other bands do their thing before I sit down to write. I'm sure I pulled several influences from whatever band I was really into at the time, though. That's kind of how I work. So, if I had to guess, I was probably listening to a lot of Bayside, The Flatliners, or Banner Pilot? Or maybe Authority Zero? I don't know. People will hear a Poor Me song and tell me what band it reminds them of, and in my experience, the band they mention is always a band I love. Since I just handle the vocal arrangements and lyrics, it's hard to say what fusion of emo you'll get with this song. We all love our fair share of emo and melodic hardcore, though, so it's definitely there.
PRT: You've stated that "Heartsick" is about forgiveness, can you expand on that a little further? What headspace were you in as you finished up writing this one?
Brett: Yea, so as I said, the protagonist encounters this 'blight,' some sickness of the heart that presents her with a choice. Does she burn it all away or continue to seek the cure? During the bridge, she decides to burn the sickness away despite all the patience and compassion she had employed up to that point. The theme about forgiveness came to me twofold when I decided to add that bridge. First, there is utility to maintaining our capabilities to forgive. It allows us to continue seeking the cure, to have the resolve to do things the way we want to see them done and to be a model for others to follow. Change doesn't happen overnight, and we have to forgive when people are unwilling to change. It doesn't mean we quit or concede, but it's a recognition that change takes time, and we have to help them change on their terms. The second piece is personal forgiveness. When we trip up on our path to help make this world a better place, we shouldn't disqualify ourselves from being a part of the solution. If we can forgive ourselves and press reset, we can continue to do good work. It's seemingly more common culturally today for people to be unable to find redemption, though, and I think that's sad. We all see sickness in various forms, but our rationales differ wildly. I think constructive dialogue is part of the cure for personal trip ups and cultural resistance. Casting those out who falter might be setting back the endgame more than we think.
PRT: What do you have planned for the next couple months with the new album and what should we keep an eye out for?
Brett: We plan to play shows! It goes without saying that Covid sucked. The band took exposure very seriously, as a couple of us have some chronic immune conditions. We've got some local stuff booked, but touring will follow after we soak up some of the shows we're seeing booked around Denver. We started this thing because we all love live music, and we haven't seen our friends at shows in a very long time. So, we'll be watching more shows than we're playing for the duration of 2021. But keep an eye out for the new Heartsick music video coming down the pipe. You can already check out the Classwar and Sugarcane videos on our YouTube, which are two other songs from the upcoming release in September. There may also be a vinyl offering for the September full-length, interest dependent. So, if you wanna snag the record on vinyl once it drops, make sure to voice your interest on social media (FB, IG, TikTok, Bandcamp, etc.). Lastly, new songs are already in the works, so I imagine another full length will be getting tracked, yet again, next year, so follow on social media for the long stretch. Thanks for taking the time to put this interview together. We're really excited to share Heartsick with everyone.
