Photo: Ebru Yildiz, courtesy of the band
“If you’re holding a guitar, that’s a dangerous weapon.” – Oliver Ackerman
I first saw A Place to Bury Strangers headline at the Brooklyn Monarch in 2023. Admittedly, I had never heard of them before and had been to see the openers. Oliver Ackerman, the mastermind behind the Brooklyn-based noise band, smashed his guitar during the first song, and I was instantly hooked. A Place to Bury Strangers quickly took over a large part of my brain. This band demands an interactive listening experience, both live and in the studio.
The band took a different sonic approach with Synthesizer, utilizing more electronics than their previous albums. The physical LP for the album contains an assemblable synth on the cover, including oscillators and effects that were used on the album. I recently spoke with Oliver Ackerman following the release of their 8th studio album, Synthesizer. We talked about Synthesizer and what this new direction means for the band.
[The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.]
You just finished touring Synthesizer in Europe. How was it? How do the new songs feel live?
Amazing. It was sick. It was so cool to play a bunch of them. We even did one of the songs on an SPDS pad. It’s cool to change up the show and make it pretty nuts and super electronic. It was insane to be playing new songs and these people were already stoked to hear them and excited about the record.
You said “Disgust” was written on all open strings so you could hold your fist in the air while playing it live. Is this typical of your writing process? Are you always thinking about how your songs will translate live? Did you write like this on Synthesizer?
All the songs on this record weren’t. Usually, I don’t think about that too much. There was a time when I would put restrictions on what I was working on and say, “Hey, I should just make things that can be performed live,” or “It can done a certain way, and don’t use these effects, or don’t try this thing, because how are we gonna ever do that?” I think it’s better to not hold onto that and just experiment with whatever you possibly can.
If you’re trying to play some weird instrument that you’re never gonna bring to a show, or use some strange tuning, or stack a whole bunch of pedals up, or play through some oscillator or something, those things are really exciting to experiment with. That just portrays a different interesting idea to someone who’s listening to it. That’s kind of the approach I take, even with live performances. Take advantage of whatever you possibly can in that space, whether it be taking the microphone and pointing it into the monitors for extreme feedback to make people scream or hold lights up in people’s faces without trying to harm anybody. It’s exciting to even mess with the space and the audio world, and what’s happening at a show. I think you should do the same sort of thing when you approach recording, where you see what you can do to mess with a recording and see what is even possible. See what it sounds like if you record something with a speaker, or fling a microphone around your head while you’re recording a part. That kind of stuff keeps things fun and exciting.
Sick. So do you see the studio recordings and performances as two different entities then?
Totally. I love doing both of those things but they’re very different. [Recording], you’re experimenting with your friends, messing with hardware and equipment, listening and trying to create things, and you have time on your hands. The other one you have no time, and you have to make it fucking awesome in that moment. They’re both important forms of art. I like to listen to music and be on a train. That’s a totally different vibe than being forced to listen to a band at a club somewhere.
I’m in a band and I’m always trying to figure out how I can manipulate the space I’m in to be more interactive and in your face. What advice do you have on finding ways to push spaces in venues?
If you have an idea in your head when you’re in the space, then just go for it. Whatever stupid idea you have in your head. That’s almost what always holds you back. You’re like, “oh, maybe right now, I should jump down into the audience.” And then you’re like, “Yeah, I don’t know. This isn’t really gonna work out, maybe my guitar will come unplugged”. But it’s best to just go do those things and see what happens. I would also wanna be safe. I’ve definitely hit my head a bunch of times, or jumped off something that’s too far. If you’re holding a guitar, that’s a dangerous weapon. If you hit someone over the head with the guitar, it could fatally hurt them. Or you could stab someone in the eye with a guitar string. That would all be really terrible.
Do something that’s crazy if you can, and try not to hurt anybody. That’s the number one thing, don’t hurt anybody. That’s not cool. But I mean, I’ve been to shows where the people aren’t concerned with putting people in danger, and that’s still kind of cool, too, to be at that show. I’ve seen people get hurt at shows, and I just feel bad whenever I see it.
What bands, seeing live, have been really impactful for you?
One of the first shows I saw that was totally insane was Dinosaur Jr. When I saw them they were fricking wicked. The band that opened up for them was crazy loud. You had to scream to your friend to hear each other. And then Dinosaur Jr. started, and they were like 10 times louder than that band, and we were like, “Wow!”
The Ramones were wicked live. Bands like Lightning Bolt too. They would always do this thing where they would start as soon as the band before them ended. And they would start behind everybody. You’d be watching some cool band, and then they’d hit the last note, and then all of a sudden, you know, Lightning Bolt would start from behind you, and you’d be like “what the hell is going on?”. That was amazing. There’s that band Yonatan Gat. Bigger shows too, like My Bloody Valentine and whatnot. I’m still always wowed by shows. We saw Nick Cave on this last tour, and that was really cool. It was totally different and bananas and a theatrical kind of thing but still really cool. I love going to see music.
I saw Dino Jr. at Music Hall of Williamsburg last year. It was the loudest fucking guitar I’ve heard in my life. It was vibrating my eyes.
Yeah, that definitely happens. You can get your eyes vibrated. And it’s freaky if you’re looking at an alarm clock or digital display. It dances. It’s insane. Watch out.
“Comfort Never Comes” is the longest song you guys have ever put out. It’s definitely the droniest song on the album. How did this one come about?
It was even longer. I think I chopped it down from 13 minutes or something. Sometimes you’re just in a really sort of sad place. Just being down, frickin depressed, and giving up. I think that leads itself to noodling on the guitar, and sorrow [Oliver laughs]. You could just go forever on that stuff and I feel like that picks you up as you do it. There’s that interplay in the song. The guitar is there to pick you up when you’re down.
I also really loved “Fear of Transformation,” with the guitar feedback mixing with the thumping bass, it sounds absolutely evil. How did this one come about, and what is it about?
It was based on that crazy baseline. When I wrote that I was like, “Oh, this is sick!” And then that just fed the whole song. Those lyrics were so stripped down and sort of simple and I felt connected with what exactly was going on. In the past, I’ve been almost afraid to embrace electronics, trying to keep to the roots of punk music where we’re playing real drums and real guitars. So maybe it was time to let go and embrace something more electronic. Sometimes you just need to do something different. Life is experiencing something that’s maybe a little uncomfortable, and that’s a good thing. That’s fun.
A large theme on this album is man versus machine, particularly when looking at new advancements in AI. What are your biggest concerns for the future of AI as it pertains to music creation?
AI is probably going to ruin a lot of art. But there’s people who are crafty and creative around that. In some ways, it’s really freaking great because we’re in such a weird, consumer world of social media where people need to be pumping stuff out. And it’s probably better that AI does some of those things. If people are going to embrace that stuff, then great. I’ve used AI to be like “give me the Instagram handles for these 20 bands”. And I’m like, “Okay, great. I didn’t have to look that up”. It does take away from these people who are really writing creatively and doing something interesting. I prefer a world where there’s not all of that stuff. But it’s too late for that to even happen. I preferred the world where there wasn’t social media. I think that was a more magical, mysterious place. Even before digital music. It was a much more romantic time. Trying to hunt down some cassette tape somewhere would be the only hope to hear some music. That was way more awesome than “What’s the URL to that band?” or “What was their name again? I’ll just listen to them on Spotify.” That’s a weird disconnect I feel with actually making this music, which is such a magical creative thing, to then have your connection to it be some dumb search engine. That’s all long gone.
There are parts of recording music that I’ve done that I maybe should have done with AI. If you have some terrible drummer, you can cut up every single drum and do a ton of work to make it sound like a natural drum performance. Would that be better if you could just hit a button? Sure. But there’s something cool about music being organically placed and organically arranged. You’re getting human characteristics in there. I find it interesting when things are kind of fucked up and messed up and not perfect. Things are getting more homogenized, and eventually, I guess AI will be creating these imperfect things, too, which are perfectly imperfect to the point where you can’t quite tell. Eventually, it’ll probably take over all people’s points for existing at all. That’s not as fun from a person’s perspective. Maybe people aren’t that important anyway. I don’t know. But I love the magic of being alive. AI is a powerful tool. It’s gonna be used and it’s gonna create a lot of music. Maybe that’s fine. There’s a lot of musicians who are coming about now making a lot of interesting music that I like. Bands like N8NOFACE from Los Angeles or Meryl Streak from Dublin. These people actually have interesting lives. They’ve done some weird fucked up shit in their life or they’re different people in their world. People have these real-life experiences. And they’re singing songs and writing about that stuff. They’re mixing journalism with music, and it’s neat and something real. AI could make up some story about something that happened, but you’re not gonna get this actual person who lived this experience.
This summer, I went on tour with [New Jersey band] High. I had never gone on the road like that, playing music. After our last show, we stayed with the drummer’s uncle, Frank, who’s this old hippie guy. As we were saying our goodbyes in the morning, he said, “What you guys are doing, I’m really proud of you. There’s all kinds of traditions, and this is one of them, and needs to be respected as such.” What Frank said to us that morning was very impactful to me, and I hold my experiences on the road chasing the music to be very sacred. Do you feel like you’re holding up any traditions by delivering alternative music live throughout the world?
Totally. I mean, that’s one of the main reasons we even do this stuff. It’s self-indulgent. I love performing these shows. I love to listen to the sound of crazy, loud, electric guitar and bass and drums, I love that. I do a lot of this because all of these shows changed my life. Seeing these wild shows and seeing someone struggle and actually make something happen. That’s why we don’t play along with backing tracks, or any of that crap. I feel like the root of this crazy, wild, and loud music was so important to my life, and really opened my eyes to a lot of art. So I feel like while we still can, it’s a really important thing to do. A lot of what we do is a shared experience of all of our past experiences and communicating that feeling or idea that was passed down from other musicians to us.
Your DIY traditions shine very bright. You’ve been in the game for a while, and you’ve done everything yourself the whole time. Why is keeping DIY important to you?
When you do something yourself, you’re getting a real picture of someone. I always thought that’s a really pure aesthetic. If there is no one there to help you, then you can always do it yourself. That’s a way that you can focus on ideas, and if you do know how to do it, then you’re not as reliant on other people. Sure, it’s great to have other people help. But if nobody else helps, then you’re still going to do it, and if you can do it, then that’s very free. It keeps things awesome and pure.
What traditions are you hoping to pass on to younger bands?
It’s important to fricking go for it with your instruments and whatnot. It’s really cool, you know, trying to translate feeling and emotion and all of this stuff in your performance. I think that it’s important to see someone make something in front of you. Not focusing on what would be the most popular thing is also important. If you break down a lot of the music that we do, you can see that some of the stuff isn’t even that complicated necessarily. That’s one thing that really inspired me. Some of these bands, like Nirvana, where you’re like “hey, this is almost possible”. You see that it’s more about the human translation into these things rather than something that’s way beyond your possibility, like someone who’s so virtuous at the piano that there’s no hope. It’s cool just to see that it’s real people doing this stuff. I’ve always tried to not be too concerned with being too cool, and just doing what you sorta think is right and attracts your eye, and then push that stuff forward. I think that makes the world a better place.