Last month, post-rock/doomgaze/post-whatever outfit Widower released Alone as a God. I recently sat down with the Massachusetts duo, formerly members of Deathwish Inc. alumni HarborLights, to talk about the songwriting process on the new record, the transition from HarborLights to Widower, and more.

Nat: If we can go back  HarborLights—this is maybe a stupid question, but what was probably the worst part about releasing an album immediately before Covid hit? 

Jordan: Everything. Yeah, everything was bad. In 2020, we were on the board to do a hundred shows. 

Nat: Wow. 

Jordan: That included the full US a couple times, and then Europe in September. And we had already been talking to people and getting things booked and we were gonna tour with this band, um, I think they’re called pa like Payne, but it’s like the Danish word spelling.

Matt: P-I-J-N. They’re from the UK. 

Jordan: But yeah,  we were gonna hit it hard. And it all within, you know, a couple days where it was like, okay, maybe we’re not gonna play March. And then it was like, oh, we’re never gonna play ever again. Yeah. So that was, that was really tough. It, it hurt a lot. 

Matt: Yeah. I thought I was gonna like, Get to quit my job. At least for the year. You know, like just we were not, we were not gonna be here. 

Nat: Had any of you been in touring bands before that or was it kind of your first big taste of something like that?

Matt: HarborLights was the first real band I’d ever been in. 

Nat: Wow. Really? 

Matt: Pretty much. We started in like 2012 or something like that. So I was still like in my early twenties. 

Jordan: I had another band before this and we did like some stuff like, kinda like Philadelphia, but this was, this was like the main thing for me. 

Nat: Knowing how much momentum and inertia you had and how much work it is to feel like it gets to that point, was there a temptation as you’re working on this new stuff to kind of like just hold onto that and keep going as HarborLights without anybody else? Where was the line in the sand where you knew it was something else?

Jordan: So when everything hit the fan and we were wondering what we were gonna do, that was definitely a discussion that Matt and I had. I joined the band in 2016, so I wasn’t like a founding member of HarborLights. So ultimately it was like one of the other founding members is no longer in the band. So it just kind of felt like, what’s the point? 

Matt:  That’s definitely part of it. Me and the other founding member were the only two original members at that point, and it was kind of just like, if I kept going on as HarborLights, we probably still would’ve had like a certain fan base and like maybe a little bit of momentum, but it might have just been like a bummer the whole time. Just starting fresh almost seemed like a better idea. 

Nat: So how, how soon in the writing process of Alone as a God was that point where you realized it was something new?

Jordan: So this whole album was written as HarborLights. This was going to be the next HarborLights album. We finished the whole thing writing-wise. We were recording it when everything happened. So day three, I think, we were in there when everything was going on. And then our producer and engineer, Mike [Moschetto] spun around in his chair and he was like, “so what are we gonna do? Let’s just finish this album now.” And then at that point, we didn’t know what was gonna happen, but we’d already put in 55, 60% of this work. So it’s like, we might as well just finish it, figure it out after. So the change to Widower came once everything was mixed and mastered. And then Matt and I were discussing like, all right, so what are we gonna do now? And then, so that was probably like, I guess by like October of 2021. 

Matt: Sounds about right.

Nat: It’s bonkers how long this stuff takes, right? 

Jordan: Yeah, yeah. And like. It was a very slow breakup. That took a while. And then like also get, you gotta press records then we, we wanted to make sure we had everything in time for a show and all that.

Nat: If it’s not too raw, could you go into that slow breakup process? 

Jordan: [laughs]Here we go. So one of the members started working at the label after we had gotten signed. That person didn’t have a say in the writing process of the band. But it just got to the point where like they were all talking about our band stuff outside of our band with the label guys, and it just started looking bad. So like when it came time to do business and like the real stuff, we all did that, but then the label believed the other person over us. It got really messy. And it came to the point where the person wasn’t ready to record. And I was just like, I wrote these bass lines, but you’re not ready to play it the way it’s meant to be played. 

And then, the day before we’re gonna record, we got told by the label that we can’t record because of inner turmoil in the band and. And we’re like, this is not what we’re saying, so who is saying this? Obviously, it was the person and everyone got to talk to the label separately. We were able to mend things and they ended up giving us the green light to go record, but it was like basically very thin ice. And then three days into recording they just, they dropped us. It wasn’t spoken about, not talked about, didn’t think that was gonna happen. And then, uh, Just by email. They dropped us.

It was weird power dynamics. We’re the ones writing the music, so it’s like, you love the music so much, and the writers of the music are telling you this is how it is. But we didn’t even get to say that they just sent an email and dropped us while we were recording. 

Matt: It was like, okay. Oh, thank you. We live, you know, 10 minutes away from you. But thank you.

Nat:  I bet they’re kicking themselves having heard this record now though.

Jordan: I mean, I don’t know. Maybe I don’t even, I don’t know. I don’t even know if any of them have heard it.

Nat: I’m trying to sort through my questions…It’s interesting because it sounds like the record sounds like a reaction to the emotional turmoil of the last three years, both in the band’s life, but also globally. But if it was already written as HarborLights, when the pandemic hit, like some of these questions, some of these questions don’t make sense then. 

Jordan: So it was a Covid record. Like this is what we, we did, we bunkered down and like, you know, wrote, wrote it in the album.

Matt: We started like May, 2019 basically was the first song. So that was a full 15 months of writing, but the bulk of it was written via like the Internet sending files back and forth. 

Jordan: Honestly it was basically Matt and me, so that’s why we moved on as a new project. I have, hundreds of emails from Matt from that year with tons of ideas and like nine versions of a song. But yeah, it was, it was definitely a Covid record and, I know at least Matt lyrically was going through a lot of shit too.

Matt: So I was just like, just write about it. This is the right time.

Nat:  There’s definitely a heavier bent here than Isolation Ritual. Would that heaviness have happened without that kind of necessity for catharsis? 

Matt: I’m not sure. Jordan always wants to lean a little on the heavier side, and I think I’m the poppier guy and we meet somewhere in the middle sometimes. But, honestly, if Covid didn’t happen, I don’t know if this record would have gotten written.

Jordan: Yeah, it definitely wouldn’t have. We wouldn’t have had the time.

Nat: But you know, there’s some almost straight-up D-beat hardcore on there. So Congratulations, Jordan, on your victory in the writing dynamic. 

Matt: We were mad. Even before the band broke up there were still problems in the band. Like we didn’t get along a lot of the time.

Jordan:  I’m always trying to write hardcore shit. So, that’s the best part, because for people to think, ‘I know this band.’ Like, no, you don’t. You have no idea. Even before when we were talking about it as if it was HarborLights, we were like, “this is going to like flip people’s shit over.” I was looking at it like was the comeback. We already had people interested in the band. But this was gonna divide everyone. Either you’re really gonna rock with it or you’re really gonna be like, ‘that’s too much. I’m gonna stick with this other album.’

But I was really looking forward to getting some of those, old-school Deathwish fans that are into beatdown shit. 

Nat: Yeah, because Isolation Ritual is not exactly the middle of Deathwish’s sensibilities. It’s a bit more toward the softer side of what they put out.

Jordan: But now there’s even softer stuff than that. Right? It’s just what is. But, well, you know, label’s gonna label. You know, you gotta expand from your niche. 

Nat: Niches are only good for so long, then they got a branch. Unless you’re the Flenser and then you just put out whatever weird shit you want forever.

Matt: Yeah. They rule. God I love the Flenser so much. But, um. Where were we? Catharsis?

Nat: You were mentioning like, you know, how much heavier this one was. And you know, listening to it, I instantly was like, “oh, this is something else.” Like I recognize this is the work of those same guys, like Matt’s voice sounds the same, a lot of the effects or guitar work and how you use tones are going to sound the same. Your drum beats are gonna be a lot of the same, but it felt very much like something else though, so it’s very interesting to me that you would hit the Uno reverse card that this was originally intended as HarborLights LP2. 

Jordan:  I felt like we leveled up. I was, we really put a lot of work into it. I mean, you have to, right? Like you get to that point, you get that Deathwish deal, you start booking that tour, and then, what are you gonna do, you know, play the same album again?

Matt: You gotta keep moving forward. I don’t even think, like you mentioned that we have certain things that we do with our instruments and like, we didn’t even get better at playing our instruments or anything. We just, we just had time to write way better songs. 

Jordan: Right, write better songs. The song didn’t pass until it was like a hundred. Like, this one’s not gonna be on the record until it’s done. And sometimes in the past, we’d be like, eh, it’s, it’s good enough. You know? There was no “good enough.” 

Nat: how many songs do you think probably got started a lot in the process? 

Jordan: Probably at least 20. 

Matt: And then some got cannibalized into other songs. Not counting other little riffs and ideas. Yeah, we had like 20 full songs. 

Jordan: I know “Synthetic Dreams” started as a different first half basically. So the second half has a beatdown that we had attached to basically an entirely different first half of the song. And at some point, it was just like, it doesn’t hit. Even like “Blood In, Blood Out,” that was two separate songs. The main riff and then the chorus part were two different songs. 

Matt: They were two separate, not-as-good songs. 

Jordan: And then it was like Matt and Andrew were talking about like, well, let’s just like take both of them. And they were both my songs, but it was just like, sure. And I thought about that, but I was like, I don’t want to be the one to be like, well, ‘we need a harder song than both of these.’ You know? Let’s just make a legit hardcore song. And that’s what it ended up turning into. But yeah, happy. That’s song heavy. Once I figured it out, I was like, all right.

Nat: So you, Paul McCarneyed it? 

Jordan: Yes. Yeah. Just take your half-finished songs, all the good shit. Mash ’em up into one song.

Nat: Is there like a piece of gear, like a specific pedal or amp or guitar that kind of became like a trademark? Like something that you wouldn’t have made this record without this? 

Matt: There are a couple of pedals on my board that haven’t left in a very long time. I got the MXR Carbon Copy delay. It’s my favorite delay pedal that’s been there for like, at least 12 years. Good analog delay.

Jordan: Always on. 

Matt: It is actually always on. You’re right, it’s on 100% of the time. And my Fender Strat, which has been broken many times over the years, but I recorded everything with that one. I’ve had that since I was 13 years old, and I love it to death. That’s basically it. Anything else I could, like, I could swap anything else. I don’t really have like any sort of loyalty to certain things. I usually just keep things till they break. 

Jordan:  Your laptop.

Matt:  There you go. Needed that. 

Jordan: Cause you would just walk around the house mixing in the shower, like “This is my demo of Athena Version 12. There you go.” 

Matt: I would do funny remixes of the songs. It was great because my laptop was slowly shitting the bed and I finally just bought a new one during Covid, so I was like, oh, this is the best. 

Jordan: From all that label money that we got. (Laughs, takes sip).

Nat: Is that a Widower-branded beer you got there? 

Jordan: Oh yeah. This is from Bone Up Brewing in Everett, Massachusetts. They’re like a metal brewery and they sell this there. You can still buy this right now. 

Nat: That’s awesome. So, this might be a bit of an esoteric question: how do you decide in the writing process which songs are gonna remain instrumental? 

Matt: I never wanted even the early stuff to be entirely instrumental. I always squeezed one or two songs on like EPs and stuff that had some singing on it. But, originally, I think it was laziness, to be completely honest. I think that’s what it was. And then, we tried to write more interesting instrumental songs to make up for the fact that there weren’t any vocals. And now I think it has to be a damn good song to not have singing on it. It needs to be really good to justify it not having a vocal now. We were writing songs, not just writing like meandering, sort of things that a lot of bands in that genre fall into. 

Nat: Right. I mean, I’m, in a post rock band myself, and we’ve got vocals all over. I don’t think we have an instrumental track. 

Jordan: Good!

Nat: Cause I don’t know where the narrative is if I don’t add vocals.

Matt: And nothing against bands that do that super successfully. But I don’t think everybody is able to do that.

Jordan:  And sometimes like you just kind of know. There was a feeling. I think that there’s just like a certain point where once we were all writing, you know. Once I joined the band and then started getting songs under my belt, I wanted to keep progressing. I didn’t wanna stay stagnant. And if we can add more vocals and it, like, I’m not singing, I don’t know how it feels to write lyrics and have to do, you know, all that. But, I was trying to push Matt cuz like he has a good voice. But like Matt said, it was like laziness. Because half the time he wouldn’t write anything until like the last minute, right before we’re gonna go in the studio and he’d be like, ‘alright, I just wrote the lyrics. I’m gonna go sing all it now.’

Nat:  I mean, hey, if it worked for Jeremy Enigk in Sunday Day Real Estate…

Jordan: True.

Matt: This is the first record that we ever did pre-production for and everyone got to hear me sing before I actually went in and sang. 

Jordan: That shit was a game-changer. It was awesome. Cause we bought an electronic drum kit. It was lit. We did real demos and shit. 

Matt: Yeah, it was awesome.

Jordan: But yeah, I’d say yeah, it’s a feeling thing. Or like if it ain’t banging, then let’s sing on some shit. Cuz like “Boleskine,” was like, okay. Are you gonna sing like gracefully over this stupid song? No, this is it. And I was thinking about doing vocals on it too but it’s like, that song would be way too difficult for me to play live. It’s hard enough to play live anyway without singing.

Nat: Yeah, that, that song’s like…I got to that one and I was like, ‘oh, this is some like Sannhet stuff right here. Alright, we got some blast beats going, alright.’

Jordan, Yeah. Yeah. 

Nat: So we’ve talked about how you’re in the studio, raging at the world. But what, what were you listening to when you were making this album?

Matt:  Damn. My answer’s gonna be wild.

Nat: 100 Gecs?

Matt: During lockdown. I was like going back and listening to a bunch of shit I hadn’t listened to in a real long time cause I had nothing to do all day. And one that I kept going back to was Oasis. That’s what I was listening to a lot during the writing of that record for some reason. What’s the Story is a great record. I don’t care. I’ll stand by that. 

Nat: It’s comfort food, man. 

Matt: Mm-hmm.

Jordan: Before Covid, I had listened to Glassjaw but never got it. But for some reason during Covid, I heard Glassjaw again and I was just like, this all makes sense. So like once I did that, that bled into all the shit that I ended up writing for the album.

Nat: That makes a ton of sense. I wouldn’t have put that together if you hadn’t said that there, but that makes sense. 

Jordan: It’s just Justin Beck and Darryl now, so the way Justin writes bass is not as a bassist, but he loves bass. He says bass is the most important thing in that band. And guitar is fourth. So once I heard that, I was writing a lot of the bass stuff, so it made me go back to make sure that these are interesting and have cool parts and interplay with what I’m playing on drums. So like that was a big one for me. And like also, Hardcore stuff in general. I don’t sit there and find albums anymore. But sometimes I’ll hear something and I’m like, oh, this is a type of song that I would like to try to bring an influence into our stuff.

Matt: That’s why like every song sounds different cuz it’s like, I hear, you know, or we hear an Oasis song, it’s like, let’s just write a nice sappy pop song. You know, like whatever. And then you’ll get like your Glassjaw or Poison the Well song right after. There are a couple that are very obvious where we might have gotten the ideas from. It’s like, Athena sounds like Hum or Deftones.

Jordan: Or like “Boleskine.” On the board when we wrote it out riff wise, it was like, Machinehead riff, Baroness riff Machinehead riff, Baroness, riff, and then like we called it like the 5 1 3 is just the core progression, and then Cult Leader for the end. The whole end line was just Cult Leader and that was just like, ah, fuck it. This is a dumb song. 

Nat: That’s so refreshing to hear because. I get so tired of bands who think that what they’re doing is so original. It’s not. 

Jordan: Nothing is original. And if it’s original, it fucking sucks. If what you’re doing sounds like nothing else, quote me in this, it sucks. Quote me. I will fight you outside of a bar. 

Nat: God, no. I used to try to be like that guy. My band in high school was like, ‘oh, we’re gonna sound like nothing else.’ And now I’m looking like, man, we were ripping off Cool Hand Luke. We were ripping off Thrice. We were ripping off Mineral. You know, that’s all we were doing. I don’t know why I thought what we were doing was so unique. 

Jordan: And that’s not to say that like something that IS original sucks because like, there might have been a time where that shit was original. Like no one was Black Sabbath. Who was Black Sabbath ripping off? No one, they were not ripping off anyone. But everyone rips off Black Sabbath. 

Nat: And they should. 

Jordan: Yeah, I rip off songs all the time. I don’t care. Like I will sit here and any song that we have, I’ll be like, this is the exact song that I was listening to. This is a Mastodon song. This is whatever. This is a Gojira song as post rock.

Nat: What’s next for Widower? You guys have a beer? 

Jordan: We have a beer. That was great. Uh, right now, I’ve been trying to get stuff booked. Been outta the game a little bit. 

Nat: Everyone has. 

Jordan: Can’t get anything booked. 

Matt: Yeah, whoever reads us, hit this, hit us up.

Jordan: Yeah. We need shows. We were gonna do some stuff in August and that just fell through. We were trying to do like a little four-day tour thing. That fell through. So right now, I don’t know. We have, w nothing at the moment. 

Matt: Yeah. We’re getting antsy. So I’m just gonna start writing again.

Nat: Oh. Maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world then.

Matt: Maybe not.

Nat: Before we go, is there anything that we didn’t cover that you might really wanna say your piece about? Anything that you just want the world to know, 

Matt: I want the world to know that this band is the best band of all time.  

Jordan: We are the greatest band that has ever been. You could take that to the bank. 

Alone as a God is streaming everywhere, with vinyl available on Bandcamp.

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