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Album review: Better Lovers – Highly Irresponsible
Heavy supergroup Better Lovers deliver the goods with a no-holds-barred debut that proves beyond doubt the chaotic beauty of being Highly Irresponsible…
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The Cover Story
Better Lovers: "This is one of the coolest, least expected trips I’ve been on"
After bursting into life with last year's God Made Me An Animal EP, metallic hardcore supergroup Better Lovers are taking things even further with superb debut album Highly Irresponsible. In the wake of a particularly fiery performance at Furnace Fest, we meet Greg Puciato, Jordan Buckley and Will Putney to dig into their creative process, the positivity that lies at its heart, and how they managed to stumble upon something genuinely special…
- Words:
- James Hickie
- Photography:
- Gabe Becerra
If you're going to call an event Furnace Fest, then you’ve got to expect some heat. That’s presumably the rationale employed by Better Lovers, who bring it both figuratively and literally during their appearance at the Sloss Furnaces National Historical Landmark in Birmingham, Alabama. The band unleash an absolutely incendiary set, in which bodies are put on the line, both onstage and off, in the pursuit of connection and catharsis.
But while for most, that release comes in the form of kinetic energy, for Greg Puciato it erupts via fire. Actual fire. As his bandmates crowdsurf, holding their guitars over their heads like warriors welcomed back from a successful military campaign, the frontman spits forth a ball of flame that causes fans in the front row to cower, and those further back to narrow their eyes to protect them from the incandescence.
In the age of compliance and overzealous health and safety protocols, what, one wonders, are the logistics of pulling something like this off?
“I just don’t fucking care,” Greg responds now. A couple of weeks on from what is reportedly the last instalment of Furnace Fest, the 44-year-old is in between responsibilities as musician and man. So while last night he appeared with Jerry Cantrell in the California desert, for a release show in support of the Alice In Chains legend’s new solo album, I Want Blood; today he’s in the market for a new home, so about to do some viewings.
If it’s one of those open house deals you see on TV, though, where a slick realtor shows people around properties while offering platters of cheese and crudités in the corner, they may want to be warned: Greg doesn’t seem in the mood for pleasantries – not initially, at least.
“We didn’t tell anyone we were going to do it,” continues Greg of his pyrotechnic display, no stranger to unexpected onstage acts and likely bored of being asked about them. “What are they going to do? We already played! Are they gonna tell us we can’t play again? It’s the last fucking Furnace Fest! It’s not like I threw a chainsaw into the crowd.”
An idea to keep in the back pocket, perhaps?
Surprisingly for a man so indelibly linked to live performance, given the choice, Greg could take it or leave it. “If I never played live again, I wouldn’t really care,” he reveals. “But if I couldn’t make records again, I would really, really, really care. To me, the record is the point: writing it, recording it, getting it out of you and getting it into other people.”
It’s therefore lucky that Better Lovers are about to release their first full-length, in the form of Highly Irresponsible – even if, due to his ADD, Greg has little recollection of making it. Unlike his bandmates – guitarists Jordan Buckley and Will Putney, bassist Steve Micciche, and drummer Clayton ‘Goose’ Holyoak – for whom hardcore means writing for live, Greg doesn’t work that way.
“It’s probably different for them, as they’re jamming in a room when they come up with those instruments, so I’m sure they feel a lot more of that energy,” reasons Greg. “For me, similar to when I was in Dillinger [Escape Plan], I’m reacting to music that’s being sent to me.”
How did he react to what was sent, then? With shock, first and foremost, as there were 16 songs written within a two-week period, with the expectation that Greg would write vocals for them within a similar timeframe. On a solo tour of the UK at that point and more used to working on 10 tracks in a year-and-a-half, the answer was no. He’d do 10, in his own time, though he couldn’t help but be impressed by the productivity and pace. “You don’t want to have the same experience you’ve had before, so anything that can delineate this from something you’ve already done is really cool.”
What themes, then, did what his bandmates sent over bring to mind?
“It’s there, right?” he says. “I’m not going to tell you what the songs are about. This band has been a challenge in that regard. I can’t go to the same [thematic] wells. Dissociation [Dillinger Escape Plan’s final album] was eight years ago, and I could tell at that point that I’d really scraped the well. If I had kept going it would have been like I was wearing a costume of myself.”
Meet Greg halfway, though, with some interpretations that suggest you’ve really listened to the songs, and respond positively to those perceived ideas, and his disposition shifts. His voice, initially the weary drawl of someone conversationally treading water, turns to honey. Regardless of his mood, speaking to Greg, it’s clear why Jordan and Will later describe him as “one of one”.
Greg’s mind is blown when on the topic of lead single A White Horse Covered In Blood, K! asks if any inspiration came from the news story from March of this year, when several cavalry horses, spooked by the noise from a building site near Buckingham Palace, galloped through the streets of London. Did that image, featuring a white equine bleeding profusely, reach Greg across the pond?
“Are you fucking serious?!” he asks. Apparently he didn’t see it, or at least he doesn’t remember seeing it, but suggests it could well have permeated his subconscious. Instead, the song is about the sullying of something perfect. “It’s about someone putting on a face and presenting well, but they’re managing hideous qualities beneath that they’re not dealing with.”
And then there’s Superman Died Paralyzed.
Aside from being a lurching, frenzied attack of a song, it possesses the most Greg Puciato title ever. He’s proud of that name, even if he doesn’t remember penning it, as the perfect distillation of the idea that “shit can get sideways really quick”. Few stories illustrate this more heartbreakingly than that of late Superman actor, Christopher Reeve, who was paralysed from the neck down after a horse riding accident in 1995.
“It was crazy to me that the meaning of his life changed from being an esteemed actor known for this iconic role, to going through this terrible thing that shifted the weight of his life, and what he meant to people. That’s what the universe dealt him. That can happen at any time to any of us – and I’m acutely aware of that. I’ve got all these plans and all these records and tours and personal life plans, but none of that is guaranteed.”
Jordan Buckley vividly remembers the unexpected call. It was from Will Putney, who he’d got to know during the making of Every Time I Die’s last two albums, 2016’s Low Teens and 2021’s Radical. Jordan is a fan of all the producers ETID worked with over the years – from Machine (2005’s Gutter Phenomenon) to Steve Evetts (2007’s The Big Dirty and 2009’s New Junk Aesthetic), Joe Barresi (2012’s Ex Lives) to Converge’s Kurt Ballou (2014’s From Parts Unknown). But he quickly sensed that Will, the man Ice-T describes as “The Dr. Dre of metal”, was different.
“Most of the time you have to explain your mission to a producer – and hope they get what you’re trying to do with your words and music,” explains Jordan now, speaking from his home, presumably having just had lunch given the spinach in his teeth he’ll only notice after the interview. “With Will, who was already familiar with [ETID’s] first seven records, he got us, which made it less of a job interview. It’s the first time I realised someone was on the same page as us – he wasn’t our boss or our manager, and he wasn’t in charge, giving us an ease when it came to writing with him, which isn’t something we had really done before.”
Their dynamic was helped by the fact that, even back then, both men left their egos at the door when it came to the creative process. “I’m always about being a team player,” suggests Jordan, who, having attended his first band practice aged 14, has long since parted company with preciousness. “If you can make a song better or a riff better, then plug in, please – I don’t take it personally when my ideas are added to or polished.”
Will agrees on both this assessment and this approach, dialling in from a lengthy drive to a meeting. He admits, however, to possessing some footage in which his feedback on riffs causes Jordan to quite literally pull his own hair out.
“It’s not necessarily an ego thing – it’s just sometimes you’re wrong,” Jordan jokes to gales of laughter from the duo.
“That way of doing things makes the best record,” explains Will, referring to being open to the ideas of others rather than causing collaborators to self-barber. “The best idea wins, and I don’t give a shit where it comes from – whether that’s me or the band or anyone else. We’re all trying to make the coolest record we can make.”
Perhaps Jordan’s receptiveness to Will’s ideas came from his belief the producer looks more like a band member than the dudes traditionally seen on the other side of the glass. “We’d met briefly before we worked together,” recalls Jordan. “But seeing him in the studio was like when you saw one of your teachers outside of school – it seemed weird.”
On Better Lover’s first EP, Will served only as producer. No stranger to being onstage, given his role as guitarist in Fit For An Autopsy and noisecore mob END, Will nevertheless itched to be more involved with Better Lovers, a unit made up of some of his favourite musicians – heroes, in fact – he’d long dreamed of performing with. Around the time Greg joined the band’s ranks, Will admits to some soul-searching. His taste for live performance intensified by the claustrophobia of the pandemic, and suddenly more aware of the passing of time, he began thinking about the opportunity right in front of him.
“I looked at it like, ‘If I don’t throw my name in the hat to be in this band, I know I’m going to regret it,’” admits Will. “I’d have to watch somebody else do it and think, ‘I could have fucking done this and I could have done it better.’” So Will made that call.
It was a quick yes, of course. A fuck yes, in fact.
"One unified goal always makes a cool record"
The thought of Will becoming Better Lovers’ second guitarist had already crossed Jordan’s mind, given that many of the best riffs on the debut EP had his fingerprints all over them. He soon dismissed the idea, though, as the prospect seemed too good to be true.
“That would be like asking Tom Brady to go play catch outside,” Jordan recalls thinking. “You don’t bother asking the prettiest girl out, because there’s no fucking way. It was so odd that Will even thought he would need to convince us. He could have just called and said, ‘I’m in this band,’ and we would have said, ‘Okay, good.’ Instead, he was giving us his résumé. Me, Steve and Goose were asking, ‘What are you doing?! Of course you have the job!’”
It’s natural to assume that as the most in-demand producer in hardcore joining another band is somewhat difficult to accommodate. Not necessarily, suggests Will; it all comes down to being adults about it.
“They know if Metallica calls, that I’m going to have to take a second off and go and do that.”
The creation of Highly Irresponsible was, Jordan says, “more surgical” when compared to their debut EP.
The guitarist likens making God Made Me An Animal as akin to being involved in a car accident, when the passenger has no idea what’s going on but their body unconsciously takes over, bracing itself for impact and just trying to survive. Yet to deal with the events of Every Time I Die’s demise at that point, he flew through the writing, demoing and recording with the fear that if he stopped to think about anything else for even a second, he’d sink into an abyss and expire.
This time around, however, having processed the trauma that precipitated the genesis of Better Lovers, Jordan is back to being the normal, confident guy who’s been touring since the age of 18.
“I was able to hone back in with this full-length,” he explains. “I was able to screw my head back on, stare at myself in the mirror and repeat some affirmations that, ‘I can do this. We can do this. This is fucking awesome. This is what I was put on this planet to do and it’s very fucking fun. Life is good again.’”
“Jordan is such a pure soul,” Greg says of his beloved bandmate. “When you see Jordan happy, it’s like seeing a puppy happy. He’s been through it. We haven’t been through the same thing, but we both had to reboot after our main thing ended. His enthusiasm and joy for every small victory is so large that being on a team with him makes you want to play harder.”
"I’m f*cking ecstatic to be where I am in my life right now"
Speaking of teams, the other day Jordan was chatting to his son. Aged 9, the kid has started taking baseball practice very seriously, becoming frustrated if he makes a bad play. Turns out the lessons learned from being a musical lifer are transferable to the batting cages.
“I told him that if you’re having fun, you will do your best work, whether it’s a sport, writing music, creating other art or in your profession,” reveals Jordan. “This felt more fun than the sense before of, ‘Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.’”
Whatever the change in circumstances between making the EP and Highly Irresponsible, there’s no getting away from the fact that with the individual and collective pedigree in Better Lovers means expectations are sky-high.
“The break up of [Every Time I Die] was as much of a nightmare as you could ask for, and I was on the receiving end of an infinite amount of people online believing that whatever I do next would fail miserably,” says Jordan. “I was able to use that to actually take the pressure off myself, which sounds crazy, but the truth is no-one was expecting this band, before Will and Greg got in it, to be good. I was able to harness that athlete mentality of letting the doubters fuel the energy, turning it from negative to positive.”
Meanwhile, having disconnected from the world of heavy music after Dillinger’s demise, Greg knew little of what had taken place between the end of 2017 and last year, so had no concept of the stakes or perception of any such pressures. “I had no grasp of whether or not people cared about me making this kind of music. I had no grasp of how many fans Every Time I Die had. I knew nothing about Will Putney. I’d never heard END or Fit For An Autopsy.”
The last song on Highly Irresponsible is Love As An Act Of Rebellion, a glorious melding of the molten and the melodic. Despite posing the question: ‘How can we survive if love has become an act of rebellion?’ it’s more positive than it sounds, and has a number of applications.
“We’re at war on so many fronts – physically, ideologically, politically – and people are screaming at each other in the streets,” says Greg of the context behind it. “Plus, it’s election year, so you have two sides telling everyone the other side is the scum of the earth. And then you look at people’s idea of intimacy reduced to swiping left of swiping right, pre-approving people based on their attributes and statistics, or whether they like fucking Chinese food or not.”
“It’s like a 2024 Better Lovers version of posicore, as fucked up as that sounds,” Jordan says of Love As An Act Of Rebellion. “It resonates with me. We’re all in that space where we enjoy our lives and want to continue to do so. If Greg was to take things in a different direction, because everybody has their dark days and holes to dig themselves out of, then that’s fine. But it would be phoney of us given the amount of goofing around and dicking off we do to go onstage and be super angry at people who are giving us their time and money.”
Greg’s thoughts turn to the band’s UK tour in January. What would the 21-year-old frontman who led Dillinger Escape Plan through headline-grabbing appearances in support of System Of A Down back in 2002 make of still playing heavy music 22 years later?
“It’s insane,” he suggests. “Even three years ago, this turn of events would have seemed like something only possible in an alternate universe.”
Greg readies himself to go view some condos, before signing off.
“This is one of the coolest, least expected trips I’ve been on.”
Coming from a man responsible for some of the coolest, trippiest music in existence, that’s praise indeed.
Highly Irresponsible is released October 25 via SharpTone. Better Lovers tour the UK in January 2025 – get your tickets now.
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