PISS is the experimental punk project of Taylor Zantingh (vocals), Tyler Paterson (guitar), Gavin Moya (bass), and Garreth Roberts (drums). In this interview, Taylor and Tyler discuss critiquing violence, creating a space to explore rage, and liberation through music—both personal and social.

Why the name?

Tyler:  I think initially it was kind of just a joke. It feels like the name-choosing process is made such a gigantic deal—it was nice to throw something out there and it not mean anything, to let the music speak for itself.

Taylor:  It started out as this total placeholder that I never got on board with, but it just stuck. I oscillate between really liking it and really hating it, and the reason I both really like it and really hate it are the same: because when we’re on stage what we’re performing about is so vulnerable and so personal, it’s almost ironic the way that people will comment on the name while we’re live.

I’ve had someone yell out, “Piss on me!” while we’re playing, and there’s a layer of that where I’m like, “I hate that,” but there’s another layer where that in and of itself is a piece. Like, “Look at yourself, look at how you’re appreciating this art, that you’re watching this and that’s what you’re taking away from it.”

Tyler: I’ve noticed that at shows too. After playing, when people approach [Tay], whether or not they want to engage with the material, it’s very clear the people that don’t because they simply will just comment on the name.

Taylor: And a lot of times commenting on the name in such a bizarre way, like, drunk people stumbling all over the place being like, “You pissed all over us,” and it’s like, “Okay…cool. Glad you liked it.”

What does your songwriting process look like?

Taylor: We structured out since the very beginning of the project forming an outline for the album we want to create, and I went through and was like “Okay, these are all the types of songs that I want” in terms of lyrical content, and then I have length-ish type things that I would imagine, sample ideas, some lyric ideas, and then Ty goes and takes that inspiration and writes music we kind of workshop it together. Sometimes things change, sometimes they don’t hardly at all, and then we arrange in the studio. It’s kind of amazing because I always think of Ty and I having these insanely complimentary skillsets—everything he’s not good at, I’m good at and vice versa, and so we really respect each other’s authority, and defer to each other when we need to. It’s so nice, and it makes songwriting so seamless and really fulfilling, things just happen so easily. I’m always proud of what we do.

I have a memory of you reading a script/poem and was wondering if you could talk about that piece—what it is, and the choice behind reading it out rather than singing?

Taylor: So that is a song called “blocking a scene you can’t remember”. The song is a spoken word poem, but it’s written as if it’s a monologue. Originally, I was reading it off a script because I didn’t have it memorized, and to drive home the theatrical element of it. But then, once I had fully memorized everything, I was like, I don’t know if the theatrics are actually aiding [the performance].

We try very hard with PISS to limit any sort of barriers between what’s being said and the audience. Any sort of theatrical things that will distract—any costumes or crazy makeup or antics—we try to limit as much as possible so that the audience can get as close as they possibly can to the real thing that’s happening, which is the words that I’m saying and the way that I’m moving my body. And I think having the script was a little bit of a distraction more than it helped, so we don’t use the script anymore.

You used an audio sample of someone talking at a live show I saw—can you elaborate a bit about the meaning behind it and what the piece as a whole was about?

Taylor: Yeah, we use samples throughout the entire set and they are really integral to the album that we’re writing. The album is a critique on violence, in particular in alternative music subcultures—so, violence in the punk community, violence in hardcore—and we use samples as a way to pull different perspectives on violence throughout the article, and all the samples we choose are thematically linked to the songs that come before or after, but also because we really want to give this idea of violence and cultural propaganda being omnipresent. We use a lot of samples from media and critical theory; we also have ambient noise samples, and it’s just to give this feeling that you can’t escape violence—it’s everywhere.

[The one you’re referring to] would be Andrea Dworkin who was a radical feminist, writer, and activist, and the song “time loop at hot slit” is inspired by a collection of her writing called “Last Days at Hot Slit”. That particular sample is her speaking at an interview at a university about the use of violence as self-defense because the law doesn’t work to defend victims of sexual violence.

We have lots of different perspectives on violence—some are pro-violence, some are anti-violence, but the overarching thread is that everything is highly critical of violence and its role as it’s used against oppressed groups, but also as it’s used as a tool for liberation.

How does a song evolve from a demo to the finished version? How do you decide when they’re done? It seems like so much of your performance needs to be experienced live—does that affect the process?

Taylor: I totally agree—I think the live experience is completely different from the recorded, and we are constantly evolving both the live set and the songs. Because the album is a concept album and things are all threaded through, as I write new lyrics, for example, it affects the way that other songs are written. So, we have certain lyrical themes that are threaded throughout everything and then I’ll see if there are opportunities to tie new songs back to old songs and just make sure the whole thing works as a cohesive unit. In terms of actual music…

Tyler: …I think in the songwriting process, the music part of it—we kind of finesse the structure so that it works with the lyrics that Tay’s written. So, usually those don’t move around too much unless there are major changes in the lyrics. But for the most part, once me and Tay have structured out the songs they remain pretty rigid in that structure.

What effect do you hope to have on people with your music? What do you want them to feel and how do you want to feel performing it?

Tyler: I think for me, musically, it’s been really liberating to be in this band—making music that doesn’t necessarily have to fall within one specific genre has been really fun. We want this project, all four of us in the band, to be anything it can be. We don’t want to feel confined by anything. So for me, sonically, that’s been amazing. I feel like I’ve reverted to some sort of elementary approach to music, where it’s like, what’s the first thing you do when you get a guitar? You turn the distortion up all the way and just make this dissonant mess of sound. And for me, having played guitar for most of my life and been in a handful of different bands [with] more melodic kind of stuff, it’s been amazing to have this project to explore sound. I think even in the songwriting process, obviously Tay and I have a pretty big overlap in music we enjoy, and the idea of what PISS can be, and so it’s just been a really nice back-and-forth with the writing process. For me, ultimately, I want it to be something that can work with her voice and something she can thread the narrative over top of. I’ve always wanted to be in a noisier band because I’ve listened to that music my whole life and I just haven’t really been able to find my footing doing that with other musicians until this project and that’s why it’s been truly so much fun for me.

Taylor: I do think about this a lot. For me, with PISS, it often feels as though I get so caught up in the abstract and thinking about the effect that it has on people rather than thinking about what I necessarily want to do. Because I’ve been in the hardcore music and punk music scene since I was very young—I started my first band when I was 15—and so I know that hardcore music, or I’ll say extreme art, is a space where people are able to explore their anger—and extremely justified anger—in a safe way.

Because if you feel angry when you’re walking down the street, if you feel angry when you encounter a cop, you don’t have the space to express that, to unpack it, to learn about it. Anger is a secondary emotion, so it’s almost always covering up something that’s harder to deal with, like grief, or fear, and that’s what a lot of us are feeling in alternative music: anger and fear at our powerlessness. A lot of femme people feel rage at being raised in a system of domination, and with PISS I want to create a place where people who feel rage are able to explore it in a way that allows them and encourages them to look beneath, so you can feel that initial layer of rage, but then because of all the thought I put into the lyrics and all the different perspectives I try to provide for everyone, you’re able to feel that feeling, explore that feeling, let that feeling out, and then take a deeper look at it so that you can start to self-actualize a little bit and hopefully come up with tangible solutions for yourself, not only [for] how to cope in such a system but also take steps toward creating change.

Which is obviously a huge goal to have with a little punk band, but—I stand on the backs of giants, and try to pull in all these writers because it’s not just me that’s doing this. I try to offer space where other people can get exposed to things that I’ve heard, and not be so dogmatic about it, so they can just hear about my experience, hear about the people who have impacted me, and then make their own decision about it I guess.

Does that make sense?

Your lyrics seem to combine personal experience with protest—is that balance something that you hope to continue in the project going forward?

Taylor: Ty and I have talked a little bit about what comes after this album—because we’ve been talking about this album for a year now. And for me it feels as though it’s been my whole life thinking about these themes. And I think a lot about, not to be crude, but how long do I want to spend writing about rape? How long do I want to spend writing about sexual violence? Whatever we choose to do after this album, it doesn’t need to necessarily be about the same themes, but it’s just a part of who I am. It’s a part of my experience, and it’s very important for me in all my art, because I’m not just a musician, I also do my own writing outside of music. It’s important to me to not necessarily write in a way that’s trying to convince people of anything, but just to create something that is as close to truth as possible, or my truth as possible, as honest as possible, so people can have something that they trust, that they can build their own perspective based on. I have a hard time using things like samples if it doesn’t feel like it’s supporting the message—the medium needs to reflect, it needs to make sense.

So, we have talked a lot about how the next project will look, and if it’s going to look totally different, because it really will be just a brain child of us, and deciding we want to say something, and then constructing the sound around whatever it is we want to say in whatever way is going to best support that. So, it might be similar, it might be totally different, it really depends on whatever we decide to write about.

Whatever we choose to do next, I know it will be big, it will be weird, and it will be beautiful.

PISS performs at Green Auto with support from Gadfly and Cherry Pick on October 18^th, and their single “two demos” is available for streaming.