Did you forget that Joyce Manor were in the midst of an album cycle? I did not. The singles — “All My Friends Are So Depressed” and “Well, Whatever It Was” — have been nothing short of awesome. Now they’re back with “I Know Where Mark Chen Lives,” an adrenaline-filled banger just under two minutes long.
“Mark Chen was a singer and songwriter for the bands Summer Vacation and Winter Break, which didn’t get quite as popular as they deserved to,” frontman Barry Johnson explains, continuing:
I just love Mark’s songwriting and voice. Lyrically, the song was inspired by Chase and I hanging out, drinking and smoking weed and laughing about stuff, and we were talking about how when weed clubs first started, they’d give you a free dab and the budtender would do a dab with you. Dabs are insanely gnarly. I was cracking myself up imagining some 19-year-old girl that just did her third dab of the hour before getting robbed at gunpoint, because they’d always get robbed as cash businesses. That’s the imagery of the song: Those early days when weed was still not super fully legal. It was like the Wild West, a little bit. And yeah, that just gave me a chuckle because it’s really dark and brutal.
Beautiful. No notes. Joyce Manor, never change. Watch the video for the song below directed by Jason Link and Rowan Daly.
I Used To Go To This Bar is out 1/30 via Epitaph.
