by Taylor Ruckle (@TaylorRuckle)
“I'm not trying to cultivate an air of mystery,” says Chad Clark of D.C. art rock band Beauty Pill. “I've been told that I developed a reputation for being acerbic, or sarcastic, or just aloof. I feel like I try to be as present and as transparent as possible.” You couldn’t ask for a better visual metaphor than Instant Night, the band’s upcoming EP (or 12” single, depending on who you ask), which is being released as a transparent LP in a see-through sleeve.
Their commitment to openness and music as mixed media goes back at least as far as their critically-acclaimed sophomore album, Beauty Pill Describes Things as They Are. They recorded it publicly in an Arlington, Virginia art museum, giving visitors an unobstructed view of the artistic magic, but also the boring, procedural parts and even conflicts between bandmates. Ask him about the broad, woodwind-driven protest song “Instant Night” and Clark makes no secret of why he wrote it--inspired, in a time of ascendant white nationalism, by the examples of Bob Dylan and Public Enemy, he hoped to make an impact in the band’s own small corner of the world.
Beauty Pill keeps finding new and more refreshing ways to be transparent; the video for their punchy new single, “You Need a Better Mind,” is part lyric sheet and part personal reflection on the short film that inspired the song, and explaining it only deepens the thorny social questions it circles. The title of their last EP, Please Advise, was an admission that the band was going through a time of great internal uncertainty. “I'm as vulnerable and as imperfect as anyone else, and I think that's what I'm trying to convey in that title,” Clark says.
Over the years, Beauty Pill Describes Things as They Are has become something of a mission statement, even as the band steps out of the shadow of that record’s warm reception--their discography offers a reminder that art music can challenge you without being obtuse or obscure. Before the release of Instant Night, Clark and co-lead-singer Erin Nelson spoke to Post-Trash about the health crises that brought them together and the high points in artistic life they now get to savor as a group.
Photo credit: Morgan Klein
Beauty Pill generally hasn't been performing, but recently you were invited to play a show called Kludge, curated by the great Laurie Anderson. How did that connection get made, and what was that like as your one and only show of the year?
Clark: She became aware of our music because--I believe because Drew Doucette, who's our guitarist, works at the Hirshorn Museum, where she currently has a year-long exhibit, which is amazing. It's the entire second floor. It's just astonishing and it's engrossing, and it's beautiful, and I think she knew that Drew was in a band, but I don't think she ever had any idea what we sounded like. She asked us to bring her some records, and we did, and we ended up being invited to do this show. It was amazing. I mean--I have a tendency sometimes to dominate conversations. Erin, you can tell the experience from your point of view. I don't mean to just over-talk.
Nelson: No, it's okay! I wasn't gonna, like, interrupt you. [laughs] It was funny how the band all agreed to do this because to me, that's the funniest part about all this.
Clark: It really is.
Nelson: Because Drew contacted Chad, I'm assuming, first, and then he said, "We have this ask," and when opportunities arise like this, Chad's really great about telling us all. We sort of take a band vote on it, yea or nay. I think we had all agreed we weren't gonna do any live performance this year--still too sketchy. There are a lot of musicians that have been out on the road that have had to cancel tours because band members have gotten sick, and across the board, there just haven't been great precautions put in place at every venue that people are trying to play in.
But when Drew told us this story about how Laurie Anderson made this very, just, "Hey, you guys should join us in New York" offer, he thought, "Wait, I think we really have to talk about this." And I don't think any of us were thinking "no," except for maybe Chad. I know I went into the meeting thinking, "I think we have to do this. We can't say no." And surprisingly, everybody agreed, but Chad was very quiet. [laughs] I think we twisted your arm!
Clark: No, listen, if we're gonna speak candidly, our bandmate Devin [Ocampo] is--I think he's a musical genius, but he's a moody guy. I can't always predict how he's gonna feel about things, and I really truly expected him to say, "No way are we gonna do this."
"Not even for Laurie Anderson."
Clark: Yeah, I just thought he would say, “There's not enough time." We really didn't have enough time. We had not seen each other, really, as a band, in the last 18 months, you know? So I thought for sure Devin was gonna say no, and Devin started the conversation by saying, "We absolutely have to fucking say yes to this." That shocked me, and that's why I was quiet. I was like, "Oh. Oh no." [all laugh]
Clark: "Now it's up to me." I mean, I'm really glad we did it, Erin--at the risk of saying too much, I'm almost gonna say as a life-changing experience.
Nelson: It was definitely up there as one of my top performance opportunities ever. The whole experience as a band, pulling it together in three weeks, having not seen each other since--like, January 2020 was the last time that some of us were in a room together. Getting all the way to New York [laughs] without any major fuck-ups, and being on that stage with her--
Yeah, tell me about the room and the performance. What was the vibe like?
Clark: I went to NYU, but I'd never been to the Public Theater. I always walked by it when I was at school, and it's so beautiful in there. I think there was a very significant presence of active Beauty Pill fans in the audience, but I think a lot of them were people that had never heard of us before, understandably. We're, you know, a somewhat obscure, independent D.C. band. We're not on everybody's radar.
Nelson: That doesn't often play live, to begin with.
Clark: Exactly, but everything about the night was pretty euphoric, honestly. We ended up with Laurie and Arto [Lindsay] and Rubin [Kodheli] all playing along on our song "Instant Night," and I just turned around, and behind me, there's Laurie Anderson smiling from ear to ear--I mean, that was just amazing. You know, we've toured with Arto before, and I love him. He's a major idol of mine, and I'd met him before, obviously, but during the whole time that we toured, we never played together on the same stage, so this was a real breakthrough moment. He actually gave me this look on stage where I could tell he was like, "Hey! We're doing this!"
Closing this loop from years ago.
Clark: Yeah, everything about it was lovely, and my band--you know, it was tense. Our music is challenging to learn or to re-learn, and there were moments of, like, "Fuck, what are we doing? We need more time," in the preparation, but everyone felt good about the outcome. I'm saying this not just because she's here in this call, but I think Erin in particular was just stellar and entrancing, and it was just a very good night.
In the life of an artist--I say this shit all the time. There are a lot of valleys. There are a lot of dark, despairing times, so I'm inclined to just savor the moments when things all fucking work, and that's my feeling about it. I feel incredibly grateful to Laurie Anderson. She has this amazing sort of mischievous, beautiful, positive glow that you can feel. There's a sort of warmth, and again, I'm gonna use the word mischievous, because there's a sense that she's up to something. I mean, I guess that's what she's famous for. She's kind of a trickster, but you get the sense of a real benevolent--you know, she's a really good person. I really like Laurie Anderson a lot, and I hope to see her again or work together again.
Nelson: I think she just is somebody you want to be around and talk to a lot. I felt like I could have talked to her for hours, if time permitted, or if she permitted. [laughs] I just have so much respect for her and her career. She's a multi-discipline artist, and I dabble in many different disciplines of art myself, and I just wanna hear more stories from her.
Clark: Erin is a dancer and a choreographer, and I would say that would be primarily her background before joining this band.
With theater through Taffety Punk, is that right?
Nelson: Yes, I started that company with Marcus Kyd--that's his stage name. He's an actor, but he's also a musician, Marc Nelson, who was with the band Most Secret Method back in the 90s or early 2000s. He and I started Taffety Punk Theatre Company in 2005, but I would never, ever claim to be an actor. If that has ever happened, it's by just chance that I happened to be there and needed to do something that required saying lines, but my first training was in dance. I've been doing that pretty much since my childhood, and turned it into a profession, and sort of gone wherever that has taken me. I don't know how it led me to Chad.
Clark: I do!
Nelson: [laughs]
Clark: No, you know what? I do, because the very first thing we started talking about, way before either you or I ever considered the idea of you joining Beauty Pill, was that we would do some kind of collaboration with you as a choreographer and me as a composer, and we had both experienced major health traumas.
Like, ten years ago, a virus went into my heart. A random virus, and it's very rare--I mean, it's much more likely that you would get an infection in your liver or your lungs, or your spleen or whatever. The way the human body is designed, it's very rare, and because it's very rare, the heart has no defense against bacterial or viral attack. I had this experience where I basically felt like I had the flu, and then within a few days, I felt like I was dying. And I was dying, basically. I was young and I was relatively fit, and I was having open-heart surgery. It was very terrifying and weird.
I can't imagine.
Clark: I hated it. I do not recommend near-death experiences. And Erin--I don't know if she would characterize it as being as catastrophic or as upsetting, but she had been in a car accident, and it had affected her body. She was recovering, and we met and had lunch, and we talked about our commonality and wondered if we could make some kind of work that would address or encompass our experiences as humans who had been fucked up, basically. We had coffee in Georgetown there, and I don't even know if you remember.
Nelson: I do remember this!
Clark: I certainly was not looking at you and thinking, "Oh, this is gonna be the next singer in my band," and I can't imagine you were. It's just--we have a cool but long, long, long story.
Nelson: I think you and I had been in the room together many times prior to that--yeah, we'd just sort of weave in and out of each other in different rooms and different scenarios, and we finally landed on this.
Do you feel like the two of you have been able to create that work that encompasses your experiences with death, or is that yet undone?
Clark: I had sort of let that concept go, I guess. I often have artistic ideas that I don't necessarily follow through with. I actually think the original title of that work was going to be "Instant Night."
Nelson: I think it was. I remember that, 'cause I remember us talking about the origin of that title.
Clark: Yeah, just the idea of, at one moment, you're alive, and then the next moment, you're in danger of dying. I ended up applying it to something entirely different, but you know, maybe Erin and I will do something in the future. I mean, it's an interesting idea. One thing I really like about Beauty Pill, and I don't talk about this a lot publicly--I won't mention his name, but we have a fan who has multiple sclerosis, and he has contacted me and told me that my story inspired him to want to make music. Because of his condition, he has limited access to instruments, I guess because of his tremors and his sensitivities, and he wanted to get more into music technology because he was inspired by Beauty Pill.
That's certainly part of the story of Beauty Pill. Beauty Pill's music became more technological partially because I couldn't fuckin' play the guitar. When you have open-heart surgery--I apologize for how unpleasant and explicit this is, but they break your fucking ribcage. That's the only way to get to the heart, is they have to basically pop you open like a crab.
[sharp inhale] That's visceral.
Clark: Yeah, it sucked! You wake up and you're in pain, and they have medication to ease the pain, which is to say nothing of what's happening with your heart. During that period, I just couldn't play guitar, so I got more into messing around with technology, which was easier at a physical level. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is this guy has written me and said, you know, "You've inspired me."
I certainly don't want people to see Beauty Pill as being the disabled band. I don't think that's our profile, and I don't want that profile, but I am really happy that it has been a positive thing for disabled people. I would like to continue that, and the sense of the work that I think that Erin and I were going to do would be something affirming of disability and warring with your body. Trying to fight for life, trying to find dignity, all those things--I think if we had pursued that or if we do pursue that work, it would have value.
Nelson: I think the similarity between your story and mine--and mine is nowhere near as intense. It's just that I was in a car accident. I compound-fractured my arm and had to have surgery, and wasn't able to do much of anything that I was used to doing. I wasn't able to dance. I was gonna get my hairdressing license to supplement my work as an artist, and I was really enjoying working as a hairdresser. I couldn't do any of this, and it left me severely, severely depressed.
Besides just the pain and trauma of going through that, the realization that, "I can't do anything. I can't work any of my jobs." I was teaching in a university dance--I couldn't do any of the stuff that I had worked so hard to get to this point in my life. When I finally did get my footing and, you know, pull my head out of my ass [laughs] and stop being so depressed, it spun me in a different direction, and I see that's sort of what happened with Chad and the musical change that happened with Beauty Pill. Not such a different direction, but it introduced a new sound. Chad's use of electronics, and--
Clark: It's a fucking good sound too!
Nelson: It's a fucking good sound. It is. [laughs]
So the title "Instant Night" does get used--it's a song that you wrote back in 2015. I've read about Chad being inspired just as the Trump presidency was starting to become a possibility, and then of course you release it before the 2020 election as a way of hopefully inspiring people to vote him out. What do you remember about bringing that song to the band? And Erin, what do you remember?
Clark: I am curious what Erin's perspective is. I will say that the feeling of the song and the basic chords were completed in 2015, and yeah, it was inspired by just realizing that the Trump thing--I guess as a Black man, just to be real, the hatred and the bigotry and the incompetence and the arrogance that he was bringing, I knew there was a huge portion of this country that was welcoming that. I could feel it. The song is about this feeling, like, "Oh, shit, I know where we're headed.”
But I didn't develop it, I didn't bring it to the band for a very long time, and then we were coming up to the 2020 election. Trump had been president for four years, and wanted to be president forever, and I just could feel, "Okay, this is the time to bring this song to the world." It's an unusual piece of music, in that it doesn't have any drums. We have an amazing drummer in Devin Ocampo, and it's a little weird to turn to your amazing drummer and say, "There's no drums in this thing." [laughs] But you know, he's cool about it. He happens to be an amazing guitarist as well.
The very first practice we had, it was a really good feeling--a really really good feeling because it sort of moves in this clockwork sort of way, and everyone in my band got it within an hour or so. Erin learned the melody, and within a couple hours in practice, it sounded good, and we were all looking around--it's one of those moments where I just felt like, "I'm in the right band." Like, I found good people, and everyone gets it, and that was really positive. Zooming ahead, we ended up recording the song in my brother's Dupont Circle apartment. My brother has a particularly nice apartment, and he allowed us to record it, and we recorded one person at a time over the course of a whole day because we were social distancing. This is before any of us were vaccinated, so we had to be very, very careful.
Nelson: This is summer 2020, so it was still kind of the height of things.
Clark: It was a little bit scary, and a risk, I suppose, but we tried to be as smart as we could. I generally prefer to have the band all record at once whenever possible because I like the feeling of capturing an ensemble moment, you know? But this particular song was put together one person at a time, with, like, appointments. Almost like I was a doctor. "Devin is my 2:00 p.m., Erin is my 4:00 p.m., Drew is my 6:00 p.m." kind of thing. I'm happy with the outcome--that's the short answer.
Nelson: Yeah, me too. I think that practice where we learned it was the one and only time that we had played it together as a band, and I think that was the last practice we had before COVID, so that was cool.
Clark: It was affirming.
Nelson: Yeah, and now that I think about it, that is kind of cool, that that's the thing that we sort of finished with in New York last weekend. That seems to be the song that we've been pivoting around for the past year. But I think this song is beautiful. I do not enjoy hearing myself sing--I enjoy hearing that song because I think it's beautifully composed.
Chad will tell you the same story about when we recorded the vocals at his brother's house, and we were doing many takes. This was, again, the first time that I had really attempted this song since I don't know how many months before, and it's not an easy song for a vocalist. Chad was like, "Alright, we're gonna do it one more time, and I want you to imagine that you're singing to your kids." I have twin six-year-old boys, and that--I think that worked, and it wrecked me. [laughs] Chad couldn't see me, but I was crying. To frame it that way--and I don't know if that's the take that ended up on the recording or not.
Clark: It is.
Nelson: Now when I hear the song, that's how I hear it. It's like a lullaby, you know? It's a great song, Chad. [laughs]
Clark: Thanks, Erin. We're being so positive today. You know, now that I think about it, I realize that that could seem like a film director's manipulative direction, like, "Imagine your kids!" Erin loves her kids like all parents do, and her kids are of the age where--I mean, Trump absolutely did not want to be president. He wanted to be emperor, and I think that it would have changed the actual world for anybody who's a child, and they wouldn't have had a chance to vote on it. Already, if you're raising a kid, you're recognizing that climate change is going to affect their lives in a different and more frightening way than it is affecting yours.
So I guess I recognize that it was pushing her button to make it that explicit, but there's a part of me that is happy 'cause I think you can hear the way she sings and curves the notes in the chorus of the song. There's a desperate quality to the performance.
Erin, was that something that had occurred to you? How did you feel having that direction?
Nelson: It didn't occur to me as being manipulative at all. I think it's a natural thing. It's something that a producer would have done, and Chad, I think you're a good producer, and that moment worked. I think that you were after a specific sound, and that's what got me there. But no, I don't think it had occurred to me prior to him saying that.
Clark: I'm only realizing it in this interview. I just kinda look like a jerk.
Nelson: [laughs] No! "Think of your kids!"
Clark: “They're gonna die if you don't nail this!”
Nelson: "Trump's coming after them!" [laughs] No, I don't think it was a jerk move. I don't think you have to worry about that.
Clark: Let the record reflect that Erin does not feel it was a jerk move.
[laughs] It's all on the record. This is all in the transcript.
Clark: Good.
I've read that the last EP, Please Advise, was originally going to be the start of a full album, but Erin, you kind of championed releasing that as it was. How did the EP form of “Instant Night” take shape? Was that a similar kind of decision?
Clark: You know, I've always really liked the format of the 12" single. I'm a New Order fan--
Yeah, alright!
Clark: And you know the "Blue Monday" 12"--
Right, all-time great 12" single.
Clark: Yes, like, the best thing that's ever happened on Earth. So in my mind, this is a 12" single. The label has been calling it an EP, and I think that is a fair characterization. I think there's probably only an academic difference.
We're aware that people want us to make an album. The last album we made was very strong, and to be honest with you, we are operating a little bit in the shadow of that record. We want to make an album, and that's certainly the current plan. We just kind of keep rolling with circumstances, and it seemed to make sense to get this out as this--in my mind, as a 12" single. Similar to the "Blue Monday" 12”, which, if you're a New Order fan, you probably know, had that floppy disk cover, and it's like a famous music business fable that that record cost them more than they charged the consumer for it. Even though that record has sold millions of copies, the band lost money and the label--they lost probably, like, a million pounds or whatever, because of the cost of making that very special die-cut cover. I definitely don't want to lose money [laughs] but I love the romance of being committed to a design and design being a really important thing that everyone can feel is important and is communicative. I wanted the "Instant Night" 12" to be similarly striking.
As it is, I came to Nora [McKelvey], who's one of our two designers--we have two designers, Nora and Brian [Grunert]. They're both lovely, gifted people. I asked Nora to make an invisible record. Basically, a record that is as clear as it can be, as translucent, as transparent, as see-through as it can be, and I think that resonates with the themes of "Instant Night," possibly looking at total disintegration, or oblivion, or whatever it is. But I also wanted it to be something that's beautiful, feels beautiful and delicate, and is fun to hold in your hands, and might be even the kind of thing that you'd want even if you didn't have a turntable. Nora made this design, and I really love what she did. It came out a little different than I was expecting, but I really am happy with the outcome.
And you know, I think the EP is a legitimate form. Going back to Please Advise, that record is a good document of a time of fragmentation of this band. We had released Beauty Pill Describes Things as They Are in late 2015, and it was incredibly well-received. On the outside, it was a very positive experience, but on the inside, we had just moved from Dischord Records to a small boutique kind of micro-indie art label in upstate New York called Butterscotch Records, and the guy who ran that label turned out to be a complete maniac. If you ever see the movie Foxcatcher, the Steve Carrell character--that's pretty much the way Allen [Farmelo] is. He was just a rich guy who was really demented, and working with him was a total nightmare. He ultimately ended up threatening to destroy the record. It was a horrible experience at a moment when, on the outside, all my friends were saying, "Man, you made a masterpiece! This is your year!"
The band was kind of demoralized by that experience, and to be very clear, I am the person that decided to go with Allen. The band voted against me, and I overruled them, so I was the complete fool and asshole who made that choice. It was bad for the band internally and it was definitely a moment of darkness. What I was saying earlier, when I was talking about Laurie Anderson--this is one of the many moments in my life where I was like, "Fuck, this is all fucked up and it's never gonna get better,” and all these fatalistic sort of feelings. Please Advise was inspired, quite frankly, by Erin coming into the band, being the new person, and--I mean, I don't want to oversimplify, but Erin is, I would say, the most popular member of our band, internally. I swear to god, if you ask anyone in our band privately, "Who's your favorite member of the band?" I think everyone would individually say Erin.
Nelson: It's early days. There's still time. [all laugh]
Still time for a heel turn, Erin, you can do this!
Clark: Her diva years have not started yet. But you know, it was a time of fragmentation. I was broke because of the way the whole thing worked out with Allen. Even making anything took a lot of effort in that period, and Please Advise--I'm really proud of that record, but it has this fragmented quality because it was put together not in a rush of performance the way Beauty Pill Describes Things as They Are was constructed. It was a time of weird, scattered sessions, and I wouldn't want that record to be an album because that's just not what it was. I wanted to put out a document of this positive time when we had sort of discovered this person, and I wanted it to reflect that energy as best it could, so there you have it. These things happen less on purpose and they're more shaped by circumstances. That being said, I want to make a record. I'm determined to make a record that beats Describes Things. I'm warring against myself now.
Erin, what has it been like for you coming into this band and having that be the first release with Beauty Pill?
Nelson: It has been a great experience, honestly. Everybody's been great to work with. Beauty Pill is not a--we don't get together regularly for practice. Most of the band members are in other projects. A lot of the band members have families and some kids, and everybody is kind of all over the place, so the band has been moving at a manageable pace for me. [laughs] I feel Chad's description of Please Advise being representation of a fractured process or fractured time is pretty accurate, and just coming together when we can, recording when we can, and then having a handful of songs that--like I've said before, I really did push for it to come out because I thought, "We've got some really good stuff, and if we don't put it out, we're just gonna end up sitting on it," and I think even more so now. Now that we've seen how long we've been dealing with this pandemic, I think it's a really good thing that we went ahead and did that early on.
Clark: I agree.
Nelson: I have just really enjoyed getting to know myself as a vocalist. I mean, I've been a singer my whole life, just never with a band [laughs] so that's been really satisfying, to explore that and see where my voice will go and really learn what my strengths are and my weaknesses. Chad and I, sort of off and on for the past few years, will have periods of time we will get together and just work on vocals, and that's been really nice, just 'cause I like Chad a lot. To have that one-on-one has been really nice.
You talk about being a lifer artist as having these high and low periods, and I think as music listeners or even critics, there's a tendency to romanticize dark and miserable periods. Seeing as you're at this point now where things are really clicking, how does that change your artistic life and the way you create?
Clark: I think you can tell from this conversation, I'm in a good mood, and I think Erin's in a good mood. I think the band is generally in a good mood. It's nice to be in a good mood--everybody likes to be in a good mood! Who wouldn't enjoy that? I'll say this. The fact that you even care enough to ask us about our work--I have a lot of confidence in what I'm doing, but I don't believe that I deserve your attention. I don't believe that's just, like, default. I appreciate it, and I would like for people to continue to engage with what we're doing, and I hope to have more people discover what we're doing.
Honestly, I was very encouraged by the artistic response to Beauty Pill Describes Things as They Are. That record tries a bunch of different things sonically and aesthetically, and nobody said "stop doing that," you know? If anything, I was very much encouraged to keep going and keep going farther out. "Instant Night" has no drums and is based on this sort of Philip Glass style of arpeggiated woodwind music, and nobody has told us, "Hey, cut it out and get back to being a rock band." I feel grateful and I feel really encouraged, and I'm going into this next record feeling excited to try things.
Erin, do you also have that experience thinking of yourself as a lifer artist, and having those kinds of periods in artistic life?
Nelson: Yeah, everybody probably thinks differently and are fueled by different things, but personally, if I'm not productive--and however I define productive is different than how you might define productive, but if I'm not productive, I get really down, and it just feeds off of each other, right? It's like depression. When you're depressed and you can't get out of bed, the hardest thing is to just get out of bed and go for a walk. That is just the hardest damn thing. But if I'm on a roll, it's really hard to put the brakes on and to say no to things, and it's even harder now, I think, because things are not completely opened back up, but opportunities are out there again.
I find that I just want to keep saying yes to things, but I find that that also affects my creativity in a positive way, so I don't know if that's really answering your question or not, but yeah, throughout my life, I see a pattern--I seem to be doing better things and feeling that my work is stronger if I'm feeling really good about myself and keeping myself busy. I'm sure that at some point, I'm just gonna crash and burn.
Oh no.
Clark: That's a positive end.
Nelson: I'll let that happen when it happens. [all laugh]
Clark: Something we're not saying is that that Laurie Anderson invitation is really just the latest thing that we can talk about. There's three or four other exciting things that I know Erin knows that we can't talk about, and all these things generally suggest that cool people are understanding what we're doing and they're excited by it. It's not something I take for granted. I mean, I have been close to death. I know that sounds melodramatic, but it's fucking true. I have been at death's door, as they say, and here I am. I love my band and I'm excited for the next adventure, so that feels like a good situation.