Protomartyr frontman Joe Casey removes his eyeglasses before every show as a way of fighting the inevitable nerves he gets while on stage. The 39-year-old can’t see too well without them, so the growing swells of humanity packing bars and concert halls across the country to see his band play in support of its critically lauded third LP,
The Agent Intellect,
look comfortingly like a blob.
“You can kind of see the blob moving or swaying,” Casey explained in a phone interview with CL from his Detroit hometown a few weeks ago.
His vision is on full display, however, across Intellect, a 43-minute, 12-track collection of poetic punk that refuses to believe the working man can’t also be a thinking man, too.
As a lyricist, Casey tackles topics like gutlessness, mortality and desperation with a confidence, subtle hostility and frankness missing in the increasingly polished realm of somewhat pretentious Pitchfork.com-ready “post-punk” that litters streaming platforms and blogs across the listening ecosystem. The influence of his mother’s advancing Alzheimer’s disease and his father’s death lingers in the lyrics. What stands out, however, is Casey’s dry delivery, which could be considered deadpan if it weren't for all the conviction, urgency and underlying melancholy running beneath it all like a river pregnant with violent floodwater.
He uses it to illustrate scenes from Detroit where one certain lawyer’s billboards inundate the streets, figuratively watching while balding drunk dudes spill out of Comerica Park and stumble about the grounds of the soon-to-be-demolished Joe Louis Arena. (Casey dubbed the inebrienauts “Bosley crawlers” in honor of a Motor City doctor who specializes in hair transplants.) The descriptions are all very vivid, and while he certainly has a novelist’s knack for words, Casey still leaves much to the listener’s own interpretation.
“Good reviews get it just as wrong as the bad ones,” he said, admitting that he does indeed read them. “What the songs are about is still a secret that I keep to myself.” He does sometimes share the meaning with his bandmates, who are all a decade younger than Casey but have gone all in for Protomartyr as spurred by Casey, who finally left his longtime gig as doorman for a comedy club to devote himself to the band full-time. “We’ve been able to tour, it seems like people want to see us, and that helps.”
The perspective clearly helps Casey stay rooted to the ground as his band gains more and more notoriety on the back of Intellect, and when asked how his Jesuit education may have affected the themes in songs like “Pontiac 87” — where lines about Pope John Paul II’s late ’80s visit to the Silverdome get thrown around with mentions of money exchanging hands and the perplexing nature of mob mentalities. “Going to Catholic school, specifically a Jesuit one, actually gave me a better, more balanced view of the world and how to treat people,” Casey said. “[Jesuits] actually believe in science and critical thinking.”
The same matter-of-fact tone and analysis permeates Casey’s outlook about touring and not being able to record new material. “It’s fun to ‘read’ a crowd during a show,” he said, referring to the challenges of touring behind an album that’s getting so much attention. “Do they want to hear the old shitty songs or the new shitty ones?”
And while Casey seemed curious about Ybor City and Protomartyr’s upcoming show at favored watering hole New World Brewery this Sunday, he said he does get homesick, whether he’s on tour stateside or abroad. “I start to miss home as soon we get to the Michigan border.”
Show details: Protomartyr with Spray Paint, Permanent Makeup, Sun., Feb. 21, New World Brewery, Ybor City, $10 (ages 18 & up).
