Perennial Photo
Perennial.
“Come on can you do the skeleton dance? Can you foxtrot from the crypt? Can you waltz three four five six? Yeah, it goes like this, it goes like this,” sings vocalist and keyboardist Chelsey Hahn before she and the rest of the post-hardcore power-punk band Perennial — Chad Jewett on vocals and guitar and Wil Mulhern on drums — create an absolute onslaught of sound that could both wake the dead and get them on the dance floor.
The Connecticut-based trio is heading out on tour starting this Thursday, June 2, and will swing through Best Video at the end of the month. That’s in support of their band’s 2022 release In The Midnight Hour, its second full-length release that opens with the above-quoted “The Skeleton Dance.” That song delivers a blast of kinetic energy that barely lets up for the remaining 11 songs, though anyone who has ever seen a Perennial show knows the energy emitted with every recording is a promise the band always delivers on live. Their newest fans are loving it, too.
“We’re so happy about it,” said Hahn in an interview with her and Jewett two weeks ago. “We get messages from strangers telling us they are really excited they found it, and they’re really excited to see what’s next. That’s beautiful and amazing and every time it turns a bad day wonderful.”
Perennial Photo
Album Cover
This particular album “was sort of a special case” since they had released songs from it “in various forms” prior to 2022.
“We started that album pretty early on … writing it in 2018, recording it at the end of 2018 and we just wanted to take our time because we knew this was probably going to be the record that a lot more people heard,” said Jewett. “It was going to be a record we were going to be touring on, and trying to make sure the maximum amount of people could find it, so we really were very deliberate with all the choices. If something wasn’t exactly how we imagined it, we’d keep working until we found the version we were all happy with. Working with Chris Teti” — of Silver Bullet Studios in Burlington — “was great because there was such a shared sonic language pretty early on. We talked about wanting to make this very detailed sort of headphone-record stuff like Pet Sounds, but the only downside with that is we were sitting on things for multiple years.”
The band ended up releasing an EP Food For Hornets in 2019, the single “The Skeleton Dance” in 2020, and the single “Perennial in a Haunted House” in 2021, “just to give folks a glimpse into what we were up to.”
“I think if Covid hadn’t happened, we would have released the album in 2020,” added Hahn.
“We would have put out a version of the record in 2020, but … we couldn’t play shows, and we weren’t in a rush to tour or get the record out necessarily at that point … it gave us time to sort of have a break from it and go back to it.”
They credit Teti, who recorded, mixed, and co-produced the record, with helping them “stay focused.”
“We had very similar record collections and very similar ideas about the ambitions for the record, so he kept us honest as far as that goes,” said Jewett. “He could spot what was worth spending an afternoon on and what could probably be replaced by a better idea.”
Songwriting duties are shared by all three bands members, with Jewett noting that “oftentimes one of us has maybe a riff to start the song, then we know what the chorus should sound like musically, and from there we’ll build as a group. But it really is whoever comes in with an idea.”
“Wil is such a brilliant songwriter as a drummer that he’ll sort of know where something needs emphasis or where something needs a rhythm that’s unexpected. He’s a brilliant sort of pop drummer, who also just sort of kinetic enough to be a brilliant punk drummer.”
The album is simultaneously experimental and precise; that precision is reminiscent of pop songs, but with the expectation that the unexpected will happen at every turn. Even a song that is less than two minutes long — like the aforementioned “Food For Hornets” — can sound like a three-part epic slam poetry stream-of-consciousness punk pop investigation of possibilities. And if that wasn’t enough, it’s highly danceable and incredibly fun.
Perennial Photo
Wasabi!
There’s even a song about the band’s cat, Wasabi, who has become a star in her own right after appearing on one of the band’s best-selling t‑shirts. Titled “Lauren Bacall in Blue,” the song features the lyrics “I clean my claws in the moonlight.”
“We were just sort of playing around with writing a theme song for the cat,” said Jewett. “I was thinking how we are blessed that there are hundreds of people walking around with Wasabi on a shirt with ‘Perennial’ above it, and so we thought she really is a sort of special part of the band somehow. So we decided to write her a theme song.”
As if on cue, Wasabi made an appearance during the interview as Hahn and Jewett discussed their love of playing live, their tour, and another show coming up on June 30 at Best Video, a venue they return to again and again. One important reason is their desire to not play shows at bars or places where there is an age restriction.
“Sometimes it’s really hard to avoid places with alcohol, but we do really want to play all-ages places because we were fortunate enough to go to live music in our teens. And I think it’s very cliché to say, but being able to do that kind of saved us, too,” said Hahn. “It’s a really important aspect of our lives, being able to go to shows that were safe spaces when we were younger.”
“Best Video is a different sort of thing,” said Jewett. “Somebody having a glass of wine or beer watching the show, it’s very obvious the art is the point and that whatever drinks are being sold are just refreshment.”
“We were able to make art in our 30s because we were able to access art in our teens, and the idea of our name being attached to an age-restricted show is just something that we’re definitely uncomfortable with.”
“Perennial is a band that goes to a diner after the show,” said Jewett with a smile. “We’re not a band that goes to the bar after a show. If you wanna hang out with Perennial after a show, look for a diner.”
Stephen Dillon Photos, Design by Perennial.
Perennial’s live shows epitomize the band’s definitive energy and aesthetic when it comes to what they want to bring to their audiences.
“When we started Perennial, we wanted to form the exact band we wished existed,” said Jewett. The band’s members also had specific ideas for their album art and flyers, which are all made by the band, as well as their signature look. “I always thought it was cool when bands matched and so did Chelsea and so did Wil, so I’m like, ‘all right, wanna do that?’
There were specific ideas they wanted to bring to their live performances as well.
“So many of my favorite bands embrace being on stage as a space where you can really just go nuts and run around and work up a sweat, and be as sort of wild and as visually engaging as possible,” said Jewett. “I suppose my attitude is, otherwise folks could just listen to the record. If we’re just going to stand there and studiously reproduce everything as its recorded, it’s not going to sound as good as the brilliant engineering that Chris Teti managed to do, where we had 20 takes to get everything perfect. It has to justify a live show. We rarely exceed 20 minutes, so that means we know exactly how long we have, and we just push ourselves as hard as we can during those 20 minutes to be the most memorable band that someone is going to see that year.”
Hahn and Jewett cited specific bands like The Hives that have influenced how they present themselves live, but also noted one very specific iconic performance: Otis Redding at the Monterey Pop Festival, which Jewett called “the single greatest 25 minutes in the history of American music.”
“It’s so energetic and the band is just literally perfect, and Otis Redding is this genius performer who is always in motion and always making damn sure the audience knows that he cares and believes every word that he’s singing. That level of commitment, that energy and drama and again, in a real short amount of time … Otis’s band leaves the stage, and you can see the audience has just been struck by lightning, by the sheer energy and brilliance of all the performers.”
“We’ll watch that regularly just to sort of recharge our batteries. There is the ultimate example of a performer and of rock ‘n’ roll and garage rock and soul music and all that stuff we’re just obsessed with as music fans.”
With that and other similar performers as an inspiration, the band is committed to “always moving and always making sure that show is entertaining, and not this self-indulgent thing of ‘how many of my perfect songs can I play before someone yells at me to get off the stage?’”
“We respect people’s time and their patience and their physical stamina, and I’d rather give them 20 minutes where we never stop moving than 30 minutes where there’s parts that you could cut and it would be a better show,” said Jewett. “We’re always talking about if we ever catch ourselves standing still, we’ll sort of remind ourselves, ‘oh we should actually be moving right now. I’ve been in this spot too long.’”
In fact, the cover of the new album has the phrase “12 songs//22 minutes” printed across it. “That’s our thesis statement,” said Jewett with a smile.
Perennial’s tour begins this Thursday, June 2, and the band will return to Best Video on Thursday, June 30. More information about these shows and the new record can be found on the band’s Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook pages.
