By Jim Barber
Sometimes it’s good to get away for a bit – reevaluate, reconstitute, reconnoiter the new, post-COVID landscape, recharge and then – return with what could be argued to be the best work you’ve done so far.
A bit hyperbolic? Perhaps, but there is no doubting that the songs that are accompanying the re-emergence of Niagara Region rockers The Mandevilles are infused with a passionate emotional energy, bordering at times on frenetic. A prime illustration is the single and video for the pulse-pounding, cathartically mesmerizing new track ‘’Every Bit of Violence.’
The song, and especially the video for “Every Bit of Violence’ released through Snareguy Records, is starkly bold, emotionally vivid, and very, very intense. It is raw, it is ragged, it is breathtaking in its delivery and leaves you with swirling thoughts, bristling emotions and a desire to perhaps dig deep into yourself looking for a similar cathartic apotheosis.
The song, the first of a number of new tracks to be released throughout the year, comes after a self-imposed four-year break for the band’s co-founders and co-songwriters, Serena Pryne and Nick Lesyk. The band wasn’t predisposed to taking a lengthy break at the time but admit four years is a long time to be out of the public eye at least in terms of being a recording act. But then, as with literally a few billion people all over the world, COVID happened.
“We had a bunch of songs written, recorded and kind of queued up, ready for a steady stream of slow releases, and that would eventually have become a short album or an EP – a little longer than a standard EP but less than an album. And then the week we put out the first song, which was a song called ‘Junkie’ was the week that we went into lockdown. So, we were like, ‘well, this is awesome.’ We tried to stretch things out for as long as we could, but I mean, this is not a unique problem to us, obviously. Everybody was going through it at the same time. We were spending a lot of our time trying to figure out how to slow the tap and trickle some releases out to at least keep a little bit of momentum going,” said Lesyk over Zoom while seated beside Pryne in the band’s rehearsal and recording space.
“And I hate using the word, but we were also looking to pivot our career in some way. I guess in the eyes of some people who would see us live and stuff, we kind of did disappear because all music did. Then we started doing some live streaming, which is why we have good microphones and a camera for this call, because we went down that road and it worked out great for us. And we still do it. We also lost our drummer in that time too.”
This seemed to compound the stress and emotional toll the uncertainty and isolation that the pandemic was already causing to boil over, especially for Pryne, who readily admits she is the more emotional of the two.
“We needed time for healing because it was like someone that I’ve known and we’ve been friends with for over 20 years, who we now don’t even talk to anymore. Basically, being in a band with people is a lot like a breakup with your boyfriend or girlfriend when they leave, if you’ve had a real, like relationship with them, which we did with this person. So, yeah, it sucked,” she added.
The time was well spent, not only in healing, but as they’ve said, looking at a change in approach for what the post-COVID life, career and music would look like once some sense of normalcy returned.
“Music wise, it’s almost like we’re going back to what we used to do more than ever, where we’re just a real rock band. Because we were kind of being pulled in some different directions before when we were with labels and stuff. And that was just maybe more our speed at that time, having a little more of an Americana sound. So, what we’re doing now definitely goes back to when we were 20 and we were just trying to write like when Nick and I first met, and we were writing straight up rock songs. This new direction and the new songs definitely have more of that vibe. Now, saying that, the next song coming out doesn’t, but we’re kind of doing what feels good to us, which could be anything. That was always our thing in that we have Americana sounds, we have folk sounds, we have rock sounds – that’s sort of the all-encompassing thing about our band. And a lot of times record labels didn’t like that because they were like, ‘well, what is it? What are you?’ They always want to put you right into this little hole. And we tell them, we do all these things, why is that not okay? But it wasn’t. Now we don’t have that issue because we’re just doing everything ourselves, so it doesn’t matter,” Pryne explained.
The story behind how Every Bit of Violence came into being is evidence for the importance of being ‘in the moment,’ and taking advantage of the muse when it hits you, wherever it hits you. At a relatively routine, low key gig, where Lesyk and Pryne were essentially playing to a pretty inattentive dinner crowd, doing the usual round of covers, an idea came and sensing the opportunity, they took it – and a masterful piece of compelling songcraft is the result.
“I was literally just standing there in between songs. I’m a very fiddly person, and so I puttered around on the guitar, and I turned the tuner on, so people don’t hear it out front. I just kind of like to occupy my brain until we figure out what the next song is going to be, or Serena’s talking to the audience or whatever. I was walking around, as I do, and the intro for what would become this song, the guitar part literally just kind of like fell out of the guitar: the sequence, the tempo, everything, the way that you hear it on the recording came out in one shot. As I was doing this, Serena kind of turned to me and said, ‘what is that?’ And I was, like, ‘I don’t know.’ She jumped and grabbed her phone, set the phone on record and I unmuted the guitar and just started to play,” said Lesyk.
“It was a duo gig, and we had a band rehearsal the next night, and on the way to the rehearsal Serena said, ‘man, that song from last night, we should play that at the gig in a couple of days.” And I replied, ‘it’d be great if we finished it first,’ But then in my head I start putting more of it together – it goes like this in the verse, and I kind of want this to feel like the chorus. So, in my head I kind of planned it all out, so by the time we got to rehearsal, I took the guitar out and I went, ‘how about this?’ And she said, ‘yep, that’s what it is.’ The other guys in the band were kind of confused. ‘When did you write that?’ And we said, ‘just now.’ I’ll tell you this, I think it’s so lame when musicians say, ‘it’s like it was a gift.’ And I’m like, ‘shut up! That’s so lame.’ But I have to say, the song really did kind of just fall out of the guitar. There’s no explanation for how it happens sometimes, and that’s definitely one of those times. I guess it’s magic.”
Pryne picked up the narrative.
“This is not something that happens very often, but when you feel it come on, we always try to lean into it a little bit, especially this time. I thought, ‘okay, this is pretty cool.’ So, I started filming and then it kept going, until I started literally singing when we’re in front of this live audience. But I instantly had the words and everything for the part Nick was playing. I didn’t really have the chorus yet, but we made it through the whole intro melody and then we got to where the chorus would be and just vibed on it for a bit. People clapped after, even though they didn’t know what it was, but we made it sound like it was a song because we’re professional like that,” she said.
“And I had that line, that phrase, ‘every bit of violence.’ It just popped into my head as well. I had that part, and I knew what the chorus was going to be and had some general sense of the verse. I had all the melodies; I just didn’t have all the words. So, basically, I faked it until we finally got to the spot where when we were playing it live, I still didn’t have all the lyrics fully dialed in, but we had the main parts and the song itself, the structure of it, was already there. We were then able to play it live, and we started kind of working on it that way, each time we played it in front of people. And we were lucky because of the type of gig it was. I mean, we want to work. We need to work. And we’d rather be playing music than not, so we take these gigs., It was luckily just one of those weird, quiet afternoons. People appreciated us, but they also didn’t really pay attention that much or clap all the time. So, we were able to get away with messing around with this tune idea at that earlier show. And that’s exactly what happened, and after that, we just moved on and played the rest of the set.”
It is quite something to ponder the fact that this song, which seemingly burst forth from the firmament above and landed onto a small corner stage in a restaurant in the Niagara region of Ontario, Canada during the late lunch shift is so dripping with emotional and psychological intensity. It seemed like serendipity and destiny met opportunity when the words, especially those for the title, the roots of which were seemingly something that had been swirling around in Pryne’s head, heart and spirit for some time – finally found the right moment to be birthed into the world.
“It was because of my own personal experience at that time and also of my sister. There was some family stuff that was happening, and she was going through some stuff. I only have one sister. She’s very close to me in age too. So, I was thinking about her a lot and just a lot of people dealing with internal struggles that are hard to talk about. I still really don’t know where the ‘every bit of violence’ part came from, but when that came, I think phonetically it made sense, and the rest of the lyrics eventually came together after having that main idea and really working to make sense of it. I mean, truthfully, it’s about suicide. It’s a thing where, you know, I’m thinking about ending my life because I can’t take it anymore. I was having those thoughts, for sure. I struggle with that all the time. I’m not going to lie; that’s something I’ve had. I’ve had that problem my whole life, and yeah, it’s weird to talk about it,” she said.
“And I know that my sister was going through something like that, and she wasn’t really able to communicate it to me, but I could sense it. And when those lyrics were coming to light, I mentioned it to her that I was working on something that was about her. She has now looked at that song and listened to it and, yeah, it might have been too personal and too close to her at the time, but now I think she’s happy that it’s out there. It’s hard to talk about, and it’s kind of weird to when you’re right in it. It’s a little too intense. Now there’s been some time away from it, I think she’s happy that I got that out there into the world.”
Digging into the meaning of the phrase every bit of violence, Pryne said there was a method to the choice, but it’s one that’s applicable mostly to her own experiences and wants those hearing the song or watching the video to come up with their own interpretation of the phrase and even what she means, as the lyricist, by the precise use of the word ‘violence.’
“I don’t want to get really specific because I don’t want to ruin anybody else’s experience with the song. I try to keep things almost vague to me as well so that I don’t overanalyze it. I’m kind of like that. I mean, I’m usually pretty good at stopping myself from going too far on anything. Like, even when we’re recording I’ll sometimes think, ‘my God, that take’s not good enough.’ I’m overcritical of myself. I am also pretty free in letting it go and letting it just be sometimes. When I heard the word violence come out of my mouth when we were just jamming the song, I thought, ‘wow, that’s a crazy thing that I’ve never sang before.’ So even just using that word is pretty heavy and then adding every bit of it, I don’t know, it’s like there’s all these things that happen when you’re feeling, well, suicidal. And a lot of it is violent. It attacks you and your psyche and your heart, your physical person. I could become easily just belligerent and overtaken by emotion, crying, wandering the streets in the rain looking for a bridge to jump off of. Don’t think I haven’t done that. So, to me, that’s the meaning of ‘every bit of violence,’” she explained, adding that using words such as ‘violence’ and ‘suicide’ so directly and forcefully has become frowned upon in some circles, as the theory proposed by some is that speaking those words somehow makes the problem worse. when, in effect, speaking the actual words is often the first step towards awareness, understanding and healing.
“Mental health is super important, but people say you can’t say these words, especially suicide. You have to say something like ‘unalive.’ And, man, suicide is terrible, and you should call it suicide because it’s terrible. And the word violence also evokes strong emotion because it should. Violence is not a great thing, so it’s important to have the word there because it has to evoke that feeling that Serena is conveying. Let’s not soften the word. Let’s not dumb it down. Let’s just say it exactly like it is,” added Lesyk.
With mental health as the incisive and visceral focus of ‘Every Bit of Violence,’ the creative core of The Mandevilles talked about the importance of art, particularly music, to help people process the good, the bad and the ugliness of life – especially as creators of art themselves.
“I hate, hate, hate the cliched words like blessed, lucky and everything like that, but I am pretty lucky that there’s a thing that I have that’s hanging behind me [his guitar] that I could use to get the bad energy out. Some people use drinking or driving too fast or working out or put all of their energy and attention into work or whatever, and I have this – this piece of wood behind me. Whether anybody else hears it or not, I could grab this thing and be really just torn up about everything, play for 25, 35 minutes and feel like all this huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. And when you play a show, that feeling, it just compounds. It doesn’t even matter if there’s anybody out there or not. If we don’t play a gig for, like, two weeks, I am very ornery,” said Lesyk.
“It’s the same for me. I go absolutely crazy. I don’t feel like I know who I am anymore when we’re not playing music. It’s really important, obviously, just to get through life. It’s necessary and it does help. Even when I’m feeling really bad about things, I have to remind myself that yes, we are grateful. You’re grateful for your friends, your real friends, and being able to play music, being able to hopefully touch other people with the music, which I think this song has really done. And that makes me feel even better about it. Honestly, not that it’s necessary, but that kind of positive feedback is a really nice bonus. I do exercise too, and I do also drink. So, there’s other things that you try. I know I’ve got to keep it in check sometimes, because obviously drinking doesn’t help anybody’s mental health. Still, I do a little bit.”
Returning to the subject of the song ‘Every Bit of Violence,’ and more specifically the video interpretation of the song, the theme comes to life so viscerally and so dramatically and so steady in its intensity that by the end, when Pryne’s face is literally portrayed as battered and scarred after running through a cold winter forest, the audience is left as breathless as Pryne herself, which is her intent.
“Nick and I and a couple of friends had watched a horror movie the week before. It was literally like a week and a half because we initially had a different idea for the video. We didn’t have a full idea completed and we were supposed to work with somebody else on the video and then all of a sudden, none of that happened. It just fell through. So, I was like, okay, I need an idea. It’s got to be something I can do DIY, so we came up with me running through a forest with my friend on camera, our very good friend [photographer] Lauren Garbutt, who is amazing, I can trust her. We’ve worked together so many times that I know she’s going to be all in. And then our third person came in, another great friend of ours, Bianca Monroe, and did the makeup, and she’s a trained makeup artist, but even I didn’t really know she was going to crush it like she did,” said Pryne.
“I basically said, ‘hey can you make me look like I got beat up because I’m running through a forest.’ It’s my everything coming at me, it’s like every little fall starts to build up on my face. She just came in and made everything so much better because when I saw the makeup then I was like, ‘holy, I’m locked in on this journey now.’ It just came together pretty effortlessly. And we did it near Queenston Heights. There’s a bunch of cool trees and stuff there that we had already scoped out. We knew that the video was good when one of our friends, who is kind of a roughneck, he looked at me and said, ‘hey, I watched your video, and I saw how beat up you were, and I thought I might have to get a couple of guys together and find out who did that to you.’ “
The author of this piece interpreted the video to be Pryne’s ‘character’ running away from the thoughts in her head, or from the dark and unpleasant things in life, running so fast that she can’t duck all the tree branches and twigs, ending up looking like she lost a fight with Freddy Kruger or Edward Scissorhands. And like she has said, one interpretation is no better or worse, no more wrong or right than another.
Pryne’s vocal performance on the track is as intense as one might expect for the subject matter being brought to the fore. From Lee Aaron-esque power Pryne’s vocal chords sound like they’re about to be shredded to tatters from the effort but retain their melodiousness, making for an uncompromisingly effective and blisteringly evocative recording.
“I think we did probably four or five takes, and we comped some stuff obviously, because that happens. I don’t like to overdo it because there’s no benefit to that. And there’s no Autotune either. So, yeah, there’s no benefit to me to just keep singing at that level when I know we’ve got it. And also, when you try to overkill a take, it takes the spontaneity and the energy and the character out of it,” she explained, adding that after the final take, she knew she was spent.
“It definitely takes a lot out of you, especially when you’re trying to hit the mark emotionally and sing well, because emotions can creep up and then it actually affects your voice. So, yeah, you kind of have to keep them at bay. They’re there. They’re on the surface, but you don’t let them get too crazy because then you can’t do your job. So, it’s a balance. Now doing it live is another thing. Sometimes it can be a lot, and I might end up breaking down on stage, like emotionally. I don’t know if anybody’s going to see that, but sometimes I do find myself overwhelmed by the song. And other times, it’s just there and I can get through it and it’s fine. The voice always holds because I know how to sing it. Even if the emotions take over, I can still do it. But, yeah, it’s a difficult song to sing because it’s challenging in so many ways, There’s a lot of falsetto stuff, and then there’s a lot of balls to the wall stuff too.”
The Mandevilles released their first album, Goodnight Golden Sun in 2012, followed two years later by Windows and Stones. Until their hiatus, the band had released a number of popular and critically acclaimed singles, including ‘Lightning’ in 2021 and the Junkie EP in 2022 before their break. Each single release moving forward, including for ‘Every Bit of Violence’ (or just ‘Violence’ as it’s listed on some streaming services) features a B-side single. The Mandevilles covered David Bowie’s sublimely timeless collaboration with Trent Reznor, ‘I’m Afraid of Americans,’ this time out.
“We did cover it years ago – we just never did anything with it. And we really enjoyed playing it. Then obviously we recorded this last year before everything got as crazy [with the U.S. government under Pres. Donald Trump] so now it has a little more impact than it might have. So, it’s kind of serendipitous timing. And then there’s a part of me that feels really bad that it’s so serendipitous right now, because I know I would much rather it not be serendipitous,” said Lesyk.
“Because we have a lot of American friends, and we don’t want them taking away that we’re really afraid of them. It’s a song, and it’s a song that’s been out forever. A lot of people thought it was an original song. And we’re like, ‘what, you’ve never heard this?’ I do think people will wonder if we pulled the cover of this song together quickly because of what’s been happening, but we actually did record it last year. It is kind of appropriate for the time, and in some ways I think we’ve got a right to be scared.”
For more information on any new music, live shows and other band info, visit The Mandevilles on social media or https://www.heymandevilles.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, Ontario, Canada, who has been writing about music and musicians for more than 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he works as a communications and marketing specialist and is an avid volunteer in his community. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
