An interview with Chastity

Brandon Williams talks about starting a new chapter with 'Chastity', why he only releases music on Friday the 13th, the right time to use the word "friggin'" and why summer bums him out so much.

There aren’t many bands like Chastity. In fact, scratch that: there aren’t any bands like Chastity. Technically speaking, Chastity isn’t even a band. Chastity is one person: Brandon Williams, a guy whose passion for his music is almost unparalleled. I always have trouble comparing Chastity’s music to any other artist because Williams makes the most, for the lack of a better word, pummeling rock bangers. (Though I can’t really argue against what this bio suggests: a combination of Unwound, Smashing Pumpkins, Mineral, Jimmy Eat World and Hum.)

When Chastity first emerged in the mid-2010s, Williams was expelling a cathartic blend of neck-snapping post-hardcore and noise rock. He kept the intensity cranked up to 10 come the release of Chastity’s debut album, 2018’s Death Lust, but softened his edge just enough, stuffing his songs full of screaming riffs and juicy hooks. The music only got bigger and better on the next two albums, 2019’s Home Made Satan and 2022’s Suffer Summer, both of which confronted his mortality while running the gamut of emotions with his fists punching the air.

Originally from Whitby, Ontario, a suburb in the Greater Toronto Area, Williams has done a hero’s work for his hometown. For a while he was hosting DIY shows inside a local barn and doing everything he could to help the youth of today get some stimulation and culture in such a sleepy town. He now calls Hamilton (my birthplace) his home, where he lives with his wife Linnea Siggelkow, who also has her own solo project making placid dream pop under the name Ellis, which couldn’t be more different from Chastity.

Chastity’s first three albums were designed as a trilogy, which Williams put to bed earlier this year with a tour featuring a set synced to an original feature film with a running time of 66.6 minutes. 😈 (A special Trilogy Record Set featuring new and exclusive art was issued by his label Dine Alone, which was a nice touch.) Completing the trilogy opened the door for a new chapter, one he is calling Chastity. Self-titling his fourth album was a deliberate move for him to take the next step as a songwriter. And while the songs are still thunderous, radio-friendly rippers, Williams has completely bared his soul with his most personal collection of lyrics yet.

What made the fourth Chastity album worthy of the self-title?

That's a good question. I think from Death Lust, I knew I was going to do a trilogy and I wanted them to be conceptual. There are nonfiction parts about them all, but there is some fiction and hyperbole to each of the trilogy albums: Death Lust, Home Made Satan, and Suffer Summer. I felt when I was writing this next record, Chastity, that it was the most myself, the most personal album so far. I was nervous to call it that, but I feel confident that it's in a place where I know myself the most I've ever known, out of all four of the records now. To me, the record sounds the most like Chastity, if that makes sense. 

I’m always curious about an artist choosing an eponymous album title when it isn’t their debut. When did you make the decision to name it that?

I hoped that it was going to be called Chastity when I started. I'm such a notes person, when it comes to planning. I've got all these notes in my phone, like about Friday the 13th. I have album titles for the next couple albums. So I've probably thought since 2019 or 2020 that it would be sweet to arrive at a Chastity self-titled album after this trilogy was done. 

Wait, do you keep track of all the Friday the 13ths in a year and try to plan something to release that day?

Yeah.

Wow. How successful have you been at hitting those dates?

I haven't missed one.

Why are you so committed to that date?

I think it's just the coolest looking. I think there's something subversive about the bad luck tag and just releasing something in the face of that bad luck. I'm such a Wikipedia reader of bands, and I like to think about what my Wikipedia page would look like for Chastity. Just to have it so littered with Friday the 13th release dates would be a funny section, I think. So it's just funny and subversive to me, and a little bit stupid.

Are you a fan of the movies?

Yeah, totally.

So I'm going to get nerdy on you. What is your favourite film in the Friday the 13th franchise? Mine is Part III, even though it’s so flawed and pretty stupid. 

I’d say Freddy vs. Jason. That's probably the first one I saw, and then I probably went back and watched the rest of them. I quite like the movies, but it's not related to them. I think it's this cultural motif where bad luck or something that lives in the air. No matter when it is in the year, Friday the 13th sort of feels like Halloween in a way. It's a fun day and an under-appreciated day.

You mentioned starting afresh with this new album. Does it feel like you’re closing a chapter in your life?

Yeah, the chapter closed. We did a trilogy tour a few months ago where we played all the films that we had made one by one by one, for all three of the records, at 66.6 minutes in total. And I think that was a retrospect to the three albums. Now, I kind of see this as a new thing. Like, here's Chastity in its fullest form.

Was there anything you brought to the album to help establish this new Chastity?

Not necessarily. It's not any sort of experimental record or anything. I think I just wanted to push it into its purest, most high concentrated form. Like that’s my childhood family home that's on the cover. And it’s not unlike the first three, but I guess it's just not fucking around about any detail lyrically; it's just sort of all there.

I guess I've always thought your music was a work of nonfiction, and somewhat autobiographical. Was there a moment where you thought to yourself, “I need to be more honest with my music”?

I don't feel like I was totally withholding information about myself or anything intentionally. There are parts of me all over. I wanted to write a record about death, I wanted to write a record about fear, and I wanted to write a record about happiness. So I went for that in the trilogy. I lived within some parameters and applied real life experience and stories to the writing, in a way that there's character built and I could play on that. And I think in this one, I'm the character. This is my home where I grew up, this is me. I think I just needed to build some confidence to get there. I needed to feel my voice in myself more and allow that to come out.

Would you say you were more detached from the narrative with the previous records?

No, I don't think so, because I've experienced death in my life. I did this summer with someone in my family, and I think I was applying those past experiences into Death Lust. I've been afraid big time in my life and I applied those thoughts to Home Made Satan. And I've tried to find happiness, which I was writing about on Suffer Summer. But I think having a character in mind allowed for some hyperbole. I was just able to write in a character and that allowed me to go different places.

The song “Offing,” is pretty candid and personal. It's not like you haven't shared those types of feelings before, but it's interesting that you presented it as more of a country or even heartland rock-type song. I feel it better amplifies your message, say, as opposed to loud guitars. What made you choose this style of arrangement for this particular song with these really intense lyrics?

I think I always consider that format used by Morrissey or The Smiths: dark lyrics with happy music or whatever. I think it's a subversive thing, like, “Why can’t we have a laugh about it or why can't we sing along to it?” I wanted it to feel like a sing-along bar song in a way, like in a country western bar. But at the end, where we're all singing together, “if you got approval, I want it.” It's how I feel and I don't know why. I don't know if it's some childhood stuff or whatever, but there's some trauma there. I'm somewhat desperate for approval at times. I don't love that, but I think many people feel that way, so I was like, “Okay, let's sing it together.” So those are my friends with me there, eight or nine of us in a room recording that. It’s cool to talk to some of them and just be like, “This is how I feel sometimes.” 

Do you know Gabor Maté? He’s a modern day philosopher, but also a doctor that worked in East Hastings for years and years. Anyway, he's got an unbelievable perspective. He talks about always having this feeling to prove his existence for some reason. And that’s what that song is about. “Why do I always gotta feel like I need to prove that I exist to everyone? Do I feel unseen otherwise?” It's a weird, basic kind of thing, but I think people go through it. It's a heavy message and I wanted the song not to be that heavy sonically.

I think the video really helps with that. Was the cowboy hat a nod to its country influence?

Yeah, totally. I got it the week before we went and played the Calgary Stampede in 2022. We were at Value Village and I saw someone had just dropped off all of this good stuff, like that hat and cowboy boots. I got two pairs of cowboy boots in my size. It was the best Value Village haul I’ve ever had, and I got that hat that day. That was at the Waterdown Value Village by the way, and it was sick.

So I guess you took that to Calgary with you and you were all kind of cowboyed out?

Yeah. We were playing with Alexisonfire, but we were going to the Stampede, so we all kind of dressed up and had fun.

What is this in the bio about “Electrical Tower Dive” containing the first official lyric use of “friggin’”?

I just say “friggin’” in it. I say friggin’ in my personal life all the time, but I've never said it in a lyric. I said that in passing to the guy who wrote the bio and it made it in. I thought it was hilarious and said, “Okay, let's leave it in there.” So yeah, I just say “friggin’ starts on fire.” I love that friggin’ can emphasize whatever you say next. It's funny.

I never used to say it and then I saw MacGruber and that kind of changed the way I spoke afterwards because I loved that movie so much. I’m a big Will Forte fan. He also said it a lot in Last Man On Earth, which I loved too. 

I just heard it a lot around me and never stopped saying it. And then I think I needed a few more syllables and that worked.

So where do you stand on saying friggin’ over fuckin’?

I think I probably say friggin’ more, but if I'm angry about something or if I have a really hard stance on something I use fuckin’. 

I think it's harder to take somebody seriously when they're really angry and they use friggin’.

It's more fun or silly. Though I guess you could argue that for fuckin’ at times too, depending on the situation. But fuckin’ just seems way more serious. Friggin’ can’t be.

“Summer All Over Again” is a friggin’ cool video. It feels like a blast of nostalgia and relatable for any kid that grew up in the suburbs. Is all of that original footage that you shot as a kid? 

Yeah, I shot all of that as when I was 12 or 13 on a video camera. I think it was summer between grade seven and eight. I found a fisheye lens and just filmed my pals and I skateboarding. I've got so much footage too. Linnea was away somewhere and I had probably 80 MiniDV tapes out on the coffee table, going through all of them and having a real blast. It was crazy to see some of this stuff. I think it fit the song so well because it's a song about nostalgia.

So I was happy to see all of that even though it was honestly a mind-fuck looking at that footage. But damn, these 12, 13, 14-year-old boys were unreal at skateboarding and so brave at times. We were jumping down shit to the point where we posted on TikTok and they flagged it for dangerous activity. Some of the grass gaps and stuff we were doing was crazy.

I love watching skate videos, but I was never willing to do those stunts as a kid. I didn’t have the courage. I fell a bunch of times and was like, “That’s it. I’m out!” But I really, really wish I had tried harder because I’ve always been such a fan of skate culture. I’m just a wimp, I guess. 

There's a great Ian McKaye quote about skateboarders where you no longer see a staircase as a staircase. It's an obstacle for you to overcome. Or a swimming pool is something you ride, not swim in. I think skateboarders just flip the world upside down and see the world differently. So, I sometimes think as a skateboarder.

You use summer as a theme in a number of songs. What is it about the season that inspires your music?

I haven't thought about it, but I mean, “Summer All Over Again,” “Sun Poisoning,” “Suffer Summer" as well. I don't know. I am always surprised by the time summer comes that I'm not happier. I feel like the weather suggests happiness somehow, like blue skies and the yellow sun, but I always feel this weird melancholic feeling. I feel disappointed almost every summer that it's not better in a way or that I don't get the spirit boost that I thought I was going to. And then every fall and winter and spring I think, “Oh, I'll feel better by the time summer comes around.” It's just a bit of feeling about being let down, I think.

So, opposite season, but you recorded the album in Winnipeg in March. That seems like a terrible idea. How was the weather?

Good question. I mean, shout out climate change. One day it was plus eight degrees, weirdly. And then a couple days later, there was a blizzard and it was negative ten. I remember there was a 20-degree shift, negatively. It was drastic but in both cases, it was fairly warm for Winnipeg. I thought, “I'll take it.” But I think when it's shit weather, you are even more dedicated to being indoors in the studio. Not the worst time to lock yourself up and get to work.

I wanted to just ask you about being married to a fellow musician. Your partner performs under the name Ellis. How does it work with you and Linnea being in two different bands under one roof?

I'm lucky to have someone in my life that understands such a weird schedule, which is so intense with touring. When I get home from touring, I'm twiddling my fingers and kind of restless. There's a lot of downtime, but then there's zero downtime. But so she's awesome and understanding about that. And now she has been playing bass in Chastity, which has been wicked. I think it's good. She encourages me a ton, and I encourage her. She sets a good example for me with Ellis. And she's instilled a lot of belief in me to carry the project on. And we do write together. She wrote the song “Vicious Circle” with me. We've also written five or six other tracks. Sharing a space with someone during a global pandemic that's as talented as Linnea was awesome. We got to do some writing and imagining of songs for a possible future project.

Linnea posted something on the Ellis Instagram account a few months back that I felt was relevant for most artists, including yourself. She was commenting about how “releasing music these days feels mostly bad,” which I think was referring to how disposable music can be these days, with streaming, for example. And how the only way you can make money is through touring or selling merch. Y’know, because people don’t pay for music the way they used to. 

So, I heard someone say recently about Spotify specifically, and maybe I should be a bit careful, but I can look up numbers… I think the streaming income isn't even the most cruel part about Spotify at times. I think the cruelest thing is the front-facing stats and the monthly listeners. And I think it's, for lack of a better term, it has created a tiered system that really picks up and supports some artists. And I think for whatever reason, it doesn't with others. I've seen it with friends who have amazing music and release it prolifically and consistently in a quality way that it just doesn't pick up and support them. So I think in this industry, everyone's just staring at those numbers. 

The thing about Linnea's post is, I think some artists around me have felt like they’re in their flop era, just because it's fallen short on Spotify. I think it's disheartening. I see it happen often in bands that break up. Sometimes it has to do with income. But I’ve gotta be honest, I feel lucky being an artist in Canada for having the sport of grants and having a record label here that is also supported by grants and is able in some ways to support me and Chastity. I feel lucky that I was able to go to Manitoba and split the cost with Manitoba Film and Music. And then I get some vinyl that I can take on tour and I can make some money back so I can pay my rent. I've got friends in America who are in successful bands that bartend. You know what I mean? They’ve got side gigs for income when they're not on tour. So shout out to the grant system. Shout out to everyone who buys a T-shirt or vinyl. I fulfill all of my merch orders, so when somebody buys something I'm sending it out and I'm keeping that fulfillment part to pay rent. It’s a full-time job.

You mention vinyl. I asked your pals in DIIV this, so I thought I’d do the same with you, since you’ve got some awesome variants for this album. Do you choose the colours and name them? 

Well, the labels send me a few options and I just pick my favourites, the ones I feel best match the album cover. I didn't want any that clashed with the vibe of the album cover. I feel like the algae one has a vintage thing to it. And there's one called “Happy Meal” that I liked because it’s this ugly burgundy.

It looks like what happens after you eat a bad Happy Meal?

Totally. It was a funny name for it.