AEM115 Bunny’s a Swine

“Our sound has been called twee­grunge by some, awkpop by our­selves, and indie rock by oth­ers,” explained guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Can­dace Clement when asked to describe Bunny’s a Swine. While the dis­tinc­tion may be largely seman­tic, I con­cur with Clement that awkpop is the most suit­able and cer­tainly the most telling clas­si­fi­ca­tion for this uncon­ven­tional trio from North Hamp­ton, MA.  Those other labels might still apply, but they fail to cap­ture the essence of Bunny’s a Swine.  What sep­a­rates these guys from other indie rock­ers out there is that they’re so fuck­ing awk­ward.  It hit me the first time I heard A-side “I Should Have Left the Bushes Hours Ago” and numer­ous spins later, I still can’t get over it.  Even if you haven’t heard the music, take one look at the press photo accom­pa­ny­ing this review and you’ll prob­a­bly be nod­ding enthu­si­as­ti­cally in agree­ment.  What could be more awk­ward than some scruffy hip­sters stand­ing in front of a faux-dramatic nau­ti­cal back­drop strik­ing con­vo­luted poses?  Even the name “Bunny’s a Swine” seems pretty awk­ward.  I asked the band for the story behind it and their answer only con­firmed my sus­pi­cions.  “We really liked refer­ring to things using ‘bunny’s a…’,” they explained, “like ‘bunny’s a tour’ or ‘bunny’s a show’ or ‘bunny’s a swingle,’ a ref­er­ence to a 3 song sin­gle CD we made for a week­end tour in Ver­mont.  Its really infec­tious after a while.” Major-league awk­ward.

But in case you haven’t noticed, awk­ward is the new cool.  Many musi­cians nowa­days sub­scribe to the out­cast mantra, embrac­ing the embar­rass­ing traits for which they might have got­ten their asses kicked and their milk money stolen in ele­men­tary school and recast­ing them as quirky or charm­ing.  Bunny’s a Swine sim­ply pushes that mantra to its lim­its and, I should add, suc­ceeds glo­ri­ously in doing so.  The untem­pered awk­ward­ness is irre­sistible.  I adored Bunny’s a Swine after hear­ing just a few notes.  I don’t mean strictly that I adored the music.  More pre­cisely, I adored the lovely peo­ple behind the music and was struck by an unshak­able urge to give each of them a big hug.

In addi­tion to Clement, Bunny’s a Swine fea­tures Dustin Ash­ley Cote on drums and Emer­son Stevens on 3-string gui­tar.  The lat­ter instru­ment is another good indi­ca­tion of just how awk­ward this band really is.  Per­haps you haven’t heard of the 3-string gui­tar but one needn’t think too hard to imag­ine the con­di­tions under which this unusual instru­ment might have been born.  The inabil­ity to string a gui­tar, the fail­ure to mas­ter any­thing beyond power chords, and a lack of money to pur­chase new strings were the pri­mary hypothe­ses to jump to my mind.  As it turns out, there’s a lit­tle truth in all of them.  Stevens found his first gui­tar in a dump­ster and never both­ered to restring it.  “My inter­est never was in being a great gui­tarist,” he clar­i­fies.  “I wanted to write songs and found that pound­ing out bar chords on some piece of junk with 3 strings was more than enough to do that.” But even Clement, the de-facto vir­tu­oso of the group, plays noth­ing so tech­ni­cally demand­ing that some­body who has played gui­tar for only six months wouldn’t be able to mas­ter it.  “Much of what we do derives from our begin­nings as a band,” explains Cote.  “We started out as a two piece, Emer­son and I, nei­ther of us really know­ing how to play.” Bunny’s a Swine rejects vir­tu­os­ity in favor of sim­ple might.  The lo-fidelity record­ing tech­niques employed by the band accen­tu­ate this deci­sion, cre­at­ing the sen­sa­tion that the music never left the attic in which it was born.

Among the many awk­ward traits that make Bunny’s a Swine so damn endear­ing is unabashed slop­pi­ness.  The cre­ative process is pretty trans­par­ent.  Most of the songs orig­i­nate with Stevens but when he brings them to rehearsal, every­body sings what­ever they feel like singing until, even­tu­ally, some­thing inter­est­ing emerges.  Clement explains, “most of the time we have no idea what the oth­ers are singing about until months after we’ve fin­ished the song.” A band with mul­ti­ple lead vocal­ists who pay lit­tle heed to one another will inevitably devolve into chaos.  Bunny’s a Swine sim­ply har­nesses this chaos and trans­forms it into an exhil­a­rat­ing ten­sion.  Dis­tinct vocal melodies pile slop­pily together, vying for the lis­ten­ers atten­tion, and then con­verg­ing in brief flashes of har­mony.  To catch the words is nearly impos­si­ble.  As soon as you hone in on one lyri­cal thread, another will butt in over it.   And yet, mirac­u­lously, Clement observes, “the mean­ings almost always sync up.  Bushes is a great exam­ple.  It wasn’t until we recorded that track that we knew both peo­ple were singing about very sim­i­lar themes of voyeurism.”

The song Clement refers to is “I Should Have Left the Bushes Hours Ago” Begin­ning with calm and lux­u­ri­ously paced instru­men­tal intro­duc­tion, it kicks into sec­ond gear when the whole band starts to sing and shout simul­ta­ne­ously.  A punchy melody deliv­ered in sloppy uni­son by an out-of-tune bari­tone and screechy tenor is tem­pered by a del­i­cate and melodic soprano line. Select words cut through the mix but are quickly drowned out, evok­ing the atmos­phere of a crowded house party—incidentally, the kind of event at which I’d most like to see this band perform—in which only frag­ments of con­ver­sa­tion man­age to rise above the roar of the room. The music grad­u­ally esca­lates in speed and vol­ume until the cli­matic moment when vocal melodies finally inter­sect.  “Please do not turn out your inside light,” the band shouts in har­mony.  This flash of clar­ity packs a strong punch after such a long buildup.  B-side “Fuck Bunny’s a Swine” employs many of the same tech­niques but is notably more schiz­o­phrenic in form.  Begin­ning with a steady instru­men­tal dirge to back Stevens’ deep and unre­fined voice that at times chan­nels Johnny Cash, the song unex­pect­edly jumps into to a dou­ble­time punk feel about halfway through before finally return­ing to a tran­quil refrain with har­monies rem­i­nis­cent of The Carter Fam­ily.   Not that such ref­er­ences were pre­med­i­tated.  I get the impres­sion that Bunny’s a Swine was sim­ply hav­ing a good time.  The com­mon thread link­ing these sec­tions is a raw energy so earnest it could not have been forced.

After com­mend­ing Bunny’s a Swine on its slop­pi­ness, awk­ward­ness, lack of instru­men­tal prowess, and other traits not gen­er­ally deemed praise­wor­thy, I feel com­pelled to stress that my appre­ci­a­tion is not in any way ironic.  I admit to enjoy­ing cer­tain bands because they’re so bad they’re good but Bunny’s a Swine really isn’t one of those bands.  Only when you strip away tech­ni­cal vir­tu­os­ity and fancy pro­duc­tion does it become clear what a band is really made of.  Occa­sion­ally you’ll find a band that has a heart beneath the super­fi­cial gloss but more often, vir­tu­os­ity and pro­duc­tion mask a dis­ap­point­ing inner void.  So many bands lack gen­uine sub­stance, which is pre­cisely what makes Bunny’s a Swine so refresh­ing and, prob­a­bly, so awk­ward.  Sin­cer­ity can be embar­rass­ing.  Ever won­der why rock stars never smile?  Bunny’s a Swine is a labor of love.  Wait, scratch that!  Was labor really involved?  This band doesn’t prac­tice, it plays, and the joy of play­ing shines through every note—wait, scratch that!  The joy of play­ing sim­ply shines because with­out the gloss, there’s noth­ing to stand in its way.

Nate Green­berg

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