Pittsburgh's The Gotobeds return after 6 years with new album 'Masterclass'

It’s been six years since Pittsburgh’s The Gotobeds released their last album, with plenty of upheaval in between 2019’s “Debt Begins at 30” and “Masterclass,” which just came out last Friday.

In that time, there have been two member changes, a label switch, a year-long mixing delay and the covid-19 pandemic.

So when the album finally came out, singer/guitarist Eli Kasan couldn’t have been happier.

“You have no idea,” he said last week with a laugh. “We’ve just been treading water for a minute.”

A two-record deal ended with famed Seattle label Sub Pop, which issued their 2016 record “Blood // Sugar // Secs // Traffic” and “Debt Begins at 30.”

“We were a little bit like a little fish in a big pond. It was never slated to be a career or a full-time job or anything like that,” Kasan said. “It was always just something we did basically on our pure natural instincts. … They were real polite, they were cool. They were like basically, we can’t figure out what we would do any differently to move the needle to get more sales.”

For the new release, The GotoBeds returned to 12XU Records — run by Matador Records co-owner Gerard Cosloy — which had put out the band’s “Poor People Are Revolting” in 2014.

“When (Cosloy) got his hands on it, he was like, ‘Yo, I’m so backed up. I would love to do the record, but I need a year,’” Kasan said. “So we’ve basically just been kicking (expletive) tires waiting for the thing to come out.”

The lineup departures included guitarist Tony “TPF” Payne, as well as bassist Gavin Jensen.

“So the first time we were slated to go to Europe in 2017, we ended up having to cancel the trip, just in the preliminary stages, because our old guitar player TFP’s wife became pregnant. So we’re like, yeah, yeah, we’ll reschedule,” Kasan said. “So then, by the time we have a new record out, it’s a few years later, we booked the trip again. And then he was like, ‘Oh (expletive), my wife’s pregnant again. I don’t think I can go.’ He and I played in this band Kim Phuc together for years in Pittsburgh, been band members for a long time, but he came down with his second kid and was just like, ‘Yo, I can’t tour anymore.’ And so we’re like, yeah, it’s probably time to exit the band because we still want to keep touring.”

An impending child also led to Jensen’s exit.

“Gavin, who was playing bass, just a fantastic guy. He was like, ‘Yo, I don’t want it to be the same way,’” Kasan said. “He’s like, ‘I’m not going to ask to hang in there while I can’t tour, but I’m probably going to have a second kid and it’s going to be the same deal for me.’ So we wrote the album with him, and it was still pandemic times, not like we were doing a whole lot anyways such as practicing. Then he was like, ‘Yo, I’m having my second kid. I probably gotta bow out.’”

Zach Bronder has taken over at guitar after filling in on bass in the past, with Dane Adelman handling bass alongside longtime drummer Cary Belback. And it doesn’t sound like there are any more kids on the way to complicate this year’s touring plans, which include a trip to Europe in October.

“Well, I’ve joked that now we have the perfect unbreedable lineup,” Kasan said with a laugh.

The Gotobeds rip through 10 brash, high-octane songs in about 30 minutes, including their first single, “Goes Away,” described by Kasan as a “stone stupid stomper.” Always on the edge of boiling over, the album features guitars that would fit in alongside noisy 1990s bands like Mudhoney or Sonic Youth.

They’re already working on the next album, having done basic tracking for 13 songs for a project slated for next year.

“No more six-year delays, if I can help it,” he said with a laugh.

Kasan also discussed influences on the new album, the band’s frenetic live shows, including a spot opening for Jack White in Pittsburgh last year and more:

With this “Masterclass” album, what do you see as the biggest influences on it?

Listening to a lot of, once upon a time, scenes were a little more regional pre-Internet, like all the early Cleveland stuff like Pagans, Rocket from the Tombs, Dead Boys stuff we loved. A bunch of the Fast Product/Postcard (Records) stuff in Scotland we really liked. The writing of John Fante or Joyce Mansour. I think that was a big shift in terms of the lyrics on this record where I felt like writing during the pandemic.

There were tons of artists when it’s your livelihood or you’re counting on that income, a lot of people were putting out live records or doing live streams, just trying to keep engaged with people. I thought it was commendable on one hand, but also I didn’t feel like we had anything to say in the moment or felt the need to do something like that if it didn’t feel natural for us. And it was the same deal where we’re just like, you hear people all talking about being disconnected during the pandemic and it really didn’t feel like we had anything prescient to add during those times. So we just started looking at a bunch of literary influences or whatever that could maybe just tell a different story rather than, hey, we’re locked up and we’re sad, you know? (laughs)

So purposefully not a covid album?

Definitely not, even though it was during that. Something like the song “Fante,” I took pieces from his life, from Wikipedia, quotes from his books, and then (stuff) I think about and roll it up into one song. And I’m like, well, it’s probably pretty telling of the parts I gravitated toward or mentioned. There’s a line in “Fante” where I say, “he was robbed of cash from my struggle.” So that really happened. When he first got published, the publishing house that published him, for some (expletive) reason, and this was in the late ‘30s and the early ‘40s, for some reason they published an American version of “Mein Kampf,” and they got sued into oblivion and lost all their money, and Fante never got any royalties. He didn’t want them to write that (expletive), so he got robbed of that so I put that line on the song. He didn’t get rediscovered until (Charles) Bukowksi became such a fan and really worked it up. I’d even say in there, I’m singing Fante’s praises. I say, be careful where you tread, you’ll end up like big Dick Bukowski. (laughs)

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When you’re writing these songs, what comes first: the music or the lyrics?

I always have some lyrics kicking around in some form before I ever play a note. Sometimes I’ll have an idea, and it just doesn’t fit into the mood or the particular stanza so I always have a bunch of words that are kicking around that I want to make a theme or title or an idea for a song, and just start pairing those with the right kind of feel musically, whether I wrote it or not.

I saw the Jack White show last year, so is every live show as unpredictable as the way your set ended?

Yeah, it’s never a plan, but I think that’s one thing sometimes I feel a little bit like a cult leader. I just try to say that we’re these underdogs and it’s us versus the world. I’ve said before, I’ll say again to the people I play with, don’t get on stage unless you’re ready to die. (laughs) I don’t want any (expletive) posturing. I don’t want anyone like cool guy-ing up there. I want someone to play like they’re (expletive) dying, like it’s the last time they ever get to play music, you know?

It definitely felt like there was some unpredictability there.

I think it cheapens the experience for everyone if we only do that to a sold-out show with Jack White. And then next thing you know, we’re in (expletive) Montana playing to 12 people. Why wouldn’t you present the same songs with the same zest? I think that’s part of the challenge. It’s not just trying to show up for the moment whenever there’s a big moment there. It’s just like, what kind of band and people are you? You have to show up for all of them, right?