THE TROUBLE WITH SWEENEYStory by Matt Johnson

"At this point, it’s been about three years that we’ve been making records for Burnt Toast Vinyl,” Joey Sweeney states affectionately of the small Philadelphia based indie. “It’s been pretty cool to watch the label grow as we do.”

Sweeney was introduced to Scott Hatch, the label’s owner, through mutual friend Denison Witmer, who also appears on the BTV roster. “I gave Scott a copy of everything I’d ever recorded,” Sweeney recalls, “and the next thing we knew, we were making an EP. Scott’s belief in us, to this day and from the beginning, astounds me.”

Burnt Toast’s proud owner is in good company, as TTWS has been enjoying rave reviews from RollingStone.com, CMJ, AP, etc. And it’s no secret why. On Sweeney’s new release, I Know You Destroy, his everyday-everyman, often boyishly warbled lyrics are irresistible.

Since the autobiographical “Down to the Names” exercise on his prior release, Dear Life, Sweeney has developed a more mature style. After a few listens to Destroy, one can’t help but get wrapped up in the songs’ characters.

“[The characters] are ambivalent about themselves and the people they're with, but they are dying to believe that they are not doomed,” Sweeney explains. And aren’t we all? It’s these very kind of deep yet common life experiences of the average youngish adult that make Destroy’s themes really resonate.

If it seems that Sweeney is a bit obsessed with the written word part of the song writing process, there’s a good reason. He recently resigned from an editorial position at the Philadelphia Weekly, showed up in Da Cappo's Best Music Writing 2002, has written for Salon.com (including a brilliant piece on growing up with the music of Bruce Springsteen), and if that weren’t enough, started on a couple books.

I ask Sweeney if there are politics involved in being a critic and a member of an active band at the same time. “[It] has proved to be just a mess in terms of what people expect from their critics and their artists,” Sweeney responds. “Especially in indie-rock, which just has tons of odd neuroses about who can do what and how seriously, and so on.... Authors review other authors, and it’s taken as a matter of course. But somehow it’s considered gauche for musicians to review other musicians, because maybe it shatters this illusion that every rock star exists in a bubble, free from the influence and criticism and awareness of any other contemporary. What a weird notion.”

During my conversation with Sweeney, it was evident that the music world has too few provocative lyricists. The music on Destroy certainly stands on its own melodically, and merits written coverage of its own, but without the deeper connection Sweeney achieves so beautifully in his storytelling, it’s questionable whether Destroy would have such effect.

“If you can get that flash of time — where the girl is looking at the guy sideways, or the guy is stuck in some crazy moment — and you can get him, whoever he is, to elucidate for a few verses out of that — if you can capture that, and do so in this brief but telling and stylized way — you’re golden. It’s like making commercials for all different kinds of relationships. Sell that moment, whatever it is.” We're sold Joey. We’re sold.

CREDITS UnknownNOTES The preceding feature is from BANDOPPLER #3.