Brandon Hagen has been busy lately. It’s the good kind of busy, the kind that comes with preparing for a worldwide tour and releasing the best album of your career. When we sat down a week before the release of Vundabar’s new record Smell Smoke he was starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. “I’m excited to finish the pre-orders and for this record to be out because I have so much work right now it’s wild,” he says over a meal at Habaneros in Allston.
Vundabar has been one of the crown jewels of Boston for five years now, and they’ve grown considerably in the past half-decade. They’ve gone from school friends to stalwarts of the scene. Hagen grew up in Scituate and drummer Drew McDonald moved in next door during high school. The friendship almost didn’t happen due to some parental interference. “Our dads tried to, like, set us up, which is really funny. We probably would’ve become friends quicker if our dads weren’t trying to get us to be friends,” Hagen says with a laugh. Despite the prying dads, the two bonded over shared interests in books and music.
The young age at which the two started collaborating proved to be an important time for learning and growing. Or, as Hagen succinctly puts it: “You have to suck for a while.” But Vundabar found the local scene to be the perfect place for experimenting and finding their footing. “I think Boston and a DIY community is good for that. It’s low stakes and they’re pretty patient usually.” The patience has paid off because Vundabar has matured into a confident group with a distinct sound.
On Vundabar’s first two releases there’s a nervous energy that manifests itself in yelps, quick changes in pitch, and breakneck melodies. It’s hard to pin down their sound exactly; there’s a bit of funk, garage rock, and definitely some pop. Their early hit “Holy Toledo” from 2013’s Antics is the perfect example of a young band finding their sound early. If you listen today you can clearly hear the blueprint of how that song leads to the sound on Smell Smoke.
On the recently released Smell Smoke, not only is there a thematic cohesiveness to the album; the band sounds like they’re in full lockstep. Hagen’s breathless and versatile guitar matches perfectly with McDonald’s propulsive drumming to produce a sound and feeling that carry through the whole record. The album represents the most fully realized version of the band to date.
In person, Hagen has an easy way of speaking and a calm demeanor. Every question comes with a thoughtful response. None of the stresses of all his many ongoing responsibilities were apparent while he talked. This compartmentalization shouldn’t be a surprise when you consider what spurred the creation of Smell Smoke.
For years Hagen was a caretaker for a loved one who suffered from a sickness and ultimately passed. This experience placed an incredible amount of stress and grief onto Hagen’s shoulders. Attempting to balance this traumatic time with the rigors of the day-to-day life of a musician simply became too much to bear. Eventually, Hagen was no longer able to maintain that split. He realized that his grief was manifesting itself in his interactions with other people—people who had no idea what he was going through.
“I’d just see myself and wonder why I was sullen and feeling exhausted for a week,” he explains. Splitting yourself into two versions—one dealing with sorrow, and one facing the outside world—can only hold so long before cracks start to appear. Hagen likened it to having a black cloud hanging over himself that other people couldn’t see. “I’d get indignant with people. It’s a scary thing to talk about. But it’s just a thing people need to know. If you never say it, how are people supposed to know where you’re coming from?”
One way to tell people is to make an album. Smell Smoke is permeated with the theme of retreating into oneself. On the stunning opener “Acetone,” Hagen sings about the antiseptic nature of repressing feelings. “I don’t want you to see the way I’ve been / Doled out a bleached persona.” Later he drives home the point even further. “Need a stainless steel suit / Live a stainless steel life / In a stainless steel room / I got stainless steel time / This is a stainless steel mind.”
Latter-half track “Diver” explores this same topic using the character of a deep sea diver. “Papa, what are you looking for down there,” Hagen dreamily croons. “‘I am a diver ‘cause I couldn’t take the air,’” is his response. That line might as well be the entire thesis for this album. Sometimes it feels better to sink under than take in the fresh air, but where does that get you in the long run?
However, don’t make the mistake of thinking Smell Smoke is purely a confessional from Hagen. “I don’t want people to think it’s all literal and centered on this one thing,” he says. “That was the backdrop to a lot of it and that was where I was coming from, so that’s what got put in the album.”
Hagen contains multitudes and Smell Smoke reflects his keen literary mind. The album takes twists and turns with religious imagery and allusions to Greek mythology. Hagen didn’t find it necessary to lay himself completely bare on Smell Smoke, there was still plenty of room to explore other topics than his personal experience.
“I’d feel more exposed if I spilled every tiny detail of exactly what happened,” he says. “With music, a lot of times the nitty gritty specifics aren’t what people are going to relate to. It’s a feeling, it’s a mood, it’s an atmosphere.” For instance, “No People To Person” is a song about a broken down car gathering dust at a gas station. It sits so long that those that come across it can’t even recognize it and think it’s a strange rock. The song has no real life parallel, but it fits perfectly within the world Hagen has built with his songwriting.
It should come as no surprise, then, to learn that Hagen has plans to return to school to study both arts management and creative writing. “Short stories, I want to do that,” he says. “I want to demystify; it just seems like magic. I need to figure out how it’s a process that you can do through steps.” Crafting a short story isn’t too different from writing a great song. Both mediums require the artist to convey their message quickly while still hitting the audience in the gut. Oftentimes it’s more difficult to write an effective short story than, say, a novel because of the brevity required. “Short stories are just a whole different thing,” Hagen explains. “If it’s only ten pages long it needs to be direct, there needs to be a consistent line running through it.” It’s clear this is a subject he has spent a lot of time thinking about, and it’s reflected in Smell Smoke’s narrative cohesion.
Hagen cites George Saunders as a big influence on his desire to understand the art of the short story. One of Saunders’ recommendations for writers is to think about their stories like a model town; build a world, populate the world with characters, consider how the characters interact with one another, and then tinker with the world to get the most interesting story.
The world of Smell Smoke is populated with threads, themes, and characters that reveal true craftsmanship. It’s not only the songwriting that shines, but the entire band as well. McDonald’s drumming is a revelation as the perfect push-and-pull with Hagen’s manic style. Grayson Kirtland’s bass weaves in and out to give the sound a needed edge. It can be difficult to tell who is leading on each song, and that’s part of the pure joy of listening to Vundabar—you spend a lot of time wondering what’s going to happen next and still end up surprised.
Smell Smoke is Vundabar’s best offering to date. It showcases a band fully confident in themselves and poised to take great leaps. On the album, Hagen uses a deeply personal experience to explore the universal theme of hiding your true self from the world. Everything else falls perfectly into place with that vision—and results in one of the best albums of the year.
Explaining what he set out to do with this album Hagen says, “I wanted to make a little world, I guess.”
Smell Smoke is out now. Vundabar plays a sold out show at Sinclair on Saturday March 3.