Family Man Turn Their Sound to the Max on Latest Tracks
Family Man at Sled Island. Photo credit: Daman Singh.
After picking their name out of 100-or-so paper slips in a hat, Montreal’s punk scene was met with a thunderous sensation. With their loud, energetic riffs and erratic live shows, Family Man are a gem that you simply cannot miss. Now, they’re following up their 2024 release ICONOCLAST, with new tracks that are heavier, louder and even more personal.
REVERIE caught up with singer and guitarist Conner Root and drummer Bryan Thomas from Family Man to discuss their foundations, new releases and the band’s evolution ahead of their new single “Overload” coming out on August 15.
Family Man came to the scene in 2022 with What’s New, a nervy release coming out of their indie pop writing phase. Rooted in the distress of a member’s breakup, What’s New was a melodious introduction to the group but it was not where the band was headed. While inspired by UK post punk, North American harcore and European noise music, the group didn’t resonate with the sound they were putting out. As they played live and found themselves performing a more hardcore, punk sound — they decided to go all in making ICONOCLAST.
“We're taking the Ween approach. Every album is going to be completely different. No I’m kidding,” says Root. “We just want to do what's resonating with us at the time.” While Ween may not be a sonic inspiration, the group found it exciting how “[Ween] write and perform without boundaries and that's kind of been our ethos,” says Thomas.
It’s been a maximalist summer for Family Man — doubling down on ideas, making melodies that are expansive and finding pleasure in diving deep into every element they have. Their new releases, “Company of Portraits” and “I Cried Into His Hands,” are a proud display of this growing sound.
Family Man at Sled Island. Photo credit: Daman Singh.
On “Company of Portraits,” the group is heavier than ever, the layered guitars and thumping drums are paired with introspective lyrics. Root’s vocals are more powerful than ever, the song dives into an exploration of substance addiction. Singing “I consume so that I can sleep, I sleep so that I consume,” he finds himself reflecting on his struggle and the cyclical nature of it all. “It's self-destructive in its nature,” says Root. Using personal experience, the group manages to make a critique on addiction, consumer culture and even the Sisyphean nature of living.
“I Cried Into His Hands” is a journey through Root’s reflection of his own youth. “These songs are inspired by me having a pretty harsh realization about the mortality of life,” says Root. Throughout the track he has a conversation with his younger self — expanding on this, Root says, “I'm telling my younger self ‘you're being too difficult with your parents. You're being too hard on your parents. They're just people.’ And furthermore, I'm telling him to stop looking at the world through this hyper masculine way of seeing things” — wishing he knew at that age that his older self, now, wouldn’t have wanted any of that.
Family Man have never shied away from politics and this reflects in the community they aim to foster. Root hopes to write songs where people can form their own connection to the music. “I feel the most connected and moved by music when I feel like I have a light bulb moment where ‘oh! I get it,’” he says. Where tracks like “Father John” are direct critiques on catholicism and religion, “I Cried Into His Hands” is more vague to allow for listeners to form their own interpretations. “The only thing I could ever ask of people that like, dislike, love, hate our music, whatever it is, is that they think about it,” says Root.
Thomas reflects on punk losing its nature and origins, becoming dominated by the “cis, white male kind of group.” He acknowledges the group's privilege as being white-cis passing while being queer and from an array of ethnic backgrounds. He reiterates how they use it to challenge the status quo. “We're going in behind enemy lines, if you will. And essentially trying to have conversations in a really human way with [conservative] people being like ‘hey, maybe you don't be a piece of shit,’” says Thomas.
Playing small venues in more conservative towns is important to the group, stating that their goal is to challenge the beliefs of the “old head punks, old crusty white dudes who are just being racist or sexist or homophobic,” says Thomas.
Family Man at Sled Island. Photo credit: Daman Singh.
With this new release cycle, Family Man are working towards an EP that comes out this fall that adopts the same maximalist writing process to “put out of the initial batch of songs that [Family Man] started writing.” Thomas says they “really want to put out the heavier ones, kind of as a statement, to double down on the heavier tracks that resonated from ICONOCLAST.”
If you haven’t caught a Family Man show yet, you might be in luck. The group plans on heading on tour through the East Coast of Canada, with working plans to head out West again and even down South to the States. But for now, August 15 is the date to look out for as the group puts out their next single “Overload.”
Keep your ear to the ground and follow along as Family Man work towards their new album.