Merchandise: "We want to exist outside of all ideologies and preformed notions..."

The band are gearing up to release the follow up to 2014's After The End, with "Flower Of Sex" the first taste of the new material.

Listen to "Flower Of Sex" below, and read our Q&A with the band's Carson Cox after.

Can you tell us a bit about "Flower Of Sex"?

I’m not able to write love songs without other elements. It’s an obsession piece. It’s a song about a feeling so violent that you explode in every direction without logic or reason. Even the phrase “Flower Of Sex” is meant to sound rough or translated rather than proper English. I wanted the lyrics and language to have strange sounds, I want the musicality of the words to feel obtuse. The song’s language and violent imagery is also meant as an erotic farce partly inspired by JG Ballard’s Why I Want To Fuck Ronald Reagan. It’s about shock but its also about a truth hiding in ourselves.

How did you write/record it?

Partly in Florida, part in NYC. All the new stuff was mixed in Italy. It was done over the course of months since I was ALWAYS moving. I would write in closets or at my sister’s house or a night here and there. All the new stuff was recorded like a thief in the night. Between touring and leaving Florida I had to work on the run for the last few years.

The song's video is really vivid - how does it link into the music?

Colors and sounds are truths that are easy to translate. I think I’m better at those things than words because they are direct. It works like a blade to cut away words. I like that about visual stuff anyway. I think the song became better to my ears again while making the video but I was following a blind notion.

What have Merchandise been up to since the release of After The End?

Touring and traveling. Moving back and forth between Europe and the States. Learning Italian. Making things that maybe will never come out. I started a magazine called Hidden Eye which also put out Dave [Vassalotti, guitarist]’s second solo LP Broken Rope. I slept in a park. I got into a few fights.

How do you see that album now, two years on from its release?

At the time I was sick of it cause it was such a hard process of working. Time makes it better, I listened to it so much I hated it. We went though a severe unexpected musical adolescence at that time cause we had to learn how to be a band in a formal way which is not what we’re here to do. Growth happens when you least expect it.

What was the most important thing you learnt from that process?

Always trust yourself. No one knows the things you know.

How does "Flower Of Sex" fit into your music - do you see it as an evolution or a revolution?

I think it fits pretty evenly into the body of work we amassed. If people only know our last record or just this project and not the staggering amount of stuff we’ve done before and after Merchandise it probably sounds different.

What can we expect from Merchandise in 2016?

Touring. Writing. Video. Literature. Philosophy. We want all your concepts to disappear. We want to exist outside of all ideologies and preformed notions. We want to live in a van down by the river on the outskirt of town.

Are you excited for this summer?

Hell yes, I can’t wait to get fucked up.