I Won't Care How You Remember Me

"It's sort of a defiant statement, but it's also about accountability in moving on from something," Tigers Jaw vocalist/guitarist Ben Walsh tells Apple Music. "You can't always control how someone else is going to perceive you." While 2017's Spin featured Walsh and vocalist/keyboardist Brianna Collins splitting writing duties, I Won't Care How You Remember Me includes newly added members Colin Gorman and Teddy Roberts into the creative process, making the band's sixth record their most collaborative and sonically adventurous collection yet, and allowing Tigers Jaw to grow beyond their earlier sound and continue to explore new musical boundaries. "So many bands' first one or two records are the ones that smash, and then it's tough to live up to that for another 15 years," says Roberts. "How do you do that? You got to be good, I guess." Here, Walsh, Roberts, and Collins guide Apple Music through the album's 11 tracks.

I Won't Care How You Remember Me
Ben Walsh: “It is kind of like a gradual build of a song and then it ends with this really intense sort of, you get this big payoff at the end. And it does really set the tone, it kind of covers a lot of different moods that you see later on in the record.”

Cat's Cradle
Brianna Collins: “It's about friendship and realizing that not every friendship in your life is going to necessarily last forever, but you need to be able to look back on what happened and be accountable for yourself, and also realizing things about that friendship that maybe you didn't see while you were in it is also an important factor.”

Hesitation
BW: “This one definitely has the energy of the earlier Tigers Jaw tracks, but thematically, I think it's sort of about when you're in a relationship and you are picking up on little things, like a slight hesitation before the person responds to something. And you can tell that something's not quite right and it's sort of the beginning of the end. So it was definitely inspired by some personal experiences of mine, and, yeah probably one of the more raw and personal songs of mine, lyrically, on this record.”

New Detroit
BW: “This was maybe the song of mine that I was least sure of, and I almost didn't bring it to the band. Maybe because it felt like more of a departure from previous Tigers Jaw material. But I showed it to everybody while we were together at Teddy's house in Detroit doing some demoing and everybody saw the vision for it.”

Can't Wait Forever
BW: “The line ‘I can't wait forever’ is part of a lyrical lineage in the Scranton music scene where that line pops up in multiple Tigers Jaw, Menzingers, and Captain, We're Sinking songs. We've always, over the years, kind of snuck it into songs sort of like an inside joke. And this song sounds and has the energy of like classic, early Tigers Jaw. It reminds me of the earlier days of the band, and so it felt fitting to kind of put in that little local tribute to the bands we came up with into that song.”

Lemon Mouth
Teddy Roberts: “There is light to all of this; you can always find some positivity in almost anything if you choose to. The song floats around a natural minor key and then you get to the coda of the song—this huge, major feeling. It's almost a ray of sunshine that you waited three and a half minutes to get to.”

Body Language
TR: “I feel like the extended outro is a perfect example of when you come see Tigers Jaw live, you're going to get the end of 'Body Language' for an entire set. The spirit of the end of this song is kind of our vibe. That's the energy we've channeled by touring for so long and being around each other for so long.”
BW: “It feels like the whole song is building towards the release at the end. And it was almost like we didn't know how long to extend it on the record and it feels like it could have been selected down or it feels like it could have been five full minutes of it.”

Commit
TR: “I'm biased because I'm doing some crazy shit on the drums, it's obviously really fun for me to play. It's like an earworm kind of tune. Those choruses are just soaring, and it's also very deceivingly heavy, especially in the guitar department, it's very thick and chunky on a low end, which is a fun look for the back half of the record.”
BC: “This might not necessarily have been a song I would have written for myself to sing, because I've never necessarily felt like a lead singer, I think partially because I love harmonies and I love singing harmonies. But writing this allowed me to kind of step up and see what I'm capable of.”

Never Wanted To
BW: “There's sort of like a dual guitar solo at the end that was two different takes, two different guitar solos that were recorded separate from each other that were then kind of blindly added on top of each other. And the idea of that was sort of inspired by my love for Black Sabbath, which you wouldn't hear this song and think Black Sabbath, but there's a few guitar solos that Tony Iommi does that are multiple guitars layered and sometimes they're doing the same thing, sometimes they're doing different things and they sort of weave in and out of each other. And so I was trying to capture that aesthetic and just put it in a completely different context.”

Heaven Apart
BC: “It's a love song. I've been in a relationship for a very long time, and a lot of it has been spent not in the same place because of touring or school or whatever other obstacles that keep people apart. And it's a theme that's been sung about so many times, but I wanted to write about it for myself, and I love how the keyboard is the kind of most present instrument, too.”

Anniversary
BW: “This song was one of the later ones that I wrote for the record, and it kind of combines a lot of influences that make up who I am as a songwriter. The kind of chord structures of the chorus and how it's played is sort of a nod to my love for Tom Petty.”
BC: “I love a record where the last song can end and the first song can begin again and it just feels right.”
TR: “I always felt like this song had a closer vibe to it, and I brought it up a couple times here and there, but it felt like a grand finale of sorts. There's no other way I can imagine ending this album than with the 'Anniversary' chorus.”