Uniform are an American industrial metal band that formed in New York City 11 years ago. They release their fifth album, American Standard, on August 23 on Sacred Bones. Today sees the release of second lead single, ‘Permanent Embrace’.
It would be irresponsible for me to not acknowledge the potentially triggering nature of this album. While there is no malicious intent behind my words, the psychic byproduct of a record mired in the wreckage of eating disorders could be horrific to an unsuspecting listener. For this reason, our publicists wisely captioned the American Standard press release with a trigger warning. As a musician demanding certain creative liberties, there was a time I would have bristled at such a thing. However, my better angels know that artistic freedom should never outweigh human decency. For this reason, I implore anyone willing to give these songs the time of day to proceed with caution.
Hi, my name is Mike, and I’m an alcoholic.
See… that was easy. I’ve uttered that sentence thousands upon thousands of times over the years, either verbatim or loose approximation. It’s an admission that has long since become second nature, depending on the company. Hell, chances are good that anyone reading this is already familiar with that Berdan booze-hound factoid. After all, Uniform have been a band for over a decade at this point and my sobriety has been baked into our overarching mythos since the very beginning, for better or worse.
It can be more than a bit on-the-nose. It can be more than a bit obnoxious. It can be downright fucking patronizing, depending on the day and the audience. Whatever, man… I’ve said what I needed to say at any given time and ultimately it has made me feel less isolated as I wage perpetual war with the disease. This is where I’m supposed to say “I hope it has made others feel less isolated in their private battles.” While there’s an element of truth in that, I’d be lying to say that my intentions are entirely altruistic. I say what I say and I do what I do and I live how I live because the act of letting go is personally liberating. For me, this band is an industrial-grade junkyard incinerator, and processing this garbage has a purifying effect. I do it because it makes me feel better. I do it because nothing else makes sense. Insert free therapy cliché here.
Hi, my name is Mike, and I’m bulimic.
See… this one is a bit harder. It’s a fact I’ve held close to the vest for the vast majority of my life. It’s a fact that only my family and closest friends know about, and only because it’s impossible for me to exist in direct proximity to others and keep it secret for very long. Live with me, and you’ll see massive amounts of junk food inhaled in single sittings, punctuated by trips to the lavatory. You’ll hear the faucet running full blast the whole time and might catch the sound of a few stray coughs. Live with me, and you’ll notice a greasy film on the toilet water from time to time when you go to the bathroom. You get curious. You lean down. You catch the unmistakable reek of sulfur and acid. Live with me, and you’ll see a man periodically go on extended exercise benders alongside carefully curated diets and intermittent fasting. These can go on for a long time but eventually you’ll see me with a tub of Ben & Jerry’s and a can of soda. I’ll get up and go to the bathroom. You’ll hear the faucet running.
I was a moderately heavy-set kid who was bad at sports, talked too much, and got into an inordinate amount of trouble. My immediate family’s struggles with body image took root in my head. I’d sit in class and suck in my cheeks. I’d walk down the hall and suck in my gut. Other kids would notice. Other kids would laugh. I started making myself throw up when I was 12 years old. In short order, I developed a sort of control over my gag reflex that would allow me to vomit on command.
I hit a growth spurt right before high school. I lost my baby fat. People commented on how small I was. I couldn’t see it. In time, people told me that I looked sick as my skin turned gray. I took it as a compliment. Over the years, self abuse led to ulcers. Boiling oil in my chest. I manage it with a daily dose of Prilosec OTC. If I miss two doses, I start vomiting battery acid. American Standard Brands is the name of a ubiquitous plumbing fixture company. Go to your toilet bowl right now, and chances are you’ll see their logo. I’ve spent countless hours of my life with my head bowed before that clumsy blue script etching. I will doubtlessly spend countless more.
It’s easy for me to speak about drugs and alcohol because I am in recovery in that department. My eating disorder is a completely different story. As I get older and my metabolism slows down, coupled with the delightful side effects of the mental health medication that I take to stay alive, delusions about my weight have slowly seeped into the realm of reality. Nobody tells me that I look sick anymore. I suppose that’s a good thing. It does not feel like a good thing.
The following songs are about a lifetime of making myself vomit. They are about the lies I tell myself and the reality of what bulimia nervosa has done to my mind and body. They are about the havoc that my disease has wrought on my personal relationships and the pain it has caused the ones unfortunate enough to love me.
I want to change. I want to want to change. I don’t know if I ever will and I am so sorry.
If you’ve kept up with this band, you’ve likely noticed a cavalcade of pretentious film and literary references littered throughout our catalog. We’ve put our spin on grindhouse gorefests and Australian new wave classics. We’ve co-opted the words of existentialist misanthropes and splatterpunk luminaries. Hopefully, we’ve padded out our body of work with just enough highbrow nonsense to make you think we’re smart and lowbrow detritus to make you think we’re cool. Forgive our indulgences, if you so choose. At the end of the day, we’re just run-of-the-mill insecure.
In recent years, I’ve become enamored with the darker side of the small-press literary scene. In these contemporary authors and thinkers, I’ve found a community that punches with a force akin to the fist of God itself. All in all, I’ve come to rediscover the sense of visceral discomfort and human entropy in a few recent books that I’ve been missing in contemporary extreme music.
Given the subject matter behind American Standard, I sought to work with a few writers who I felt would keep me from holding back. All of these lyrics are a collaboration between myself and the authors B.R. Yeager (Amygdalatropolis / Negative Space) and Maggie Siebert (Bonding). The three of us tossed around ideas for a few months as part of an exquisite corpse exercise,
which I then rearranged to fit the songs. Needless to say, their words and insights helped to bring these songs where they needed to go. This record would not exist without their brilliance.
As much as I feel that certain elements to a creative work should go without saying, a degree of clarity and transparency will be necessary here in order for me to sleep at night. When an artist releases a piece into the world, in many ways it is no longer their own. Each of us processes information differently; forever internalizing that which we read between the lines. I’ll never condescend to tell a spectator how they should feel about something I made. We live in a complicated world, and all we engage with is open to interpretation.
That being said, American Standard is very much about my disease. There are those who might label this record fatphobic, and all that I can say to that is it’s not my intention. Above all else, bulimia nervosa is a mental illness. When it comes to my personal body image, my thinking is critically distorted. When it comes to my personal health, my thinking is critically distorted. When it comes to my personal sense of self worth, my thinking is critically distorted.
We are all beautiful. We are all worthy and deserving of love and understanding. Intellectually, I know that I am too. However, I am sick. I have been sick for my entire life.
At the age of 43, I’ve survived for several decades longer than I ever expected. The things that keep me going are the love of my friends and family, as well as a compulsion to create. There’s a basic correlation of cause and effect at play here. When I make art, I feel better. When I don’t, I get dark. At this point in my life I am unable to achieve a semblance of inner peace through banality. As a middle-aged man, I don’t particularly want to talk about the subjects raised throughout American Standard. I do it because I have to.
American Standard is released on 23 August via Sacred Bones. Uniform tour North America and Europe this Autumn
