After nearly three decades in Alternative Press’ hometown of Cleveland, this narrator returned to Greensburg, Pennsylvania, the place where Detar and Fiedler started the Juliana Theory. This coincidence dovetails nicely with the bittersweet sentiment of  “Can’t Go Home,” which follows the duo symbolically traversing their long walk from parts unknown to areas far more engaging and perhaps more remote. Joining the duo on “Can’t Go Home” behind the drums was Ryan Seaman of iDKHOW.

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Detar willingly listened to Alternative Press contributor Jason Pettigrew unpack all of his psychic baggage through the prism of his new music. He did reveal everything from the motivations behind the song and video to J-Theory’s scene-not-scene identity crisis and all the famous people from Greensburg. All four of them.

Is “Can’t Go Home” about unfinished business or business that ended a long time ago? You can’t return because it’s not the same as you left it? Or you can’t stay because you’ve changed? There seem to be some dual meanings at play.

First of all, what I think is the coolest thing about songs in general, being a songwriter and being a fan of the craft of songwriting, is the fact that if you leave things a little bit open, it lets a person put enough of their own interpretation into something. 

“Can’t Go Home” is a song that has already changed meaning to me since I wrote the lyrics. As you age as a songwriter, things will come to mean different things later on in life. For me, that song was a metaphor in general for the innocence of childhood. There was a lot of that to me. How you’re young and you’re naive and you believe certain things. And as you age, you just come to see the world in a different way. 

I feel like it’s a bittersweet song to me in the sense that there is hope and acceptance, and there is a future and things are different. You make the most of what you have and what is presented to you at that moment in time. But there’s the sadness that you can’t go back to certain things, that maybe the good things that you wish you could bring back. So to me, it just splits the difference. It seems like a positive, hopeful thing but also being sad at the same time.

One of the things that struck a chord with me was passing the movie theater with “to be continued” on the marquee. 

That was very fortuitous. That was a cool shot. Like that’s a really famous older theater in L.A. called the Vista Theatre. There are scenes in True Romance that were filmed there and a bunch of cool older movies. It was on my list of things like, “I definitely want to walk by the Vista.” When we went and saw what the sign had been changed to, I was like, “Oh wow, that’s crazy on multiple levels.” 

You’ve got a boombox with you. In a world where you can put your entire record collection on your phone. That’s a symbolic throwback for me. I’m attaching all of my psychic baggage to your track.

I like your attached baggage. 

Thank you! I was thinking of the title of the collection by the late collage artist, Daniel Eldon, who had that anthology of his artwork titled The Journey Is The Destination. Another aspect was near the end where you see other people from various walks of life, and they’re stopped. Have they stopped by the wayside? Are they just taking a break before they keep walking? There’s a lot of levels going on symbolically.

I’m happy that there’s at least one other person out there in the universe who got what we were trying to say. You pretty much nailed a lot of it. It starts in the suburbs in front of a suburban home, which to me really represented the idea of childhood and things that are familiar. I carried this boombox the entire time, which was my representation of taking something with you from childhood to adulthood that actually really matters to you. 

And you know, there are no human beings that show up at any point. No other people show up until I see Josh. So basically walking alone. So you’re on this destination in your life, and you’re going along, trying to figure out where you belong. You’re carrying this thing that matters to you from your childhood. I’m wearing a yellow suit, and then off in the distance, you see this other person coming toward you. They have a yellow Walkman, and they’re wearing a black suit, but they have a yellow shirt on. And you’re like, “Wait a second.” This is a really simple way of saying, “Hey, maybe this is my tribe. Maybe this is somebody I could continue my journey with.” And so from that point on, we keep walking, and then it’s only the two of us. And we come to these weird places, and it just symbolizes change and progress. 

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And then in the end, when we’re completely super-far away from what we knew and what was familiar. We’re completely out in this literal desert landscape. Out in the distance, we see what I would call a band of outsiders, per se. That really is our tribe. They’ve come before us. They found this place before we found it. We show up, and at the end, we’re following in their footsteps. But you have to get to go through life alone, and you have to go through things on your own. And then if you’re lucky, you’ll find some people along the way you feel are your tribe. That’s what I was trying to say, more or less, in the video.

I was already in Cleveland for years when the Juliana Theory started. There was a community in Greensburg with the hardcore band Zao. I wouldn’t consider the Juliana Theory “scene,” but the band were embraced by that community. Was there an identity crisis at play then? How many times did you play Warped Tour?

We did Warped Tour one time in 2001, and we didn’t even do the whole thing. We just did the West Coast. It was weird. We were total oddballs and outliers. I remember we showed up and got booked on the second stage or whatever. And then it was, “We’re moving you to the mainstage.” I don’t know if it was a critical mass moment for the band. But we started out playing in front of like 800 people. By the last couple of shows [at Warped Tour] were like, “We’re in Northern California. We want to throw you in between Pennywise and Rancid on the mainstage.” 

We probably always had an identity crisis in the sense that we always got bored by the idea of having to make the same type of record with the same type of music. Each time we would go to record or whatever. We always just try to change things up. Being embraced by the post-hardcore and emo worlds early on, we felt a kinship to certain bands in that community and certain people. But at the same time, we also felt really pigeonholed early on. That’s why we called our second record Emotion Is Dead. That was literally just a joke. We wanted to call it Emo Is Dead. We thought it would be funnier to be slightly more subtle with it.

I think a lot of what we would do was tongue in cheek, [and it] was lost on people. Because we put on a big rock show in a way that some people in that community didn’t really know how to take. We just always tried to be ourselves, whatever that was, at whatever particular moment in time.

Even right now, the music you’re making is significantly different from the last things you did together. Your music is obviously a more textured melodic pop thing. And it’s up to date with the times. But it’s still very much your character. Plus, the band were never really fond of record labels. But you have aligned yourself with Equal Vision. What made you and Josh want to give it another whirl?

We had this very ill-fated 2017 tour that just completely fell apart. I always felt then that I wanted to try really hard to make things up to anybody that we bummed out. People have been asking for years, “When are you going to make new music?” And I usually just dismiss that. But just last year Josh and I accepted this offer and did this acoustic tour. I didn’t really think it would be that cool. We’ve never done anything like that, and I just didn’t know what to expect. But we ended up having such a good time and got along so well.

At the same time, I had been talking with Dan Sandshaw from Equal Vision. Initially, we were talking to some degree about just trying to reissue some old stuff. But honestly, Dan is probably the coolest label person I’ve ever dealt with in my life. He’s one of the good guys that truly care about trying to do something that can still be artistic and putting the artist first, but at the same time still make smart decisions. There is just something about his passion, excitement and smarts that just felt really refreshing to me.

What should your fans expect from J-Theory 2021?

We were always a bit hard to pin down as far as what we sound like. I wouldn’t necessarily say that one song is an exact representation, but I do think the band were at our best when we were writing more concise pop-rock songs. I feel like what we did best was write shorter, more hooky, concise stuff. We’re not going to try to sound like the 2001 version of our band if people like that version the best. Because that just seems cheap and insulting to the band in the past. Because in the past, we always tried to evolve. So we just felt like that’s the only way to do it.

The fans will be stoked. So how does it feel to be the second most famous person from Greensburg, Pennsylvania?

[Laughs.] I had no idea that I would be considered anything of such. If I’m number two, then the first person cannot actually be famous. Who is number one?

Sheila Kelley. She was in the movie Singles and had roles in L.A. Law, ER, Lost and The Good Doctor. 

I think Bruce Weber, the photographer, is from Greensburg. Isn’t Paul Gilbert from Mr. Big from Greensburg?

Yes, he is. But everybody knows TV and movies are far more important than rock ’n’ roll.

[Laughs.] I’ve got to meet that guy. It’s really weird that I haven’t because we have a mutual friend. A buddy of mine plays with him. I need to meet him just because of Greensburg. There are not that many Greensburg people in L.A., and it’s just funny.

When the film adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s sci-fi novel Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? arrived in 1982, it was both gloriously futuristic and patently disturbing. Over the past decades, it’s become a touchstone in the cultures of assorted music genres. In keeping with the technological fear and hyper-modern mise en scenes inherent in the film, most of the high-tech genres of industrial rock and other forms of electronica have embraced the movie as a fount of creative enrichment. Here are a few nods (willfully obscure and two major hits) to one of the greatest sci-fi films in history.

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Industrial rock, cyberpunk, vaporwave, synthcore, pick your vernacular: There’s not one of these electronic-nuanced genres that hasn’t lifted anything (intentionally, other) sonically, visually or intellectually from Blade Runner. If these genres had colors, most of them would be cathode-ray blue and chrome. 

Wait: Chrome isn’t a color. It’s a reflective surface. Which makes sense, because the panoramas that director Scott and his team created embraced points high (advanced technologies, digital everything) and low (ecological ruin, urban decay, murderous artificial intelligence and its attendant nihilism) of what the world could turn into, complete with commercials seeking potential employees to work on the new off-world colonies being created in light of mankind ruining every damn thing on Earth.

1. Replicants – Replicants

In the movie, replicants are man-made artificial intelligence vessels that look and act like replicas of human beings. The exacting technology makes it increasingly difficult to spot a biological human for one created with sperm and eggs. In 1995, this band of former/current members of Tool, Failure and Guns N’ Roses released a one-off recording of cover versions (get it?) of songs by David Bowie, John Lennon, Neil Young, T. Rex, the Cars and many others.

2. 3OH!3 – “Robot”

This 2011 track from the Colorado electro-crunk contingent regrets meaningless sex. Specifically with a certain kind of girl whose lights may be on, but nobody is home. They even shout-out the movie by way of how scary their pick-up is. “Yeah, she’s an android/Got it on a Polaroid/White lights in her eyes, got me all paranoid/Straight outta the movie with some Blade Runner shit/Tongue to the battery speaking 8-bit.” We’re thinking it’s a reference to Pris, the “pleasure model” replicant (played by Daryl Hannah) that gives agent Rick Deckard’s clock a murderously good cleaning.

3. Gary Numan – Outland

The synth-rock icon was using synthesizers to buttress his minimal punk stylings several years before Blade Runner entered theaters. His 1991 release references many sci-fi movies in addition to Blade Runner at the time while pursuing the British singer’s love for the synth-driven funk started by Prince and his acclaimed proteges Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. 

4. Arctic Monkeys – “Star Treatment”

The best sci-fi soul jazz track this century has to offer, “Star Treatment” is pretty representative of the astral plane Arctic Monkeys were creating on their Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino LP. Here, frontman Alex Turner croons come-ons like the creepy uncle who wants to date all of your girlfriends’ moms. The verse that clinches the deal: “Don’t you know an apparition is a cheap date?/What exactly is it you’ve been drinking these days?/Jukebox in the corner, “Long Hot Summer”/They’ve got a film up on the wall and it’s dark enough to dance/What do you mean you’ve never seen Blade Runner?”  

5. Pop Will Eat Itself – “Wake Up, Time To Die”

Stick the quote into Google. The search checks all kinds of metal from Guns N‘ Roses to Disturbed to Therapy? But electronic rave-punks Pop Will Eat Itself were the first to make that line iconic. The line is spoken by Leon (played by Brion James), a replicant who’s a millisecond away from killing agent Rick Deckard (played by Harrison Ford) before he’s rescued by a kick-ass replicant named…Rachael.

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6. She Wants Revenge – “Rachael”

The L.A. post-punk duo crafted this 2007 paean to the titular Rachael, an executive of the Tyrell Corporation who’s introduced as the biological daughter of Dr. Eldon Tyrell, the founder of the laboratories responsible for bringing replicants to life. The song poetically addresses the implanted memories she has from Tyrell’s late niece. But in the film, Rachael (played by Sean Young) is beginning to realize her genesis.

7. Revolting Cocks – “Attack Ships On Fire”

The legendary “industrial-rock fuck project” (as once described by its chairman, Ministry CEO Al Jourgensen) began as a way for the participants to learn how to use studio gear, including the v. expensive Fairlight CMI sampling unit Jourgensen conned Warner Records into buying him. Found on their first album, Big Sexy Land, you couldn’t walk into a club without hearing the bassline to “Attack Ships On Fire” punching you in the chest. The reference is from Roy Batty’s speech about his artificial memories. (“I’ve seen attack ships on fire…off the coast of Orion…”)  

8. The Tyrrel Corporation – “Going Home”

The British duo of keyboardists/synth ops Joe Watson and Tony Barry came to prominence in the early ’90s with two records of pop and downtempo tracks that would never fit within the vistas shown in the film. The duo changed the spelling of their name to avoid potential copyright infringement claims. 

9. Janelle Monáe – “Dirty Computer” “emotion picture” 

Futurist funk, biomechanical R&B, the soul in the machine: Janelle Monáe has imbued her work with a great sense of humanity covered in high-tech everything. She has readily acknowledged the influence of Blade Runner on her fashion sense. In the original film, Rick Deckard’s commanding chief Harry Bryant (played by M. Emmet Walsh) refers to the rogue replicants back on Earth using the slur “skin jobs.” On 2018’s Dirty Computer and its attendant longform “emotion picture,” she uses the metaphors of androids and replicants as analogues for “the other” to open a dialogue about racism.  

10. White Zombie – “More Human Than Human”

We know you know this one. The title of White Zombie’s 1995 signature track is one of the most well-known collisions of heavy metal and machinery. Rob Zombie was certainly a fan of the movie: The song takes its name (and vibe) from the film’s antagonists, the Tyrell Corporation, whose motto, “more human than human,” summarizes the biogenetic company’s role in creating replicants from synthetic wildlife to highly self-actualized rogue killers.

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Not surprisingly, Pearson’s pop proclivities are informed by the same mindset that powers DGD, as well as the spirited worldview he came up through. He reveals everything from the key influence in his life (Spoiler alert: He’s not leaving milk and cookies near the fireplace come Dec. 24); how making music is equal parts creativity and scientific theory; the time he broke down after seeing the final edit of the video for “Hold On” (a track he describes as “an unconditional love song”); and the hardest thing about being in solo-artist mode.

“Dance Gavin Dance operate with a lot more experience,” he says when contrasting his role as a solo artist to DGD. “It’s a lot easier to tour with Dance Gavin Dance, and a lot of the stress is taken off me and put on other people. Touring solo, I definitely shoulder a lot more stress, but it feels just as fulfilling in the end.”

He also reminds fans that being his own captain doesn’t affect DGD in the slightest, almost bristling when people somehow perceive his solo work as “competition” against his bandmates.

“People would ask me sometimes at [my] solo shows, ‘How are you ever going to step out of the shadow of Dance Gavin Dance?’ And I’m like, ‘Why would I ever want to do that?’ It’s the perfect project for me. I would never want to lose the incredible energy that’s there.”

Whatever you think of him—sophistication blueprint, musical polymath, quality hang or dream date—Tilian Pearson fits all those roles. Order the new issue here and get caught up in all his posi vibes and righteousness.

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Two years ago, the celebrated U.K. metal act were wracked with grief after the death of their co-founder. Instead of throwing in the towel, they threw down hard with some of the most passionate tracks they’ve ever written. Listen up, because it doesn’t get any realer than this.  

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Sure, you’ve heard Dallon Weekes and Ryan Seaman in their previous roles in Panic! At The Disco and Falling In Reverse. As IDKhow, they’re conjuring a sonic sorcery of their own design, one stacked vocal harmony (and kiss) at a time.

SPECIAL: THE SONGS THAT SAVED OUR LIVES

It’s very popular for fans to credit their favorite bands for “saving” them through the power of a song. Hopeless Records and Sub City will release Songs That Saved My Life—a compilation aimed at spreading awareness about and raising money for suicide prevention and mental health—on Nov. 9, which inspired us to ask the question of more artists. In this special, ANDY BLACK, FRANK IERO, WATERPARKS, SET IT OFF, DAN CAMPBELL (the Wonder Years/Aaron West And The Roaring Twenties), TAKING BACK SUNDAY and other artists recall the songs that made them want to pay the inspiration forward.

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