“Let Me Prepare You” by Watashi Wa ft. Gasoline Heart, Monday, March 4, 2024
The pandemic was a mixed blessing for music. On one hand, bands were unable to tour, which cut off the lifeblood of the music industry. Album sales, which used to drive the industry, were decimated by the end of the ‘10s as music shifted to digital sales. But even digital sales slowed, and streaming became the industry standard. Even when albums were selling, bands needed to tour, often relentlessly, to make a living. When the pandemic hit and forced touring bands to stay home, several bands found a way to distribute the experiences of a live show via Internet livestream. With the public stuck at home, many of the old bands decided to get back together. It turned out that millennials now had money to spend on the band that they loved in their youth.
HE CALLED BACK HOME, BUT THEY JUST MISSED IT. Seth Roberts took 2020 as an opportunity to reform his old band, Watashi Wa. Roberts had several bands before the Watashi Wa reunion, but Watashi Wa was Roberts’ first band. Roberts worked with close friends and reached out to friends from the scene he had known for years, bands that influenced Watashi Wa, and bands that toured with them. The result was People Like People, released in 2022. Almost everything about the album was experimental, from the wide-ranging sounds of punk from pop to hardcore to the lyrical content that Roberts described to the Hit Piece Podcast as “Optimism for the future.” Eight of the thirteen tracks feature another band, some are well-known bands from Tooth & Nail Records’ early days, while others were part of the scene that never broke through. The album’s opening track, “Let Me Prepare You,” features Florida-based band Gasoline Heart. On the Labeled Podcast, Roberts talks with host Matt Carter about the origins of the collaboration.
DARKER THAN DARK TIMES. According to the interview, part of “Let Me Prepare You” came from a collaboration between Seth Roberts and Gasoline Heart that appeared on Gasoline Heart’s album. Matt Carter then talked about his one-time experience with Gasoline Heart’s lead singer Louis DeFabrizio, whose band The Kick, a predecessor to Gasoline Heart, opened for Carter’s band Emery on their first tour, the Tooth & Nail Tour, in Orlando. According to Roberts on The Rumors Are True podcast, DeFabrizio was in Seth’s band Eager Seas after the original Watashi Wa line-up left the band. DeFabrizio and Gasoline Heart have never been famous but have been important in the background of the scene. The band is name-dropped on Anberlin’s “There Are No Mathematics to Love and Loss.” They released one album You Know Who You Are on Mono vs. Stereo, the rock label of Gotee Records, in 2006. It’s the most-produced album in their discography and the only one without profanity, though the Christian-label released You Know Who You Are was far from a tame Christian Rock record. I’ve attempted to see Gasoline Heart twice at Cornerstone. Let’s just say DeFabrizio is quite a character. He was kicked out of the festival in 2011. He seemed to be quite drunk and was fighting with the festival organizers. That was my only experience with seeing the band, so I was always fascinated with why Louis was so well-liked in the scene. Of People Like People, Roberts told Hit Piece Podcast that he hopes his listeners will be “challenged by . . . [the album] or maybe to think a little different than the mainstream media.” Roberts has said on several podcasts that he has worked for NewsCorp, and on The Rumors Are True Podcast that the original version of “Let Me Prepare You” had an audio clip of his friend talking about his opinion of the vaccine. Tooth & Nail Records encouraged Roberts to cut the clip, saying that it might make the album polarizing. “Let Me Prepare You” and People Like People is a more conservative take on the pandemic, but Roberts ultimately wanted to create a conversation, rooted in optimism.
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