Photo By Emily Vicario
Smirk releases melancholic single and video “Abide” just one month ahead of his new album Speculative Fiction due July 3 on Smoking Room. The indie-leaning track feels like a lost B-Side from Surfer Rosa-era Pixies mixed with the twang of Gun Club and a solo out of the J Mascis playbook with lyrics that slide right into the album’s overarching theme of abandoning longstanding ties due to a new future on the horizon and for want of a fresh start. “‘Abide’ is based on an old British hymn that I reworked to be about the looming end of a long friendship,” admits Smirk’s mastermind Nick Vicario. “It’s about that slow drift where nothing really happens, but you can feel it fading and you aren’t trying to fix it.”
Growing old sucks, but there comes a point in your life when it becomes a necessity to ignore the pull to constantly wild out. “When this band started in LA, it was a crazy time in my life,” says Smirk mastermind Nick Vicario. “I was crashing cars, doing drugs– I was doing horrible things and destroying my life.”
On Speculative Fiction, Vicario deals with a new twist on an age-old theme for punk rock: unrest in the suburbs. Instead this version of unrest deals with looking back on past indiscretions and dealing with their repercussions– disruption of the old life, settling into the new and the reflection that comes with it. These thoughtful lyrics and themes, when paired with Vicario’s guitar pop confection, makes for a unique juxtaposition. “When I was writing ‘Speculative Fiction’, a lot of that dealt with the ‘old me’ and some of the crazy life choices I made while abusing substances,” recalls Vicario. “So while the record is partially about the ‘old me,’ it’s also very much about putting them in my current world and the new set of problems that come from that.”
Vicario has a deep history with punk rock. Growing up in Portland, OR in the early 2000s, he was engrained in the scene that birthed Poison Idea and Wipers, playing in bands at an early age and hob-knobbing with members of Tragedy and Criminal Damage in cover bands and even on the gridiron. At age 12, his first band The Diskords were the toast of Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll illuminati, leading to several releases and The Exploding Hearts taking them under their wing. Playing in hardcore bands like Cower eventually led him to indie pop band Wild Ones, who released two records across eight years, the latter of which landed on Topshelf Records. After stints with Public Eye, Cemento, Crisis Man and others, in addition to touring with Surfer Blood and Dreamdecay, Vicario decided to focus his energies on his solo project, Smirk, dropping two albums S/T in 2021 and Material in 2022.
On Speculative Fiction Vicario is restarting personally and musically. For the latter, Smirk is slowing things down, taking a more measured, power-pop approach, and straying away from the speed-y punk that marked earlier releases. The result is decidedly more mid-paced, reflecting the works of Big Star and The Paul Collins Beat as much as early Stiff releases, but filtered through the DIY spirit of Guided by Voices.
Written entirely by Vicario, Speculative Fiction is Smirk’s third full-length album overall and calls upon some old friends to help round out the record – names like Ross Farrar (Ceremony), Max Smadja (RIXE), Ryan Mangione-Smith (Advertisement), and current members of the live incarnation of Smirk, who play in bands like Hotline TNT, Poison Ruin, and Pardoner. Recorded mainly in his home studio, Vicario enlisted Ian Rose to record a few tracks from the effort at Daisy Chain studios in Brooklyn while Andy Oswald handled mixing for the bulk of the record.
With Speculative Fiction, life imitates art. Smirk slows things down, retools and gets meticulous– making deliberate decisions with respect to songwriting, approach, and collaboration to execute a new vision for Vicario. The result is a refined, focused and less chaotic approach to punk with an eye on pop-sensibility, mirroring Vicario’s new lifestyle outside of the fast lane and behind a white picket fence.
