“All You Can Do Is Be There.” — Wotts on Grief, Guardianship, and “little bug”
Punk Head: “little bug” carries this gentle sense of guardianship. Who were you picturing when you wrote it - a specific person, or more of a universal relationship?
Wotts: It started as a nod to my amazing dog that I had just lost. People who never had pets may think that’s lame, but if you know you know. Around that time, someone very close to me also passed, which likely caused the song to shift into something more universal. I just kept picturing both of these souls at their most innocent, and basically walking them through life. It’s hard to put into words, but as someone who lived a pretty charmed life up until a couple years ago, it’s a sobering moment when you realize you can’t fix everything. All you can really do is be there for the people you love when they need it most.
Punk Head: The song sits between comfort and inevitability - was it emotionally difficult to write something about loving someone you can’t protect forever?
Wotts: Without a doubt it’s the most emotional song I’ve been a part of. I’m a lyrics guy, and I remember when I finished that process I just lost it. Even after listening to the song a bunch of times, it still gets me. But despite all that, I’m so grateful that I made the climb because it’s also helped me process things and realize stuff about myself.
Punk Head: FLANK! sits inside grief, while COPE seems to live in what comes after. Did writing this EP feel like a personal shift for you, or more like documenting one?
Wotts: Great question. I think COPE came with a personal shift. The whole experience of grief and loss was new to me. For a minute I couldn’t imagine a world where I didn’t always live in it. But if you’re lucky you find a way to push forward. I personally didn’t all of a sudden ‘feel better’, it was a gradual shift, and it happened because of a mix of things - talking about it, putting a face on when I had to, distracting myself with stupid shit, kicking bad people out of my life - a whole bunch of things. Not saying these were the right things to do, but this was how I coped.
Punk Head: Do you see COPE as closure or something more unresolved?
Wotts: I think I see it as getting closure on something that can’t be resolved. It’s helped me accept that you don’t ever get over loss, you learn to carry it.
Punk Head: If someone only hears one track to understand what Wotts is about right now, is it “little bug” — or something else on COPE?
Wotts: It may be recency bias, but I do think “little bug” is a good snapshot of where we’re at right now. From a genre standpoint, we’ve been leaning more into dream pop lately, which this one falls into for sure. And despite how the song came to be, I think there’s some hopefulness overarching the song. I won’t say that we’re gushing positivity nowadays, but the music we’re demoing is definitely less dire than it was a year ago.
Punk Head: Has anyone ever told you one of your songs articulated something they didn’t have words for themselves?
Wotts: We’ve had a lot of kind people say things like that, especially since the release of our last EP (FLANK!). I think a lot of the songs from that era and this current one came from feelings I didn’t fully understand. So when someone says a song of ours gave shape to something, it really does mean a lot because I know what it’s like to stumble in the dark. If our music helps anyone, there’s nothing better than that.
