Unemployee rages against the daily grind on ‘Cassette Tape’

Cassette Tape, the debut album from Columbus punk trio Unemployee, closes with “Navigate to Work,” a four-minute sound collage built from the voice recordings singer/bassist B.J. Holesapple amassed over a three-year period, the bulk of which see him traveling either to (“Googe, navigate to work”) or from the office (“Navigate home”). 

As the track unfolds and these voice memos pile up, it becomes less about each individual moment and more about the monotony that can build over time in trudging to and from the same place each day – interrupted by the occasional culinary inquiry (“What is British brown sauce?) and the odd musical request (“PLAY ‘COUGH/COOL’ BY THE MISFITS!”).

It’s a fitting close to an album threaded through with the weariness that can accompany workaday life, the band’s songs populated by laborers who while away in their departments under the constant surveillance of higher-ups (“Mr. Scissors”), daydream of playing hooky from their adult responsibilities (“Big Fun”), and hurtle toward breakdowns amid the relentless inescapability of it all (“Nothing Works”).

“Conceptually, it started to crystallize once we came up with the name Unemployee,” said Holesapple, who joined singer/guitarist Bo Davis for an early February interview. (The group’s lineup is rounded out by drummer Mat Bisaro, currently undergoing cancer treatment.) “It’s centered around work, but it’s really the shared experience and the same existential crap everyone goes through. Having a job is horrible. Not having a job is horrible. … And that sort of thing used to bog me down, where now I’m like, this is actually kind of fucking hilarious. We’re just these horrible little meat puppets that drive to work and pay taxes to pay for terrible wars all over the world. … And I think at a certain point the three of us decided to just sort of say, yes, this is awful, but we’re gonna have as good a time as we can and … sort of laugh in the face of the Reaper.”

And perhaps also, spit, piss, and growl, in addition to lobbing an assortment of cranky riffs its way, with the trio alternating between tracks that churn like melodic garbage disposals (“Deluxe Memory Man”) and sludgy menacers such as “Political Song for Bo Davis to Sing,” less a commentary on this particular administration than the ease with which people can retreat into their echo chambers. “I don’t write a lot of big picture things,” Davis said. “I tend to write about what’s going on in my head in the moment. … I have no problem talking about politics with anybody, but you put it in a song, sometimes when you go back and look at it, it can feel a little cringey.”

The musicians first started gathering in earnest nearly three years ago, entering into jam sessions at a dilapidated Old North rehearsal space that over the decades has been home to myriad legendary Columbus bands, including Gaunt and New Bomb Turks. “And it’s absolutely uninhabitable in the winter. I mean, there’s holes in the walls, so if it’s 14 degrees outside, it’s 14 degrees inside,” said Holesapple, who allowed that the unforgiving nature of the space played at least some role in forming the band’s cantankerous sound – even though the trio restricted practices to the slightly more forgiving summer months. “I think there’s an air conditioner stuck up in the wall somewhere, but it’s more for placebo effect, and I don’t think it does anything to actually cool the place down.”

And yet, the trio wouldn’t have it any other way, with Davis rightly noting that the room’s history more than makes up for its clear lack of amenities. “I really love playing in that practice space because of all the ghosts that are in the building from past Columbus bands,” he said.

While Unemployee is just gearing up to release its debut – the presale begins via Bandcamp on Saturday, Feb. 14, with cassettes shipping in early March – its members are no strangers to making music with one another, having collaborated in various forms over the decades in bands such as Necropolis, Ipps, and Messrs, among others. But while Davis has remained relatively active in the scene – “I’ve pretty much been consistently playing in bands since I was 13,” he said – this project marks something of a return for Holesapple, who briefly set music aside after winding down Vile Gash in 2019.

“I think I was kind of burned out. I had been living the whole CDR (Columbus Discount Records) thing for many years, and once the label wound down, and once Adam [Smith] moved to Texas, I was ready to step back,” Holesapple said. “And I was happy to be free of it for a little while, but that itch doesn’t go away forever.”

For Holesapple, the gap between the dissolution of Vile Gash and the formation of Unemployee allowed him to disconnect some from his previous approach to creating. “I think it had been just long enough that it severed my old writing habits and how I approached music altogether,” said the bassist, who in picking things back up first had to rebuild his stamina on his instrument. “I’ve kind of felt, at times, like I did when I was a teenager just learning for the first time.”

Similar evolutions have taken place within Davis, who said there were times in earlier bands when he’d approach writing with at least some awareness of where a song could lead if it found the right ears. “Twenty years ago, I was thinking, if we get this song out to these certain people, maybe we can get on a label or do this certain tour,” he said. “And now, I’m not worried about any of that. … I suppose I’m doing it more for myself than I ever have.”