A conversation with Philadelphia band Sweet Pill about eating hot dogs, Hayley Williams, their debut album Where the Heart Is, and Doing It Yourself beyond the local scene.
By: Reece Herberg, Edited by: Brittany Deitch
[Credit: Brittany Deitch]
“We are a Philly band,” Sweet Pill front-woman, Zayna Youssef, tells us in the first five minutes of our conversation. “I get a little upset when I’m online and people are like, they’re probably just saying they’re from Philly. Like, no! We all are here.”
It’s true - we’re sitting in the North Philadelphia apartment with two out of five members of Sweet Pill. (Six if you count Honey, the dog, who excitedly pounces on us as we walk through the front door). I immediately compliment how they’ve decorated the place. The aesthetic feels reminiscent of the maximalist style of the 1980s—from the hodgepodge of vintage furniture throughout their living room, to the assortment of old tour posters and chromatic artwork on the walls. My favorite part is the abstract mural that leads to their kitchen. “Zayna painted it,” the band’s lead guitarist, Jayce Williams, later tells us.
Youssef’s artistic talents are unsurprising. Prior to being the lead singer of a staple band in the Philadelphia music scene, she studied art at Rowan University where Sweet Pill was actually formed. “We started because of my capstone project. Part of it was to create music, put it out, create an event. We did all those things and then we were like, wait, we should keep going. I met Jayce from him throwing house shows at Rowan. We just all met because of music. We weren’t friends before that,” Youssef explains.
Before beginning the interview, I tell them to avoid uptight formalities and to treat it like a relaxed conversation. Williams brings my comment up when discussing the beginnings of the band, “You saying you didn’t want this to be formal reminds me of how we started as a band. It felt very formal. Like, on our first band practice it was her [Zayna’s] birthday. And she didn’t tell us until the end.”
“I was nervous!” Youssef responds. “I was also really excited to play. It’s what I wanted to do for my birthday.”
It’s difficult to imagine the pair as strangers. Both coincidentally dressed in all black, they seem entirely at ease on the couch, consistently joking and gushing over each other during our conversation. When we ask to take pictures of them for the article, Youssef takes it as an opportunity to climb on Williams’ shoulders. Four(ish) years as bandmates, one album, and a tour across Canada and the United States has rendered all formalities useless.
Of course, their chemistry is palpable through the music they create as well. Their debut album Where The Heart Is is a polished and eclectic combination of mid 2000s emo rock with bits of contemporary pop and hardcore punk. Sonically, the album is complex—layering belted vocals with heavy production while at times pulling back to a softness that emulates the conceptually dark core of the record.
The song, “High Hopes” is a clear example of this in action. It seamlessly fluctuates between intense verses of vocals, bass, drums and guitar to the lighter pre-chorus where Youssef’s voice is significantly softer than her usual rich, deep belting. The band is unafraid to create risks with their sound and defy the conventional rules of the genre.
“Usually every song is a different process,” Williams says. “We were working on a lot of stuff and it was all over the place. When you listen to the record it doesn’t all pull from the same genre. I wanted to gel it together.”
And gel together it does. The album feels deserving of a front to bottom listen, in order. It builds and releases tension when it has to, while each song seems to complement the next. I point out my favorite transition in the album: the explosive collapse of “Fate” into the slow guitar and jagged vocals of “Red String.”
“Jayce writes it knowing that’s going to happen. He’s like, alright, this is GOING to be two songs,” Youssef explains.
In an album that grabs at a multitude of sounds and influences, finding consistency in the chaos is a clear priority for the band. Even in its intensity, the melodies play off of one another and level off to make space for Youssef’s memorable vocals when needed.
On a visual level, the band has achieved similar levels of congruency to the album’s themes and concepts of struggle and heartbreak. The cover art on Sweet Pill’s debut album portrays Youssef’s face in shades of bright red flesh. Her cheeks are yanked in opposing directions by stark white hands that contrast the opaque background.
When I first pull up the album on Spotify, I stare into her painted eyes for several minutes without realizing. It reminds me of something I would see at an exhibit in MoMA, I tell them. The comparison isn’t far off. Williams explains that the artwork is actually done by his next door neighbor, who just happens to be a world class oil painter.
“My neighbor in South Philly would hang out on his roof while I was hanging out on my roof. I’d just be playing guitar or whatever and he was a painter, so we’d both be making art. One day we were talking about it and he asked me what our band was, and I told him. We hadn’t even released anything yet and he followed us on Instagram and sent us a message. We found out he was a world class oil painter. He like, teaches classes around the world,” says Williams. “You know, just casual stuff,” Youssef jokes.
Their introduction to one another became all the more kismet when discussing cover art ideas. Youssef talks about how they began the process by reviewing the lyrics and reflecting on what they were trying to say with this body of work.
“It was mostly physical, body stuff. Like using your hands and things like getting hurt and hit. We wanted that portrayed and I felt like black, red and white fit.”
After becoming a fan of the band and the music via demos that were unreleased at the time, the neighbor/world renowned oil painter became a real consideration for who could capture what the band envisioned. Only issue is, his artwork was being sold online for thousands of dollars. Thousands of dollars which an independent band like Sweet Pill did not have to spare. Fortunately, his admiration of the music conquered all. He was very much into the idea of designing the cover, not for the money, but because he truly believed in the project. Youssef is still in awe when she laments, “It was purely done out of like, I wanna make something cool because this is cool.”
Using the word “cool” in reference to the cover art and album feels like a modest understatement. The two beautifully compliment each other, both achieving a certain level of timelessness that is as haunting as it is tangible. Struggle, regret, heartbreak, and the idea of physically being pulled away/towards something destructive is imminent. To succeed at portraying a concept of this caliber requires a level of self awareness that is uncommon for a band’s first album. But Sweet Pill has done it, and done it well.
After posing Youssef and Williams, who models the hands that pull across her face, the painter meticulously picks the image he feels best represents the album. The end result is an album cover that even Hayley Williams, (yes, THAT Hayley Williams) gives her stamp of approval. Youssef tells the story about her brief but life altering interaction with Paramore’s front-woman during a show the band was opening for them on. “The coolest thing about it is I love Hayley Williams, from Paramore. And she put us on one of her shows, and before she played her songs she was like, "I just gotta say, this album art is like, the coolest.” Youssef gestures to a signed Paramore poster behind her on the wall, which is one of three that she owns. Being asked on a bill and receiving personal validation from one of the band’s major musical influences is a sure sign they are doing something right.
Undoubtedly, the niche they have discovered through establishing their sound is a part of the band’s skyrocketing success this past year. In 2022, Sweet Pill signed to a label, released an album, and went on a North American tour with the post-hardcore band La Dispute. The transition from the Philly DIY space to playing shows across America and Canada was one that came quickly for the band, but required a lot of work, networking, and yes, money. Lots of it. “We had to put money together,” Youssef admits. “We didn’t go on tour just for fun or vacation. We weren’t going to go unless we had guarantees, unless we had merchandise to sell. We knew we weren’t going to come home without breaking even.” Adjusting from playing one North Philadelphia basement to the next to traveling long hours while keeping their heads afloat was a major lesson learned. While the finances of most house shows boil down to a 4 way split of $200 worth of five dollar entry fees, the situation changes when there’s a team to pay, merch to sell, and mouths to feed for months at a time.
“None of us are doing this to be rich,” Williams states matter of factly. “The talk of sustainability is a huge thing. With DIY tours, you’re going to lose money. Now we want to make enough money so we can tour and also live while we’re not touring.”
Besides making enough money to eat and survive, another aspect of touring they take seriously as a band is hotdogs. Specifically, how many hotdogs Youssef can eat while on the road.
Williams: I want to shout out Ryan specifically for carrying all the amps on tour.
Youssef: He got ripped and I ate hot dogs.
Williams: There’s actually a count for how many hot dogs Zayna ate.
Youssef: We keep a color coded tally on the bus for every tour. The La Dispute Tour was like 18.
The band shares that they will have the opportunity to beat Youssef’s hotdog tally of 18 this year with their upcoming tour. I ask them about lessons they have learned as an opening act that they may take with them while headlining. At this point, their drummer, Chris Kearney, has called in to offer his thoughts. His voice radiates from Williams’ phone, held up in the air on speaker. “We started with DIY stuff at first and it was a lot more work on our end. It was really cool doing it on a larger scale with a more put together process and a bigger band, with like, a tour manager, like La Dispute,” says Kearney. “Going forward we’re doing this tour coming up, and that’s more in the spirit of DIY than a huge US tour. But I think we’re gonna be taking things with us like, making sure we’re where we need to be wayyy earlier than we start. When it came to the DIY stuff, we would just roll in right before the show started. Now I think we have a breath of more professionalism going forward from that experience.”
Touring with a contract and team does not come without specific hangups. Even as they emulate similar aspects of traditional DIY shows, Sweet Pill is still signed to a record label with a full team relying upon them. This isn’t your usual tour of house shows and addresses released an hour before the set begins. It’s a new era for them.
“A lot of people will criticize bands for taking a step out of the DIY scene. But we literally can’t play too many shows in certain cities,” Williams says. He is evidently referring to the band's retreat from the Philly house show scene. Their days of playing a show in Philadelphia every other weekend are behind them, but not without reason.
Concerns of oversaturating the market and keeping setlists fresh and exciting for tour dates are important for upcoming bands first starting out. However, for Sweet Pill, their house show hiatus is not forever.
“I never want to stop doing that. If we’re a band in 20 years, I want to play a basement show. Even when it gets old and we don’t want to do it, we’re still going to do it. At the same time, right now, we physically cannot do it,” explains Williams.
While the band may not physically be in the DIY space as much, their ties to the Philadelphia music community run deep. Not only because of the other bands/projects they participate in, but because of the music collective Williams started after the pandemic, 4333 Collective. Since its conception, the collective has amassed an impressive 15k on Instagram and has booked bands that are most likely on your most recent Spotify/Apple music playlists. Its success is most surprising for Williams, who started it as a means of helping other people and maybe booking their own band’s release show.
“I think part of the reason why Sweet Pill got some fire under us is because we all were involved in the scene. I was booking shows, Zayna played in two other bands, Sean plays in two other bands, Chris plays in two other bands. Ryan played in a band that played with Sean’s band. We all would support each other. It wasn’t a clout chasing thing. We ended up knowing each other because we loved doing it,” Williams says in reflection of the beginnings of 4333 Collective and Sweet Pill. “I wouldn’t be where I am today with Sweet Pill without 4333 and vice versa.”
Sweet Pill's sudden escalation in the music world coincided with the resurgence of house shows/house show venues during the past two years. Eager to return to the days of being in a sweat filled pit of music lovers smushing like sardines, the local Philadelphia music scene has reached new heights. Bands like Sweet Pill and collectives like 4333 are at the core of this new era.
“I want to encourage people to know people have eyes on Philadelphia,” Williams says.
“There are so many opportunities for people to reach these heights.”
As for what to expect from the band, their 2023 calendar is stacked. They recently announced their first headlining tour which began on March 3rd. For fans that have been itching for new music since the success of Where the Heart Is, you may not have to wait much longer, according to Youssef’s vague but promising allusion to a release that may be sooner than we expect.
“There’s probably going to be some music in the future….probably going to be a couple tours…and we’re trying to hit a lot of areas so if you’re trying to see us you probably can this year. We have more cool visuals, more cool merch. I just started glass blowing and glass art so I’m making pill pendants. There’s gonna be a lot of music, visual stuff, and a lot of touring.”
In the haze of new bands releasing music in a post-quarantine world, Sweet Pill is making their mark by staying true to their foundation: celebrating the collective creation of art, giving back to the community, and adapting to the new world of music.
Discover Sweet Pill: sweetpill.net ໒(⊙ᴗ⊙)७✎▤
Photos by Brittany Deitch