How An Ever-Changing Line-Up Keeps The World Is A Beautiful Place Focused On What Counts

There is an ancient thought experiment known as the Ship Of Theseus, or Theseus' Paradox, which questions whether a given object, undergoing a cumulative process of having each of its components replaced, is still the same object.

It's a tale that has lived through millennia, from Greek philosophers such as Plutarch, Socrates and Plato through to more modern thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, and in many forms, with one of the better-known variants — revolving around an axe — even involving George Washington in the telling.

The paradox has endured everywhere from academia to pop culture (infamously informing the introductory scene of 2012 cult horror-comedy John Dies At The End), and, talking to guitarist Derrick Shanholtzer-Dvorak, of chamaeleonic US emo-revival heroes The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die (or TWIABP, for everyone's sake), it's hard to not draw some comparisons between the ancient riddle and the Connecticut-bred, now-diasporic outfit.

After all, the band is demonstrably worlds away, sonically and lyrically, from their earliest releases such as 2010's Formlessness and Josh Is Dead EPs, and they've seen line-up transformations from as few as four to as many as 10 and nearly everywhere in-between as players have come and gone and sometimes even returned — and, yet, here they are, days out from releasing their second full-length record, Harmlessness (the follow-up to 2013's acclaimed debut Whenever, If Ever and last year's collaborative EP, with poet Chris Zizzamia, Between Bodies)... and they've never seemed more cohesive, at least certainly from an outsider's perspective.

As it turns out, though, there's good reason for that; as Shanholtzer-Dvorak can attest (having been a constant member of the band in each of its guises), it may not just be our imagination.

"For Whenever, If Ever, that whole thing was just a mess," they say, probably to the surprise of several people who pegged that record as one of the premier emo-revival releases of 2013.

"You know, it'd be like, two or three hours in the studio every couple of weeks, and not everyone would be there. We lost our vocalist during the middle of recording. It just wasn't focused; we kind of rushed it. 

"Between Bodies, we just went into the studio and worked on everything there. This record, we sort of spent the past, you know, two years writing it here and there, just recording demos. I think we went in with, like, 20 songs and worked it down to just 13, whereas for Whenever, If Ever, we had the record sort of written from beginning to end."

History (or cliche) tells us that bands often have their whole lives to craft their first album, and a matter of months to craft their second but, impressively for such a malleable concern, they've been thinking about this second LP for a while now. Indeed, TWIABP were looking to consequent releases well before their debut was even released, Shanholtzer-Dvorak says, thanks in part to the nature of their ever-evolving line-up. 

"I'd say before Whenever, If Ever even came out, we were already writing and recording demos for a second record," they explain. "When we get together, we hardly ever rehearse old material; we just write and then record demos of everything we write so we can revisit it later. We're probably sitting on another, like, 15 to 20 unreleased songs right now.

"It's more fun for us to keep writing, I guess, when getting together. And we're constantly working with new people so there's always fresh ideas. But I think just about every time we've had to replace a member, their first time at practice, we just write, rather than have them learn everything right away. The whole reason we do this is to make stuff together, like, as a big collective, collaborative thing, so I guess we're just more interested to just keep writing as we're going."

That sense of community and collaboration, which permeates TWIABP's pursuits, was a palpable thematic element on Whenever, If Ever, the album's lyrics making frequent reference to landmarks and settings clearly drawn from the members' personal experiences; however, despite the sonic elements of greater certainty that carry across on Harmlessness — demonstrated in early singles such as the gut-wrenching January 10th, 2014 and mental well-being rallying cry I Can Be Afraid Of Anything — and the continued undertone of celebration and collectiveness at the root of the band's being, Shanholtzer-Dvorak says that Harmlessness, compared with its predecessor, is "lyrically, a little less hopeful".

Unsure exactly as to why, they nonetheless explain that previous records saw lyrics routinely added after the music had been written, while this time around, vocalist David F Bello and returned guitarist/vocalist Tyler Bussey (who hasn't been with the band since Josh Is Dead), kept on writing through the entire process.

It seems a small detail, but it adds to the notion that this is a very different outfit to the one who took critics and fans by surprise with their watershed debut only two years ago. The sense of transition isn't dulled by the fact that Shanholtzer-Dvorak and wife Katie (who is also a mainstay of the band) recently relocated from Willimantic, Connecticut — home to The Handsome Woman, a share-house that was the subject of frequent reference on Whenever, If Ever — to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, about 800 kilometres away from where the many-branched tree of TWIABP first planted its roots.

"We just didn't want to have roommates any more, so we moved to Pittsburgh," Shanholtzer-Dvorak says of their and Katie's decision to head east after such a storied stretch in Willimantic. "It's a lot cheaper, it's closer to where I grew up. I wasn't really doing anything in Connecticut any more, besides hanging around the house when I wasn't on tour.

"I didn't really have anything tying me to Connecticut, so…"

From the sounds of it, especially on a personal level, it's been a change that has agreed with Shanholtzer-Dvorak in myriad ways. Well, mostly. 

"I love Pittsburgh," they enthuse. "I kind of go out too often now. There's a show every night, there's tonnes of stuff to do… there's kind of too much to do, compared to what I'm used to [laughs]."

To be honest, it's kind of miraculous Shanholtzer-Dvorak finds time to go out at all; when not keeping busy with writing, recording, performing or touring commitments with TWIABP, they're running Broken World Media, one of the US' breakthrough DIY labels, an absolute hotbed of some of the best, little-known (at least outside of America; can't speak for the local market, obviously) bands making music that side of the Atlantic — and a champion of the cassette… well, let's not call this a revival, too… but maybe we could skate by with "resurgence".

"I never really saw tapes go away, like, always going to punk shows and stuff, bands always made tapes; it's easier to make a hundred tapes than it is to press 500 copies of a record and then have nobody buy it," Shanholtzer-Dvorak explains of their affinity for the plucky format, itself now the focus of a Record Store Day-style celebration in October.

"As long as I've been in a band, I've made tapes for us and we've sold them," they continue. "The distributor for Broken World is accepting tapes again for the first time in, like, 20 years or something crazy, and now, like, some of our tape releases are seeing retail distribution, rather than just online."

"You have, you know, joyless nerds that just think that it's stupid … but you're giving your audience a way to support what you do and actually take something away for the show, for smaller bands. That's how we got Broken World started; we just made The World Is and Hundred Year Ocean [of whom Shanholtzer-Dvorak is also a part] tapes and patches, and then we'd just have my friends' bands doing the same thing until we started pressing vinyl.

"I dunno; it's cheap, I like the way they look, my car still has a tape player, so fuck it."

And, amid all these changes and revivals and resurgences and ever-shifting horizons, sits that damn question of the repaired ship, or patched socks, or renewed axe, and whether, with all their different components, if there's anything left of the original product. Indeed, there are many new parts to the TWIABP that has made this record (and made it stunningly, it must be said — hear for yourself), but Shanholtzer-Dvorak is adamant — and utterly convincing — in their belief that Harmlessness is every bit a genuine piece of the overarching, sprawling tapestry as any other that helps to make up The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die's diverse and eclectic oeuvre.

"I think every single one of our releases has a different line-up, in some way," they say. "I mean, [bassist] Josh [Cyr] and I are the only two who have been in the band since we started in 2009, but I started as the drummer, switched to guitar, like, a year later… I dunno! There's always someone who's been here; it's not a completely new group of people with me.

"There's always someone who's been with us for a while; [drummer] Steve [Buttery]'s been with us since 2010, 2011; [recently departed member] Greg [Horbal] was with us for five years and made this record with us before he quit, we've got Tyler back after he quit in 2010. There's still the same people involved, I guess.

"So I guess we're not, you know, a new axe."

That may be true — but, regardless, they're sharper than ever.

Harmlessness is released Friday, 25 September, via Epitaph Records.

Hear an Australian-exclusive stream of the album in full here.