If indie rock is reaching its midlife crisis years, who better to lead the charge to explore it than Cursive‘s Tim Kasher? His work in Cursive and the Good Life is filled with lacerating chronicles of relationship strife, creative struggles, and provocative questions about societal institutions.
The latest Cursive release, Devourer, sets its cutting gaze on our contemporary lives and the tangles of midlife, taking stock of roads not taken and the roads we find ourselves on, planned or otherwise. The title also refers to our consumption of resources, goods, and even other people. Yet it also refers to Kasher’s devoted consumption of art, which he uses to fuel his work.
Devourer is not a concept album, but listeners of a certain age might feel the sting of everything they told their therapist last week. It wastes no time taking stock of the physical, psychological, and spiritual missteps of the opener “Botch Job”. “Up and Away” is clear-eyed about the passage of time and the weight of expectations not fulfilled. “Rookie” takes aim at keyboard warriors overfed on outrage from talking heads.
Meanwhile, “Dead End Days” chronicles issues that will resonate with many, from the housing crisis to how compromising our convictions doesn’t get us as far as it once did. “Imposturing” is another look in the mirror, with its line “No one wants to listen to sins regurgitated on colored wax again.” Fortunately, this is not the actual case. Cursive have outlasted many of their peers by making meaningful adjustments to the recipe over the past 25 years, and they are still incendiary on stage.
This time out, Cursive worked with Marc Jacob Hudson, who they met when he was running sound for them and Thursday on a tour. Hudson’s star has been rising for a while, working with groups like Against Me!, Worriers, Fireworks, and Taking Back Sunday. Recently, he also mixed Sunny Day Real Estate‘s Diary at London Bridge Studio. Selecting him for Devourer was an easy decision. “Marc would have great conversations about the music we grew up on. We have so much common ground,” Kasher said. “We are around the same age and have a shared musical knowledge.” It sounds like a piece with previous Cursive releases, but everything is a little more unhinged, a little more sinister, and, on some tracks, a little catchier and prettier.
Kasher has also been working in film. He has been writing screenplays since 2005, and in 2017, he made the feature film No Resolution. “It was low-budget and self-financed. But the distributor went bankrupt, so no one got to see it,” he said. He is working on a second movie, a horror thriller called Who’s Watching. “The film industry is so hard. People have liked my work, and I find producers, but getting to the starting gate is tough due to financials,” he said.
But there is a silver lining–limited edition versions of Devourer will come with a DVD of five short films that incorporate songs from the record and are directed by indie film luminaries such as Brea Grant (12 Hour Shift) and Jenn Wexler (The Ranger). Kasher directed the clip for “Imposturing”. “I pitched the idea of short films to go with some of the songs to the band and label. It was a team effort. I was involved with all of them to a degree, and the band pitched in,” Kasher said.
It is not surprising to learn that Kasher has filmmaking aspirations. One common take on Tim Kasher is that his work in Cursive and the Good Life is filled with ambitious, carefully plotted thematic concerns, but in reality, this is rarely the case. More often than not, Kasher’s themes emerge after he has been writing.
“[The Good Life release] Album of the Year and I Am Gemini are the only two proper concept records. But Happy Hollow mostly deals with the oppressiveness of religion. Domestica is considered a concept record, but to the best of my recollection, it didn’t start that way. It was a reactionary record. Finishing it, I could step back and recognize what was there and carry it on from there. On Domestica, I intentionally added lyrics from ‘The Casualty’ to ‘The Night I Lost the Will to Fight’ to tie everything together. I did the same for The Ugly Organ. Ted [Stevens, Cursive guitarist] helped with that a lot,” Kasher said.
Another common misconception is that his work is autobiographical, which is an easy (but incorrect) leap to make given that Domestica is the premier “he said, she said” indie rock record of this century, filled with raw emotions that feel very lived through. Also, not true. “The concepts present themselves when I’m sequencing and compiling. Music can be obtuse, so it can be helpful when other people chime in and show me after the fact what the concept or theme is,” Kasher said.
He continued. “I am a fiction writer. I have a degree in writing, and I was taught that a fiction writer really is a non-fiction writer. There are parts of real life that are in any story. Fiction is based on what we know and what we understand. I think this is the best way to work. It is authentic in that it reflects my understanding of life. Domestica has specific moments that reflect situations people close to me know, and then it’s also colored in,” he said. “I’m just watching and listening a lot. I am taking it all in all the time and then write about it.”
One thing that does ring true is that Cursive are mostly serious business, laced with dark humor. Kasher is fine being perceived that way. “I don’t think happiness is terribly interesting to write about. I have a nice life, and I do enjoy myself, but I have also struggled with depression. When I sit down to write, it’s mostly ‘What are the problems? What is getting at me?’ That’s what tends to be compelling,” he said. “People who write brighter or happier stuff might be striving for something more commercial. There are people who gravitate toward the arts, and there are other people who love music on more serviceable terms,” he said.
As Kasher and other bands extend into their 40s and beyond, it only makes sense for that to be his lyrical focus. “When I was young, I was writing to our audience at that point. In the band’s early days, I had so much life ahead of me that it seemed like I would live forever. There were so many disposable days, and in music, there can be a sense of arrested development. But now, the years go by faster and faster. I believe that somehow, my experience is universal when I write, but that’s not exactly true. Even though I still have human experiences that resonate with my audience,” he said.
Cursive continue to reach new fans, and the key to that has always been that Cursive respects its audience. “People are searching for music they react to. For me, the right way to write has always been to write about my personal experiences at that time. When I was 16, I was able to digest what people of other ages said. I respect teenagers. I think they are smart,” Kasher notes.
“I feel good about being a harbinger on songs like ‘Up and Away’. I have started to feel the burden of age, but rock n roll is still relatively young. We were just joking about when [The Rolling Stones‘] Steel Wheels came out. The marketing was ‘They’re still at it.’ And they still are. It’s not just a young person’s game. Bob Mould is paving the way for all of us. He’s showing us that we don’t have to be ageist about when music has to die. If you’re up for it, do it.”
For now, Kasher, who just completed a solo tour over the summer, is gearing up to support Devourer with a fall tour and a stop at Riot Fest, with more shows in the works for 2025. “I will know when it’s time for me to stop,” Kasher continued. “I have no problem with the way the scene works in general. The life I lead, many of my peers wouldn’t be up for it. They wouldn’t want to tour. Traveling is hard on people. I still enjoy it way too much to stop,” he said.
“I fit through a pinhole of success. I’m lucky as hell that I’m able to do this.”
