"Is Propaganda Art?"
That question doubles as the name of the new album from the Twin Cities based rockers Great Value Jesus that includes band leader and guitarist Noah Renken-Kapatos, drummer Nick Saathoff, and bassist Doug Cook. Renken_Kapatos said the album name came from the nearly non-stop solicitation emails he receives to this day from former President Donald Trump.
“It's borderline gaslighting how the wording of some of these emails are for trying to get funding,” explained Renken-Kapatos. “I was I was going to class one day and the thought had me like, ‘This actually gets people to spend their money on this guy. This guy can really spin propaganda.’ It’s almost an artform in how well it works. I signed up for it because I thought they were funny. Now I can’t unsubscribe.”
Renken-Kapatos said the album isn’t intended to answer the question its name proposes, instead leaving it to the listener to come to their own conclusion.
“Because the difference between art and propaganda, I guess, would be intent, emotional intent upon creation,” he said.
Not that the 13 songs on the album are overtly political, with maybe two exceptions, including “Electric Coyote Man” and the closer “Gen Z: The Great Society.” Mostly, the album is a continuation of the band's release earlier this year which used relationships to examine mental health struggles.
Renken-Kapatos said “He’s Going Nowhere Fast,” drops the relationship angle to focus on oneself, which he said many people struggle with.
Too tough to show you’ll never be weak around me
You’ll never know where he’s going cuz he’s going nowhere fast
I’d like to go to a place I’d like to call home
Staying awake for days- Manic craze infects me in every way
“When I was writing ‘He's Going Nowhere Fast’ I was trying to write it from the soft, calm sections. You're in a normal day, here's your good, I guess this would be your white. And if there's black and white, the chorus would be that manic phase when you switch into mania, and you go a million miles an hour, and then finally you crash and then you wake up the next day,” he said.
“Breaking Lies” dives deeper into understanding what makes one tick, outlining internal conversations centered on understanding how negative thoughts affect perceptions, and vice versa.
“And if you live your life believing your negative … everything's bad … then that's how you perceive things. And really, it's just fear that's causing a lot of those insecurities that we tell ourselves. And when you put a mirror up, you see that those lies that you tell yourself aren't necessarily true,” said Renken-Kapatos.
Great Value Jesus wouldn’t be the first band to use music and songwriting as a therapeutic way to work through mental health issues or past trauma, and Renken-Kapatos believes those issues actually help make great art.
“Many musicians that I know have some sort of childhood that kind of forms them into the person that they are. And to have some of these strong emotions and being able to communicate them in a way that people might be able to relate to. There is the tragic upbringing of every hero … every protagonist has their development and I think that for a lot of artists and musicians, this is how they get out that pain,” he said.
Back to “Gen Z: The Great Society,” one of the few songs on “Is Propaganda Art” that touches on politics and perhaps ties back to the album name. It opens with then President Lyndon Johnson in the mid-1960s touting the Great Society, an overarching ideal of policies and programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, and tax breaks, that were intended to lift Americans out of poverty, But the song concludes that the aspiration and optimism targeting societal problems in the 1960s were ultimately overly optimistic:
Your height is getting bigger, Your body’s getting thinner
No one’s a winner, And everyone’s a sinner
Wars always getting fought, Students aren't being taught
The government has not a thought
Guidance must be sought
‘Cuz the world is aging, and your memories are fading
Growing up is marked/f***d with criminals running amuck
Take a good look at me, what do you see?
This is no “great society”
Oh no
“And what do you have today? You know, I wasn't around. I wasn't alive in 1965. But I'm alive now and 2022. And the reality of this situation is wealth inequality in the country has never been higher, and at least in our lifetimes. There's a lot of flaws in society that we were told years and years ago that that's not an issue. We're going to fix that, but no, our generation has to fix that,” he explained.
Despite his pessimism, he is optimistic that his generation … Gen Z …can right those wrong of current politicians and leaders who he believes has taken a wrong turn and not fixed the problems.
“Eventually the older generation that is not clinging to modern relevant facts or keeping up with the changing world are not going to be in power and eventually the generation that was born into the world that we are currently living in, can solve the issues the best way that we can. I have some serious optimism that we can do the things that we said we're going to do.
Great Value Jesus plays Make Music Normal in Uptown on Friday night at 5:45. “Is Propaganda Art” is now available on all the streaming sites and the Great Value Jesus Bandcamp page.
