Sometimes, you just have to walk away. That’s one of the many life lessons that Evan Thomas Weiss details on his forthcoming Into it. Over it. album, Figure, and specifically on his new song “We Prefer Indoors,” out today. Written about a short-lived relationship that went on for much longer than it had to, it’s about rediscovering your self-confidence; an exercise in patience and trusting one’s gut.
Into it. Over it.’s last album, 2016’s Standards, found the project drifting into new territories, recreating the blueprint for what the emo genre could become in the years to follow. Now, four years later, Weiss returns to an entirely new landscape but once again, innovation becomes the beating heart of everything he creates. Songs like “We Prefer Indoors” prove that Evan’s never ending quest for transformation is alive and well––both sonically and emotionally––as he continues to explore different ways of updating a sound that some might say he’s already perfected.
Its corresponding video follows a day in the life of IIOI –– including Weiss, Adam Beck (Drums), Matthew Frank (Bass) and Joe Shadid (Guitar) –– as they prepare for a gig unlike any gig they’ve ever played before.
Directed by Chicago directing duo coool (John TerEick and Jake Nokovic), the entire video was able to be shot while practicing social distancing. It features guest appearances from some of Chicago’s finest: Mike Kinsella (American Football), Bob Nanna (Braid / Hey Mercedes), Christine Goodwyne and Nicollete Sara (Pool Kids), Erik Czaja (Dowsing / Pet Symmetry), Marcus Nuccio (Ratboys / Pet Symmetry), Jared Karns (Their/They’re/There), Andy Hendricks (Annabel), and more.
At the start of 2017, Evan wasn’t sure that he would make Figure, but built slowly and kindly with the help of his community, Figure became his commitment to do better and to be better.
“It’s about trying to make peace with poor decisions that I’ve made,” Weiss says, “and how I can try to reconcile as much as I can, and what I can’t reconcile, how I’m going to cope with that moving forward, and what I can do to be better to the people around me.”
Weiss and drummer/audio engineer Adam Beck recorded and produced Figure over seven months in different studios around Chicago’s many neighborhoods with longtime friends and recording collaborators Matthew Jordan, Andrew Emil and Mark Michalik. Mixed by Jason Cupp (Jimmy Eat World, American Football, Maps & Atlases) and mastered by Dave Kutch (American Football, Lana Del Rey, Solange), Figure contains 12 tracks––patient and considered, layered and epic––that map a crooked, unyielding journey forward through the streets and parks and bars and heartbreak of Logan Square.
Figure is out September 18 on Triple Crown Records, andit’s available to pre-order now.
To make Figure—and to pull the frayed ends of his life back together—Weiss turned to community and collaboration, which was a departure from his usual solitary process. “Being a solo musician, you take control and you refuse to let it go, because it’s your thing,” Weiss says.
Enter drummer and audio engineer Adam Beck, with whom Weiss began writing in May 2017. Over the next two years, they assembled over 30 songs. “I owe that dude my life,” says Weiss. “He came in and saved me when I was in a really dark time.”
For Weiss, it was a chance to recapture the lightning-strike origins of Into It. Over It. “That excitement of starting a band for the first time is an irreplicable feeling. It’s really hard to get that feeling back, and if I didn’t come up with a way to reinvent the excitement of being in this band for the first time, it would’ve been the end of Into It. Over It.”
Weiss likens his personal and musical rebirths to the 1991 film Hook, where Peter Pan is an old man working as a lawyer, sapped of his imagination and joy and tenderness. Over the course of the movie, he rediscovers these. Luckily, so did Weiss. “It was just a lot of lessons learned all at once, and some really good friends looking out for me,” he says.