Joyce Manor

Million Dollars to Kill Me Joyce Manor

Joyce Manor's Frontman Barry Johnson along with co-founding guitarist Chase Knobbe, new drummer Pat Ware ("Awesome new drummer" adds Johnson) -- and longtime bassist Matt Ebert, wrote enough songs to fill a full-length, and then worked to get songs lifted from emails between Johnson and one of his musical hero Impossibles' guitarist/vocalist Rory Phillips, with whom he had been co-writing long distance, to match the ones written at full volume. ("Bedroom charm versus live rock band" Johnson explains).

Their next step was a new step: their first time recording outside their L. A. hometown, at Converge's Kurt Ballou's GodCity studio in Salem, Massachusetts. They recorded daily 10-to-6 and then slept right upstairs in bunk beds: "Kinda felt like camp," says Johnson. "It was a pleasure -- I would recommend it to anyone."