Aaron Maine on ‘Shirt’, the new album from Porches: “A bit more in your face”

Posted On September 11, 2024September 11, 2024

Aaron Maine has operated as Porches since 2010. Across five albums and a series of EPs, he has assembled a dedicated fanbase that has readily embraced him. Over that time, he has continued to stretch the limits of his songwriting. On the sixth Porches album, Shirt, which arrives on September 13th via Domino, the New York-based songwriter transmits the scope of his artistic nouse more emphatically than ever as he adds alternative rock to his eclectic blend.

While his work has always been cinematic and defined by a clear vision, Maine pushes himself further on the new record, embracing his organic roots as a musician and skillfully blending them with his electronic inclinations. In doing so, he creates some of the most sincere and personal moments of his career. These are expertly balanced with a generous mix of the surreal and themes with broader resonance, as the songwriter leaves subtle hints about the mind behind Porches while exploring general humanity with insight and a touch of comedic zest.

Shirt is true songwriting via the contemporary prism, blurring lines but leaving a lasting impression on the listener. It’s an epic that showcases decades of songwriting development.

Recently, I caught up with Maine over Zoom, and he was in good spirits about Shirt. He had just returned from Europe after playing solo shows at London’s Sebright Arms and another in Paris. He had thoroughly enjoyed his time in the UK, particularly the show and venue, where everyone was in high spirits—England had won the Euros semi-final the night before.

The London and Paris shows were the first performances focused on Shirt, but Maine, who remained modest throughout our conversation, expressed that the new songs felt fantastic to play live and that it felt “awesome” to finally have the singles out.

Before releasing his debut single, the blissfully electronic yet gritty ‘Rag’, Maine was terrified that he had “made a horrible decision” and feared it might be “totally unlistenable”. However, his anxiety subsided when the track was met with enthusiasm. Fans have embraced this new chapter with excitement. Maine acknowledges that the track is “a bit more in your face than previous Porches stuff”, but it’s one of his favourite songs to date, and he’s thrilled with its positive reception.

Being an artist is undeniably about constant evolution; without it, the work becomes futile, merely repeating the same material until the world eventually moves on and forgets you. Maine understands this well and is grateful to his audience for their unwavering support as he explores a diverse range of sounds with Porches.

This backing has allowed him to feel free artistically and not be compelled to stick to a specific compositional approach or style, unburdened to keep surprising himself. Much of making Shirt, he tells me, was doing just that: trying to make himself say, “‘Wow, that’s insane’” with a vocal melody or guitar part as he sought to reach unfamiliar places.

Given the alternative rock aspects of the new record, you’d naturally assume that Maine might have been looking to a particular set of references to bring it to life, in tandem with this desire to keep moving forward. However, he’s also a pragmatist. While he did want the album to be heavier and push his voice further – not shying away from abrasive moments as he might have in the past – the product was also informed by his usual process of analysing what he’d done previously and honestly assessing what worked well and what didn’t. Then, he organically began constructing a new batch of songs, with stylistic connections and a vibe forming over time.

A big part of accepting this more assertive, guitar-oriented approach was the tour for Porches’ last effort, All Day Gentle Hold, their first tour following the pandemic; it taught Maine a lot. The band were “totally on fire”, he recalls, with them playing the songs louder than usual with distorted guitars, where he “felt free to let my freak flag fly”. To his surprise, the audience responded best to the moments when the music was at its intensest. He wanted to capture that energy moving forward with what ended up as Shirt.

Although he might be known for inhabiting a synth-pop environment, Maine started musical life in rock bands. It’s ingrained in his approach more than any other genre or type of songwriting, so it felt immensely freeing to finally embrace it. Plus, it “feels super good” to stamp on a distortion pedal and have it out with bar chords.

Since touring the previous album, the live show has become essential for Maine. The lockdown, which brought music to a standstill and left artists uncertain about whether they would ever perform again, instilled in him a deep resolve never to take live performances for granted. Now, he is committed to making his shows physical and “super energised”, moving away from the idea that fans need to remain quiet to fully appreciate the music. “Broader strokes, I guess…” he trails off.

Rock opera is a polarising term, but Maine smiled when this aspect of Shirt was mentioned. “That’s great,” he grinned. “I love that”. The record clicked when narratives, characters, and relationships came to light during the sequencing, a typically painstaking process. Maine admits it felt like a play, and although he couldn’t quite put his finger on exactly why, perhaps it was the emotional arc.

Maine likens Shirt to “the arc of a manic episode”, which starts “blissed out” and chaotic but has a reckoning in the final handful of songs, where he feels the character, whether that be himself or the listener, is “standing in the wake of what just happened”, with a clearer perspective. That’s why he was drawn to this sequence of songs. There’s no real story or plot he was trying to convey, but he likes “the illusion” of having exhibits “you can grab and project some experience of yours, or mine, or friend’s onto, that pulls you through this hall of mirrors.”

Shirt is an emotional plot, and “that’s the only story I’ve ever tried to tell in my songs,” Maine asserts. His abstract lyrics are meant to make you feel something instead of being read along and dissected. That’s true songwriting.

He concludes: “I’m not sure where it comes from, but it feels like it comes from a deeper place that I don’t even understand, and I’m not even in control of 95% of the time. That’s where I try to be when I’m making music.”

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