Sometimes you have to move backwards to move forwards. Just ask punk cultural commentators BODEGA, whose new album sees them carve a new future from fuzzsoaked, consumerism-skewering shards of their past. “It’s something we’ve been wanting to do for years,” guitarist and vocalist Ben Hozie explains of Our Brand Could Be Yr Life – a collection of catchy indie-rock ruminations on the slow-creep of corporate-think into youth culture, first written eight years ago. Then known as BODEGA BAY, the Brooklyn group recorded those songs as a paradoxical double album. Now, BODEGA – completed by lead guitarist Dan Ryan, bassist Adam See and drummer Adam Shumski – have reinterpreted Our Brand Could Be Yr Life for 2024. “We thought of it like a director remaking one of their old films, like when Hitchcock remade the Man Who Knew Too Much, or when Yasujirō Ozu re-did The Story of Floating Weeds,” says Hozie, who it’s never a surprise to hear talking about music through a cinematic lens. After all, this is a creative who, in addition to his work in BODEGA, moonlights as a celebrated indie filmmaker (PVT Chat, his 2020 drama about online sex work, won rave reviews). “When you're older and better at your craft, you can revisit the same material but do different things with it.”
