Car Seat Headrest release Teen of Denial: Joe’s Story

The release is part of the Matador Revisionist History series, and offers a reimagined version of the band's breakout album with new songs including "Optimistic Son" and "Joe Drives Again", updated arrangements, and alternate lyrics, made with producer Steve Fisk. On the original version of the album, "Joe" was a pseudonym that paid homage to Daniel Johnston, but this release sees singer Will Toledo give the character a backstory.

Speaking about Teen of Denial: Joe's Story, Toledo explains: "When you’re writing from a dark space, it’s hard to have perspective on where you’re at. This time, I could pull from memories of that darkness, and use the distance and additional perspective of ten years of life to shed a fuller light on the experience. Joe is a character going through some of what I experienced, and some of his own problems. Telling his story, and not just my own impressions of life at the end of the teen years, brought a new level of compassion and wholeness to the album."

"It gave us the opportunity to write new material in 'Denial style', embracing a snappy and simple(ish) rock aesthetic, and in an additional blessing, we were able to team up once with Steve Fisk, a joy and inspiration to get back into the studio with after ten years," he continues. "We mixed the material at his house in Tacoma, and were constantly amazed at the lack of divide between past and present, as we’d punch in vocal overdubs ten years later into the same gear, hearing my voice now running alongside a 2015 Will. For someone coming across this album or this band for the first time, this is how they’d hear the record, not as a relic of the past but as a new piece. It was immensely rewarding to experience that on our side.

"For anyone familiar with ‘Teens,’ comparisons with the original will be inevitable, but I do hope that as much as possible, people can come to this album on its own terms, approaching it as a teen, hearing the music and story for the first time. I believe music is an ongoing story, and albums don’t always do justice to its dynamic, ongoing nature. What gives it life is the new ears that hear it, and the new hearts that engage with it. I’m so grateful that this is a work that people have kept coming to, and I hope that this presentation does them honor with a fresh offering to the conversation. We’ve known that “it doesn’t have to be like this”; now we can wonder - “what it if were like this?”

Teen of Denial: Joe's Story artwork

Teen of Denial: Joe's Story tracklist

"Fill in the Blank"
"Vincent"
"Destroyed by Hippie Powers"
"(Joe Gets Kicked Out of School For Using) Drugs With Friends (But Says This Isn’t a Problem)"
"Optimistic Son"
"Drunk Drivers / Killer Whales"
"1937 State Park"
"Joe Drives Again"
"Cosmic Hero"
"The Ravenous House"
"Connect the Dots (Song of Secretariat)"
"Joe Goes to School"