Michael Cera Palin – “I Ask That Fans Expect Nothing But Honesty”

With their highly anticipated debut album coming soon via Big Scary Monsters, emotive punk trio Michael Cera Palin took a deep dive with us into the process and meaning behind We Could Be Brave.

Rarely do bands develop a cult following like emo legends Michael Cera Palin have. Starting their career close to a decade ago in Atlanta, Georgia, the trio have cultivated a dedicated fanbase across the world despite only having released a pair of short EPs, 2016’s Growing Pains and 2018’s I Don’t Know How To Explain It. With their long-awaited debut album on the horizon, bassist Jon Williams and frontman Elliott Braban took some time out of their busy touring schedule to lay their process bare.

Michael Cera Palin’s upcoming debut album We Could Be Brave is the band’s first release in seven years, those years have changed the trio for the better. Elliott explains, “After that last release, we broke up and so each of us had to fully reconsider what our relationship to writing songs was and how we were going to go forward with music before realizing we were going to be back together and further exploring this. And I think that led to a lot of self discovery”, continuing “I’ll definitely say that this was I think the most like fully collaborative, like the most intensely collaborative songwriting process so far”. Jon compares this to their previous works, adding, “I remember we kind of felt like it was just fun being in a local band. And then there wasn’t really a lot of thought behind making that last EP. It was just very kind of spur in the moment and like hanging out.”

Writing began on We Could Be Brave back in 2021 with the lyrics being finished in 2023 and mixing and mastering finishing in 2024, with this extended timeframe it wouldn’t be surprising if the band had lost connection with their material before it was even released. However, Elliott assures that the band are just as attached to the album as when it was written, saying “So a big thing about finishing the lyrics last is that typically with the instrumentals I’ll have a certain physical feeling it brings out of me playing it. And that’ll typically evoke something within life that I wanted to talk about. And then finishing the lyrics on a more timely manner to when we’re finishing the songs helps me feel a bit more resolute in the actual message I have to give about it. I still feel very connected to everything I have to say on that album”. On the album’s drawn out production, he explains “We wanted to make sure because we love these songs. Like genuinely, throughout the process of writing this album, we really, really are in love with these songs. And just wanted to make sure they have as much space as they need to shine as bright as we know they can. We felt we owed it to ourselves, and we owed it to the songs, and we owed it to our listeners. And thank God, thank God it worked out.”

Lead single Wisteria embraced some new sounds for Michael Cera Palin, leaning into grunge and alt-rock inspired overdriven guitar riffs and forceful vocals, as well as the band’s tried and tested twinkly emo sound. Elliott goes into detail on this unique sound explaining “So the instrumental for that, I demoed while MCP was broken up actually. And I remember sending that demo to I believe John and also our dear friends Helena and Amy and just being like, hey, does this sound too much like MCP? I think at that time I was leaning into the more progressive song structures of Brave Little Abacus and also the newer Jeff Rosenstock stuff, tracks like ‘USA’ or other stuff on POST-”. 

The band also gave a glimpse into the track Murder Hornet Fursona’s powerful and timely message of hope for the queer community saying “anti assimilation is always going to be very prescient, the temptation of assimilation is never going to go away for any marginalized group. And so I think that that’s always going to have some timeliness to it. I mean, obviously right now like it, it’s a bit more of an urgent ‘we need to protect trans lives’ type beat”.

The album’s self-titled closing track is an incredibly ambitious and intimate twelve minute long exploration of Michael Cera Palin’s sound. Elliott explains, “so the first part of that song I came up with while we were at practice, and we were recording everything we were doing at practice for the most part at that point, because we were just in writing mode and I knew it was going to be the beginning of the closer for the album. I did not know how long that song would be”. 

The track’s extended runtime and elaborate structure ties into its themes, he goes on to explain, “I specifically wanted to use the composition of this to convey how non-linear healing is and how non-linear finding a path forward is. The fact that you’re not sure if the rock bottom you experience right now will be rock bottom and still finding your way through that was the main thing I wanted to get across. I kept telling the Jons throughout this process, like, I swear to God, I’m going to bring this to y’all, but there’s just something else I’m hearing in my head and I need to figure out what’s going on and so help me God, I got there” with Jon adding “I feel like it’s kind of hard to have a hard line on it. But it does feel cool to be one of those guys who plays on a 10-minute song now”. Elliott assured fans that the band are planning on being as unpredictable as ever, saying, “I ask that fans expect nothing but honesty. I guess the songs will always be as long as they need to be. We also have our shortest song to date on the album, ‘A Broken Face’ is 92 seconds, we’ve never had a song sub two minutes before, and it is a full song still”.

Deers are a strong visual theme on the album, being featured on the cover and the artwork for the singles, Elliott goes into the story behind the deer explaining “so 4 months before we went in to record the instrumentals for this album I visited my grandmother in Hospice on her final day. She went from being up and walking around to like, leaving us over a very short period of time. And when I left the Hospice, I saw a doe in the parking lot and I snapped a picture”, this photo became the inspiration for the album’s artwork. He continues, “it felt very poignant. It felt very prescient for like, how like our spirit maintains a place with us that goes so far beyond what we can see, how we can see our lives immediately impacting others. Like we stay with other people. And we owe it to ourselves and everyone else to continue being brave on behalf of that”.