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Jun 21, 2023 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Ramin Samandari

Next month, Texas-based art rock outfit Buttercup are back with their latest record, Grand Marais. The record follows their 2017 album, Battle of Flowers, and delivers a “painfully raw” set of tracks that are only now seeing the light of day after the band recorded them in 2014. The band wrote the record in the wake of the loss of the fathers of band members Erik Sanden and Joe Reyes.

On Grand Marais Buttercup shifts their jangly left-field aesthetic to a minimalist instrumental approach, using acoustic guitar and bass as the sole instrumental presence. The results are personal and honest but also show off the band’s talents as arrangers and vocalists, crafting strident beauty from disparate composite parts. Though the record pares back the band’s sound, they nonetheless remain capable of explosive heights delivered with raucous fervor.

They’ve already teased the album with their singles, “Opening Band” and “Morrisey for Company,” and today the band are back with a third and final single, “Let It Drop,” premiering with Under the Radar.

The band’s latest single is shorter than the previous two, but no less emphatic. It finds the band playing on the classic “tear in your beer” song. Yet, instead of offering a keening confessional, the band practice crying with the unbridled enthusiasm of a sport fan. The track builds from steady basslines and sparse acoustic strums into a sing-along climax, complete with gang vocals and anthemic harmonies. These harmonies hit a fevered pitch in the track’s final moments as the band cheers on the tear’s downward descent into the bottle with passionate cries of joyous abandon. Ultimately, the band works the unusual song structure in their favor, packing loads of cathartic release into a brief minute and a half.

Check out the song below. Grand Marais is out everywhere on July 14th via Bedlamb Records. You can also read our exclusive Q&A with the band below.

What inspired you to write this song? What is it about?

Erik Sanden: I was inspired by a snippet of between-song banter between Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. In it, Dean Martin talks about the cliche of a fool crying into his beer—and I envisioned an Olympic event with criers lined up trying to force a tear into the slimmest of bottles.

Joe Reyes: “Let It Drop” is a take-off on the classic “tear in my beer” trope that’s been used mostly in the country music realm. Our version is much more succinct.

Your press materials say that the lyrics to this song are all one sentence (and not a run-on sentence). What made you want to write in this format?

Joe: Erik, a fellow English major, wrote the lyrics, and it is literally one sentence. We like to challenge ourselves artistically, and this was the result.

Erik: I was trying to make a brief song—one with zero fat. I wanted the message to be direct and quick. A single sentence seemed like a nice constraint.

Lyrically, and taking it quite literally (even if it wasn’t meant that way), did you actually try to get a tear into the open neck of a beer bottle, and if so, did you succeed? What about the “crying into one’s beer” trope appealed to you in writing this song?

Erik: I’m laughing. No, I never did. But Odie certainly did for a video shoot.

Joe: That’s right. In our video that accompanies the song, Odie nails the tear in the beer. To me, the song is simply a tongue-in-cheek version that rocks instead of country-swinging.

Erik: I wanted to poke fun and embrace the idea of catharsis through sad songs. I’m convinced that sad songs, when they are well-made, can make us feel less alone.

The song, and the others on the album, are very minimalist, musically speaking. Was there something in particular that prompted this stripped-back mentality and vibe? Was it an interesting exercise in only including essentials and avoiding flourishes? Was it freeing in some ways to keep it to the absolute basics?

Joe: As a band, we like to play with song structure a lot. Brevity and volume were the two poles we were interested in in this case.

Erik: Oh yes. As we’ve grown, we’ve become more interested in the spaces and the silences. We’ve found power in moving less, in playing less. Also, it’s easy to tour these songs: with just two guitars, a flip-chart easel, and my portable espresso machine.

A number of the songs on the album are rooted in grief and were written a while ago and shelved until now. What made you want to finally release these songs?

Erik: At the time, the songs felt too raw, so we moved on to different songs and different moods. Recently, I shared these “Grand Marais” songs with a friend. He grabbed me by the collar and said: “Are you outta yer skull? Put this out!”

Joe: It’s been over a decade since our fathers - Erik’s and mine - passed away. It felt like enough time had passed to revisit these recordings, we were pleased to hear they stood the test of time, and we are finally ready to release them into the wild.