LISTEN: New York’s Own Imaginary People Speak Out Against Gun Violence On Latest Single

“It’s Simple” is the latest single from the band’s forthcoming third LP Alibi

June 3, 2021 Ron Hart 0 Comments 2021, Alibi, ANOHNI, Dylan Von Wagner, Imaginary People, Liquid Liquid, New York City

The new Imaginary People LP, Alibi, will be available later this year (Image: Imaginary People)

Gun violence continues to take its toll on the American psyche, as mass shootings continue to transpire on a weekly basis as the divide between red and blue states over sensible gun control laws grow wider and wider.

On the latest single from New York City’s own Imaginary People, the group’s key figure Dylan Von Wagner tackles the controversial topic head-on, surfing a groove that suggests a lost collaboration between Johnsons-era ANOHNI and Liquid Liquid. In fact, the singer wrote “It’s Simple” in the immediacy of the Valentine’s Day massacre at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a deranged gunman killed 17 people and injured 17 others.

“In 2018, after staring at the news during the Parkland school shooting in Florida, I went into the bedroom and wrote this in one rage filled swoop,” Von Wagner explains. “The sheer brutality, the random act of chance of losing your life that day was caustic to my organs, inhumane to the core. Picture you’re in math class taking a pop quiz and next thing you know someone is aiming a machine gun at you, with no targets except where the nozzle of the gun is pointed to perform a massacre. I’m not sure how any parent or survivor comes back from that event. Even more, this will continue to happen forever in our country, there will be no change to this happenstance tragedy in American life, just an added body count and more weapons.”

“It’s Simple” is the second single to be released from Imaginary People’s forthcoming third LP Alibi. And Rock & Roll Globe is proud to premiere this latest taste of an album written largely in response to the ever increasing cultural divide in this country that permeates through these 11 new songs, recorded by Pussy Riot producer Phil Weinrobe and mixed by Eli Crews (Tune-Yards, Deerhoof).

“I don’t know where this stuff comes from or why I feel this way and write this shit,” Von Wagner says about his songwriting. “I feel like it’s a weird addiction that I can’t shake, and I don’t think any psychoanalysis is going to shed light on it.”