Hate Your Friends Love Music

An all-time classic “band dudes” conversation is the one that starts with “We should totally start a band together.”

Usually there’s lots of complimentary banter bandied back and forth about mutual affinities for guitar tones, and amplifier choices, and shared influences, followed by a round of shots, and then emphatic drunken commitments to “getting together soon to jam” –– only to be forgotten like a debit card attached to an open tab.

The differences between that cliché and a similar discussion among Stevie Hayden, Matt Jones, Christian Medrano, and Avery Taylor a couple of years ago is that a responsible person (Hayden) was present at the latter. And that the convo led to the creation of a band.

Hate Your Friends was sparked by the friendships that formed around North Texas house shows.

“It was like, ‘I wanna be in a band with you, you, and you,” said singer/guitarist and principal songwriter Medrano over beers the other day, pointing around as if reenacting a conversation in some rattling 10-by-10-foot kitchen.

Hate Your Friends started in Arlington after Medrano’s previous group dissolved. But before Star Commander ended, it opened him up to Denton’s scene, especially producer/engineer Michael Briggs, owner of Civil Recordings and show booker for Macaroni Island.

Though Star Commander was no mas, Medrano’s lyrical focus (a blend of Conor Oberst, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Daniel Johnston, he said) remained. He hit local stages solo-acoustic.

In addition to wanting to play with drummer Taylor, Medrano noticed that Hayden, another artist he admired, was also doing a lot of solo-acoustic work.

“We realized we should sing together more often because we were good at this,” she said.

The band wasted little time before writing and recording an EP with Briggs in 2012, Keep Me at Home, but then co-songwriter and singer/guitarist Hayden left for college at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

“We kind of went on hiatus for a bit,” she said.

But the band kept on while Hayden finished her degree, playing shows when she was home on break.

“During that time,” Medrano said, “a lot of the kids in the punk community started to like what we were doing, so we’d come back and play some house shows, and there’d be more people at them.”

Hayden chuckled. “We didn’t burn them out, in other words.”

The band released its debut album, August’s Quit Your Job, also recorded with Briggs at Civil.

Medrano said Hate Your Friend’s pop-punk bent has a lot to do with the rhythm section’s predilection for bands like The Lawrence Arms and Bouncing Souls, because he and Hayden don’t listen to much of it.

“Getting together was like meshing sounds in a cool way,” Medrano said.

Hayden, he continued, “literally just listens to trap music and girl bands. She likes darker shit, and it’s funny, because if some stoner metal band came along, she’d probably quit us to join them.”

“Hey, fair warning, right?” Hayden said.

Hate Your Friends share a practice space with Collick, for which bassist Jones also plays, and another band called Stymie at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios in Denton. It might seem like a drag to drive from Fort Worth to Denton for rehearsal, but Medrano loves it.

“It’s really like hangout time with our homies,” he said.

Medrano said that when he got the band together, “Everything just clicked.”

While he’s the main lyricist, the other folks are quick to collaborate in the songwriting process.

“In the past, I usually have the songs mapped out, but in this band, I’m able to have a riff, and they’ll just complete it,” he said. “It’s one of those connections I never found before.”

That musical telepathy has given him a backbone on which to string lyrical muscle and sinew, rather than stereotypical pop-punk whining.

“I want to sing about stuff that’s more aware, more existential,” Medrano said. “Our songs are about life and dealing with everyone around you being sad and poor all the time, and asking why that is. Why is everyone broke and distraught? I wanted to convey that in a relatable way. Everything is complex. I don’t have the answers, but I feel like I can ask the questions.”

By extension, Hate Your Friend’s music is intended as a conversation starter, one that mentions the politics and economics that foster being broke and bummed but that doesn’t lose the emotional ties to the larger world under floods of manifesto.

“It’s why I listen to Woody Guthrie or Billy Bragg,” he said. “It’s the idea of mixing the emotional with the political but not letting one drown out the other.

“It’s not about telling you what to think or do,” he continued. “It’s more about ‘I feel you. It’s tough, but we’ll figure out a way to get through this.’ ”

For Medrano, the best way to get through it is playing music with people he loves.

“I get really stoked seeing people you met when you were younger start new bands,” he said. “People are always starting new bands, surpassing themselves, getting better. I think it’s great when bands have short lifespans. Do it, and if you’re still positive doing it, keep at it, but if it turns negative and isn’t doing anything for you anymore, it’s OK to let it go and make something new.”

In his mind, if you’re gonna talk about starting a new band, you should probably just go do it.