Barry Johnson (Joyce Manor) with Greg Mendez

About this episode

Barry Johnson and Greg Mendez discuss their distinct musical styles and recent works.

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a couple of friends who swim in the same punk-inspired scenes but whose musics are pretty different: Barry Johnson and Greg Mendez. Johnson is the singer and guitarist for Joyce Manor, the pop-punk/emo/indie-rock/something-something band that’s been blasting out short, to-the-point songs for nearly two decades. There’s something perfectly economical about everything the band does: Their records often clock in at under 20 minutes, so there’s no fat or filler to be found. The latest is being hailed as their best, which is saying something for a band whose chosen genre rarely seems to age well—something Johnson laughs about in this chat. The album is called I Used to Go to This Bar, and it was produced by Bad Religion’s Brett Gurewitz. Check out the song “I Know Where Mark Chen Lives” right here. The other half of today’s conversation, Greg Mendez, takes a Spartan approach to songwriting as well, but his songs are much more quiet and reflective—you’ll definitely hear Elliott Smith vibes on his new album, Beauty Land. Mendez has actually been making music nearly as long as Joyce Manor, but their shyness didn’t really push through into wider…

People in this episode

Host: Talkhouse

Guests: Barry Johnson, Greg Mendez

Topics covered

• punk music
• songwriting
• indie rock
• music production
• artist collaboration

Keywords

• Joyce Manor
• Greg Mendez
• I Used to Go to This Bar
• Beauty Land
• punk-inspired music

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Joyce Manor, Bad Religion, Dead Oceans

Books & works: I Used to Go to This Bar, Beauty Land

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