WIREHOUND ‘the anatomy of a thought undone’

The anatomy of a thought undone has the marking of one of the best music in the scene. For one, from the first sound, you know this is a profound album filled with songs that deserves to be made and deserves even more to be heard. This album from Wirehound will not leave you untouched. From tear-jerking ballads to cathartic, stormy rock anthems to mesmerizing pop sensations, the anatomy of a thought undone is an album that changes you. It makes you shiver from your souls with the turmoil and pain it once walked and sheds light to long-deserted places in your heart.

Wirehound’s sound has a universal appeal, which seems even more fitting to the messages they envisioned to send and the stories they share. Every song makes you feel something. They draw you into a different state, a peculiar challenge, but no matter how impossible it seems, you can always find a way out—that’s the spirit of Wirehound and the anatomy of a thought undone. These are probably some of darkest lyrics you’ve heard, but not because they tackle dark topics. It’s the pain and weight they carry in order for them to be heard.

The contrast of deep pain and bright force of light is so brilliantly intertwined. The album features songs that evoke deep feelings in your bones and make you tear up. With these songs, you only hope they’d last longer. You can feel it in the epic turmoil and drastic the danger it once in and the loss it has faced, but no soul is lost. The darkness isn’t gazing back to you anymore. Here, the darkest has been overcome. Instead of dragging you down, the music transcends the bad and lifts you up. There’s so many worth-remembering moments in these songs that you have to experience yourself.

The mastermind behind Wirehound also has been through some of the toughest things in life. From the rolling of deaths within the family to an accident to surviving and recovering from the indescribable pain of CRPS, the album the anatomy of a thought undone walks through time to listeners’ ears.

Punk Head: I love how the songs in this album are like phoenix rising from ash and flame. Can you tell us more about the creative process?

Paul: Absolutely! Thank you so much for the great questions. There is an unbelievable amount of work and planning that went into this album. I wrote the title track and the closing track back in about 1999, when I was 17 years old. From then, I knew it was gonna be a theme album and I knew what the story was. I also knew that, to me, these songs were special—I knew I couldn’t waste them. They had to be saved for the right time and the right team.

When Jason and I were recording “sleep all day” back in 2005-06, I was planning on the anatomy of a thought undone being our second album. But with the deaths in my family and the anxiety/trauma I experienced, the album got shelved for what I thought was forever. I especially believed this after I became so disabled I could barely walk and could no longer hold a guitar without agonizing pain.

After my miraculous surgery and recovery, Jason was one of the first people on the phone, checking up on me. We have always been brothers. To me, he is family and I’d run through walls for him. So when he told me it was time to record our first real album if I was healthy enough, I told him I would work tirelessly to get ready. Jason had found Corey Zack, this genius producer in Jersey City. We could have real strings and horns. And it would be perfect.

I immediately knew this was the album we had to do. I started doing 2 hours of physical therapy, 5 days a week. I had to get myself ready—in the space of a few months I had to transform myself from someone who couldn’t stand for more than 10 minutes, unable to drive with his bad leg, to someone who could drive 3 hours and spend 25 hours in the studio, working my butt off, over the course of 2 days. It seemed impossible, but Jason and my family believed in me, so I worked harder than I thought I could.

I started putting the track order together in February of last year. I called in every favor I had from the best musicians I have been lucky enough to befriend and got Eben Seaman to fly in from Iowa to play his brand of virtuosic piano, with Rick Birmingham coming from upstate NY to provide some of the best guitar solos I’ve heard in my life. My wife, Dana Wenzel, was also kind enough to come and lend her beautiful soprano to our sessions.

We began recording on May 20th, 2022. Jay laid down all of his drum tracks and I played all the bass parts that first weekend. From then, we would meet about one weekend a month to keep putting things down. I did most of the guitar, bass, and vocals. Jason played all the drums. And then Eben did almost all the piano/keys, with Rick and Corey adding some beautiful solos. Corey also knew these absolutely incredible string and horn players who came in and added so much weight to the album. Even though I can’t write or read music, I was able to get the sound files of the parts to Eben who, as part of his genius, transcribed everything perfectly.

Needless to say, Corey was everything Jason told me and more. Together, we took these ideas that had been bouncing around my head for 20+ years and turned them into something that, I think, is timeless. Something that truly believe is one of the best debut albums of all time.

PH: This album didn't come easily and certainly a lot of challenges were faced and overcame in the process. What is the one lesson you'd like to share with your fans?

Paul: I think the lesson is simple: never give up. My CRPS is nicknamed the suicide disease because it’s a pain demon that never let’s go of you and, for the most part, there is nothing you can do—no medicine. No exercise. Nothing. You just have to watch it get worse every day of your life, and try your best to hang on. I have so much to live for, and so much to be grateful for, but I had many, many moments where my thoughts got very dark. But I never gave up. I just held out hope that, one day, something would happen. And I would get better.

And, due to a crazy series of decisions I made to make the best of my disability, I was watching TV at 1am one day and saw a commercial for a doctor. A doctor who was a specialist in my rare condition. And not just that- he was the doctor who goes around the country teaching other doctors how to do a spinal procedure that helps reset the pain signal, and reduces the pain to a still tragic, but manageable level.
I spent many hours sitting on my sofa, unable to walk to the next room, thinking about all the things I would never get to do. All the journeys I’d never get to experience. All the little moments I couldn’t help my son get through.

Looking in the abyss, seeing darkness behind you, it’s easy to quit. But I tell you this- never ever give in. Never ever give up. It may take some time. It may be subtle or only partially answers your prayers- but there’s always hope and there’s always ways to find meaning and joy in your life.

Jason: That you need to make time in your life to add things into the world that make it a better place (even if it is ever so slightly). We spend so much time chasing money sometimes that we lose sight of what the world needs more of right now. That is beauty, compassion, love etc. For some reason of late, these things have become terms related to weakness when it’s the polar opposite. If one sad person feels happiness from what we created, all that time and hardship to get this record done will be well worth it.  

I would also like to add that musical trust is so hard to find as an artist. I know Paul cherishes his work and knows what he wants, while I have confidence in my playing and artistic input. Those two things can be conflicting counterproductive forces. Playing with someone and creating for more than 20 years has an extra developed trust that should never be taken for granted. I think you can hear that trust in the music. With that trust, and ego's aside, is where true beauty can be created.

PH: Who are your favorite artists and why?

Paul: For me, the greatest living songwriters are Brian Wilson and Joanna Newsom. I don’t think anyone really comes close to their depth and brilliance in every aspect of composition. My favorite band is Radiohead, for similar reasons. I love all types of music though, and spend hours a day listening to everything from Run the Jewels to Garth Brooks to Tame Impala to KT Tunstall to Fleet Foxes.

Jason: I don't think I have a favorite, but always need to refer to Bach who tempered all of modern music and then The Beatles for doing some really great song writing with it all. My musical pallet is way too diverse to name favorites and so is my actual pallet since I don't have a favorite dish. I love good food and good music and am so grateful to be in a world with both.

PH: If you were stranded on a desert island and could only take one song or album to listen to, what would it be?

Paul: I am the rare person for whom this answer is easy and immediate—if could take one album, it is Have One On Me the triple album magnum opus from Joanna Newsom. If I could take one song it would be “I Know” by Fiona Apple, though “two headed boy, pt. 2” by Neutral Milk Hotel is a close 2nd.

Jason: Its close, between Mozart's “Jupiter Symphony” and Coltrane's “A Love Supreme.”

PH: What motivates you as a band?

Jason: What motivates me is the friendship, through thick and thin, that prevails, and the chemistry that's shared that is so hard to find in anything else on Earth. We have been at this a long time and have stuck to our sound. Paul wrote some of these songs before I knew him (and I have known him for over 2 decades). The fact that they sound like they could have been written yesterday makes me realize how timeless they are and how fortunate I am to be a part of it. 
Finding Corey this time around was the final piece of the puzzle, not to mention all the talent that was brought in to complete the layers. The cosmic magnet at its center to make it all happen is the closest thing to REAL magic that I have ever experienced and if that's not motivating then what is?

Paul: I have to say that I really agree with Jay and so many of the points he’s made here. For me, I’m motivated by our friendship that turned us into family. I’m motivated by these amazing musicians we surrounded ourselves with on this album—from Corey to Rick to Eben and everyone else that contributed in any way. I’m motivated by the hope that these songs will get heard and that, somewhere, there’s gonna be even one person who finds strength or solace there. I’m motivated by the memory of my dad - our three fathers have all passed, and this album is dedicated to the memory of Corey, Jason, and my fathers. I’m motivated by my family—wanting to show my sons that, when I say you have to fight and not give up, it’s not just words —their dad worked his heart out to get this done. Despite the odds. And the look on my son’s face the first time he heard Annabelle makes it all worth it