Pete Simonelli Interview: “There’s always a sentience to a place and time”

Pete Simonelli tells the kind of stories you want to bottle up and save somewhere out of time.

Leader of the underground post-hardcore legends Enablers, the Brooklyn-based poet has spent a career illuminating the grimiest corners of working-class America. Characters, caked in sweat, marinated in whisky and nicotine. By-products of the daily grind and building up a metabolism to it. Work hard, play hard, and deal with the consequences later. Or not.

Through this gritty lens, Simonelli’s snapshots are vivid. For me personally, they recount an old world. One as a child, as the smell of cigarettes escapes the bar out to the sidewalk where I peer through the window in search of my dad. Through the thick plumes of smoke, he’s there at the bar, stood with his mates, drinking, smoking, and having a good time.

There’s a beautiful nostalgia but it’s slightly more nuanced. It’s not necessarily about the innocence of formative years but more of a feeling of that chasm between generations. The behemoth of tech and, by extension, capitalism being the driving force that has crushed the simpler way of living. A new world more segregated as the erosion of community spirit is as real as it’s ever been.  

Simonelli’s latest collection of poems and entries, That Bird Always Comes Back, echoes some of these sentiments. On one hand, these works—which include lyrics from the Enablers’ oeuvre—are a safety net to revisit the past. On the other, Simonelli’s tales are a force in the modern age, for there is no one else delivering the kind of grit and gumption through the written word.

Whether it be through his songs as leader of Enablers or as a poet burning the midnight oil, Simonelli’s stories cut through with a poignancy that freezes time. There’s a narcotic effect, and it’s a beautiful thing. That Bird Always Comes Back is a celebration of that.

Last month, Simonelli answered some questions about his latest collection of works along with his influences, his process, and more.

Some Gift: An Interview with Enablers

S13: With A Lonely War’s Am I A Nice Guy, it reminds me of a pre-internet age where people were more genuine and giving. As a society circa 2024, do you think we’ve lost some of that?

Pete Simonelli: “Yeah, I believe we have. I mean, I still write postcards and letters to people. I also use the convenient tools—email, texting etc.—but no social media. Not into that at all. I realise that it does provide some service to peoples’ lives and livelihoods, but social media is really a barrier that prevents screen-less, face-to-face contact and relationships, even with strangers. I like talking to people in elevators or on the street, in stores and bars, wherever. I love airports and rail terminals. I worked a long time as a bartender, which basically demands that you talk to people, get to know them, while also knowing how to avoid them with some element of grace. That job took the ice off my personality and thawed out my shyness. Also, my father once told me to make friends all the time and everywhere. That’s paid off.

“Ultimately, societies have become detached and have lost much decency and respect for their people. Even so, assholes will always walk the earth, but I think the imbalance between decency and disrespect has reached a critical stage. Privacy is a privilege now, not a right anymore. Maybe that story you mentioned is an unbeknownst kind of salutation to ‘former’ times, I don’t know. What I do know is that watching someone take 20 selfies in half as many seconds is revolting to me.”

S13: Can you tell us about your early inspirations and the initial moments when you began writing poetry?

PS: “I was blessed with a strong reading gene. Always liked a book even before I could read (so I’m told anyway). So early inspiration was just the prevalence of books in the house – all manner of them too. Once language itself began to play into my reading habits (school or otherwise) later on, I realised that there was a palpable satisfaction in the way words are strung along on a page, their meanings and nuances; the syntax and style too. I really liked that sense of entering a world of words and language and recognising their collective value. It was transformative. By the time I was a teenager I learned how difficult it was to write with any kind of the authority I’d grown used to reading. This led to the fact that it will always be challenging. But that’s a good thing. ‘Keeps ya humble’.”

Enablers Interview: “There’s a lot of conflict in our songs on every level”

S13: Pigeons have been referenced in the more recent Enablers releases… was bringing all your works together with That Bird Always Comes Back a way of making it the central theme?

PS: “No, not really. It just worked out this way. Goon Seat came first, which gave way to Pigeon Diaries. The entries in the book are just selected pieces that help move the book along thematically. They’re catalysts for time and events that occur in the whole collection, like signposts, not strictly about pigeons or birds in general.”

S13: Had the pigeon been an animal you’ve always been drawn to or is it a fondness that you developed over the years or from a certain moment?

PS: “Honestly, for a long time I was one of those people who consider pigeons to be flying rats. I didn’t like them at all. (Sometimes I still don’t when they’re not flying. And if you own a car, cleaning their shit off the windows and hood can be a little infuriating.) But that changed over the course of a couple years once I began noticing a particular flock flying above the rooftops in my neighborhood. I watched them every day, several times a day, for months. It was mainly a therapeutic exercise and, later, a launching point. Watching how these birds flew and how they behaved was a way to sort myself out and begin to write from a better perspective on things. I don’t really care for ‘inspiration’ but it does happen sometimes.”

S13: Instantly, pigeons remind me of New York… how much have your immediate surroundings influenced your more recent works, both with your poetry and in Enablers?

PS: “Setting has always played a large role—maybe the largest and most important one—in everything I write. It informs curiosity. It’s the anchor and the launching point for me. I’m not very particular about it, it’s just a working habit by now. It’s also not something that seems more in focus now than it was 20, 30 years ago. I just think that you can’t have any action, idea, or eventuality without it. There’s always a sentience to a place and time.”

S13: With your poetry not backed by the music, do you think your words possess a different atmosphere, and perhaps even different meaning?

PS: “Atmosphere yes, meaning no. With Enablers, the way I’ve thought about a specific poem might change or be altered by the music, but the meaning or intent is never lost. Besides, what you think a certain poem ‘means’ is not exactly what I or anyone else might think it ‘means’. People get a little too hung up on ‘meaning’ as some kind of principle. It just depends on how you read it, and where it potentially takes you. This is how associations are formed. People relate to different things. At readings I don’t have to account for other players and roles. This doesn’t mean it’s more laid-back or lacks tension. In fact, tension might be increased because the person listening to them has to rely on their own faculties; they don’t have that compelling force of music backing up the poems, so they’re perhaps more compelled to trust their own instincts and opinions. And if they happen to read them later, who knows. It could be a different experience entirely.”

S13: On Spirit really resonating with a frightening reality. It really captures those thoughts and inner monologues of someone growing older knowing that death is edging closer. Was that the idea?

PS: “Well there’s setting again. A room—in this case a kitchen—where memories are in permutation, where scents and objects and emotions come and go, and then a loved one walks in and ka-boom: I wasn’t expecting that to happen. It’s actually meant to be funny and a surprise (certainly was for me when it happened). But I take your point. Dread. Mortality. Decay. Not too funny.”

S13: Throughout some of your poetry, your protagonists take a mild interest in sports. Are they something that has been influential to you over the years?

PS: “Yeah, baseball especially. I played a lot of it growing up (as well as a longstanding ‘pickup’ game on weekends while living in San Francisco). Read a lot about it too. And New York City is very much a sports town. People live and die by the teams here. Go to any sporting event and at any given moment you’ll come into contact with someone whose sanity is seriously in question. I’m not a die-hard like that, not at all. I just like to write about or use a sporting theme on occasion.

“With baseball, there’s a rhythm to the game that appeals to writers and musicians. I go to a fair amount of (Mets, never Yankees) games with writer and musician friends and usually come away with something memorable to jot down. Boxing and the horses also come into play on occasion. Sports have an authentic drama to them. It can be infectious – or absurd, depending on the situation. As an example, that early poem/tune The Record from End Note tries to reconcile that spectacle of drama and absurdity. It also deals with a certain fan’s questionable level of sanity. So, sports can be pretty interesting or peculiar in that regard.”

S13: To me, politics has never been a direct influence in your work, but I feel like there were undertones of it on Some Gift, particularly in Willard to Kurtz. The more I think about it, the characters in your works could be construed as products of a failed system. Are politics something you’re always thinking of?

PS: “No, not a direct influence, but I do think about politics, read the headlines and such. It just seems to me like the more you try to avoid politics the more insidious it becomes, especially with the modern news cycle and social media. Everyone reacts. Even if you’re not directly plugged into that shit, it still finds you. Also, COVID hit, and I just didn’t want to succumb to its dread and stagnancy. I wanted to subvert the indeterminacy of it. Plant my feet as it were and take some blows while getting my own stingers in, too. It also brought a lot of those failures you mention into glaring relief. W to K was a conscious attempt to feel the climate of things rather than think about them to a degree that would drive me bats. Whenever I’ve tried to commit to a politically charged situation and write about it, F-and C-bombs start flying all over the joint. Doesn’t make for very good writing.

“The Correspondent poems in the book are an attempt to deal with politics on a broader scale. The ‘correspondent’ is an alternate character, a conceit that I can use to think a lot more clearly and keep my emotions at a gentler and more workable simmer.”

S13: Are you someone who allots a certain part of the day to writing, or is a bit looser than that? Are there any essential things or space you need to do your work?

PS: “I’m pretty streaky, but I’m also turning the screws all the time. I tuck into various things I’m working on quite a bit – an hour or two here, a few minutes there. A daily schedule comes and goes. In terms of essentials, not so much. A desk, a lamp (at night), and a window work fine. I like mornings best. A room with some sort of view is great. Enablers learned that pretty early on and it taught me something about how I prefer to work. If you have a room that can look out on your surroundings, it’s very conducive to writing music or anything else. Playing in a room with four walls and a ceiling is an isolating experience. I know it’s very traditional and standard, but it just ain’t the way to do good or expansive work.

“I’ve told people over the years – try to find a place like that and see what happens; it’ll be good. As a band, we figured that out while rehearsing for Tundra. A good friend of ours lent out a space down by where Kevin and I lived (southernmost area of San Francisco). It ruled. It was designed like a little castle. Inside, there was an apartment where we played, and a big workspace connected to it. A fabricator operated in the workspace, our friend John also had his printing equipment set up in there (he did the artwork for End Note). But the apartment had a little deck out the back with a view of the bay. We’d take breaks out there, smoke, have a beer, talk about a tune we were working on, maybe talk about nothing related to music, have some laughs, or just go silent. Worked like a charm. Pretty nice lesson for me.”

S13: What about your editing process. Are you someone who is constantly re-writing and reshaping things?

PS: “For better or worse, yeah. Anything I write goes through many drafts (even this interview). Sometimes it takes years. Finding the sweet spot where a poem (or piece of music) begins to tell you where it wants to go is a tricky business. It can take a while to find it, so you just keep rooting around, switching up things. If you really get stuck, chuck what you have and start over. You always remember the good bits. Start over and see where that leads you. That’s how Bill, in Consideration was for me. That fucker took about 12, 13 years. There’s another one I’ve been working on just as long. Joe’s even got a couple parts for it. He’s been very patient.”

S13: Do you see your work as a reflection of yourself or is it something you undertake to escape everyday reality?

PS: “Both. The way Enablers work, the way I work, takes a lot of travel time. So, I suppose you’re continually swinging between each of those poles before you arrive at something you’re calling ‘finished’ or are willing to abandon. Ultimately, I think anything someone puts out into the world has to be a reflection of themselves. It’s an offering.”

That Bird Always Comes Back is out now via Aluminum Press. Purchase from Bandcamp.