Gold-Bears' Jeremy Underwood talks fatherhood, looking past Atlanta, and staying a vital indie pop band

Raising a daughter and fronting one of Atlanta's most ambitious indie pop bands could seem like a fatal contradiction to some. The images of the touring life — a different city every night, a rotating cast of sweaty bodies in each new audience, time alone turned into a sparse commodity — don't jive with diaper changing, playing house, or discussing whether being a princess is a serious career move. But the role of the working punk rock dad seems tailored to fit for 34-year-old Gold-Bears' frontman Jeremy Underwood. The pop-leaning punk outfit's recently released LP Dalliance bursts with a newfound sense of freedom. The record teems with uplifting jolts of energy balanced out by lyrics caught squarely between anger and self-realization. In anticipation of Gold-bears' headlining show at 529 on Wed., Aug. 6, Underwood took a few minutes to talk about the benefits of looking past Atlanta, staying vital in the indie pop world, and the rewards of fatherhood.

How did the music around you in East Atlanta influence Dalliance?

Obviously Small Reactions is a band that I admire and most of them are in Gold-Bears. I also really like Places to Hide and Bodyfather, but I've never really felt like we've been apart of the scene at all, and I still don't feel like we're apart of the scene. I feel like we're too pop for punk bands but we're too punk for pop bands. We sit somewhere in the middle. We're not all very social or cool people. I've never really felt like we've actually been part of the scene. I've always thought of Gold-Bears on a national level. I've never thought of making it in Atlanta because I've always set my sights outside of Atlanta to push Gold-bears nationally.

Do you feel like being 34 has added to that isolation?

(laughs) Probably, I definitely feel like that's a factor as well.

How has looking past Atlanta benefited Gold-Bears?

Being a part of the indie pop scene for 20 years now personally is what's gotten Gold-Bears to what it is now. Before we played shows in Atlanta, we had two indie pop labels wanting to put out our record and two 7-inches. So it's aligning yourself with the scene outside of Atlanta. The indie pop scene doesn't exist in Atlanta. It exists in Athens but not in Atlanta. I think that being aligned with the scene that doesn't exist in the city means you have to align yourself in other cities because your market is not in the city in which you live. So really for me being in the scene for 20 years is what has gotten us to what we are. We wouldn't have gotten the attention of Slumberland Records unless we were ordering records for years and sending in stuff for Gold-Bears for years. We have that commonplace, or common interest to talk to Slumberland about life in general. We're both older, and we both can talk about indie pop.

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Do you ever worry about wearing your influences too prominently on your sleeve?

Sure, yeah, I can see how that would limit us. But that's how I write songs. I'm not going to change the way I write songs for more of a broader appeal. That's just the way I write songs. I don't intentionally try to write songs like Superchunk, it just comes out that way.

How did having more lyrical freedom on Dalliance give your songwriting more freedom?

I think there's a dichotomy in the lyrics: They are very depressing but they're very confident and there's a sense of resolution in the lyrics as well. I wrote about a personal experience and that personal experience in the end came out to my benefit. It's not like a really mopey record, it's more like 'you did something to me and I'm gonna live my life the way that I want to.'

You've been in bands for a long time, how was that maturity affected your songwriting?

Honestly I think it's because I don't really care that much. I mean I have a job, I have a career, I have a kid, this isn't something I have to do. I'm not looking at it as a way to make money. So when you take out that aspect of it, I think it's easier for me to do because I don't worry about touring and proving the record. Some of these younger bands get into this mindset of 'oh shit we have to tour constantly to make ends meet.' And then your music becomes a commodity. And that's never good.

So it's actually easier being the punk rock working dad?

Totally.

Do you have any plans of where you want to see Gold-bears going forward?

I know a lot of guys that will spend a couple hours over the weekend writing songs but I can't do that. Something just comes to me and I have to write a song right away. So I don't have any plans for the next record or the next release, I haven't written a thing yet and I don't know when they're coming out. Gold-Bears has a good work ethic for songwriting, it just kind of happens and then we record and then hopefully something gets released.

How has having the innocence of a child back in your life influenced your music?

I've never thought about that. Maybe it's made me think less about it. And to realize that it really doesn't matter. There's this child that's looking up to me that doesn't care whether I release a record. There's less pressure because she doesn't know what's going on, she doesn't know I'm making records, she just wants to talk to me about Frozen and being a princess and not whether daddy has to play a show. Maybe it's made me care even less.

[http://clatl.com/atlanta/gold-bears-crying-told-slant-babes-motel/Event?oid=11468226|With The Hotels, New Junk City, and Terminally Ill Babes. Free. 9 pm. 529 Flat Shoals Ave. 404-228-6769.]