On new album, DIY punk band The Taxpayers seek solace during violent times
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Rob Taxpayer was holding his newborn son when he found out his friend had been murdered.
“While my son was sleeping in my arms, I got a buzz on my phone about it,” Rob remembers. “This sense of safety was just shattered. My friend had been killed, and it was less than a mile from my house.”
That friend was August Golden, a fellow musician and member of the DIY punk scene.
In 2023, 17-year-old Dominic Burris shot and killed 35-year-old Golden and injured several others at Nudieland, a beloved Minneapolis DIY punk venue. This week, Burris was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
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The loss of this community member, as well as other loved ones, is at the heart of “Circle Breaker,” the new album by the internationally known DIY punk band The Taxpayers.
It’s their seventh studio album and the first release in almost 10 years. Rob says it's the most personal album they’ve ever made.
The tour for the new album starts March 27 at the Underground Music Cafe, an all-ages venue in downtown Minneapolis, before heading to Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New York and beyond.
While the band formed circa 2007 in Portland, Ore., The Taxpayers are scattered, calling Washington, Detroit, Philadelphia and Minneapolis home, too. In addition to Rob (vocals, guitar, piano) and his partner Elise (cello), members include Andrew (guitar, banjo, melodica, vocals), Nasrene (bass, accordion, vocals), Noah (percussion), Kevin (trumpet, piano, organ, glockenspiel) and Alex (saxophone). All band members use the last name Taxpayer.
Taking refuge
The band recorded their new album in the Minneapolis basement of Rob and Elise.
“We did it here, because my house and all my stuff's here and we got enough space for everybody to stay here, live here,” Rob says. “When everybody can just be in one place and just sleep in the same place, creatively you can explore a lot more than if you’re going into the recording studio nine to five.”
“Circle Breaker” is about cycles of life and death — and trying to find refuge when there may be none. That theme begins with the first track, “Circle Protector,” which Rob wrote in the immediate aftermath of Golden’s death, which shocked the community.
“The punk community, I think globally, became aware of the Nudieland shooting because these DIY punk shows are places of refuge for people,” Rob says. “These are places of peace. These are places of belonging, a place where somebody who does not feel like they belong in greater society can go and belong and feel supported and loved and cherished and feel safe.”
Circling a tragedy
The band met Golden in 2008 in California through the punk community. Some of The Taxpayers played music with Golden, and their paths continued to crisscross across the U.S. in Portland, New Orleans and eventually Minneapolis.
A friend had invited Rob and Elise to the Nudieland show the night of the shooting, but as new parents, they decided to stay home. The next morning, they heard the news.
That night, Rob put their son to bed and stepped outside with lemongrass.
Rob and Elise had grown lemongrass at their former home in New Orleans to burn in a ritual of protection and remembrance, as they regularly encountered violence and shootings. In 2021, they left New Orleans for Minneapolis.
“Minnesota has always felt like a home to me,” says Rob, who is originally from Ohio. “Of course, once we arrive, all of the same stuff that was happening in New Orleans — it happens here, too.”
He adds: “You try to seek refuge in one place, and sometimes you find that refuge is perhaps impossible completely.”
So Rob took the lemongrass outside to perform what had become an all-too-common ritual.
“I lit the lemongrass, and I walked a circle around our house,” he recalls. “I said a prayer for August, for everybody in my neighborhood, and then I kind of widened the circle.”
After walking around his new Minneapolis neighborhood, Rob went back inside and wrote “Circle Protector.”
“That was the impetus for the first song,” Rob says. “But then, so many similar things had happened in the previous year.”
At war with a stump full of hope
The Taxpayers had also lost loved ones to suicide, and, about two years ago, a close friend of Andrew Taxpayer was shot and killed down the street from his home in Portland. The friend was 19.
Soon after, Andrew’s neighbor had an old cherry tree ripped out of the sidewalk.
“The building, the windows are shaking as we're crying inside,” Andrew recalls. “It was very surreal and heart-wrenching and scary. It was literally like our world was being rocked.”
The leftover stump sprouted a few branches and leaves. Andrew texted a photo to his bandmates. The band was inspired. The stump now appears on the album cover.
“That new growth was very metaphoric of new beginnings, a cycle of life and death, of just the perseverance of life,” Andrew says.
The hopeful stump led the band to rework some of the album’s original material.
“We scrapped a bunch of songs, and we rewrote some songs, and we added some songs,” Rob says. “Once we knew what the reason for the album existing was, then we kind of focused the intent based on the image that Andrew took.”
Everybody has a right
The loss of these friends and others — as well as the loss of a sense of safety in the current political climate — shows up on tracks such as “At War with the Dog Catchers,” “Everything is Evil” and "Empty Shed.”
Andrew and Rob say their vision of community feels at odds with much of the world today.
“The leadership of many countries, especially America right now, is hostile to the idea that people can come from another place and find a new home and find love and support and peace in a new area,” Rob says.
“That is the antithesis of what we believe collectively as a band, which is that everybody has a right to a home, to a safe place to live and raise their kids and find community and find happiness and purpose and worth.”
Future islands
The album is also full of hope, heard on tracks such as “Naked Trees,” “Everything Will Be Different” and “Future Islands.”
On “Future Islands,” the band sings over cello, guitar and piano: “Where the wild creatures run. There will be decency. There will be room in our hearts.”
“What do you do in response to the senselessness? The only thing that makes sense to me to do is try to put love into the world,” Rob says. “That seems to really be the only way that you can actually combat violence and hate and senselessness is by holding on to love.”
They hope the new album can provide some refuge in uncertain times.
“Give people some solace, something to fall back on when times are hard,” Andrew says.
“That’s what good music has done for me in my life, and that's all I could ever wish for it to do for somebody else, even if it's just one person.”
