Interviews: Talking 'My Body Is My Sickness' with Meredith Haines of Latter

Chance brought experimental sound artist Meredith Haines (MAIR) and Jon Alvarado of Beach Bunny together in Chicago in 2022 and not long afterward Latter came into being. Last month the duo unleashed their excellent debut album My Body Is My Sickness and introduced the world to their wonderfully heavy, gloriously noisy, extremely cathartic sound. The lyrics are viscerally poetic as Meredith confronts a past relationship, talks about living with chronic illness, and moves toward healing with restorative rage. There is a deep level of connection present in each of the seven tracks which makes My Body Is My Sickness sound even bigger and hit even harder. My Body Is My Sickness is available everywhere now via Damien Records. Latter will be playing at the Archer Ballroom in Chicago on November 16.
Punknews editor Em Moore caught up with Meredith to talk about how Latter came about, the power of sharing stories, chronic illness, the magic of the DIY music scene, and so much more. Read the interview below!

This interview between Em Moore and Meredith Haines took place over Zoom on October 3, 2024. What follows is a transcription of their conversation and has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Latter formed in 2022 completely by chance. How did you come together?

I actually never wanted to play music again. I was like, “I never want to be in a band again” but I was starting to miss playing music, so I posted on my Instagram story, “Does anyone wanna be in a screamo band?” It’s funny because we’re not a screamo band at all. A couple people in Chicago who are mutual friends with people in Philly were like, “Oh yeah, we are trying to start a heavier project as well. Would it be cool if our friend Jon comes too?” and I was like, “Yeah, definitely”. I had no idea who he was at all. So we all met up and it was fun. There were a couple times when it was just me and Jon playing because the other people cancelled. I was like, “This is good. I think we write good music together so why don’t we try it?” It was funny because I didn’t seek this person out or anything. We met in a really random way that was through like a friend of a friend. I think it’s cool. The only writing members of the band are me and Jon.

It’s like it was meant to happen that way.

That’s literally how it feels! I didn’t want to play music anymore. I was kind of over it and I wasn’t ever planning on starting a bigger project like this where we’re touring and recording and stuff. It was really just supposed to be for fun but then we went into the studio and were like, “Oh, maybe there’s something here. The music is good”. It really felt like it was meant to happen in a way, to be honest. It was like I gave up but the Universe had other plans for me.

You recorded this with Pete Grossman at Bricktop Studios. How did you decide where to record? What was it like working with Pete?

Oh my god, Pete is the best! I love him so much. The songs weren’t super heavy when we were playing them with each other so we wanted to go with someone who would bring out more heaviness and who would know how to work with tone in a way that would make the songs sound heavier than they were when we were writing them. I started looking at some Chicago bands that I like, like Crowning, Frail Body, and Harm’s Way, and I saw that they had gone to Bricktop Recording. Frail Body and Crowning worked with Pete. So we gave it a shot.
It was honestly one of the best creative decisions I’ve ever made. Pete is awesome to work with. I cannot recommend him enough. Any time anyone wants to record, I recommend Pete. Another really awesome part about that was the fact that Pete is left-handed and I am too. Pete had a bunch of left-handed guitars so I was able to really experiment that way. In the past when I would go recording, there were only right-handed guitars that I could use and I don’t play guitar right-handed. It was really cool to be able to work with Pete and use all of his gear. [laughs] It was the best. It all felt very meant to happen. Working with Pete was the best creative experience I’ve ever had with recording because I had a massive increase in gear that I could use.

Did you have a favourite piece of gear that you used during the recording process?

Yes! It was a Bass VI that I ended up buying from him. There were two songs that we were writing in a weird tuning that was like drop A so it was A, E, A, D, F#, B. I was playing it on my regular Fender guitar so it didn’t sound really good and Pete was like, “Play it on this Bass VI. Try it on this!” It sounded so good! That’s what we recorded it with. “Raw” and “My Body Is My Sickness” are played on that guitar. I was like, “I love this guitar, I kinda want to buy one” and he was like, “Luckily for you, I’m selling it” so I ended up buying it from him. Everything worked out perfectly.

How would you describe your songwriting process?

Jon and I go into our practice space and we just start jamming. We write a song pretty quickly. Usually, we’ll kind of have a structure, like a verse and a chorus, within 20-30 minutes. It’s pretty seamless. We have played with each other long enough that we can figure out where the person is going with their ideas. It just works out perfectly. We’ll record it on an iPhone, we’re not fancy. We’re not in the studio with all our gear demoing - we’ve done that a few times but we don’t usually do that. We usually record it on an iPhone and then I tab it out on guitar tab paper because otherwise I will forget. [laughs] I’ll be like, “Oh yeah, I’ll remember it!” and then the next week I’m like, “I have no idea what just happened. I have no recollection of that happening” so I tab it out. We’ll come back to it after a few months and really start fleshing out the structure of it, adding intros, outros, bridges, and stuff like that. I’ll do lyrics on my own at home. I don’t like collaborative lyric writing but I like collaborative music writing up until the lyrics and then I’m like, “This is a me thing”.

You’ve said creating noise for MAIR is personal and solitary and you have two noise tracks - “Little Hell” and “Mother In My Dreams” - on this album. Did that feeling change when creating noise tracks for Latter?

Kind of. I made those noise tracks but they’re meant to be bridges between songs so they’re more informed by music than the MAIR stuff that I do. The MAIR stuff I do is in the context of noise and sound art but I wanted these to be more musical. So yes and no. [laughs]

What helps you write lyrics? What helps you tap into that space?

Having something to be really angry about. I feel like music has always been a way for me to get out my anger. That’s always been the primary emotion behind me making music, it’s a way to get out things that are pissing me off. There was actually a lot going on in my personal life at the time when I was writing the lyrics so it was kinda easy. I needed to have an outlet. My personal life was very much in shambles at that time so it was very easy to tap into everything that was happening and channel it. It was really therapeutic to write those lyrics. We’ll have to see what the second album holds, I don’t know because everything is so much better now. The world is on fire so there’s a lot to be angry about. I think it’s just a matter of picking something to focus on.

What song was the most therapeutic to write?

Probably “I Don’t Owe You”. That one I had kinda started writing back in 2023 and then I finished the lyrics. That one was pretty cathartic. There are a lot of layered noise things in there that also speak to the lyrics. In the chorus, there’s a voice recording that I sent someone I was dating. You can only barely hear it. Being able to use the sonic elements with the lyrics was really very cathartic for me. I was processing the situation as I was writing the lyrics.
It was sad to do it. It was a sad experience writing that song, but every time I wrote a line I was like, “Yes! This is exactly how I feel!” [laughs] I feel like whenever I can put into words exactly how I’m feeling, it’s almost a relief. It lessens the burden of it.

“Raw” is one of my favourite songs on the album. What’s the story behind that song?

All of the songs are about one relationship that was kind of the most important relationship in my life so far. That song specifically is about that person having a lot of power over me for a lot of different reasons and me wanting an apology for the things that they have done but knowing that I’m not gonna get it. The first lyric of the song is, “I tried to drag it out / But you got anchors for your teeth”. It’s about so badly wanting them to apologize and knowing that it’s never gonna happen.
For so long I really wanted revenge over this person but I feel like the album was my revenge. A lot of the lyrics on that song are talking about revenge, wanting someone to repent, and all this stuff. The album is my story about this person and having that out in the world and people finally knowing my story - because I feel like a lot of people just know that person’s story about the situation - and having it be something people can relate to, that feels like my revenge. I think that’s also what “Raw” is about, them not apologizing but being like, “Whatever, fuck you”. [laughs]

Doing it on your own terms. There’s so much power in telling your story as you want to tell it.

Oh my god, yeah. I really needed to write the lyrics for this album. I needed to tell my story for many different reasons. It felt like no one really knew the truth about what happened with this person and this album is the truth. People can interpret it however they want.
Writing music is really just about finding other people who feel similarly to you. Anytime someone tells me they like my music or they like Latter, it’s really just another way of knowing that you’re not alone and people are responding to what you wrote. It’s weird because it is about your ego but it’s also about connection. I feel like the kind of music we play is really about sharing stories. To me when people like the music it’s like they’re saying, “Hey, I’m listening to your story” and I’m like, “Finally! People are listening to my story”. It feels good.

The lyrics that close the album are, “My body is not mine / Nobody’s is” on “My Body Is My Sickness”. What was going through your head when you were writing that? Why did you choose to end the album with that line?

That song is about a lot of different things, to be honest. It is about being chronically ill. I’m a chronically ill person, and obviously “My Body Is My Sickness” definitely taps into that, but my chronic illness is really tied up into my story about this person. I’m open about this and most of my sound art is about a lot of this too, that song is kind of about when I was diagnosed with herpes in my relationship with this person and how they just left me alone in that situation. Even though that technically doesn’t count as chronic illness, for me it was the first time I became aware of my body as something can become contaminated or infected or changed at any given moment. It’s about chronic illness but it’s all tied into that story. It’s all kind of the same thing.
When I say, “My body is not mine / Nobody’s is” it’s about how our bodies are permeable things. We don’t have full control over our bodies, we can all become disabled at any moment. Disability and chronic illness and STIs and all these things - they’re not these isolated incidents, they are things that happen to almost everyone. It’s not a matter of if it’s a matter of when. In disability communities, they say, “Everyone is eventually going to become disabled, it’s just a matter of when it happens”. It’s like, “Yes, our bodies are ours but we have less control over them than we’d like to think”. I think that situation, with getting herpes, was the first time I became so aware of, “Oh shit! I have no control over this situation”. It’s not a part of being chronically ill, but it definitely relates to that part of me.

I saw your dance piece about herpes too.

Yeah! I think that was also called “My Body Is My Sickness” and I reused it. I do a lot of different things. [laughs] It was about how the way we use language affects how we perceive people who have STIs or whatever. For example, in the US if you get STI results and you test negative for everything, it’s pretty common to be like, “I’m clean” and it’s like, “Ok, what does that mean if you test positive?” The language we use matters. That was the first time I started toying with the line “My body is my sickness”. I thought it would be fine to reuse it. I’m an artist doing dance and sound art and I’m also a musician but it’s all about the same experiences, it’s all related. I’m talking about the same things.

Your videos all have that performance art quality to them too. For the video for “Callous”, you went to LA to film and worked with Drip Dome Productions. What was that experience like?

Yes! That’s my biological brother! Oh my god, it was so fun. We wanted to do a music video for “Callous” and we wanted to have my brother do some sort of set design for it. The confession booth that I’m in, they designed that and made it for us. We recorded it in a studio set that was kinda like a church. It was the best experience. It was so fun to collaborate with my brother and my sister-in-law and her sister. They run the production company. It was like a family affair. It was so cool to have my brother be a part of that. Everything felt very serendipitous. I wasn’t playing music and I started again and now my brother is involved. For years my mom was like, “You and your brother should do something together!” So it was cool to actually do something with him.

Do you think you’ll collaborate more in the future?

Definitely! They also produced the whole thing for us. They put together the shot list and the schedules and ordered all the props. We’ll definitely work with them again. The people that they used, like the videographer, were great. It was hectic and stressful because we only had 8 hours but it was just so fun.

Your video for “I Don’t Owe You” was filmed by Aaron Rodriguez in Schiller Woods in Chicago.

We just went to the woods. That was really fun. We kind of wanted to have the same theme. We never really intended to have a horror-type theme for the album, it just ended up happening by accident so we wanted to keep it close but we didn’t really have a budget this time so we were like, “What if we just do a found footage-type thing?” We ended up doing that. Jon had COVID that day so it was just me and Aaron but it was really fun. Jon’s fine now. I had fun filming that one. I definitely broke out in hives after. I probably touched something weird because I was rolling around in the woods. I had hives for 6 weeks after but it’s fine, it was worth it.

I was gonna say maybe it was poison ivy but that doesn’t last 6 weeks.

That’s what I thought it was at first! I was like, “Oh, it was probably poison ivy” but I went to the doctor and they were like, “No, you’re having some weird severe allergic reaction”. I’m a performance artist so I’m like, “Whatever happens, happens. If I get hives for 6 weeks, I get hives for 6 weeks”. It could have been a lot worse, I could’ve gotten a tick or something.

You just finished Latter’s first US tour. What was your favourite memory or moment from these shows?

It was so fun! I hadn’t been on a DIY tour since 2019. I think I went on a few weekenders for noise stuff but that was the first time since 2019 that I’d been on a DIY tour. My favourite part was seeing all of these people who I hadn’t really spent a significant amount of time within 4 or 5 years. Just reconnecting and being like, “Hey, I play music again!” and being able to share that with them. To be able to remember that I’m still a part of the community even though I left for a few years was probably my favourite part.

I just came back and I feel like I’m bursting with love and gratitude. I’m just like, “Everything is the best! I would be no one without DIY!” That’s how I feel. I feel like people who don’t participate in DIY music can’t really understand how special it is to have this community across the world who are all helping each other and sharing their art with one another. It’s so unique and it’s such a beautiful human experience. I feel so grateful for it. It was the best.

Yarrow reunited for one of the shows. How was that?

Yeah we did! It was so fun! I got to Philly a day early and we relearned all of the songs, that was a challenge. One of them we’d just forgotten entirely. I was like, “I have no recollection of ever even writing this”. So we were like, “It’s fine, scratch it. We’ll just not do that one”. [laughs] We already barely knew the other songs. [laughs] It was funny, I think it was actually one of our best sets. We hadn’t played together since 2019 but we did it and it sounded good.

Sometimes you need that couple of years break.

Sometimes, yeah. I think it’s kinda the same with anything, like if you have a hobby or something and you put it down for a while and all of a sudden you pick it back up and you’re better than you ever were at it. That happens with me with running sometimes where I won’t run for a month and then I’ll run and hit a PR. That’s what it felt like. I was like, “We barely messed up, that’s crazy”. We always used to mess up.

Your next show is coming up on November 16 at Archer Ballroom in Chicago. What are you looking forward to about playing that show?

I’m excited to play Chicago again. We somehow managed to build a little bit of a community here. I think people like our music and we had a pretty good turnout to the album release show. I’m really looking forward to continuing to build our community in Chicago. I can’t wait.

Do you have a song off the album that’s your favourite to play live?

Definitely “My Body Is My Sickness”. It’s the last one we play live and I don’t play guitar, I just go out there and act crazy as the front person. That one’s my favourite one to play live because I can just go crazy.

Which part of My Body Is My Sickness are you proudest of?

I feel like working with Jon was the best because Jon has a lot of pop sensibilities that I don’t have. I feel like in the past a lot of my music maybe didn’t appeal to a larger audience as much because I’m on the crazier side of things, writing really weird riffs and stuff. I feel like Jon grounds it. It’s not pop obviously and there aren’t any pop elements but I feel like his ideas make it more accessible. I think a lot of the melodic elements are Jon. Just having that collaboration and having it work out perfectly.

What does the future hold for Latter?

We’re gonna record the second album in January and February. Right now we’re writing. We’re going to get our online store up. We’ll probably do some small weekenders and stuff like that but we’ll be focusing on writing the next album.