The Current presents

The Format (Acoustic)

with special guest Dan Boeckner

INFORMATION | REGISTER

Register for your chance to purchase tickets via the link above.

Tickets for this show will be available exclusively through registration on The Format’s official website here: www.theformat.com. Registrants will be messaged the purchase code shortly before the show goes on sale on Friday, November 14 at 12:00 PM.

The Format will donate $5 from every ticket sold to support marginalized communities and fight food insecurity. This is a sponsored project of Catalyst Philanthropy Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity.

The Format

The Format was beginning to think the stars were aligned against them.

Just as Nate Ruess and Sam Means were finally able to sort through the aftermath of the 2020 pandemic-which first stalled, then completely wiped out their last attempt at a reunion-tragedy struck again. On the very first day of recording new music in nearly 20 years with Grammy-winning producer Brendan O’Brien (Pearl Jam, The Killers, Bruce Springsteen), the Los Angeles wildfires broke out, leaving devastation across the city. It was enough to inspire a little conspiratorial thinking.

“It seriously felt like the universe was against us,” Ruess says, trailing off. “It was at least…” “It was testing us, for sure,” Means adds, finishing the thought.

It’s no wonder that Boycott Heaven, their third album, is charged with there is no waiting on tomorrow energy. After all, if the universe was in fact putting you through your paces, how might you respond? Not on some far-off imagined judgement day, but right now?

“Holy roller, don’t go wasting all your time,” Ruess sings in the boisterous single “Holy Roller.” In other words, the time for creating something more like heaven isn’t tomorrow or some other day, but today.

A certain romantic fatalism has always coursed through The Format’s lyrics, which the more mature Ruess cops to in the heartland rocker “Shot in the Dark.” “Lived my whole life like I was ready to die,” he confesses over jangling guitars and stomping rhythms. But Boycott Heaven is filled with reflections on reasons to stick around this broken old world: family, life-long connections, distorted guitar riffs, and a stubborn belief that even as bad as it is, tomorrow could be better.

Once it was safe to return, the duo got back to work at Henson Recording Studios. Sam and Nate both played electric guitars-Ruess having picked up the instrument in the years since The Format’s last album, in addition to launching a solo career, forming the chart-topping fun. with Jack Antonoff and Andrew Dost, and collaborating with P!nk, Kesha, and Hayley Williams of Paramore.) Their rhythm section was comprised of O’Brien on bass and drummer Matt Chamberlain (David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Soundgarden, Fiona Apple,).

Fans of Interventions + Lullabies (2003) and Dog Problems (2006) will recognize the hooks and retro-pop bravado, but Boycott Heaven signals a new era. It’s not a nostalgia play, even as it incorporates sonic nods to the alt-rock, grunge, and pop-punk sounds Ruess and Means first bonded over as Arizona teenagers.

“We first bonded listening to bands like Weezer, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots,” Ruess says. “I’m a new guitarist, just enamored with power chords, so I’m listening to all this stuff we’d listen to back then and cross referencing—NOFX, Lagwagon. But you take that pop-punk stuff and slow it down, and then have Matt Chamberlain playing on it, and then it feels a little like grunge. All that’s in there.”

“It does kind of bring us back,” Means says, not just in terms of time but “As a partnership, too. It feels like a cool extension of where we came from.”

Though the concept of recording with a mega hit producer was intense at first, Means says O’Brien made it easy to focus on the music. “Brendan just being Brendan made it so that we could focus on being there to make a good record and have a good time,” he says. “Not that it wasn’t a whirlwind, cause it was. When it happened, it happened fast.”

With steady hands like O’Brien and Chamberlain backing them up, Ruess and Means didn’t have to worry about second guessing the implications of following up their past work-the act of creating new sounds kept them entirely occupied. The results are diverse, from the power pop charger “Depressed,” which hinges on buzzsaw guitars and close harmonies, to the folk ballad “Right Where I Belong,” to the rousing anthem “No You Don’t,” which sounds like a lost Pinkerton B-side.

Even as they disbanded, The Format never closed the door entirely to future collaboration. Steadily resisting the “emo nostalgia” bucks offered to them, Ruess focused on new projects, and Means devoted himself to solo musical work and his independent music merchandise company, Hello Merch.

When Ruess contacted him in August 2024, he didn’t realize that right away the band was actually flipping the switch into “new Format music mode”, though the work quickly revealed the path, and the two found that their years apart hadn’t dulled their creative psychic connection.

“At first, we weren’t even sure,” Means says, noting that when Ruess reached out with set of guitar-based demos, a new mode for the mostly vocals-based composer, he thought they might be songs intended for the follow up to Ruess’ solo debut Grand Romantic (2015), but as they bounced ideas back and forth, it became clear what was happening.

“It was like, ‘Well yeah, this is a Format record,’” Ruess says, “What else could it be?”

Though Means admits he knows some people will read the words “boycott heaven” and immediately form an opinion, Ruess says the title came to him more or less by accident. “It was a hashtag on Twitter. I read ‘boycott heaven’ but it was ‘boycott Heineken,’” he says, stifling a laugh. “But I just thought the words sounded beautiful together. It’s not an anti-religion record—I think religion can be a beautiful thing—it’s just when something is out of balance, sometimes a boycott is in order.”

Ruess cites Paul Schrader’s Ethan Hawke-starring masterpiece First Reformed (2017) as a major inspiration on the album, and just like that bleak, beautiful movie, Ruess doesn’t avoid thorny topics-from religion to fake friends, all while maintaining an empathetic stance that’s less about preaching and more about observing.

“I would love nothing more than to write about the world in a cheesy way,” Ruess says with a wry laugh, but instead, Boycott Heaven portrays the world as it is: full of beauty, sadness, and always, no matter how hard to see, possibility.

Following sold-out reunion gigs in Phoenix, Los Angeles, and New York, where songs from Boycott Heaven were debuted live, the new album signifies both a rebirth and continuation of The Format. When the band originally disbanded in 2008, their goodbye note made reference to a Twin Peaks DVD boxset Ruess and Means were passing back and forth, in an attempt to unravel the show’s mysteries. While cutting Boycott Heaven, Means insisted they devote a deep dive watch to 2017’s revival series, Twin Peaks: The Return. The mysteries-and the magic-remain.

Like Mark Frost and the late David Lynch returning to their beloved fictional Washington town, Boycott Heaven is the product of two longtime confidants creating something they could only create together, changed by time but still tied to their roots.

“Been gone for way too long,” Ruess sings on album closer “Back To Life.” “I never meant to say goodbye,” he follows up. The song signifies a new start, a new beginning, and a new chapter in the story of The Format.

Dan Boeckner

Daniel Boeckner understands the grit and gravel that accumulates in the heart and that it takes an unwavering courage to crack through that clutter and burrow to the other side. And in Boeckner’s hands, that quest comes via postapocalyptic synth and guitar heroism, a rallying cry for those always coming home through the scorched clouds. Throughout his work with Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs, Divine Fits, Operators, Atlas Strategic, and more, the iconic Canadian indie rocker recognizes that few feelings are more gratifying—more memorable, more generative, more abundant—than hope. But it takes getting the hell out of your own way. A culmination of that deep library of musical reference, Boeckner is set to release his first album under his own name: Boeckner! “I think in a lot of ways in my mind I’m still playing in a punk band in Vancouver,” Boeckner laughs. “Starting back when I was a teenager, my life in music has been trying to develop my own musical language, and this record is the beginning of presenting that.”

No matter where his genre exploration has taken him, there’s something about growing up in punk and DIY spaces that puts collaboration in Boeckner’s blood. Composed of a collection of intimately familiar elements, Boeckner! elicits the same thrill of young passion and discovery. It’s a jet-powered chase through a tech-noir cityscape—fueled by a dream and that special someone in the passenger seat. Boeckner introduces this fused language immediately with the thumping opening track and lead single “Lose.” Buoyed by the scorched space-age synths developed across two records with Operators and the fist-pumping guitar push of Wolf Parade, the song charges headlong into a new world. “Now I’m a walking phantom/ Night watch at the radar station,” Boeckner sings, as if in a race against time to keep hope alive.

That urgency and passion have always been a trademark of Boeckner’s, and writing on his own pushes those feelings further into the center of the scope. But while Boeckner may be the clear driving force behind the album, he’s not without collaborators for his solo debut. After meeting producer Randall Dunn while contributing to the soundtrack to the Nicolas Cage-starring psychedelic horror film Mandy, Boeckner knew he’d found the perfect counterpart for his solo debut. “I’d been a fan of his forever, especially the Sunn0))) records he produced,” Boeckner says. “Working with Randall really unlocked some suppressed musical urges, things that I enjoy in my private life but don’t normally weave into what I’m releasing—like occult synth, pseudo-metal, krautrock, and heavy psych influences.”

Album highlight “Euphoria” dips into that off-kilter darkness, dashes of vibraphone tossed against woozy waves of synth. “It’s too late/ Time accelerates/ From the cradle to the grave,” Boeckner calls like some nuclear fallout Ziggy Stardust, glitching electronics dripping off the mix. The track’s percussive thrum comes courtesy of Matt Chamberlain—whose credits include work with Bowie and Fiona Apple, not to mention a stint as drummer for Pearl Jam—and serves to bolster Boeckner’s potent guitar throughout the record.

That solid base allows Boeckner to thoughtfully weave between emotional imagism and more grounded storytelling. Throughout the record, his imagery delves into science fiction, but it’s charged first and foremost by experience. “With the exception of early Wolf Parade, I've always tried to put myself into a fictional mindset, but with this record, I was tapping into something raw and personal,” he explains. As a prime example, the desperate reach of “Euphoria” is felt in every line, pushed to its titular state only through some unhealthy choices, the gloom drawing near.

The trio of Boeckner, Dunn, and Chamberlain formed a sort of dark engine for the album, and Chamberlain’s ingenious approach of triggering a vintage Arp synthesizer simultaneously with each drum track helped Boeckner shape the record’s atmosphere. That layered shadow colors the acoustic-tinged haze of “Dead Tourists,” a song littered with bad omens—steel-eyed cattle, bodies lined on church pews, overturned luxury cars. That tense futurism was influenced by Boeckner’s time staying in Dunn’s Circular Ruin studio, a dusky, electronic aura singed into every track...He often found himself falling asleep under the synth rack in a sleeping bag, looking up through a tiny skylight at the Brooklyn lights, the faint thump of Daniel Lopatin recording his latest Oneohtrix Point Never record next door coming through the wall.

In addition to tapping into his own rock roots, Boeckner brought in one of his personal guitar heroes. “As a teenager, I imported cassettes of Medicine’s flawless shoegaze noise records, and I absolutely loved Brad Laner’s sandblasting, Chernobyl guitar,” he says. And while Boeckner first reached out hoping Laner would contribute to one track, the Medicine guitarist wound up adding guitar layers throughout the album, as well as helping arrange vocal harmonies. The haunted, wordless choir on “Don’t Worry Baby” stand especially tall in that regard, Laner delivering Boeckner’s writing through his trademark Medicine guitar ravage.

“This record is like an autobiography—Atlas Strategic music concrete synth explosions, lush synth stuff from Operators, the noise guitar from Handsome Furs, drawing influence from everything from Stockhausen to Tom Waits all at the same time,” Boeckner says. And as the record fades away on the low-slung “Holy is the Night,” the mutated skyline fades away, replaced by blue skies “after the plague.” No longer a sci-fi epic, Boeckner! eases into something more akin to a torched VHS copy of a John Cassevetes film, the chemtrails and nuclear fallout fading long in the distance. “How much pain can we deliver before the sunrise, baby/ Holy is the night we can get some peace,” he sighs. “How much blood can this world want from you and me together?” Like all good sci-fi, the emotion and pain hits home for the author and listener alike, and genre flourishes there to bolster the human experience. And in revealing more than ever before, Boeckner! both ratchets up the musical intensity to unforeseen levels and hopes to find some peace at the end of the journey.