And what, you may ask, is an ACI? Adult Correctional Institutions – or, if you prefer, a prison. On this latest release from Deer Tick’s new album Coin-O-Matic we find the band in Springsteen’s Nebraska or The River territory as a story of low level crime unfolds with an inevitable ending in incarceration whilst “another fool comes to take my place.” Loss of freedom, loss of family and a marriage heading for an unhappy ending – was the easy money really worth it?
Deer Tick’s John McCauley explains about the song that “The ACI (Adult Correctional Institutions) is the state prison system here in Rhode Island – as much as it is infamous for its conditions and some of its current and former residents, it’s also somewhat of a punchline. Recently, there was a problem with some of the locks malfunctioning… seriously. I came up with the chorus while we were jamming at a soundcheck. It stuck with me and I decided to flesh it out and write an entire story about a neighbourhood hoodlum and his best friend who commit a robbery that goes all wrong. It was my first true effort at writing a song for Coin-O-Matic, which at the time had only existed as an idea. I even talked to a few people in the legal system to make sure I got my facts straight and creatively played very little with the truth. A heartland rocker with a worm at its core.”
There was, incidentally, an error on the Soundcloud link we were provided for ACI and so, rather than hold this cut back for a few days while we got that sorted out we thought “Hey, the video’s basically a performance video, crossed with an A-Ha! type concept, so let’s go for it.” And so we did. And whilst it’s easy for us to underplay the effort we should note that director Colin Devin Moore has explained that something like this, you know it don’t come easy: “We shared frames with friends, fans, and family, who generously reimagined the footage one frame at a time, without direction – intentionally out of our control. What came back is a collage of styles that reflects the people who made it as much as the song itself. When combined, the results feel unstable – like memory, or identity under pressure – which aligns with the song’s themes. It’s imperfect, inconsistent, and human on purpose. It was a real pain-in-the-ass, risky video to make, but in a time where everything is trending toward automation, I’m happy we leaned the other way. Embracing imperfection, unpredictability, and the loss of control.” We’re glad too.
They’re on the podcast in a couple of weeks!