We use the term “indie rock” pretty loosely on The Postrider, but every once and a while, we stumble upon something that’s truly independent, truly DIY, truly homemade. Brother of Monday’s sophomore album Humdinger is one of those rare records that is in fact purely bootstrapped. Recorded by 48-year-old Newark, Delaware resident Petter Bothum on a Tascam 4-track, Humdinger is a followup to Bothum’s self-titled debut as Brother of Monday, which he self-released on Bandcamp in 2023 before it was eventually picked up by indie label Wilbur & Moore. Fans of Guided by Voices and their many acolytes will find a familiar formula in Bothum’s mix of scratchy, lo-fi production and Alex Chilton-style melodies, but where some bands use that clean/dirty mix to convey a sense of cynicism or detachment, there’s a very clear, beating heart beneath all the noise on Humdinger. Some of that sincerity may come from the fact that the record is something of a Bothum family affair: according to Peter, his middle child Kit sings backup on two tracks, his daughter Lauren has designed both of his album covers, and almost everyone in his household is involved in some form of musical “quality control.” 

I spoke with Bothum last week to ask him about the start of this project, his creative process, GBV’s enduring appeal, and, of course, what he’s listening to these days. The following has been edited for clarity and length.

I know you’ve already told the story to a couple of other websites, but could you just give me a brief overview of how Brother of Monday came to be?

I always played guitar, like just kind of doodled around with it, but it wasn’t till about I was 29 years old, in like 2004, I decided to get started in bands. The second one, Von Hayes, did pretty well on a minor league level, we kind of bounced around, played a couple of shows, and put out, I think at that time, just an album and an EP, and then we reconvened and made I think three more albums and another EP. But during COVID there was kind of a downtime where we couldn’t get together as much because of kids and what not, and then my brother passed away. It was this complicated relationship kind of thing, and it kind of inspired this sort of emotional thing to just kind of do [Brother of Monday’s self-titled debut album].

I just wanted to put it out on Bandcamp, I didn’t care if anybody ever heard it. I recorded it in I think three months and just put it out, and then, three days after that, this blog in Africa called JanglePopHub found it and did this awesome review, and then did this interview, and people found it and it resonated.

Eventually, two guys at Wilbur Moore records – one is based in the Netherlands and the other is based in Australia – found it and they wanted to put it out on their small indie label. Now, they’ve put the second one out as well.

What changed in your approach to Brother of Monday between the release of your first and second albums?

The one single on the first album [“Ken Tremendous”], people really were into that, so it’s like, you kind of get into the next one, and there’s a temptation to go, “Well, what did I do there? Do I duplicate that or do I improve on it?” It’s not that I wasn’t trying the first time, but I was definitely not thinking of it being widely heard, or even heard at all, by anybody. So, you’re like, “Well, what was it that made people find it? Why did Bas and Joep at Wilbur and Moore want to partner up?”

But my bandmate and I in Von Hayes have always just kind of done whatever we thought sounded good and not even thought about what people might want to hear, so that’s just kind of what I did. I can’t even remember what song I started with, but I just started banging out tunes. I can’t really say that there was anything that sparked it other than going, “Okay, time to make another album,” but it did get done around the same time – a year after the first one. 

It’s interesting, because I would be on a tape, working on a song, and then I’d rewind it and there was something old on there, so I’d use that. I do that sometimes because I feel like there were good ideas that I had discarded before for whatever reason, and then, you know, I found them again. I was like, “Ah, I think I can use them.”

If I remember correctly from other interviews, you’re recording on a 4-track, and it’s interesting to me how it feels almost like the kind of technology you use informs and kind of forces decisions. Like, if you’re recording digitally, you can just file an idea away in a folder or delete it, whereas with the 4-track you have to reckon with it a bit more.

I like the 4-tracks because it limits you, and you kind of just have to make decisions and live with it. Sometimes you leave mistakes in because you get a good take and you don’t really want to go back on that track, or sometimes you discover a mistake later because you’ve mixed down already so there’s two tracks combining, and you can’t fix them. Like, once you have the drums and vocal together, like, you can’t redo a vocal take or redo the drums, and you just had to find a way to patch over it.

But on this one, I did mix styles. I recorded on 4-track mainly, but there are some things that were on the iPhone that I fed into the 4-track and then recorded over. There was a handheld recorder I used a lot to overdub vocals. On “Book of Buck,” I sang the backup vocals live, like I recorded one vocal on the handheld recorder and then played that while singing. So, it took a while to time that in. I guess I just liked the way the recorder sounded, it had this really old timey sound.

The first song [“Bro Inn”] really is a mess, and I wanted it to be that way. The drums are a microphone inside a Tupperware that I’m playing drumsticks on, and the vocals, it’s more handheld recorder going on. So, I try to mix it up, because you never want it to get stale, you want to try all kinds of different things.

What’s the biggest difference, in your mind, between working with a band and working on a solo project?

In Brother of Monday, I have to play everything, so you don’t have that benefit of someone who’s more talented than you lending their talents to it and making the songs great. But in another way, it’s freeing because you’re kind of playing to your own standard, and have to make it as good as you can. So whatever idea you come up with, you’re like, “This is an idea, and I’m going with it.”

You mentioned earlier that you had some “guests” on this album. Who else was contributing and what did they do?

My buddy Nathan, we played together, like, really early on, just kind of goofing around, but he’s been a best buddy for years, he was in town when I was doing “Hunting Redemption,” so I was like “oh, why don’t you play bass on it” and he put a really cool bass line on it. And then my middle kid Kit sang back up on “Sixto” and “Kitteridge Farms.” They play music too, but sometimes it’s tough to get them to, like, come down and do it, but they really nailed that. My nephew, Ken, he’s about my age but he’s still kind of just learning guitar so I had him get on “Every Circle Can Have Two Centers” and add a lot of beef to that.

If you’re familiar with Guided by Voices, we’ve always used Todd Tobias, who produced some of their albums, in Von Hayes, and I asked him to do this one, and the tape is awesome. He made a lot of the songs flow into each other and bounce right into each other, and overall, I mean, the sound is there, it’s evened out and way punched up.

My next question was actually going to be about Todd Tobias. So it sounds like you’ve been working with him since Von Hayes?

I don’t know how the connection was made, I’m pretty sure my buddy in Von Hayes found him and made the initial connection because he had worked with him in a previous band. But, you know, there was definitely an obsession with Guided by Voices and we knew he pretty much will do any project, and very cheap. We just send him the files and then he works some kind of magic in Ohio, or wherever he is, and then sends them back.

It’s interesting, because we’ve talked about Guided by Voices a little bit here, and I know you’ve mentioned Big Star in other interviews. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the band 2nd Grade, but I interviewed them a few years ago, and they’re younger than you, but they’re super into that stuff too. I’m curious why you think this style seems to have transcend generations in the way it has.

I mean, it seems like every band has sort of carried that torch. Now, I don’t know if Guided by Voices is particularly a torch carrier of Big Star, but they obviously have a lot of power pop songs, and I’m sure Bob Pollard would say that that’s part of his canon. But I feel like Big Star, the Raspberries, The Replacements, Teenage Fanclub, you know, that’s sort of the lineage that I like. “Look It In” on the first album was pretty deliberately a stab at Big Star.

As far as Guided by Voices go, I definitely stick exclusively with the lo-fi years, even though I do like some of the stuff where they went for a nicer sound. I was probably, like, mid-to-late 20s, maybe even early 20s, when I got into them, so I guess that’s kind of kept with me until this time. I’m guessing a lot of older dudes and ladies continue to like that stuff, but I like finding new stuff that are trying to emulate that sound. I like Snail Mail and Momma a lot. Those are two of my favorite current bands that I don’t sound like, and probably couldn’t, because I’m not a young woman.

I do it because I still like it, but I feel like rock – and most music, really – is a younger person’s thing. Like, when you’re young and you’re trying to prove yourself, and you’re angsty and you’re like, hungry, you have new ideas, I feel like, that’s the best music that’s made. It’s always older people who are like, “Ah, there’s no good music being made anymore.” It’s like, well, that’s because you’re old and you don’t understand what younger people are saying, right? When I listen to Momma, I’m not living that life, but I like the music, and I can identify with how they’re putting themselves in their songs. So, you know, it’s definitely a young person’s thing, and anytime I hear someone trying to emulate those classic sounds, it’s pretty cool.

You’ve mentioned your kids a couple of times and how they’re involved with the album. What do they think of your music?

They like my music. They like the music I listen to. I feel like a lot of parents want to force their kids to like good music and their music, but it doesn’t work that way. My two oldest kids, they’re definitely into the same genres I am, and they’ll find older stuff like Cocteau Twins and be like “oh, you have to check this out,” but then I’ll show them Momma and Snail Mail and I’ve definitely turned them on to that.

As far as my music, they support it. They’ve heard it a lot. I doubt they listen to it willingly, but they like it. Pretty much all of my family was big in quality control, like “what do you think of that? Do you think it should be re-recorded?,” lot of them will give input into that. So even if they were uncredited on the album, they should get some kind of credit for, I don’t know if it’s quality control, but some kind of decision making.

You’re in Delaware, which doesn’t usually come up when people are discussing music scenes. Is there a big wealth of untapped talent there that the rest of us don’t know about?

I can’t say now. I know when I was playing in Von Hayes there were a couple. There was a really cool place called Mojo 13 where they would have rock shows all the time. When they moved it to Main Street, Ted Leo played there, they would get some pretty decent alternative acts. This guy Jerad Shaffer, he was kind of the rock czar of the area, he would really get out there and promote the scene, but I don’t know who’s out there now. You know, you have to have a venue, and all the venues have kind of gone away. Now, Rainbow Records on Main Street will host local shows, but from what I can tell, it’s so much harder to find music now.

But I’m not in the scene, so I have no idea. Like, I just exist in my own bubble, I don’t play out. I played with my bandmate’s other band [Graham Repulski] but we haven’t really played out in years.

You mentioned Momma and Snail Mail – what are some other artists you’re really digging now?

I like older stuff a lot, like stuff that sounds good on vinyl. Like Yes, ELO, you know, all the obvious things. R.E.M. is probably my top band right now. I don’t know how you sound like them, but you can’t. Like, you just can’t, right?

I like old soul music. I like to listen to stuff I don’t usually hear. We went to Baltimore twice over the weekend, and there’s this great hip-hop station going through there, and I just left it on the whole time. That’s not my primary, go-to music, but my son really likes it. It’s so great to hear something different that you can tolerate. Conversely, I was at the pool and like, all they play is the new country station, and I was very irritated by that. Like, I needed to leave. I really hate that. That’s probably the only genre of music that I hate. But I would say, like a family favorite too, is, oddly, Darius Rucker’s “Wagon Wheel.” That’s an all-time slammer, man.

I’d like to try to incorporate different things into my music. My middle kid will be in New Zealand for four months, and there’s some things in their room, like this nicer keyboard, I’m probably gonna bring into the basement and try to record some new stuff with. The next thing is probably going to be a Von Hayes album. Then I’m probably going to try to record some stuff on a karaoke machine, which would be 2-track, just to see how crappy that sounds and whether it can sound cool too.

You don’t have any immediate plans to play any Brother of Monday songs live though, right?

Somebody asked me to play this porch show, and I was like, “I don’t know,” but it would be cool. I guess I’d have to, like, learn enough songs. Sometimes they’re hard to play because you pitch them to different frequencies or it’s just weird tunings. But it would be cool to do it at least once.

Do you have any other immediate plans to do more Brother of Monday stuff?

Well, I just had this big grad school thing to finish, and then once that’s done, I hope the floodgates will open. My goal is to start getting together with my buddy from Von Hayes and start pounding out some music and writing Brother of Monday at the same time. So, I’m thinking maybe another Brother of Monday gets done by the end of the year. That’s probably a goal.

Do you have a preferred way that you’d like people to listen to your music?

No, not really, just whatever they want to do, even if it’s on Spotify. I know Bas and Joep will want to make back whatever they paid to make the tape, but other than that, we don’t care about money at all. As long as it gets listened to or found, that’s all anybody cares about.

Artists who rely on this, I don’t know how they do it. You have to make a car ad or get a song licensed or whatever. I don’t know how you do it.

It’s tough. There’s been a couple of stories about members of big indie bands from the 2000s all of a sudden doing other stuff because they can’t sustain themselves financially just off of music.

I mean, I like Momma, I’m such a fanboy for them, and I try not to be creepy about it because I could be their dad, but I’ve gone up to them at shows and been like “you know, I think this is the last time you’re going to be opening for someone at a small place like this.” I don’t think it’s quite happened for them yet, maybe the next album will. But I feel like bands like that should be bigger. I feel like Snail Mail should be bigger. But you have to have a TikTok song, right? Like that’s the game, that’s what you want to do.

I agree with you about Momma. If alt rock radio still existed, they’d be massive.

With Momma and Snail Mail, it’s really weird, but I get, like, emotional. Like, you get this sense of pride like “damn, that’s so awesome, these young women are doing this. It’s so rad.”

Visit the Bandcamp pages of Brother of Monday and Von Hayes to listen to and download Peter’s music.