Ever since Thom Wasluck began performing under Planning for Burial exactly two decades ago, the American musician and singer-songwriter has steadily built a one-man project rooted in distortion, drone and emotional excavation. Across a catalog that balances metal foundations and shoegaze weight with slowcore patience and industrial decay, Wasluck has developed a sound and ethos that greatly resist easy categorization. His fourth full-length release, It’s Closeness, It’s Easy, marks a long-awaited return following 2017’s acclaimed Below the House. Where that record explored the emptiness of returning to his childhood home in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, its successor turns inward, reckoning with the quiet ramifications of grief, middle age and the deepening love and acceptance that comes with enduring what lies ahead.
We caught up with Wasluck to talk about the long road to finishing It’s Closeness, It’s Easy, the continuity between his last two records, the tension between self-destruction and resilience, and what it means to stay independent in an ever-shifting industry.
It's Closeness, It’s Easy is your first album as Planning For Burial in about eight years, but it’s not like you haven’t been active since 2017’s Below the House. Between other releases, live shows and archival compilations, when did you start to feel like it was time for a new chapter?
I actually attempted to record an album in 2019. I maybe got three or four songs into it - not very far, just skeletons - and it just didn't feel right. I did keep one song from there and reworked it for the album. I know a lot of people during the pandemic got really creative, but I got depressed and didn't put in the time to work on stuff and record it. I was just playing around the house and having fun with that.
That one song is "You Think", right? I know it’s been in your live sets for years. How has it changed since those early versions – are the backing arrangements and the buzz-drone guitars that tie it to "Movement Two" and "(blueberry pop)" part of those alterations?
I don’t think I’ve played the initial version live, but it had a longer intro instead of just blasting right into it. I changed the lyrics and the way I sang it over time. That’s the nice part about playing things live, focusing on figuring things out. There’s a whole middle section where it gets a little quieter that wasn't there originally, so it was just a question of figuring out those little things from playing the song live, to see if it works or if I want to do it another way instead.
"You Think" also stands out as one of the most vocally forward tracks on the record. Between that one, "A Flowing Field of Green" and "With Your Sunglasses On Like a Ghoul", for example, it feels like there’s more use of your voice in general when compared to your previous work – at the very least, it sounds clearer in the mix. Was that a conscious decision to incorporate your vocals more, or did it just feel like the songs naturally demanded it?
I think the songs naturally demanded it, but I also spent more time trying to make sure the vocals sat above in the mix. For years, I've heard people say my music is instrumental, but there are lyrics and vocals on pretty much every song. It’s just an extra instrument to me and not a focal point, but that was clearly thought out in the back of my head. I tried to push and make sure they were mixed better and higher.
Do you also feel like there was some sort of pressure in following up something so beloved as l? How did you move past the doubts and moments of procrastination that came with that first draft you made in 2019?
It’s weird, everybody always jokes that, when you’re making your first album, no one's thinking about it, because you've been making this on your own for years before anybody hears it, there are no expectations. I'm a fan of music history, I read autobiographies of bands and artists I like and I know that there are expectations out there. And it wasn't like I meant to put all these years between them and build that hype up for people. My life happened and, then again, I got a little depressed during the pandemic and couldn't do things I would love to do. I didn't feel like creating. I had all these songs, I was playing them live, I would sit and lay in bed at night and play all the bass parts from the album. I knew the album front to back and I couldn't bring myself to record it. And then in January of last year, I had a little bit of an existential crisis. I turned 40 last year, I'll be 41 this year, and I started to feel like I was wasting time. I need to be doing these things and I’ve liked them so much that I'm playing them live, I just need to record them now.
I’m glad you brought that up, those ideas of aging and the emotional weight that’s built up over the years inform a lot of the new record in my view. It’s almost like a shift inward, following the homecoming of Below the House and you grappling with the emptiness of your childhood house in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. How different were the headspaces between these last two records? What was it like moving from looking back at where you came from to confronting where you are now (in all the grief, love and disorientation that comes with it)? Is there any continuity between them to you?
[It’s Closeness, It’s Easy] is probably a continuation, but still different. I wasn’t happy about it before, but now I've come to terms with my life here. There was a realization in there that, if I let myself, I’ll be miserable no matter where I'm at - that's what the song A Flowing Field of Green really comes down to. When me and my wife met, we lived in New Jersey and she's Hispanic. There's a huge Hispanic community in there, but not as much where we live now. She was also getting really depressed about the food and, you know, just the culture. And I remember saying to her at one moment: “It's out here, we just have to look for it, so let's go find it”. But when it comes to Below the House, I actually finished recording that album nine years ago and I started playing some of the songs live in 2014. They're over a decade old, at least some of them. Every so often, I try to think back about that person. I was 30 years old, almost 31, and now I'm 40, almost 41. I don't really recognize that person anymore, but I understand the headspace. I was drinking a lot. I spent most if not all of my twenties in one place, that's where my chosen family was, so I didn't have a huge connection to the area I was from. That’s what Below the House is. [It’s Closeness, It’s Easy] is more about coming to terms with life and getting to enjoy it while I can.
Would you say this album is more about making peace with your own emotional baggage - not letting it drag you down at least, as you mention on "A Flowing Field of Green" - than trying to outrun the weight of it all?
Yeah, I think that's a great way of putting it. I felt very much at peace with it for the last few years.
I’d also like to bring "Fresh Flowers For All Time" into the discussion, because it really jumps out from everything else on the record. It’s like this sharp left turn into a more post-punk direction - very uptempo, but still laced with the dissonance and gloom of the signature Planning For Burial sound. What led you there creatively?
I think that was a song I wanted to make for playing live, honestly. Just to change things up a little bit, change the mood in the room and rock a little bit more.
There’s also this idea you’ve talked about concerning the new album: that you have to be the change, build the world you want, regardless of where you are. Do you feel like that determination extends to your creative process too, even when you’re feeling demotivated and depressed? Has letting go of the idea of “the perfect place” shifted how you write and record?
I think so. I kind of went into this one like work. I sat up and I was like: “Alright, this is how the signal chain is going to be and these are the parts I need to do”. I had a dry-erase board, so I had to just get in there and hammer the parts out. Some of the guitar parts on the album are in one take. They sounded good enough, so I moved on to the next thing. And I think that's what it was, I just had to make stuff. I couldn't keep overanalyzing stuff.
Once you got into the flow of it, do you feel like the recording process in general for this record was faster than you usually do it?
Oh, absolutely. Sometimes I look through my phone at pictures of my amps and stuff. I realize I spent a couple of days in this month and I hammered a ton of stuff out, but didn't do anything for a couple of weeks when things came up. Then I would go back, have a couple of days where I just felt it and go right into it again, fast.
Bringing it back to the importance of place on the album (as something fleeting and that doesn’t fix your problems altogether), is that something you’re still grappling with post-recording, or were these songs already written from a place of clarity or acceptance?
I think they were mostly written from a place of clarity. "On With Your Sunglasses On Like A Ghoul", there are still some issues that I still grapple with, about some friends of mine and the way they’re living their lives. But I think a lot of that came from a place of clarity. When I was actually recording, most of it was done and had already been worked through the years of playing.
Has that shift in perspective between albums also changed your perspective on touring as a whole? Is it something that you can still allow yourself to romanticize without getting too disillusioned by the places you visit, or do you approach it differently now? You’re about to embark on a pretty extensive run in support of this album in June and July, after all.
No, I still get it [laughs]. I do, I know I do and it's fine. Now, I'll go to small Midwestern towns in the US and be amazed by how much art and culture there is to explore there. The city I live in is bigger and we have nothing compared to it. That's where the romanticizing of it comes from, but at the same time, it comes down to wanting something like this, putting on shows and trying things.
You’ve always had such a hands-on approach to everything you work on, from the design to the booking and the gear. In today’s music industry, with the increase of touring costs, streaming’s squeeze on artists and the pressure to be constantly visible and go beyond the typical role of an artist, does that self-reliance still feel empowering, or has it started to feel like a heavier burden of some sort?
It comes and goes. This is my busy season in terms of my day job. I work the night shift for only a couple of weeks and I do a lot of overtime. On top of that, all the singles are dropping, I’m getting ready for the tour. This is one of the biggest tours I've done in a long, long time. Trying to keep track of everything – who’s playing the show, did I get a ticket link, is there a flyer – is too much at times. I have to keep a note on my phone of who I need to contact this morning when I get home [laughs]. It both is and isn't, but I still really enjoy it. It's fun for me.
I imagine that, even if it's probably exhausting to keep track of everything and balance between your day job and your music career, it still brings enough joy for you to keep going and keep yourself motivated.
Yeah, that's it. I do what I want, when I want, when I have time. That's what it comes down to. You were talking about staying visible and that part bothers me sometimes. I think of my social media's presence as not just the band, but my life for the most part. I'm on vacation with my wife in Italy, I'm just going to post those pictures, you know what I mean? That's what it is, it's all my life.
You’ve been back in Wilkes-Barre for some time now. Do you feel fully rooted there after all these years?
I do feel rooted. I know there’s a part on "Dull Knife, Pt. I" where I say that my roots don't grow and I keep thinking of writing a song where I say “my roots now grow”. I'll get there eventually [laughs]. Our area is small, there are a lot of cool bands here. Our problem right now is we don't really have venues, so we're doing a lot of makeshift stuff: parking lots, donut shops, vape shops. It's very diverse in terms of the types of bands. I don't think I've had any influence on anybody though, but I could be wrong. I'm just kind of an outlier.
Has being based there shaped the way you make music now, especially compared to the years when you were in New Jersey?
The environment is always the same, so I'm not sure it does. I spent so much of my early life here, I think it was always just ingrained in it. I don't know if I could expand on that, but I think being from [Wilkes-Barre] has always been ingrained in me.
2025 marks the 20th anniversary since you started Planning for Burial, way back when you were 20 or 21. With the beginning of this new chapter, what keeps the creative fire burning after all this time? Has your reason for making music changed, or is there still a thread connecting who you were then to who you are now?
I think it's just something I feel the call to do. Planning For Burial itself (as a name) is 20 years old, but as soon as I got my first guitar at 12 years old, I was recording songs on my own, learning how to use two boomboxes to record on one and play across the room, going to a karaoke machine with two inputs [to layer tracks]. I've been always making songs on my own since I was really young while also playing in bands as a teenager. I don’t know, it’s always something I’m going to do, regardless of Planning For Burial. If anybody ever cares about it, I’ll be doing it.
How do you see the future of Planning For Burial as an outlet?
Some part of me, for now at least, thinks I'm going to move away from the big, wall of sound guitars sooner or later. I've been really into early 2000s, late 90s indietronica and downtempo. I want to play around with drum machines and synths and samples. My version of that might end up being like, well, there are these loud guitars on it now too [laughs]. I don't know, that's where my brain is right now. I might get too busy and it just never happens.
I feel like that sums up your aversion to norms, it’s something that totally echoes through your music. Yes, there’s the metal centerpiece, but it goes in so many ways that it's hard to contain it in a traditional label. And that's great, it allows for so many experiments and, to me, this record is yet another example of how much you can expand on that sound.
I’ve said it earlier, I'm a fan of music. I watch movies about bands, I read books about bands, I spend my time in record stores. It's just something I've always gravitated towards, so I think it's just a melting pot of everything I love.