The Making of Forced Fun For The Just OK Life
A deep dive into the creation of Forced Fun For The Just OK Life—a journey through chaos, creativity, and the contradictions that shaped its sound.
By Anton 'Jupiter' Marchenko
By Anton 'Jupiter' Marchenko
Every album has a story, and this one is no exception. Forced Fun For The Just OK Life didn’t arrive neatly wrapped—it stumbled into existence, picking up scraps of sound, moments of frustration, and flashes of inspiration along the way. It’s an album that reflects both chaos and control, grand ambition and begrudging acceptance.
Some albums start with a clear vision. This one started with fragments—lines scribbled in notebooks, half-finished melodies recorded on phones, and late-night thoughts that seemed brilliant at the time (some were, some weren’t).
Where It Began
At its core, the album was always about contradictions: the push and pull between wanting more and settling for less, between finding meaning and admitting that sometimes there isn’t any.
It came to be that way—both in terms of production and the styles of music. I did not plan it to be how it materialized in its final incarnation. It was all about balance.
I usually work with 40-60 tracks at once, juggling them around. Only the best 10-15 usually make it. However, at the time I was writing the tracks that would later get to Forced Fun, the whole process felt pretty tense—I seemed to have crammed so many genres together.
That's how shoehaze came to be. When Natalie Bibby, the engineer who mastered the album, jokingly came up with this name, it just hit me that this is who I am and what the band is. It is my style—eclectic, theatrical, meaningful. I thought, so be it.
The title itself—Forced Fun For The Just OK Life—came much later, after all the songs had finally constituted a finished puzzle. It captured the exhausting cycle of convincing ourselves we’re having a great time, even when we aren’t. Don't get me wrong—I loved working on the album. The title is all about existential pickles.
At its core, the album was always about contradictions: the push and pull between wanting more and settling for less, between finding meaning and admitting that sometimes there isn’t any.
It came to be that way—both in terms of production and the styles of music. I did not plan it to be how it materialized in its final incarnation. It was all about balance.
I usually work with 40-60 tracks at once, juggling them around. Only the best 10-15 usually make it. However, at the time I was writing the tracks that would later get to Forced Fun, the whole process felt pretty tense—I seemed to have crammed so many genres together.
That's how shoehaze came to be. When Natalie Bibby, the engineer who mastered the album, jokingly came up with this name, it just hit me that this is who I am and what the band is. It is my style—eclectic, theatrical, meaningful. I thought, so be it.
The title itself—Forced Fun For The Just OK Life—came much later, after all the songs had finally constituted a finished puzzle. It captured the exhausting cycle of convincing ourselves we’re having a great time, even when we aren’t. Don't get me wrong—I loved working on the album. The title is all about existential pickles.
Natalie Bibby mastering Forced Fun For The Just OK Life
Shaping the Sound
The album’s sound is as layered as its themes—lush harmonies, thick synths, vocals of all kinds, like characters in a TV show that’s gone on too long, and guitars caught between warmth and distortion. Theatrically to which I fully and willingly surrender, simply put.
Some tracks came together effortlessly as if they had been waiting to be written in a day. Others fought back, refusing to settle into anything cohesive until the very last moment. I wrote the intro guitar riff in Catch Me Now in 2004. Since then, this part has been drifting between different songs that never made it. Twenty years later, it found its way to the open.
A few things defined the process:
The album’s sound is as layered as its themes—lush harmonies, thick synths, vocals of all kinds, like characters in a TV show that’s gone on too long, and guitars caught between warmth and distortion. Theatrically to which I fully and willingly surrender, simply put.
Some tracks came together effortlessly as if they had been waiting to be written in a day. Others fought back, refusing to settle into anything cohesive until the very last moment. I wrote the intro guitar riff in Catch Me Now in 2004. Since then, this part has been drifting between different songs that never made it. Twenty years later, it found its way to the open.
A few things defined the process:
- Textures Over Perfection: I embraced the imperfections—leaving in vocal takes that cracked at just the right moment, layering sounds that shouldn’t go together but somehow worked. Plus, I did not have a huge budget for the whole production, and this constraint actually helped to craft something that feels both finished and genuine.
- Live Energy in a Studio Setting: I didn’t want this to feel sterile. Even in its more controlled moments, the album needed to breathe, to have the unpredictable energy of a live performance.
- Contrasts Everywhere: Soft vs. loud, clarity vs. haze, tension vs. release. These proximities run through every track, mirroring the contradictions in the lyrics.
Recording guitars for Forced Fun For The Just OK Life with my Danelectro Danoblaster—a rare beast these days.
The Songs That Almost Didn’t Make It
Going back to songs that were lost to obscurity. Some tracks nearly got abandoned along the way.
The Lake started as a completely different song—slower, more delicate—until it was flooded with fuzzy guitars and psychedelic vocal harmonies, all of which made a huge difference to the song.
Super Me was almost left off entirely because it just did not come together sonically.
However, the most difficult song on the album was Renewal.
I wrote it four years ago, and right after the demo had been finished, I realized that it was one of those annoying cases of a song with great potential that just did not sound right—it needed more work. I reworked the whole thing four times during the following years until it really started to shine to the extent that, unintentionally, it became the lead single on the album.
In the end, those were the songs that stood out, the ones that demanded to stay.
Going back to songs that were lost to obscurity. Some tracks nearly got abandoned along the way.
The Lake started as a completely different song—slower, more delicate—until it was flooded with fuzzy guitars and psychedelic vocal harmonies, all of which made a huge difference to the song.
Super Me was almost left off entirely because it just did not come together sonically.
However, the most difficult song on the album was Renewal.
I wrote it four years ago, and right after the demo had been finished, I realized that it was one of those annoying cases of a song with great potential that just did not sound right—it needed more work. I reworked the whole thing four times during the following years until it really started to shine to the extent that, unintentionally, it became the lead single on the album.
In the end, those were the songs that stood out, the ones that demanded to stay.
I wrote the riff that eventually found its way into Catch Me Now back in 2004. Not pictured: the guitar I used to come up with it.
So What's It All About?
Forced Fun For The Just OK Life is an album about grasping for meaning in the absurd, about trying (and failing) to make sense of things.
How do you keep being true to yourself and get socially accepted at the same time? How do you not miss important things in life and not waste them for the sake of routine? How do you spot really bad stuff both in yourself and others and not become overly judgmental or go into too much acceptance and lousy excuses, both for yourself and others?
Messy, layered, contradictory—life is all of those things, just like the album.
So here it is. An album born out of frustration, late nights, fleeting moments of clarity, and the constant balancing act between hope and cynicism. Take it or leave it, just don’t overthink it. Or do—whatever works for you.
Forced Fun For The Just OK Life is an album about grasping for meaning in the absurd, about trying (and failing) to make sense of things.
How do you keep being true to yourself and get socially accepted at the same time? How do you not miss important things in life and not waste them for the sake of routine? How do you spot really bad stuff both in yourself and others and not become overly judgmental or go into too much acceptance and lousy excuses, both for yourself and others?
Messy, layered, contradictory—life is all of those things, just like the album.
So here it is. An album born out of frustration, late nights, fleeting moments of clarity, and the constant balancing act between hope and cynicism. Take it or leave it, just don’t overthink it. Or do—whatever works for you.