Painted Friends vicariously explores the powerful, destructive forces of jealousy and envy on “Cain Complex.”

The Detroit indie-rock duo of Jeremiah McWhorter (vocals, guitar, bass) and Mitch Crosby (drums) examines those fierce emotions through the biblical perspective of Cain on their dark new single.

“The Cain and Abel story is one of the deepest stories in all of literature, no matter what belief system you hold. Putting myself in Cain’s shoes for a song made me realize how easy it was, especially in the music scene today,” McWhorter said.

“It is very easy to feel jealous toward other musicians who appear to have ‘made it’ and here I am still struggling to make a dime with my songs, yet I put so much work and passion toward it.”

That passion comes alive as McWhorter sings alongside fiery electric guitar, bass and drums, “I was the first man / The oldest of sons / What I give away is much better than blood / The envy that filled me was sent from above / And the reason I’m standing is not due to love.”

“Jealousy and envy are similar to drugs in my opinion. They almost become like an addiction that once it takes hold, [it] can literally bring you to the point of murdering another person,” he said.

“It is a song that is toeing the line between being appropriate and inappropriate, but I wanted to allow myself to do that for at least one song. It felt and still feels necessary.”

I recently spoke to McWhorter and Crosby about their backgrounds, previous releases, passionate new single, Feb. 9 live show in Detroit and plans for 2024.

Q: How are things? What are you most excited about for 2024?

JM: We are great. The last two years have been a grind and now it’s time to start showing people what we have been working on. This year will be a year full of releases for us—not just with “Cain Complex,” but with more songs and a full-length album.

Q: Where did you each grow up? How did you get involved in music? What artists inspired you along the way?

JM: I was born and lived in Michigan until I was nine. My family moved to Florida … and moved back to Michigan when I was 15, so I guess I grew up in “Florigan” or “Michida?” I will always say I’m from Michigan originally, but the puberty years were crucial in growing up, so it’s a little complicated. I started going down the musical road at 11 or 12 years old by picking up a guitar and making noise. I remember pretty vividly the moment I realized that the higher fret I play, the higher the note. That seems pretty obvious, but when you teach yourself, nothing is obvious and everything needs to be discovered.

Even now, I am still learning guitar and have been trying to hone in on understanding triads. I heard one of my favorite guitarists, Ariel Posen, explain in his own way that once you learn the art of triads, the fretboard is wide open for improv and writing. It would take a ton of lines in this email to lay out each inspiring artist for me, but a few notable ones are Manchester Orchestra, Thrice, Twenty One Pilots, Jacob Collier, Marty Robbins, The Devil Wears Prada, Switchfoot, Relient K and my father-in-law Dave.

MC: I grew up in the Livonia/Westland area. My musical journey started in my church in the hand-bell choir and moved on to percussion in middle school. I started playing drums at age 11. My biggest inspirations throughout the years are My Chemical Romance, Paramore, Taylor Hawkins and mewithoutYou.

Q: How and when did you two come to meet each other? How did that lead to forming Painted Friends? 

JM: We first came in contact through a Facebook group for musicians. I sent [Mitch] a message after seeing his ad that he wanted to join a band as a drummer. He didn’t even respond the first time. I sent him another message a few months later after seeing him post another ad, and this time he saw it and responded. From there, we met at Grove Studios in Ypsilanti just to jam out to some of the songs off of To Feel the Ache of Old Age. In the middle of jamming, he asked to join the band and that’s how it happened.

Q: How did writing, recording and releasing your 2019 debut album, To Feel the Ache of Old Age, help shape you as an artist, songwriter and musician?

JM: To Feel the Ache of Old Age was completed before Mitch came into the picture. It is my first and only experience with writing, recording, mixing and mastering an entire album. I learned that the ability for anyone with a halfway decent laptop to record, mix and master an entire album of songs and have it not sound awful sonically is a dream come true. [That’s] not to say that it was easy though; it required an insane amount of diligence and meticulous work. I understand why people aren’t willing to do it. I just had—and still have—a passion for it.

Q: Your 2021 album, Gomnia: Volume 1 (Insula & Hyber) serves as an emotional journey about dealing with addiction and mental health challenges. How did writing this album help you process those struggles and provide you with hope for the future? How did the concepts of Gomnia, Insula and Hyber inspire the album’s title and themes of exploration, hope and relief?

JM: The entire Gomnia series is a reflection of my faith. I grew up going to church and had a hard time figuring out how to apply what I was learning to the real world. Once it clicked that I could use art to process the more challenging parts of faith, I started to have an understanding of what faith even is.

Gomnia is a word that represents a fictional place where everything that’s metaphysical in the real world becomes material and is able to be touched and interacted with—whether that is a particular fear, addiction, thought, etc. My goal with Volume 1 is to inspire people to embrace the personal struggles they are dealing with … [and] to think of them as if they can be seen as separate from them.

Let’s say, for example, someone is addicted to something as minor as sugar. In Gomnia, that could be represented as a rabbit that is out of control with energy and needs to be contained. If that person can contain the rabbit in Gomnia, [then] they can contain their addiction to sugar in the real world.

I believe our imagination is much more powerful than people realize, and when it is combined with good faith, we can collectively overcome the world. I don’t know if it has helped or will help people, but it has helped me.

Q: Your 2023 single, “The Dust is Rising,” serves as a strong reminder about recognizing our society’s likelihood of repeating past mistakes and taking steps to prevent them. How did learning about past societal and/or political struggles inspire this track for you? How do you hope this track inspires listeners to be proactive about our society’s future?

JM: Volume 1 of Gomnia is all about confronting our struggles first and foremost. Who are we to try and fix the world if we haven’t fixed ourselves first? I know there is more nuance to it and “fixing” ourselves isn’t a one-time thing but rather a lifetime commitment. We have to confront what we are dealing with personally first to be our foundation to fix the world.

With our song, “The Dust is Rising,” my goal is to be a voice that calls out the unnecessary wars. Specifically, the wars that could have been prevented—which, in reality, are all of them. How have we not learned from the 20th century? I think everyone with a brain can see that we are heading toward another massive global conflict and hardly anyone is blaming themselves for taking part in it. The song ends with [the lyric], “Please save my heart / Please save the earth.” It’s our hearts that need saving first, then the earth.

Q: You credit Johnny Cash with inspiring “Cain Complex.” How has his songwriting and musicianship influenced you as a band? How did writing this track help you channel him in a way?

JM: I listened to Johnny Cash’s [At Folsom Prison] album on repeat for about six months and the storytelling proved to be very inspiring to me. I also loved the lead guitar work by Luther Perkins. I can’t say the sonics are very similar between any of Johnny Cash’s work and “Cain Complex,” but the structural aspects were deliberately followed. There’s no bridge, [but there’s] a solid drum backbeat, hot vocal takes, multiple verses that tell a story and a ripper lead-guitar track. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Q: How does “Cain Complex” serve as a continuation of the Gomnia storyline and as a preview of Gomnia: Volume 2?

JM: Volume 2 turned out to be a reflection of the struggles humanity has as a whole today much more than the personal struggles. I love humanity more and more as each day goes by. I want to help it reach its potential. I am tired of seeing envy and jealousy be the drivers—that will lead us nowhere good. I want gratitude for existing, I want an admission of guilt to be followed by forgiveness. “Cain Complex” is simply an admission of guilt … [and] a good starting point for humanity.

Q: How long did you spend writing and recording “Cain Complex?” How did you shape the track’s overall sound?

JM: I honestly don’t remember exactly how long it took to write it. I started it back in 2021, I think. I would work on it for a little [and] then move on to something else. I know we finished writing it in the middle of 2023, so in a way, it took maybe two years to write. But just counting studio time, it probably took like two weeks.

Sonically, we limited it to guitar, bass, drums and vocals. In just about every other song of ours, we also add layers of synthesizers to fill up the mix. For “Cain Complex,” we wanted a simpler and more classic approach. I think the song, like many others from Volume 2, wrote itself more than anything. We recorded everything in my basement except for the drums. We went to JK (Not Kidding) Studios to record live drums.

Q: You’re playing your first live show in more than two years at Detroit’s Lager House on Feb. 9 with Jady, Tedious & Brief and Soundslikeotto. What will it be like for you both to be back on stage again? What plans do you have for your set?

JM: We are beyond excited to get back on stage. We were rolling with shows before COVID and since then we haven’t thought about playing shows. Now that things have settled, we are ready to get things going again. I am good friends with Jarrett [Doherty] from Jady and look forward to seeing him again and sharing the stage.

For our set, we are going to have our friend Bryan play lead guitar stuff and our friend Zeke on bass. This is to move away from relying on backing tracks. We will still be using backing tracks, just less of them.

Q: What’s up next for you later this year? Any plans to write, record and release additional new material? Will the Gomnia: Volume 2 album be released at some point this year?

JM: We are releasing “My Heart, Your Love” on Feb. 9, the full Gomnia: Volume 2 — Indimindi album on Feb. 29 and the full Gomnia discography with some special versions of some of the songs in April. We have been writing for the next album and are about halfway done. Maybe an end-of-the-year release is possible; no guarantees at this point though.

Show details:

Jady, Tedious & Brief, Soundslikeotto and Painted Friends

Friday, Feb. 9 | 8 p.m.

Lager House, 1254 Michigan Ave. in Detroit

Tickets: $13