Worriers are a band from Brooklyn, New York, led by songwriter Lauren Denitzio. They’ve toured with acts like John K Samson, Against Me!, Julien Baker, Anti Flag, The Wonder Years, and more. Worriers’ latest record, Trust Your Gut, is out now on Ernest Jenning Record Co.
Lauren Denitzio is an artist and musician who fronts the band Worriers. To help celebrate the new issue of the Talkhouse Reader — the Food Issue, available now digitally and in print — Lauren spoke with us about their love for Anthony Bourdain. Worriers’ new record, Trust Your Gut, is out now on Ernest Jenning Record Co.
— Annie Fell, Editor-in-chief, Talkhouse Music
I’m vegetarian, and I was vegan before that for a long time, so food has always been a considered and intentional part of my life. I wouldn’t have considered myself interested in learning about cooking — I always enjoyed it, and I enjoyed watching shows about food, but Anthony Bourdain played a big role in connecting it for me, that food is important to me. I’m more invested in it now, and it plays a bigger role in my day-to-day life.
I didn’t become an Anthony Bourdain fan until I started watching Parts Unknown. I knew that he had made other shows and documentaries, and I knew about his book, but I hadn’t read it. I was probably talked at by kitchen bros about him, and I was like, “Whatever, man, that sounds nice.” It wasn’t until watching that show and getting a more personal sense of what he was trying to do that it clicked for me: Oh, everything I’ve heard about this guy is dead on, and also very aligned with my interests conceptually.
I think it was the fact that it seemed like his background in food — even if he was, obviously, a trained professional — came from a certain level of independence and a deep love for what he was doing. And food, to him, was about connecting with other people. I think that it would have turned me off if it had seemed like he was a food snob, or like he was just some rich foodie who was also acting kind of punk. I got the sense that his connection to it, and investment in it, was something larger than just being in the food scene, or owning a restaurant, or having the power of being a chef at a restaurant.
I think that he had a similar ethos in his approach to cooking and food as I do in my approach to music. I think that is a big part of why I’ve been a fan. A lot of the overlap between punk and cooking, at least in Anthony Bourdain’s case, is about being very independent, and wanting to find your people within that. I really identify with how so much of what he did was about trying to connect with people, and commiserate with people, and bring people together. My music doesn’t sound like the Ramones or Richard Hell — the kind of stuff that he was into — but I think that aspect of connection and bringing people together, especially at this point in my career, is so much more what I care about than sounding a certain way or playing a certain type of music.
I also just admired how politically uncompromising he was. I keep going back to that clip where someone says, “To the queen!” And he says, “I hate the aristocracy, man.” Here he was, having this really nice dinner with a bunch of probably really wealthy people, and it’s not the polite thing to say — there are plenty of people who would have filed it away and just internally screamed about it — but he just said it. He said the things that he deeply believed in, and wasn’t going to let people get away with things. That level of being uncompromising with his values is something I look to a lot.
When he passed away, it hit me a lot harder than I thought something like that would. I think there’s something relatable about him for a lot of people. He was, for all intents and purposes, wildly successful and had a wonderful career. And your life can still be lonely and alienating and just a challenge. When your goal is to connect with people and find commonality with people, and to sit around a table in all these different countries around the world and have all these new experiences — when that seems to be the goal rather than being a successful chef, how do you win that game? It makes sense that his work shared all these very human qualities about not necessarily being content with things all the time. Seeing him lose that battle was really affecting. It was quite significant to me. I think about him as an artist, in the way that a lot of artists go through that. If you think about the question of, “is cooking a form of art?” He embodies that so much — the artist’s approach to cooking and making food, and sharing that work with other people.
As told to Annie Fell.
