The Pistola Press

Earlier on this week, Kip, the leader singer, of The Pains Of The Pains of Being Pure At Heart took some time out of his day to do a quick interview. It turns out Kip grew up right outside of Philadelphia. During the interview we discussed several topics, Jay Reatard’s negative Twitter comments directed towards the band being one of them. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart will play with The Walkmen tonight at the Irvine Auditorium on University Of Pennsylvania‘s campus. Check out the interview below.

Kip: How are you doing?

Colin: I’m doing well. How are you?

Kip: I’m good. Sorry, I just had to step out for a second. I’m having lunch with my friend here in Greenpoint in Brooklyn.

Colin: Oh, nice. Do you have time to talk for a few?

Kip: Of course, totally.

Colin: Awesome. So how did this University of Penn show come about? Did the students contact you or was it a booking agent type deal?

Kip: I believe the request came to our booking agent. I’m not sure how it’s normal done, but obviously getting a chance to play with The Walkmen is totally an awesome thing. Getting to play at Penn will be a lot of fun as well. We’re really looking forward to it.

Colin: Definitely. The Walkmen are great and the venue looks pretty cool too. You guys were here a few weeks ago, you played with Depreciation Guild and Cymbals Eat Guitars. Was it your first time playing Philly?

Kip: No, it wasn’t. I grew up in the Philadelphia area and we had the opportunity to play a couple times in Philadelphia. This last show with the Depreciation Guild and Cymbals Eat Guitars was definitely our biggest to date. Earlier in the spring, we had the chance to play at The Barbary and before that we got a chance to play at Kung Fu Necktie. So we’ve had a few chances to come down to Philadelphia this year and it’s been great each time. My mom still lives in the area so she comes out. So it’s really fun for me.

Colin: Very cool. Where about around Philadelphia did you live?

Kip: Well, I moved around a lot growing up. Everywhere from Paoli, to Frazer, to Strafford, Wayne. Just in and around the western suburbs, mainline area.

Colin: I grew up in Media, well Wallingford really; they’re right next to each other.

Kip: Oh, cool. I went to school in Devon. All those little places are not that far a part at all. But yeah, Media totally…

Colin: Your record(The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart) has been out for quite some time now and you’ve been on the road for a while. You just released a new EP(Higher Than The Stars) as well. Have you had any highlights from tour or just the whole thing?

Kip: To be honest, just the chance to tour so extensively has been a highlight in and of itself. I mean, when we  put out the record we had no idea it was going to be well received or that we would even get the option to tour as much as we did. So we’ve been just really grateful and excited about the ability to travel to so many faraway places from Europe to a national tour of the US.

Just the whole experience from this year, playing so many shows to so many people. It’s all been a blast. I don’t know if there’s any one particular highlight but there’s definitely a lot of moments that have been cool.

Getting to play in England and Glasgow, where so many bands that we loved are from, it was a really big deal. Getting to go as far away as like Poland (laughs) was pretty cool.  Standing next to the thermals in Poland was really surreal. To be like standing next to the thermals in a place totally so far away. So everything has been totally awesome and we’ve been really thrilled and really happy.

Colin: That’s awesome. It’s probably a great feeling to have your music take you so far.

Kip: Oh, definitely man.

Colin: I’m big fan of your album covers. Who designs them?

Kip: The photograph for both the LP and EP, that just came out, was taken by a girl named Kendra Rutledge, who lives in Arizona. She’s like in high school. As far as the layout goes, I did that stuff myself. We sort of modeled them from photographs she took. I thought they were really cool and we asked her permission and she was psyched that we wanted to use them. So we’re really grateful that she let us use them.

Colin: It gives the band a distinct identity. When you look at the covers, you know it’s The Pains Of Being Pure at Heart.

Kip: That’s definitely good. I love those bands where you can kind just sort of tell the band from looking at how it looks. That consistent sense. Well, each one is different obviously but they’re easily identifiable. Like, “Oh, that’s a Smith’s album.” They have a very definite design.

Colin: With so different musicians and artists living in Brooklyn and lower Manhattan. Do any of you have side projects or collaborations with other artists?

Kip: We’re huge fans of a lot of the bands in Brooklyn right now and NYC in general. It’s a really exciting creative environment to be making music in because they’re so many other good bands that you get to see and get to see good shows, get to know people. That’s a really cool feeling.

As far as collaboration, our drummer Kurt(Feldman) plays.. well it’s not like a side project, he was in this band before he was even in The Pains. Kurt plays in a band called the Depreciation Guild, which we’ve toured with before. They’re really awesome and they have a new album coming out this winter and they’re just finishing it up right now. He splits his time between both bands and obviously we’re really grateful for the time he spends in The Pains but the Depreciation Guild is an awesome band. It’s definitely not something that’s just a side project but a full on cool band. Also, our touring guitarist Christoph plays in that band as well.

Colin: Cool. When you’re on tour with both of them does your drummer play in both bands?

Kip: Yeah, he does. I guess playing drums is pretty draining but he says he can play guitar… He plays guitar in the Depreciation Guild and sings so at least he doesn’t have to play drums twice a night, which would be really exhausting. It’s still a lot of work to set up for two bands each night and play two full sets. It’s great because we really love their music and also it’s fun we get to do that together.  We share a van and we’re all friends with his bandmates as well. So it’s a lot of work for him but it’s a lot of fun and we’re really glad he’s willing to do it.

Colin: That’s really inspiring to see. It shows a lot of dedication to the music.

Kip: I feel like if he could play music everyday for the rest of his life, he’d be totally happy. He’s a really confident and great musician and really focused on it.

Colin: Over the summer, were you offended by Jay Reatard’s Twitter comments?

Kip: Oh, no, no, not at all. I’m actually a big fan of his music and we all are. Alex(Naidus) is literally in the Jay Reatard fan club and I’ve been a fan of the music he makes for a long time. I think he was just being funny and a bit of a laugh with the internet. It’s definitely not offensive. He even wrote to us afterwards and he totally apologized and we’re cool about it. He was just kind of having fun.

That element of the music makes music interesting. If every band was polite and stuff all the time, it would get boring really fast. I’m really glad there’s people like Jay Reatard in the world and I really like his new album on Matador is really good too.

Colin: Do you Twitter, or I guess it would be tweet, at all?

Kip: I don’t. No, no, I don’t. That’s one aspect of modernity I haven’t yet embraced. I really don’t think people need to know what I’m thinking or doing 24 hours a day. I’m not that interesting(laughs).

Colin: So do you guys have any new material in the works?

Kip: Yeah! I mean we’re really excited about the new EP that just came out on Slumberland that has four new songs. When our touring is completed at the end of the year, we’re gonna start working on our next album. We have a bunch of songs written but it’s going to be fun to sit down and work them out and learn how to play them. Just get to start all over again with a blank state. It’ll be fun to start again.

Colin: Well, I don’t want to keep you too long from your friend and lunch.Thanks for taking the time to chat for a few.

Kip: No problem! See you on Friday!