The Pistola Press

A few weeks ago Peter Silberman from The Antlers was in Philly for Weathervane’s Fundraiser Event where he performed along side his childhood friend Nick Principe aka Port St Willow. It was all caught on film so if you weren’t there, you’ll be able to check that out soon. Silberman and his bandmates just released their sophomore(well, technically their fourth) album Burst Apart last week and they’re about to hit the road in support. They play the beautiful Sanctuary of the First Unitarian Church this Wednesday(05/20) and tickets are still available. Don’t miss out on this show.

While he was in town, I was able to sit down with Peter for a quick conversation about dining on tour, Burst Apart, Soul Town and more. Check out our conversation below.

First question is.. why is Soul Train so fucking awesome? (He tweeted a few days before about Soul Town.. I’m an idiot.)

Soul train.. It’s actually SoulTown that we mentioned.

Ah, Soul Town! I’m sorry.

Yeah, don’t get me wrong. Soul Train was awesome and I absolutely watched it on Saturday mornings when I was a kid. Soul Town is a Sirius radio station that plays all soul music. Every single song they play just happens to be really amazing. We discovered this on tour with Au Revoir Simone a couple years ago. I think we rented a mini van, back when we were touring in a mini van. It had a satellite radio built in and we just put that on and listened to it the whole tour. It’s incredible. I was Twittering about it cause we were in Atlanta, we rented a mini-van and it had a satellite radio thing in there. It keeps happening every once and while, we just get to listen to soul town and we are all really happy.

Read the rest of the interview with Peter Silberman from the Antlers below…

Questlove(of The Roots) held a rehearsal at The Roots’ studio for his recent Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts event with Keren Ann and others a few days before it happened. He opened it up to the press to come in and check out the classical pieces they were working on. I only had a few minutes to catch up with Questlove about The Roots Picnic, a homeless vegetarian man, and more. Despite the limited amount of time we had, he was super nice and gave elaborate, thought-out answers to all my questions.The interview took place in the room where he keeps all his records, which is where the first question stems from…

Holy shit, is this your record collection?

Ehh, like 70% of it. (There were literally thousands upon thousands of records on ceiling high shelves that covered every wall of the small room.)

Damn, this is crazy. There’s so many here.  Anyway, so I saw a tweet from you the other night that you spent $100 at Wawa. How the hell do you spend that much at Wawa?

(laughs) It’s easy to spend $100 bucks! I needed toilet paper so I got that. I got two big giant orange juices. I had a whole bunch of cereal that I didn’t get to eat so I got milk. There were two homeless women outside and I never give them money so I just got them four hoagies. Then I started getting hungry so I was like, “Let me get a hoagie for myself” so I got five hoagies. Then I thought, “Well, maybe Steve wants one.” My engineer lives with me so I got six hoagies(laughs). Then I figured everyone needed potato chips so I got a whole bunch of potato chips(laughs). Then I was like, “Well, damn they’re gonna want to wash it down so let me get them all something to drink.” So between six hoagies, all this lemonade, milk and a few snacks, I totally forgot to get…

Read the rest of the interview with Questlove below

On Friday afternoon, I saw a bunch of tweets from Motormouthmedia about how Deerhunter‘s lead singer Bradford Cox was in their office, wearing a snuggie and laying out resumes for their new office assistant. They also tweeted that the first 5 music writers/bloggers to call their office could do a quick ‘flash’ interview with Bradford. So I gave it a try.

Turned out, I was caller number 3 and was told Bradford would call me back in a few minutes. I had no time to prepare and thought of a million questions I should have asked after I spoke to him, but I guess that’s how a ‘flash’ interview works. Anyway, below is the shortest interview featured on The Pistola Press. Enjoy!

How’s life as an intern at Motormouthmedia?

It’s alright, you know. Right now I can’t find the password to the computer so she might fire me.

You guys played “Conan” last night. How was that?

It was awkward.

Why was it awkward?

Well, have you ever done it before?

I have not.

It’s just awkward. A lot of weird… sorta awkward, you know?

Sure. Did you get to meet the Kardashians?

No, I’ve never heard of the Kardashians and I’m not sure if I’d want to meet them. I mean nothing against them but I’m just not that interested.

I understand. A friend of mine wants to know when was the first time you heard “Freak Train” by Kurt Vile(Bradford covered the song on Atlas Sound: Bedroom Databank Volume 1) and where were you?

Oh, I don’t remember something that specific. Probably in my bedroom or something on Youtube. I don’t know.

What were your thoughts when received that email from Sony? (Read more about Sony removing his Atlas Sound demos HERE)

Well, I didn’t get an email from Sony. I got an email saying my files were taken down by Sony. They just took them down, they didn’t send me a warning or anything. Complete misunderstanding.

Did they ever give you a legitimate reason?

They apologized to my manager. I don’t really care. I didn’t really take it that seriously. I just put the files right back up. I didn’t mean to make such a big drama. It’s not really that important. I think it’s important to realize that the record labels have the right to delete whatever they want without even knowing what it is. That’s the only reason I made it public. I don’t think that’s appropriate.

Are there any new Bedroom Sessions we should look out for?

Uhh, probably.

So who did the cover art for Halcyon Digest?

That photo was taken by my friend George.. (phone cuts out)

Hello?

Hello?

That photo was taken by your friend George, did you say?

Yeah, my friend George.

Cool. If you had to pick one record from 2010, what would be your record of the year?

Lower Dens Twin-Hand Movement. It’s great.

What are your plans for 2011?

Oh, you know, just keep it up. Keep working. Keep trying to play shows for new people and stuff.

A few weeks ago, my friend and I interviewed Pharrell Williams and Shae Hayle from N.E.R.D. We sat down with them in their tour bus after they opened for Gorillaz at the Susquehanna Center. The guys have a new record, Nothing, coming November 2nd so we asked them about new music, their production process and more. Check the interview and portrait shots below.

Colin: Alright, so you guys have a new record coming, Nothing. I know the album release date.. like Shay when I spoke to you a while ago you were saying June 15th. It keeps getting pushed back, what’s going on there?

Pharrell: It’s really coming this time. It’s that a) we’re perfectionists, and b) we happen to just be really good at pushing album dates back. Not on purpose, but just trying to get it right.

Colin: So when you said June 15, did you think the album was done, or did you guys just keep toying and adding stuff?

Shay: Well, we felt like the album was done, and we were super content with it. But we have like a roundtable every Tuesday with all the politics that be, or the powers that be I should say. And they didn’t feel like it was done, so we had to go make some tweaks, add some additions, subtract some shit, and you know, perfect it.

You can read the rest of the interview HERE

Side note: I interviewed Shae last April before they played at Temple University. That interview can be found HERE

Maps & Atlases broke on to the music scene last fall when they toured with Ra Ra Riot. They signed to Barsuk Records(Death Cab For Cutie, Ra Ra Riot, more) shortly after that. The Chicago band spent most of the winter recording their debut record, Perch Patchwork, that will be released on June 29th.. They’re currently on tour with Frightened Rabbit, which makes a stop at the First Unitarian Church tonight. Unfortunately, the show has been sold out for over a month now. Erin Elders phoned in last week to give us a little insight about the band and the new record. Interview below.

The Pistola: From what I understand, you guys met in school. What school did you go to?

Erin Elders: We all went to Columbia College in Chicago.

The Pistola: What the musical environment like there?

EE: It’s kind of weird. When we were all going to school, none of us studied music. Chris(Hainey)and I studied film, Dave (Davison) was going to school for cultural studies and Shiraz (Dada) was going for recording engineering. None of us were really playing music right when we started.

You know, Chicago always had a really great music community and it was definitely exciting when we first started playing shows to be a part of that.

The Pistola: I guess you guys were just friends then started playing music together…

EE: Well, Chris and I grew up together and went to the same college. After a couple semesters, we decided to start playing music together. Then we found Dave and Shiraz through mutual friends at school. I had a class with Dave and we started talking about music and just started playing together. We made a decision to kind of start playing music together but we didn’t really know what we were doing. So it was definitely interesting cause we just stumbled upon ideas.

The Pistola: Last October, I saw you play with Ra Ra Riot at the Trocadero and I noticed you had a very intricate style of guitar and drums. What’s your musical background like?

EE: We all took lessons or studied music a little bit. Everyone, at one point or another, studied a little bit of jazz and a little bit of everything. I guess we don’t really have a definitive background in anything. When we first started playing music, we were into a lot of 70’s music and prog stuff, at least guitar wise. Since then we have tried to shape that into enjoyable pop songs. So that’s where that kind of sound came from.

The Pistola: When I did see you guys, you weren’t on Barsuk Records at the time. How did come to be? Getting signed by them?

EE: It happened from that tour. We met the Ra Ra Riot guys and did that full tour. We met the Barsuk people through them. Some of them came out to see us play a show in Chicago and we just started talking to them. They were always a label we respected and we’re really excited to be working with them.

The Pistola: When you recorded your new record that comes out in June, since you were signed to a label, was the recording process any different from when you recorded your previous EPs and self-released stuff?

EE: The process was definitely very different. With the EPs, we worked on the songs and played them live. After having played them for a little bit, we recorded them as they were.

With this record, we went in to the studio with a mix. Some of the songs were complete ideas and others were just sketches. Also, working with Jason Cupp, who produced the record, made us explore lots of different sounds. There’s strings and horns; instrumentation we never really tried before. It was really exciting to expand the songs that way.

The Pistola: When you wrote the songs, did you write them with the strings in mind? Or did they come in the studio?

EE: We had all the song ideas we wanted record for the record and then we went through each song and brainstormed what would sound really cool for different parts. It was as if we dissected the songs part by part. We were like, “This part would sound really cool with the clarinet” and “It would be cool to have a cello mirror the vocals” and stuff like that.  We’ve never done that before and it wasn’t until we got into the studio with the horn and string players that those ideas came to be.

The Pistola: On this tour, will you be playing new material or older stuff?

EE: We’re going to try and play some new stuff. When we put together the sets for this tour, it was very exciting. We only have like 45 minutes to play so lets try and make the ultimate set. All the upbeat songs from the old stuff and the new record. It’s going to be a good mix of both. Oldies and goodies.

The Pistola: Since record store day just passed, did partake in purchasing anything?

EE: We actually played a show on record store day. We’re on this really awesome compilation that was for this music store Landlocked in Bloomington, Indiana. They put out a really cool 12 inch with us, Bonnie Prince Billy, and a bunch of great bands. So we didn’t get to do too much since we were busy but it was exciting to be able to put something out and be a part of record store day.

The Pistola: If you had to name three essential records, what would you say?

EE: Oh man, I don’t know. That’s a tough one.

The Pistola: Maybe three recent records. I don’t want to make you think too hard.

EE: We listen to a lot class rock in the van, but it’s kind of all over the place. As a band, we really like that new Yeasayer record(Odd Blood). Also, we’ve been listening to our friend’s record, Phantogram. They just played Chicago last night. I can’t think of a third(laughs).

The Pistola: I understand. Whenever I get put on the spot, I can never think of anything.  So once you get done touring with Frightened Rabbit, what are your plans? If you have any..

EE: We do the Frightened Rabbit tour and our record comes out June 29^th. Then we’ll be doing our headlining/record release tour pretty much all summer, July and August. It’s going to be a lot touring for us this year.

Before I got to talk to Meg Baird, I saw Kurt Vile wandering around AKA Records, sifting through vinyl, singing along to The Kinks tunes playing overhead.  Honestly, I was a bit hesitant to approach the guy who put out an amazing record in Childish Prodigy. Great records sometimes create bigger ideas of artists, but luckily for The Pistola, he was actually very receptive and kind about the interview request.

Following a very loud set with the Violators at a jam-packed Beautiful World Syndicate in South Philadelphia, Kurt made sure he said his ‘goodbyes’ and finished off his Yuengling, and we got to talking.

Words by Chris Zakorchemny and photo by Tiffany Yoon

The Pistola: Did you ever own any bad records, or like bands that haven’t exactly stood the test of time?

Kurt Vile: Well, if you’re talking about vinyl; when I was a kid, I did have some vinyl. I used my mom’s record player when I started realizing bands put out seven-inches – like Beck or Pavement. But before then I was listening to Pennywise. That’s kind of bad. I was listening to that new-school punk that’s not new-school any more. I don’t really know what you mean by bad…

The Pistola: Well, stuff you wouldn’t readily play now, or might be hesitant to play in front of certain people.

KV: I definitely wouldn’t put on Pennywise CDs. I would probably put on Rancid for old time’s sake. I probably wouldn’t put on NOFX. Or, I would, for memories. I think the worst are bad alternative bands, like this band The Candyskins that were real bad. I remember listening to them in junior high.

The Pistola: How did you hear about these bands?

KV: Listening to the radio in Lansdowne – WDRE. They’re actually not that bad. That’s where I first heard about Beck and Pavement, but they played the Goo Goo Dolls and everything, too. There were just certain bad alternative bands I had CDs by from a local CD store – CR CDs in Lansdowne.

The Pistola: When did you first feel like you had a connection to a record store?

KV: Once I got into vinyl I went into the city all the time. The Philadelphia Record Exchange was probably the first place I went. I used to go there and still go there. I went to Noise Pollution and all those South Street stores. I went to (Sound of Market) Jazsound.

The Pistola: Did you meet people who were able to recommend things you felt you should have already been listening to?

KV: Not really, until I moved up to Boston, when everyone was going to college and I wasn’t. I was 20 or 21. Everyone was listening to John Fahey and Brian Eno and all that cooler stuff like Richard Hell and the Voidoids. The punk stuff didn’t hit me ‘til later, and maybe at that time I wouldn’t admit I listened to this or that, but now I really don’t care.

The Pistola: Yeah, it’s all relevant to how you listen to things.

KV: I was into the Spin Doctors. I don’t like them anymore. One of my first concerts was Counting Crows. I remember the day I went to that concert. I got Beck’s “Loser” single and then I went to that concert. I still like the Counting Crows, though. Thankfully, they have weirder stuff. I don’t know if it’s weird but some find it passé. I’m real nostalgic about Beck, still.

The Pistola: I saw you at AKA and you performed here earlier, so you’ve been supporting RSD throughout the day. How do you feel about using exclusives and live performances to promote records for one day?

KV: This is the first time I’ve played Record Store Day and the second year I even knew about Record Store Day. I’m glad to do it. It was nice to come to Beautiful World Syndicate, because I come here and I never met (owner) Jon (Yates) before. And I’m friendly with places like AKA, the Record Exchange and Tequila Sunrise – it’s nice to know the people at these record stores. And also, you go in, and you know they’re people who love music.

The Pistola: Its great having that relationship with the people who work at record stores, not just so you can go to get what you want, but they eventually learn what you want, too.

KV: Record stores are funny too, like, once you get at the stage I’m at where I’ve been going forever and you’re friendly with the people who work there…once you’re trying to make it, you realize you have to go to record stores all the time to see who’s coming out. You make friends with the record guys, and once you’re in there, even if you can’t find what you want, you still have to leave with a few records.

The Pistola: Yeah! I can’t go to a record store and not buy something.

KV: Yeah, because you want to give them business. I definitely sympathize, even now that I have records out. I’m not trying to be like ‘Help out the record industry so I can make a living! It’s not fair! Fuck Napster!’ because even with downloads and how sales aren’t what they used to be, it helps.

The Pistola: Can you recommend one album you think everyone should have?

KV: There’s so many, but I’ll say right now one of my favorite records is Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter. I love Joni Mitchell, too. I’m still obsessed with her. But I have her stuff and now I’m finding Bryter Layter.

N.E.R.D play Temple University’s Spring Fling concert tonight with Girl Talk. Tickets for the show are still available. They’re 10 dollars for students and 20 dollars for non-students. Shae Haley of N.E.R.D phoned in last week to talk about their new album, Grizzly Bear, and more. Interview below.

The Pistola : So where are you right now?

Shay Haley: In LA. Finishing up the album.

The Pistola: Nice. How’s that going? How’s the west coast?

SH: The weather is beautiful and the album is pretty insane. It’s just great, everything’s perfect.

The Pistola: How long have you guys been working on the record?

SH: We’ve been working on this album for, I would say, about a year and half now. We tried out some punk pop sounds. We went in a punk pop direction. We explored adding members to the band, just trying to walk down every avenue to find a new direction and different sounds.

The Pistola: How’d adding new members and such go?

SH: It was fun. It was a learning process. Musically, we explored a lot of new musical directions. We tried a lot of things that necessarily didn’t fit the band, but… (his phone loses service. I get a call back a minute later). My fault Colin, my phone service went out.

So we added a member to the band; we toured with him for a good six months and for whatever reason it didn’t work out. Now we went back to the original setting, which is Chad(Hugo), Pharrell(Williams) and myself. We all did our research and found dope directions that we can all gel together to continue the N.E.R.D move.

The Pistola: You three go way back. How long have you known eachother for?

SH: It’s been over 15 years.

The Pistola: Are they (Hugo and Pharrell) kind of like having brothers in a sense? Do you guys ever fight over something?

SH: Yeah, we definitely bump heads sometimes. It’s healthy for the relationship. When you’re dealing with three different strong personalities, a lot of times we’re pretty much on the same wavelength in terms of creativity is concerned. Then there’s times where somebody will just come out with an idea that just doesn’t make sense for the movement. We have healthy debates and figure out a better plan that makes sense for the group. We’re trying that extreme idea and see how it works.

The Pistola: Do you guys write together or do you individually bring ideas to the table?

SH: It varies. Chad might come with an idea or P or myself. You know, it all varies, but we all work collectively together. P and Chad are definitely the maestros musically behind it but I’m forever going through the crates and the archives, always searching for new sounds and directions that we can go in. So we can be ahead of the curve.  N.E.R.D doesn’t necessarily have to fit with what’s going on; we like to push the envelope and do new things.

The Pistola: So at your upcoming shows, are you going to play any new material or stick to your old stuff?

SH: I think it’s time for the N.E.R.D fans and the other who are coming to see N.E.R.D who aren’t necessarily familiar with the N.E.R.D sound or the previous albums. They’ll get a taste of what this new album is going to be about. It’s pretty great. We’re known for making intense music. So we’re going to continue that.

The Pistola: Are Pharrell and Hugo taking on producer roles again for the new record?

SH: Yeah, Chad and Pharrell primarily produced this whole record. We worked with some outside producers. Those particular songs, we haven’t decided yet who make the album. That’s still up for discussion. We haven’t put together the sequence of the album just yet  Until we mix and master and press, it’s still yet to be determined what’s going to make album and what’s not.

The Pistola: When do you think it’s going to drop?

SH: Right now, it’s tentatively dropping on June 15^th.

The Pistola: Very cool. That’s not too far away.

SH: Nope, that’s right around the corner.

The Pistola: After the album drops, are you guys going to hit the road for a while?

SH: Absolutely, of course, we’re on the road now. We’ve been doing college shows on the weekends and sporadically throughout the week. We’re gonna go hard though in June. Start hitting the festivals and getting our promo tour on for the album release. You know, all that good shit. All those beautiful things with the promoting process.

The Pistola: So I got a few short questions for you. Just say whatever comes to your mind first… Imagine you had to curate your own festival, what three artists or bands would you have play?

SH: Grizzly Bear, Audio Bullys and Kanye(West).

The Pistola: Grizzly Bear? The guys who live in Brooklyn?

SH:Yeah. To be honest, I’m not sure where they’re from. I was introduced to them by Youtube, I’m a Youtube fanatic when it comes to finding dope indie bands who haven’t necessarily got the proper attention that they deserve.

The Pistola: Yeah, they put out a pretty sweet record(Veckatimest) last year.

SH: Yeah, I haven’t done my homework yet but they make some insane music.

The Pistola: So have you had any crazy fan encounters?

SH: No, not really. I try to lay pretty low key.

The Pistola: I guess it’s probably better that way…

SH: Well, to each his own. Some people get in it for the attention and love then there’s those who just get in it for the love(laughs).

The Pistola: When’s the last time you performed?

SH: We performed last Saturday at Duke University right before the national championship game.

The Pistola: That was probably pretty crazy.

SH: Oh, yeah that was pretty fucking insane.

The Pistola: What’s the last new artist or band that just blew you away when you listened to them?

SH: This band I discovered called Mansions On The Moon. You gotta check them out, they’re pretty dope.

The Pistola: You’ve been in the music business for quite a while. If you had to name one thing, what’s the coolest thing that music has brought you?

SH: I guess just being in a position to take care of my family and a lot of my friends.

Cymbals Eat Guitars had a killer 2009 with their self-released debut Why There Are Mountains, which was included in Pitchfork’s Top 50 albums of that year. They toured endlessly throughout the US and Europe in support of the record. The band just made a stop at Johnny Brendas with Bear In Heaven and Freelance Whales. Lead singer Joe D”Agnostino dropped by to talk about the band, 2009 highlights and what to expect from CEG in 2010.

The Pistola Press: How are you doing man?

Joe D’Agostino: Pretty well. How are you?

TPP: I’m alright. Just got done with classes for today so I’m just hanging out and it’s Friday. So life is good.

JD: Right on. I’m hanging out too. I’m downloading a bunch of records that I missed out on last year. That Girls record is really good.

TPP: Yeah, it is. I wanted to see them last fall but I was too young at the time to get into the venue they were playing.

JD: Oh, that sucks! The new Beach House is so fucking good too. Have you heard that?  The second track  “Silver Soul” is just really beautiful.  Anyway..

TPP: So how did you guys come to be Cymbals Eat Guitars?  I know you guys are pretty young…

JD: Yeah, I’m 21. Our drummer is 23, our keyboardist is 27 and bassist is 25. I guess we’re all pretty young. The drummer and I have been playing together since we were in high school in cover bands and things and on original material later into our high school careers. Like 11th and 12th grade, we started writing our own stuff.

When we began recording demos for this record, we got a band together via Craigslist. Only one of the members we originally pulled off of there stayed for the making of the record that was our keyboardist. He’s since left the group. Our originally bassist who played on the record, also left after our tour this past September with The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. The current group of people, Matt and I are the only founding members.

TPP: That’s cool. Where did you guys grow up together?

JD: South Jersey.. near Long Beach Island.

TPP: Yeah, I noticed that you were kind of local from your 609 area code. I’m from Philadelphia.

JD: Cool! Just a short drive. I saw a bunch of shows when I was a kid at the First Unitarian Church, which is still a venue to this day. It was a big thrill to play there when we did in October.

TPP: Yeah, I was at the show.

JD: Oh, really? Did you like it? Wait, you don’t have to answer. I’m just kidding(laughs).

TPP: Well, I’m talking to you now so I obviously did like it.

JD: You never know. People sometimes get stuck interviewing people they don’t really care about so I didn’t want to put you on the stop.

TPP: True. So what was the recording process like? You’re only 21 so I assume you were in school at the time.

JD: Yeah, I was. I had one foot out the door already though. I was going to Fordham Lincoln Center Manhattan at the time. Basically, we started the record the summer before my junior year of college so by that time I was already deep in thought about making the record. So I didn’t really go to school that much. When I did I would sort of sit there with a notebook and I was just in my own world. Not listening to the teachers or anything.

For the second semester of my junior year, I didn’t even complete it. After we had to start making more commitments and playing a lot more shows and rehearsing a lot, it became a full time thing. So I took a leave of absence from school and I think at this point all my scholarships are knolled. I don’t really see myself going back to school.

Anyway, after many, many days in September and October of 2008 of layering guitars and keyboards and vocals and things, we were done mixing the record in mid-October or so.  We had it done being mastered on my birthday, November 7th; I was 20 years old and got a mastered copy of my record for my birthday.

TPP: That’s pretty awesome.

JD: It was great!(laughs). I guess after that I just sent it to a couple of radio stations that I made friends with. Then things sort of launched for us from there.

TPP: It’s great how nowadays you can kind of do that. Like self-release a record and have it just take off.

JD: Yeah! That’s the Internet. I wish I could say something profound about it but I’m glad I grew up in the time that I did…

TPP: …the digital age.

JD: Just like I said. Sitting here downloading all these records fo’ free; regardless of the morality of that. It’s very useful.

TPP: 2009 recently just came to an end and you had a pretty great year. Are there any events that stood above the rest?

JD: Yes!(laughs) The first huge thing was probably the Pitchfork Festival(held in Chicago) in July. Going out there and not really knowing what to expect opening this huge festival. You never know how many people are going to show up at one in the afternoon. As it turns out, I’m bad judge of crowds but I was told that it was somewhere close to 5,000 people that came to see us for opening day. That’s still the most people we’ve played in front of. That was very memorable and very, very exciting and mind-blowing.

After that, the next defining moment had to be opening two shows for The Flaming Lips in London. Talking to Wayne Coyne(lead singer from The Flaming Lips) was really surreal. It still feels like a dream.

TP: So what are your plans for 2010 besides touring with Bear In Heaven?

JD: After that tour, we’re going to hit the summer festivals circuit. I know we’re going to Norway to play the Oya Festival and Way Out West Festival(in Sweden). Both of which Pavement is playing. So hopefully I’ll get to shake (Stephen) Malkmus’s hand.

When we get done that, we’ll start working on new material and put out a new record. We already have four songs. From there, we’ll keep on keepin’ on(laughs).

22 year old electronic musician Alan Palomo, formally known as Neon Indian, dropped by last week for an interview. His debut record Psychic Chasm was very well received by the critics, even being named the 14th best album of 2009 by Pitchfork. Pretty impressive. Palomo shows no sign of slowing down as he has quite a jampacked schedule ahead of him in 2010. In the interview, we talk about his writing process, playing on Jimmy Fallon, taking acid and more.

The Pistola: So what are you up to?

Alan Palomo: Not much. I actually woke up just a few hours ago because I pulled some kind of late night studio thing. Finally get back to the studio not too long from now. Kind of the thing I’ve been doing the past couple of days. Trying to finish up a single and on top of that, I’m producing this track for Miniature  Tigers, which is what I did last night. Just kind of been keeping consistently busy since I moved up here (Brooklyn, NYC).

The Pistola: You said you’re in the studio working on a new song?

AP: Yeah, absolutely. Just kind of isolated single that  could sort of hint at where the next album might go.

The Pistola : Would it be for Neon Indian or would it be for your other projects?

AP: Oh, it’s for Neon Indian. I mean pretty soon I’m going to start writing the first VEGA record. So right now I’ve kind of been focused on Neon Indian before I dive into anything.

The Pistola: Very cool. So where are you from?

AP: Originally, I’m from Monterrey, Mexico but I moved to Texas when I was about five or six. I pretty much lived there most my life right up until about two weeks ago.

The Pistola: Where’d you move to?

AP: Brooklyn.

The Pistola: What influenced you to make the move there?

AP: Well, I mean I think it was kind of just at a point where, I mean I only lived in Austin for about eight months.  And I sublet my apartment in May. I’ve literally toured since then. I’ve been consistently on and off tour from May to mid-January. By the time I got back, my lease expired. What happened was the motivation was to work on the VEGA record up there but I don’t know. I figured pretty much everyone I’ve collaborated with is already up here. So it just seems like a really interesting community to have much more immediate access to.  Looking at it from that angle, it’s really quite wonderful for that.

The Pistola: It’s definitely place to be for musicians. So when you were growing up, did you play any instruments?  I see that you are more into the electronics side of things with a keyboard and a bunch of effects.

AP: Yeah. I mean not exactly. I’ve always kind of grown up around music and absorbed it passively. Just because my parents… my dad was a musician so I kind of picked up guitar and bass and drums  at a pretty early age. For me, I was always kind of more interested in film and that was always something that spoke to me a little more immediately. It wasn’t until late high school that fatuation with music coming full circle and I tried to attempt making it.

The Pistola: Are you still interested in film?

AP: Yeah, absolutely. It’s what I studied in college. Obviously,  I took some time off to kind of just do music for a while. It can be far more interesting segways into working on film and just trying it directly. If anything, maybe having some future Neon Indian release being this score to some kind of short film that I produce, you know?  Or that I write the screenplay for. I definitely see a interesting template there to start mixing up the medium a little bit.

The Pistola: That’s a cool idea. I’d definitely be interested in seeing how that turns out. So from what I understand, you wrote the record by yourself. What was the process like writing by yourself? I’m you’re used to it but do you start off with a beat then add? Or do you find hooks to run with?

AP: There’s usually a variation of the same process. I think when I’m starting a new song, it always starts off with some sort of primitive drum machine rhythm and cheap bassline that I’m starting to build things off of. If not, just an interesting sample I feel that I could re-contextualize and start manipulating in such a way that it personalizes it. It tends to vary a little bit.

It’s just this thing that I do that really just sort of seems to unfold much later in the night. I can remember a lot of occasions in Austin, where I would go out to this place called ‘I Heart Video’; basically this video rental store that’s open till like three in the morning and just pick out some random Werner Herzog movie or something. And sit down and at some point towards the end of the film, last in the night, you’re at that sweet spot between delirium and creativity that’s the perfect situation to start writing after conglomeration of all these different things.

It’s usually not until then that things really happen. I try working on music during the day and it never really seems to pan out all that well(laughs).

The Pistola: Very interesting.  Was it difficult translating your music to a live band?

AP: It definitely required a bit of recontextualization. Obviously, when I  set up the music, I hadn’t really garnered any expectation about it. I think the last thing on my mind, initially as I was writing the songs, how am I going to translate this into a live environment.

Eventually, my perceptions of Neon Indian were evolving as people’s perceptions were kind of forming. It was at that state that I realized I had an album coming out. It was all sort of whirlwind because I wrote the album in a little under a month and I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to do with it.

Once I got to that point, I had to start of thinking about what different components on the album I could translate to a live environment in front of an audience and make it fun for people. That was really a challenge.
It was very much a home studio record. It was sort of like becoming the best Neon Indian cover band in town. Your taking songs you’ve written and trying to match them with these incomparable sounds that you can replicate with some kind of band. Part of that was doing all the guitar stuff live and taking all the little samples and increments of sound and looping them in strange ways.

I think the biggest challenge was how little time we had to prep everything. I can remember the first 8-10 shows were pretty precarious and troublesome. It wasn’t until after that where we hit a stride where were getting incredibly comfortable with it. Comfortable enough to start deviating from the original songs in fun, interesting ways.

The Pistola: I kind of got that sense when I watched you on Jimmy Fallon the other night and you mashed those two songs… it worked so well.

AP: That was a very unique challenge because we realized we had 3 and a half minutes, which “Terminally Chill” barely clocks in at three. Jimmy really wanted to hear “Terminally Chill” but we were really stoked on the idea of possibly performing “Ephemeral Artery” because that was always one of the songs that hit the hardest live.

So we found this happy medium where we were like, “If we could throw an extra minute in there, how about we do a melody of both songs?” and it was just ridiculous. Getting four and a half minutes on TV is absurd.  So we really had to find an interesting conglomeration of who we are. We had the interesting single then this visceral live track. I was really happy with how it turned out.

The Pistola: How did it feel playing on a late night show?

AP: I barely remember it(laughs). I feel like I went into this weird animal adrenaline.  I remember setting up between commercial break then I remember coming back from commercial. And as soon as Jimmy was holding the record, it just went completely fuzzy.

I felt like I was running on some intense fighter flight, sort of mental state. Where you think you’re going to die so you’re body is coercing with all this adrenaline. So yeah, it was a little bit like that(laughs).

The Pistola: Since you have a song titled, “Should Have Taken Acid With You”,  I can only assume you’ve taken acid before. Did the drug play any part in the writing process?

AP: It was actually about a missed opportunity to take acid. To this day, I still haven’t taken it. Granted, I’ve  had plenty of other run-ins with potent hallucinogens and psychedelic drugs but acid has not been one of them.

The story behind, “Should Have Taken Acid With You” was that I was…. It was kind of the birth of Neon Indian, really.  It all started with that song.

I had this dream that I had taken some potent psychedelic drug with my friend (Neon Indian visual artist) Alicia(Sardetta). I had this really absurd experience. Right as it was kicking in was when I woke  up so I wasn’t really sure if I was awake or not.  So I felt kind of funny and texted Alicia about it. She responded, “Oh, is that something you want to do?”. So we set aside this time to take acid over the holiday break. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it San Antonio, which is where we grew up.

Roughly, about a month later I wrote this humorous, cheek apology in form of a song and that was the beginning of “Should Have Taken Acid With You”.

The Pistola: (laughs) Good story. So you have different names like VEGA and Neon Indian. Do they represent different styles of music or…

AP: Yeah, I mean like I can never get too tied to something I would individually do myself. I don’t really know what a “Alan Palomo” song would sound like. I always look at these things the same way I look at films. Individual concepts with their own set of ideas and artistic objectives.  I don’t really see it as one linear thing that’s constantly evolving because I get too excited about different genres of music. I kind of jump from one to next. And I think that jumping from different styles keeps me sane(laughs).

The Pistola: (laughs) I see. What lies ahead for you in 2010? I see that you’re hitting pretty much every festival.

AP: Well, I think this year is going to be like a ceaseless output. The idea is to not only finish up the VEGA album before it’s time to start hitting up festivals but shortly upon returning, the immediate objective is to write the next Neon Indian album.

British indie rockers Editors played the Trocadero Theatre on Saturday night(02.20) with The Antlers. A few weeks prior to the show, Editors bass player Russell Leetch checked in for a phone interview before the band headed to see Avatar. We went on to talk about several different topics including producer Mark Flood, football(soccer) and the New Moon soundtrack. Interview and a photo from the show below.

The Pistola: So you guys are on the west coast right tomorrow and you starts tour tomorrow…

Russell Leetch: Yeah, tomorrow in Seattle. We’re suppose to be doing Conan this evening . Obviously, he’s not on air so we’re not doing it. We’re doing another promo instead. But tour starts tomorrow and I’m looking forward to it. It should be fun, it’s been a while since we’ve been here(US).

TP:What were rehearsals like for the tour? Were they different from past tours?

Russell: The last tour we did, we had to put the songs together when we were rehearsing them because that album was made in the studio. However, this record we composed it all beforehand. So we actually played everything live, played all the synths live and then recorded it live. It was actually a lot easier for us to translate on to stage.  We have a lot more equipment and a lot more drum triggers that have potential to go wrong all the time.

TP: Right. Since you guys are using a lot more synths and such, did working with Mark Flood have a lot of influence over the new record?

Russell: Oh, yeah. Flood’s from a background that specializes in that. He’s done some classic albums like Violator by Depeche Mode and more. Pretty huge records with kind of synthness in them. It just seems when we went to him we already started working on synths so he just seemed like the best choice.

TP: I was reading that you had recorded 18 songs for the new record. How did you decide on cutting down the songs to just nine songs?

Russell: Well, when you say, ‘cutting’; it’s right. We released like an EP along with the record in the UK, which is called Cuttings II. Basically, it was the songs that were left off the album that we didn’t think fitted. Those nine songs fit well together as a piece . The other tracks are a little bit more guitar oriented with the riffs. So they’re a little bit different.  We put out the EP and I think you can get it on iTunes in the States.  I’m not certainly sure.  So people can see what else we were doing. Maybe we’ll do a record that has more big riffs as well.

TP: I’m sure you guys get this a lot, but how did you end up on the New Moon soundtrack?

Russell: The director asked Tom(Smith) directly. He liked the band. He heard the demo of the song cause we actually sent them out to a couple of people. He was just interested and just ended up using the demo version. It’s just Tom on his piano at home by himself recorded on the four-track. And it made a big Hollywood movie.

TP: Did you end up watching the film?

Russell: I haven’t actually.  Never seen it, no. I mean it’s not really a film for me. I’m sure I’ll watch it at some point, but it’s not something that I haven’t actually decided to see.

TP: I haven’t either, but it has a pretty killer lineup of musicians…

Russell: Yeah, it’s nice to be involved. I like St. Vincent. I like Seu Wolfe. Obviously, I like Radiohead.

TP: Very cool. So are you guys football fans or I guess I should say soccer?

Russell: Yeah! I mean Ed(Lay) and Chris(Urbanowicz) are really big football fans. They actually have a sports agent. And they go on a lot TV and radio programs in the UK as kind of celebrities and talk about football. That’s how much they like it.

TP: Really? Who do they support?

Russell: They support Ipswich and Nottingham Forest. I used to support Aston Villa, well I kind of still do but I just don’t follow as hard.

TP: They’re doing pretty well this season.

Russell: Yeah, definitely. They’re getting better and better every season so I think it’s good for the fans. That’s why I stopped liking them because they were just so boring for ages.

TP: (laughs) Nice. How did your tour with The Antlers come about? Was it a booking agent type deal or did you guys have a say in the opener?

Russell: No, we always have a say who goes on tour with us. It’s always put to us. We always try to create good, interesting bills. Even if the person only knows us because of a tune on the radio, we want them to like the bands that we like. And to vary up, we don’t just go for bands that are exactly like us. We have had a lot of varying sports; some are hits, some are misses, but we really like The Antlers record. It’s one of our recent favorites.

TP: So are you looking forward to anything this year in 2010 since it kind of just started?

Russell: We’re doing loads of gigs and I’m sure the festivals will lots of fun. Just kind of cracking on, doings shows. Just looking forward to getting back in the studio and doing another record, really. There’s lots of things that are just popping up all the time.