Interview

INTERVIEW: OBERHOFER

The LC Pavillion | November 14, 2012 | Columbus, OH

photos by Erika Mugglin

For some reason or another (probably my dyslexia), I associate the name Oberhofer with images of a peaceful European field, filled with prancing deer and red windmills.  Named after frontman and founder Brad Oberhofer, the band crafts music that sounds more suited for a trampoline party, energetic, bouncy… However, I can’t help but notice subtle strains of somber isolation in some of their lyrics.  If you’re not familiar with them, you may recognize their song “o0Oo0Oo” from a recent rooftopT-Mobile commercial.

Erika, my fabulous friend, photographer for the evening, and close friend of the band, was already inside when I arrived. I was chronically late, frazzled after a long day at work, now dismayed there was already huge group of people shivering in line, waiting to get the best spot for the show with Matt & Kim.  I politely excused my way to the front of the crowd of pursed lipped teenaged girls who became even poutier when I explained to the doorman that I was on the list.  I smiled wryly to myself as I slipped past them and walked into the empty, huge venue.  

The band was still soundchecking, so Erika and I made good use of the time and tossed some possible interview questions around.  My brain felt utterly fried. But I was thrilled to see the Oberhofer crew again.  We had met at several of their Ohio shows a few times before, but I never had the opportunity to snag an interview.  The music stopped and guitarist Matthew Schneider came bounding out and gave me and Erika a huge hug.  We headed outside and climbed into their brand new tour bus (which was welcomingly warm) for the interview.  Brad, and drummer Pete Sustarsic were already on board, shortly followed by bassist Dylan Treleven and guitarist Ben Roth.  

JITP: I hear this is the first time you guys are touring in a bus. How’s that experience been?

Ben: It’s been nice. We have to worry about driving a lot less, you know, which is, uh, uh, something we, we’ve done a lot of up until this point. 

Matt: Particularly him. He was the DD.

Ben: Yeah. We can sleep on here at night which is very comfortable. It’s sort of a little bumpy but, you know. It’s been nice. Though it isn’t officially a bus. It’s more like a human box truck. 

JITP: Yeah, let’s talk about it since people can’t see the actual bus.  Describe the human-box-truck for the readers. 

Dylan: It’s basically a, uh… a box truck that’s been converted into an RV. So, it has bunks over here. There’s a flat screen TV. 

Ben: There’s a refrigerator. 

Dylan: Uh, you’ll notice it has a microwave and a built-in sound system. 

Ben: There’s a showering room in the back with a sink. 

JITP: Nice. 

Ben: And a toilet room. 

Matt: There’s a fridge. 

Dylan: No pooping in the toilet. 

JITP: No?  Is that an official rule? 

All: Yes!

Dylan: It’s a rule. 

Ben: It was the first rule actually.  Number one rule of Truckbus. 

Pete: Rule one, no number two. [Laughter]

Ben: That’s a good one. 

Brad: Gravy! 

JITP: I heard you guys got stuck in a ditch last night or this morning.

Pete: In my parents’ driveway. I mean we didn’t get, uh, actually stuck in the mud or in the ditch but we got stuck at the end of the driveway. It was hard to…we couldn’t go forward or backwards. But we weren’t up to our hubs in mud. It was just a thing…it was a maneuvering thing. It wasn’t that, uh, tragic. We got out of it. 

JITP: It sounded pretty epic but…well, I imagined it being quite epic. 

Pete: The pictures made it look a lot worse than it was. 

JITP: So, how has tour been so far other than getting stuck in the ditch? 

Pete: It’s been relatively smooth. Smooth going. 

Brad: Yeah, it’s been really fun. We’ve seen a lot of things, had a crazy year. 

JITP: How crazy? 

Pete: Just crazy. A lot of touring.  A lot of touring this year. 

Brad: Extremely crazy. 

Matt: Pretty much everything that I never thought was going to be on my radar, I’ve got to do this year… 

Brad: Yeah, he doesn’t even own a boat. [Grins sheepishly]

[Laughter]

Matt: [Addressing Brad] Like, sonar? laughs Okay, I get it now. [Back to JITP] Like playing on the Late Show and playing at festivals like the big festivals. 

JITP: What were some of the festivals you guys played this year? From what I was seeing on fest line-ups and announcements, you played a ton. 

Matt: [sarcastically] Uh, there’s this one called Lollapoloza. You might have heard of it? 

JITP: [joking] Yeah? Yeah… I think I have. 

Matt: I think it’s new. I think… 

Pete: New-ish. 

Brad: We played Lollapoloza, Bonaroo, Coachella Festival, Austin City Limits. We played Oya Festival in Oslo. Way out West in Sweden. Um, Reading and Leeds. Pinkpop in the Netherlands, a few other small festivals in Europe…and North by Northeast in Canada. 

JITP: I heard good things about North by Northeast. 

Brad: Actually… It’s where [Erika (photographer) and I] met for the first time. 

JITP: Awww! Personal connections! 

Erika: Known each other so long now. 

Brad: It’s been a long time. 

JITP: This is the first time I’ve interviewed you guys, even though I’ve known you for a couple years and you’ve played in Columbus many times. So I have to ask, how did you all meet each other? I don’t think I ever got that story. Because, [Brad], this is originally your project, right? 

Brad: Yes, that’s right.

Pete: I met Brad in Brooklyn. He had a version of the band going for a couple shows, and the first drummer didn’t work out. And a friend of mine was talking to his manager and recommended me. Brad and I got together in Bushwick and started practicing together. 

Ben: Yeah, Brad and Dylan and I know each other from high school. 

JITP: Did you all grow up in New York? 

Brad: I grew up in Tacoma, Washington. 

JITP: Wow, opposite coast! What brought you over to New York?

Brad: I came to New York to go to school. 

Ben: I went over there earlier this year to go on tour with this band. 

Matt: And I - Brad called me, I got a somewhat unsolicited phone call from Brad, uh, in August of 2010, after I’d been away on a really long trip, and asked me if this is - the guitar slot was, uh, a gap, at that moment. 

JITP: I heard you [Brad] are known for your crazy dreams.  So, I think we should swap some dream stories, ‘cause we‘ve all had some crazy dreams… 

Dylan: The rest of us don’t dream at all, actually, ever.

Matt: Brad hogs all the dream space. [laughter]

Dylan: Suck it all right out of the room. 

Pete: I did have dream the other night, though, that our driver was dating Madonna. Our driver’s named Paul, and he was like, they were a couple. It was a split second of a dream, but they were obviously a couple, and were going to go do something, he was, “All right, see you guys.” 

JITP: Totally normal? No second guessing the oddity in your dream?

Pete: Yeah. I probably realized, like, that’s pretty cool. Paul and Madonna.

Ben: Can I share a friend’s dream, actually?  They’re just way more interesting than my recent dreams. Uh, my friend, she’s a drummer in sort of a stoner doom metal band called Orbweaver. And, uh, she had this dream that she was in a tree, with her legs spread open. She’s stuck up in a tree, and there’s this gigantic spider with like a bunch of teeth and like blood coming out of his mouth and one just gigantic eye, like hissing at her crotch and trying to crawl inside of her. 

JITP: Wow… (I was utterly horrified) 

Brad: That’s awesome! 

JITP: That is INSANE… (still horrified) 

Ben: It’s funny, because her band’s name is Orbweaver, which is a spider. 

Erika: That’s like the stuff of nightmares. Yeah, it’s…oh God. It’s awful. 

Ben: I think that’s the most interesting dream I’ve heard of recently. 

JITP: Now all I can think about is spiders crawling in my vagina. 

[Laughter]

Ben: [smiling] You’re welcome!

Brad: My most recent dream was extremely vague, but also extremely pleasant. I think it was two nights ago that I had a dream that I was just with friends, sitting in a field around a waterfall.  Actually, yeah. And that was all I remember of the dream. It was really pleasant. 

JITP: Sounds pretty peaceful. Better than spiders, crawling up vaginas, or trying to. 

Ben: Vaginal spiders! Be on the lookout. Health class poster. 

JITP: Yeah. Should think of some health class PSAs.  Yeah…  Sorry, I can’t… I am getting super focused on that right now. 

Matt: Chlamydia is not a flower. [laughter] That’s actually a video on YouTube.

JITP: Really? 

Matt: It’s not a real PSA. It happens to be very funny, but… , somebody made it as a joke. [pauses] Chlamydia is not a flower.

Erika:  Words to live life by. 

JITP: Let’s talk about your upcoming album. When does it come out… what was the writing process…?

Brad: It’s going to come out sometime in January of 2013.  I basically demoed some songs at home, and then worked on,it with everyone else after, you know, after I’d done some ideas. Sort of reworked it with everyone. And we recorded everything together. 

Pete: In the studio, yeah, we kind of did our own parts. We would listen to Brad’s demo and then add our own parts in the studio. 

JITP: What would you say are the biggest differences between this album and the last? 

Brad: Well, this is five people on every song, the last record was me playing most of the parts. And Ben wasn’t even on the last record, and you know Dylan - Dylan and I played on about half the songs, and Pete played on a couple of the songs, And this is more, this is more collaborative than that. 

JITP: You play a lot shows here and around Ohio.

Pete: We’re coming to Ohio because of me. 

Dylan: Ohio comes to us, really. 

Ben: It’s true. Ohio brings it. 

Pete: Yeah, we’ve played Cleveland clubs a bunch of times, Cincinnati maybe twice. Played outdoors once, and then we played at the Motor Pub once. Maybe three times, I’m not really sure. 

JITP: What do you guys plan on doing with your time off after the tour? 

Ben: Thanksgiving, in Hawaii. 

JITP: That’s nice. 

Dylan: Find a job. 

JITP: What kind of work are you looking for? 

Dylan: Oh, bartending, or I’ve done some stagehand work, I’ll try to get in with the stagehand’s union in New York. I worked with the Seattle stagehand’s union. Coffee shop, or anything that I can kind of leave when I need to. 

Matthew: I’m going to take up archery. 

Brad: I’m probably going to spend some time - I don’t really have an apartment or anything, and I found a cabin in the woods in the Catskills for pretty cheap. So I’m just going to stay there for awhile. 

JITP: Any words to live life by? 

Brad: Oh yeah. 

It can sometimes be good 

to be misunderstood.

Ben: Uh, suck up. [laughter] 

Dylan: I’ve got a new EP coming out. The band is called Sun Signs. 

Brad: Oh, there’s a new Sun Signs EP? 

Dylan: Just now. I haven’t heard it, I mean it’s not finished. 

JITP: It’s coming? Cool. What kind of music is it?

Dylan: It’s electronic stuff, a lot of sampling. It’s kind of [noises] down tempo, like… 

Brad: It’s like - there’s a video on Sun Sign’s page. It’s really fucking cool. 

Dylan: It sounds a little bit different but it’ll be experimental.  

JITP: [Brad] I also heard that you have a side project that you’ve been working on? Traveling around with one of your friends, want to talk about that a little bit? 

Brad: Oh wow, that’s really recent. Um, yeah, my friend has a band called “Shadow Walker.” And, um, I’m playing guitar. I toured with them down the west coast, just for like the first week and a half of January. 

JITP: Mm-hmm. That’s very cool. What’s it like? What does it sound like?

Brad: Um…I don’t know. 

JITP: It’s a secret? 

Brad: Just look up “Shadow Walker.” 

Oberhofer's new album is slated for release this spring.  Keep an eye out for tour dates which should be announced soon.

JACK IN THE POCKET chats with BEAR IN HEAVEN

On Monday, I chatted with Adam Wills, guitarist of Bear in Heaven, about their upcoming album, tour and show in Columbus, OH this Friday at The Basement!  

Words can’t express how excited I am to see them in concert again!  

Links:
Bear in Heaven interview with Jack in the Pocket 2010
I Love You, It’s Cool JITP Review

1,2,3 | September 16, 2011 | Rumba Cafe | Columbus, OH

Concert photos by Miharu Kato
Interview photos by Laura Shaffer

I was pleasantly surprised to find Rumba Cafe packed to the ceiling to see 1,2,3 on that cool September evening.  (To be honest, I’m always surprised if a show is packed because of the finicky tendencies of Columbus audiences.  Some small bands like 1,2,3 pack rooms, others like Gauntlet Hair hardly draw a crowd, yet both are equally awesome, and similar in sound.) I had been following these boys since I heard Confetti in 2009, so I was antsy to finally see them live.  They did not disappoint.  Everyone had smiles plastered on their faces, drink in their hands and were hopping, flailing, waving, stepping in convulsions of merriment as 1,2,3 ripped the stage.  I had broken out in a decent sweat by the end of their set.

We gathered on the back patio of Rumba Cafe just as bartenders were already herding the crowd into the main room.  Josh and Nick were discussing the TV show, Breaking Bad and how it’s conclusion could make or break the series. 

"LAST CALL!  TAKE YOUR DRINKS INSIDE!!!" shouted a bouncer.  We decided to get down to business…

KP: The first time I heard about you guys was almost a year ago, today.  I know you guys got press from the Guardian, We All Want Someone, Pretty Much Awesome….

Josh: Yeah, that was last year… early last year.

KP: I love the single version of Confetti, that is what really turned me on to your music. 

Nick:  Yeah we like it better!  We do prefer the original version better.

KP: What was your recording process like for your album New Heaven?

New Heaven

Nick:  It’s always different.  There isn’t like one, singular process.  I could take you through the entire album and tell you, but I’ll walk you through a couple scenarios.  Work was the first song I recorded on ProTools.  It was instrumental… we recorded a kick drum loop and a tambourine loop.  There were two different versions of music that happened, and I didn’t care for either of them.  So, I changed it completely.  I played it for Josh about a year and half after later after I had messed around with it for a while…

Listen to Work by 1,2,3.

Josh:  It was really that long? A year and a half??

Nick:  Yeah! It was that long ago, dude!  [laughter] So, Josh really liked it and I was like, I can’t figure out what melody to sing over top of this.

Josh:  It was just music, that’s all we had.

KP:  Was it just you two in the beginning?

Josh:  Yeah, we were in a band before this and…

KP: Takeover UK?

Takeover UK

Josh:  Yeah! And, it grew increasingly volatile and also our record label dropped us.  Also,  Takeover had two songwriters and singers and they kept going separate ways.  I had been friends with Nick for like, 15 years.  I didn’t get along with the other guys at all.  So, we decided to break the band up. Nick had a handful of songs that were vastly different.  One night we got drunk and he had me listen to the songs, asked me what I thought and if I wanted to break the band up.  I was like, ‘Let’s do it.’  So we broke up Takeover UK.  We did some closet recordings for like, six months just fuckin’ around.  I guess I’m kinda getting ahead of the original question but…

Nick: I mean, uh, yeah a lot of us started in ProTools but -

Josh:  We piece it together! The old band would take a song and write it in one instance.  We wrote the music, and thought of ideas for songs… premeditated. This band is much more pieced together.  It started out just the two of us…

We were interrupted by shouts of “LAST CALL!  GET OFF THE PATIO!” Bartenders started shooting unappreciative looks our way…

Nick:  Lonesome Boring Summer I wrote on my iPod.  I got an app that I enjoy thoroughly and just wrote a song around it.  Sorry, Soldier I wrote when I was 19 years old during my freshman year of college.

KP: How old are you guys now?

Nick:  I’m 27, Josh is 28.

Laura (photographer):  That was about a decade ago that you wrote that song.

Nick:  Yeah, almost. But then there’s 20,000 Blades which we wrote a week before going into the studio. 

Josh:  There’s a few newer ones.  The songs on the album range from 10 years ago to about 2 weeks before going into the studio.  It was a compilation of the best things he had done that didn’t fit our last band —

Again, we’re interrupted by desperate attempts by the bartenders to shut the patio down…

Nick:  Yeah.  We should probably move on to the next question though…

Josh: … before we get kicked out.

KP: Let’s see, let’s talk about growing up around Pittsburgh and your musical journey growing up.

Nick:  Me and Josh became friends in Junior High.  He was two years older than me which is like, a vast difference in Jr. High.  My dad had studied abroad in college and he came back with all these punk 7” from the late 70’s. The Clash, Sham 69, Ian Dury… all sorts of really awesome punk music.  We were the only kids in our school who were actually into that stuff.

Josh:  I had blue hair!

[laughter]

KP:  Did you really?!

Josh:  Yeah!

KP:  Do you have old photos of that you can send me?

Josh: No, unfortunately.  I had a house burn down, so everything from 16 back was lost.

KP: Oh, man.  Sorry.  Damn it!

Josh:  Yeah.  So, we were both punk rockers.  My parents got divorced so I moved away from Pittsburgh and came back… it’s a weird story.   My sister was dating Josh’s best friend, so I found out he needed a drummer through her.  We hadn’t talked in 2-3 years, which was really weird.  So we came back around, our musical influences grew together. It was uncanny.  We were both punk rockers and then we were like, “Hey, I like the Beatles, I like Creedence Clearwater Revival…” 

Nick:  In some weird way we went from punk rock to classic rock -

Josh:  - together! Without knowing each other during that time. It was fuckin’ weird. When I joined his band, I didn’t know how to play drums.  I had glorified buckets, basically. I could keep a beat.  My mother was a dancer so I think I got the rhythm from her, or something. Nick and I learned how to play our instruments together.

Nick:  I played bass originally.  We’ve been in… several bands.

Josh: For about 12 years. 

Nick:  Probably about 6 bands.  Hardcore bands, punk bands, prog bands.

Josh:  So we grew as musicians together and it just kinda stuck.  Pittsburgh is just one of those cities where we grew up lower-middle class.  And you know, there are the jocks, the nerds, and the musicians.

KP:  You’re finding your life paths are running parallel to each other…

Josh:  Yeah, it’s weird now that I think about it.  Never really thought about it that way but, yeah.  I mean, I could have gone and listened to free jazz or some crazy shit. [laughter] You know what I mean?

KP:  I noticed when I was reading articles about you guys online, a lot of people were comparing you to T-Rex, The Beatles, and Dylan…

Josh:  Fuck yeah! We love all that stuff.

Nick: [sighs] Dylan’s my boy, you know?

Josh:  His voice does sound like Marc Bolan, at times.

Nick:  People tell me that, but it’s not intentional by any means. Don’t get me wrong, I love T-Rex!  I love Marc Bolan.  It just happens that I sound like him at times.

KP:  You guys have been 1,2,3 for how long now?  Over a year?

Josh:  In November it will be 2 years.  But we didn’t play shows until about a year ago.  Our first show was in L.A. our second show was in London.  We’ve played more shows in London than we have in our hometown of Pittsburgh.

KP:  And you’ve played Columbus as many times as Pittsburgh now.  And people love you here, so make sure you keep coming back.

Nick:  We plan on it!

Josh:  Yeah, Columbus is sweet.

KP:  What were the major differences between your first two shows, the one in LA and the other in London?  Did you find it completely different.

Nick: [laughs] Yeah…

Josh:  We played at Koko which is in Camden in London.  We played NME night there.

KP:  I LOVE Koko! 

A photo from one of my many times at Koko during my time in London in 2008.

Josh:  We played some smaller clubs in London.  We played a couple industry parties too.  We also played the Great Escape in Brighton…  I fucking loved England.  I tried to miss my plane on purpose because I didn’t want to come home.  We had moved to LA for a while. And, sorry to our LA fans, but we hated it. 

Nick:  I’ll be honest, I kind of regret moving back. I know you have different feelings on it but I wish I would have given it more time.  I honestly do. I really, really do.

Josh:  It was a weird city and a weird situation.  My ex-girlfriend and I were living with each other and Nick was sleeping on our couch.  Just a weird thing.  It was also expensive as fuck to live in LA. We went to London, and I felt more at home there than I did in California.

KP:  I feel the same way about London. I felt so at home there. I loved Koko.  It’s such a great venue.  But, Columbus is an awesome place to be in the U.S.

Josh:  We played with Sting’s daughter that night.

Nick:  Ironically enough… what was their name?

Josh:  I Blame Coco! 

[laughter]

Nick:  I Blame Coco… yep. 

Josh:  We have a rotating band member who lives in LA who was at that show with us.  4 o’clock in the morning, drunk, he goes up to her and asks, “So, how’s your dad doing…?”  She said, “I don’t live with him anymore…”  You don’t talk about celebrity parents with their children… 

I Blame Coco

KP:  I ask this question every time I talk to a band who has played in London, especially in Camden.  But, when you guys were there, did you ever have a drink called Snakebite Black?  It’s half lager, half cider, and a splash of black current liquor.   It’s illegal in parts but some bars serve it in Camden. 

Nick:  That sounds delicious!

Josh:  How is that illegal?!

KP:  It makes men extremely violent. 

Josh:  If we’re gonna talk about drinks for a second… the most fucked up drink in the U.S. is something in San Francisco called Tokyo Tea.  It’s a pint glass full of every kind of liquor. 

Nick:  They take like, 4 different types of liquor and then pour on a splash of this green…

Josh: …This sweetener that’s so sweet that you can’t taste the alcohol.  I drank two of them!  TWO! Blacked out, woke up the next day and was puking blood in the dressing room before our show.  It was horrendous.

I proceeded to ask them the dreaded question, (What is the craziest thing that has happened to you guys since you’ve been on tour?) which was met with some groans from Nick and an initial statement that their tour life has been pleasant since they quit Takeover UK.  Josh then chimed in with a mention of their trip back from SXSW last March…  Listen to one of the BEST tour stories I have heard in the history of JackinthePocket.  For those of you viewing this interview in your Tumblr dashboard, visit JackinthePocket.com to listen.


1,2,3 is back in Columbus TONIGHT at The Summit!  Event details can be found HERE.  For everyone outside of Columbus, visit 1,2,3’s official website for tour dates and other information.

INTERVIEW : WASHED OUT

SEPTEMBER 29, 2010 | THE NEWPORT | COLUMBUS, OH

PHOTOS BY JOHN DANNER

Washed Out was in town.  WASHED OUT.  The countless hours I had spent in my apartment relaxing to his mysteriously mellow reverb laced tunes, pondering what this man was like in real life… well, I was about to find out.  I had worked out the interview after scouring the internet for his press contacts and ended up corresponding with his wife, who set everything up for me.  I met up with Jacob Corbin of Collective Crowd Records before the show; he had driven down from Akron, OH.  Ever faithful photographer, John Danner, was by my side once again, this time with a photo pass for The Newport, which gave him access to the space in-front of the stage to take some amazing photos during the live set.  I found Ernest’s wife, Blair, a beautiful, petite woman with sweet southern charm, working the merch table.  I introduced myself and we chatted for a few minutes.

I was surprised when Ernest walked out on stage with a full band behind him, and also impressed by how tall he was.  I didn’t get a sense of his stature at Pitchfork Music Festival a few months earlier.  

After the set, I met Ernest and his wife out front by the merch table.  I was immediately charmed by his Southern drawl and ease. He and Blair make such a cute couple.  We all chatted for a minute, and then John and I followed Ernest backstage.  We shimmied behind the heavy black curtain behind the crazy looking honeycombs that were set up for the Yeasayer show, using my phone as a makeshift flashlight.  Then, it was up a winding metal staircase held together by balls of electrical and duct tape.  Ah yes, this was the same greenroom where I interviewed Bear in Heaven.  Curved black walls, one light, one worn in couch, parts of it also held together by duct tape.  As we set everything up I learned that all of the new band members of Washed Out had just met each other the Friday before this show.  This was only their second time playing live together.  Pretty impressive, if you ask me.  Their set was tight, and sounded energetic and fuller than Ernest’s solo set in Chicago.

KP:  So you’re from Perry, GA.  How did you create Washed Out?

Ernest Greene: Yes, I grew up in Perry.  When I created Washed Out, I was living in Columbia SC; I had graduated college and moved there.  I had been working on music for a couple years in my bedroom, and never really had any intentions of playing in a band or putting music out.  It was more of just a hobby.  The stuff I was working on at that time was really different than it is now but it has kind of progressed into the Washed Out Sound.  So I guess, early last year (2009) was when I kind of started really working on the style.  It was just time, right situation… I met Chaz Budnik of Toro Y Moi and we had similar interest, and started playing music together.   It was kind of his success that kind of led to me breaking out.  He got signed to Carpark records and got blog buzz and through that… He had me as one of his top friends on Myspace, so people just randomly stumbled across my page. I only had one or two songs up…

[door opens…]

EG:  This is Ray!

KP:  Hi!

Ray:  Hola! 

EG:  And so anyway, a couple blogs emailed me about posting stuff.

KP:  Who were some of the first blogs, do you remember?

EG:  No Pain in Pop was the first one, yeah. So I was just, so psyched that someone was interested.  They are based in London and that was even more fantastic to me.  So as soon as it got posted the ball started rolling and the songs were passed around pretty quickly.  To the point where I was getting emailed from blogs asking for more songs.  I didn’t have any more songs at that time!  So for three days, all I did was record, the majority of which is on my EP.

KP:  From the blogging, it seemed like everything took off really fast.

EG: Super fast!

KP:  And from my understanding - 

[door opens…]

EG:  This is Phil!

KP: Hello!

EG:  Phil has a really cool project called Dog Bite.

[At this point my hearing abilities decide to get up and walk out the door so I asked Ernest about 5 times, “What’s it called? What?”  To a point where I got embarrassed just listening to myself during transcription.]

EG:  I heard his music online and was really into the fact that he’s from Atlanta because I spend a lot of time there, so I emailed him and that’s how we got in touch.  So he’s part of the band now.  I want to produce his stuff, because it’s really cool.

KP:  I’ll definitely have to check it out.

EG:  Yeah, it’s great!

KP:  Let’s talk about the first show you played as Washed Out, in New York.  It was sold out…

EG:  Yes, yes.  It was at Santo’s Party House… it was really bad. I had done a show, two or three days before in Atlanta.  I had no idea what I was doing.  It was generally a pretty positive experience; it was my first taste of what was to come.  I flew in on Sunday the show was the next night. It was the first time I met most of the guys from Mexican Summer.  They’re the record label that put out the EP. That was mostly done via email; I had talked to them on the phone a couple times.  So that first night, we got absolutely wasted. And the next day, they had scheduled press stuff from 10 in the morning until 6 in the afternoon; the show was shortly after that.  I was really hung-over and really late and it was just the worst experience, I was so tired.  

[Door opens…]

EG:  Oh! One by one!  This is Cameron.

Cameron:  Hi!

KP:  Hiya!  We were watching you on stage, well, me and my friend Jacob who [Ernest] met downstairs. We were saying you look like John from Bear in Heaven.

EG:  It’s the mustache!

Cameron:  I get that a lot!  That and Steve from Prefontaine, Tom Selleck.

[Laughter]

EG:  Cameron grew up with Chaz.  They played together in a band together growing up.

KP:  He’s a nice guy.  I interviewed him at the Grog Shop when he was on tour with Caribou.

EG:  So it’s kind of a weird, close connection to those guys.

KP:  Also Small Black!

EG:  They played as my backing band for a while.

KP:  Just posted that interview yesterday.

EG:  Cool!  I’ll check it out! They’re pretty good on Twitter about posting interviews and stuff. 

[Yeasayer starts blasting in the background from the show downstairs]

KP:  It’s about to get really loud.

EG:  It only gets louder too!  They’re super pro.  Really good playing with them.

KP:  This is your second show playing with them?

EG:  Yeah, yeah.  We’re playing with them for about two weeks. Going to Miami, then New Orleans.  Then they’re playing Austin City Limits.

KP:  When you play big shows like this with bands like Yeasayer, do you have a certain goal for the show or… how do you approach your live show?

EG:  At this point it’s more like, not fucking up and just getting through the songs.  Luckily these guys are really good musicians.  I mean, I know the songs backwards and forwards because, you know, I did all the songs myself. I’m not that experienced playing with other people and being the person who is in charge.  So that’s like… that’s been a little tough.  I think it takes playing a couple shows before you’re really comfortable playing together.  So I could definitely feel that tonight.  I guess my main thing is, once they’re all comfortable and I’m comfortable together, I can be more open to being entertaining and speaking with the audience.  Last night was weird, because we were all just standing there doing our thing and didn’t say anything.  I can tell from here on out it’s only going to get better.

KP: What would you say is the biggest challenge playing solo vs. playing with a full band?

EG:  That’s tough.  I enjoy playing by myself.

KP:  It seemed like you had a lot of fun at Pitchfork!

EG:  It’s kind of a weird thing, especially at PF.  It’s an outdoor show… At festivals the stages are so close together, if you’re doing more mellow material, you’ll have sound bleeding in from whoever is at the opposite stage.  When I play shows by myself its more ambient, I extend songs, really get in the zone of zoning out which is really cool.  Most of the stuff is completely improv with the vocals and everything which is super fun.  But I can tell, with the large crowd and it being outdoors in the middle of the day, people just want to have fun and have an upbeat set.  That’s kind of the tradeoff, like, with the band it’s much easier to go to that place and have it be more of a party vibe.  The entertaining factor is a little bit harder.

KP:  How did you end up touring with Small Black?  

EG:  The relationship started with email and instant messaging, the same way it did with Phil and a lot of things have happened.   They emailed me to say they were into my stuff and asked if I would be into doing a remix for them. I heard the song probably a couple weeks before and was really into it and I’m not THAT into remixing at all unless it’s something that just works like, in my world.  Most of the stuff I’ve done, I’ll just cover the song and just kind of do it in my style.  Their song just worked perfectly, verse, chorus, verse, chorus.  So I did that for them, and then it was their idea to do the tour and it worked perfectly.  I’m really not good a planning things and at the time, I wasn’t planning on touring at all. I hadn’t done it before, and then I realized there were huge crowds that were going to be interested I thought it would be really bad. The little push I got from them was, “We already have this planned, you can ride with us, we’ll rehearse the songs before and it will be really easy.”  So I flew up to NY and we rehearsed for three days straight.  As soon as we started playing it was instant good vibes all around. We’ve probably done, 60 shows together now.  It’s kind of sad, we did a tour in Europe together in June and they were just wrapping up a record, which is about to come out on Jagjaguar. I guess we both realized… you know this is the end of the road because they have the record coming out and they kinda wanted to do their own thing.  But yeah, they’re definitely some of my best friends now.  They’re a little more experienced upfront than I was, but it was all still really new for both of us.  So it was a really special experience for the both of us. 

KP:  They are some of the nicest people I have ever met.

EG: They’re so funny!  So fun!  You met my wife, Blair.  She’s always the only girl on the road. I feel like I’ve been pretty lucky.  I mean, the guys I play with now are so cool with her.  It was such a fun tour with Small Black.  They have a really good mindset going on the road.  They totally embrace randomly crashing at people’s houses which always leads to totally unpredictable situations. (Interviewer’s note: Is the foreshadowing I hear? See concluding paragraph.) I’m kind of a shy guy. I’m not really comfortable just going around talking to people. But they’re so into that. Within five minutes they would have found a crazy party to go to.  Some couch to sleep on, it was that easy.

KP:  We took them out for pizza with one of my friends who is friends with Travis of Pictureplane, and they ended up staying a t her house.

EG:  Ah yeah! Travis!  You know him?  Travis is THE MAN.  Talking about the right attitude on tour.  He is the most intriguing person I’ve ever met.  You should friend him on Facebook. He in his life is just, I mean, he could have a reality show about his life and just totally kill. He’s really good about posting about stuff he’s doing.  It’s really cool.  He is amazing and I feel like you have to experience his set at some really shitty club. That’s where he and his stuff really comes out.  The tour I did with him was really small clubs which was perfect.  I know he’s working on new material too.  Could be a new direction for Pictureplane.

KP:  My last question for you was what was your high school experience like?

EG:  I went to a small private school, so it was pretty positive.  I would say at least half of the people I graduated with, I grew up with.  It was such a small school, I played sports, I sang in the chorus.  Just pretty positive.  I went to a pretty big college, University of Georgia.  About 40,000/50,000 students and high school was a little bubble.  Going off to Georgia was pretty weird experience.  I was definitely the weird kid [in High School] listening to all the weird shit.  I was really into jazz music which was not the norm for a kid. 

KP:  What sports did you play?

EG:  I played football and basketball.  I still play basketball all the time. 

Joel:  A stand out in all sports!

[Conversation turns to Yeasayer and their insane light show with honeycombs]

After the show, I had one of the absolute best, and worst nights of my life.  Everyone from Yeasayer and Washed Out and I went to a small hipster dive bar on the East side of Columbus, Carabar.  Many games of Pirate Madness were played, to the point where we achieved the high score.  To the best of my knowledge that high score still stands to this day. I offered Blair, Ernest and their crew a place to crash that night, so I left a little early to drop my friends off at their house just north of downtown.  I didn’t think much of the RIIIIIIIIPPPPP CRUUUNCH that sounded as I pulled my car out of the unpaved lot across the street from the bar.  Then my oil light turned on… then, one block away from my house, my car sputtered out and died.  Turns out, my oil pan had been ripped open and the oil gushed out of my car, which scorched and seized my engine.  I had to get towed back to my house (at 4 a.m.) But the night… er, should I say morning, turned out pretty great.  Washed Out and crew were great guests, and awesome to talk to. (I wasn’t geeking out at all… (lies)) Most traumatic/laid back night.

Washed Out's new album Within and Without dropped via Sub Pop last month. He’ll be returning to Ohio in September at Midpoint Music Festival in Cincinnati.