Howlies | June 10, 2010 | Kobo | Columbus, OH

photos by Jen Killius

The evening preceding this interview I was in Cleveland, OH interviewing Chaz of Toro y Moi.  Text messages kept buzzing in with comments on how I was “missing the funnest show everrrrr!” Most of my music loving friends were gathered at Carabar watching the Howlies tear up the stage. Waves of jealousy tried to wash over the thrill of seeing Caribou on stage for the first time.  

The next day, my phone buzzed again.  This time the text read: Howlies are playing tomorrow at Kobo with us.  Got you an interview with them.  

Wait… What?!  I had not gotten home until 4am, worked a full 8 hour day at 9am, and now I was about to dive blindly into the rabble-rousing world of the Howlies?

OK!  Why not?!

There is no way I could have imagined the wild stories that they would tell me.  I had 30 minutes of interview footage, and Kristi kindly tackled the transcription.  I know I probably mis-tagged some names on some of these lines, so prepare yourselves.  Shit’s about to get crazy.

KP: So, the show last night at Carabar. I kind of want to hear a description of it so I can live vicariously through you guys for a little while.

Justin: Wild animal sex.

Aaron: It was sort of like the first time you ever see two wild yaks having sex together.

KP: That’s what Carabar was like?!

Matt: I think yak is the right word.

Aaron: A lot of yakking.

KP: Yakking as in talking, or yakking as in throwing up?

Matt: Yakking as in throwing up.

Aaron: Yeah. With the sex, which was kind of cool.

Matt: There was a moment where everybody took their shirts off and danced around.

Brandon: Yeah, all the dudes took their shirts off.

KP: Wait, the band guys? Or like the dudes in the crowd?

Aaron: No, every dude in the bar.

Matt: It wasn’t while we were playing; it was after they closed. And there was like 25 people in the bar.

Aaron: Do you know Ron?

KP: No.

Aaron: Well, Ron runs Carabar with his wife Cara, hence the name Carabar. And he’s got a big, big belly. And I think he’s just proud to show it off. So at one point, he was just like, “Shirts off, motherfuckers!”

Justin: He doesn’t really have a big belly

Aaron: He’s a little round. It’s proud. I’m not knocking it.

Brandon: If I saw Ron, I wouldn’t say that guy has a big belly.

Justin: Disregard that. If Ron reads this and hears it, that line should be attributed to Aaron Wood.

KP: Okay.

Aaron: I’ll take it.

KP: So when I transcribe this entire paragraph…

Matt:  What I would like is if you could do each of us in a different font. I want mine to be like the old-timey Western.

KP: Like the Old English shit?

Matt: No, not Old English, more like Frontier-style. Like Frontierland, Disney World?

KP: If I could, if I knew how to do HTML that well, I totally would, but I don’t. I totally don’t.

Matt: That’s cool. I’ll settle for Times New Roman.

KP: You’ll be in italics. You might be in italics.

Matt:I want left-leaning italics there, not right-leaning italics. So, what you have to do is type the type the words backwards and invert it. Like photocopy it.

Aaron: I would like all my texts bold.

KP: That’s way too complicated.

[laughter]

KP: You guys are really demanding for how your interview’s going to be transcribed.

Matt: What’s the guarantee for this interview?

Justin: Next question! [laughter]

KP: That’s such an asshole thing to say! [Laughter]

Aaron: How much money are we getting for this?

KP: You get some major boostage. You’re gonna become superstars.

Matt: I like boostage.

Justin: Boostiage.

Matt: Can we get some bustlift?

KP: I knew it, I knew it was going to go that way! — So, how far into the tour are you guys?

Justin: Eleven days?

KP: You’re pretty fresh on the tour.

Justin: Well, we only have a couple days left.

Matt: It’s actually a short two-week tour, so we’re almost done.

Aaron: It’s a shorty

Justin: And then we’re home for ten days, two weeks, or something, and then we go back out.

KP: So, how often do you guys tour?

Justin: Well, we were touring pretty much nonstop and since the beginning of this year, we’ve been just doing little weekend tours. We’re working on our record so we’re not touring so much right now. We did Southeast in February and then East Coast and a little Midwest on this one.

Aaron: We played at SxSW.

Matt: That was fun. SXSW is huge, it was really good for us.

Katie: Yeah, tell me about SXSW.

Justin: Not even a broken bone, like half a broken bone.

KP: Do you guys break bones often?

Justin: No, we just had a little tussle. Me and Brandon had a little tussle.

Brandon: We had a little rumble and I broke my finger.

KP: Oh!

[We all inspect Brandon’s crooked finger.]

Justin: You see what happens when you go to a music festival that allows you to drink free beer all day for a week straight?

KP: Broken fingers.

Justin: And also, let’s not forget, I got a scratch on my glasses too.[laughter]

KP: You know, actually, with white toothpaste, you can buff out scratches on CDs and stuff. It might work on your glasses.

Justin: I’m going to give these to you, Brandon, and see if you can work on them.

[laughter]

KP: How long have you guys been together as a whole? Is this all original members?

Aaron: Yeah. We started in the summer of 2007. Some of us have been friends for a long time.

Brandon: All of us have been friends for a long time.

Justin: Yeah, we’ve all been friends for a long time.

KP: Like how long?

Justin: Well, I’ve known Brandon ever since. And I’ve known Aaron since I was 15.

Aaron: Yeah, I used to think that Justin was a total douche bag.

Justin: Now he *knows*.

Aaron: And my opinion has not changed. Now I know he’s a total douche bag.

Justin: Aaron moved to Florida from upstate New York and everybody was like, “Whothe fuck is this guy and why is he talking to me like he’s a New York City cab driver?”[laughter] And yet, he was a pretty damn good drummer, so we were like, “I guess we’re going to put up with this.” The first day I met him, we were going to rehearse at our church youth group rec room — this is where our band rehearsed, right? And we all had to get in Brandon’s pick-up truck. There’s like four of us, and I have to sit on Aaron’s lap. And it’s totally uncomfortable and I’m trying to hover and he’s like, “Could you please stop flexing your butt muscles?”

[Riotous laughter]

KP: So, when you introduced the band as some Christian group before you played, that wasn’t so far off from where it started from.

Justin: Well, yeah, me and Brandon were church boys, but they figured out pretty quick that we’re not rehearsing the Lord’s music.[laughter] As soon as Aaron got there, they really figured it out. The first day, he’s setting up his drums like, “What the fuck?! What the fuck is this?!” and my youth minister comes up like, “You know we’re in a place of worship.”

Aaron: We are a Christian group, but it’s a cult that was developed by my friend Christian. It’s a cult of Christians? His religion dictates such that you should play music everyday and drink a lot and tour.

KP: Sounds like a great cult to me.

Justin: It’s pretty fun.

Matt: Yeah, you’ve gotta give 10% though, that’s what sucks.

Aaron: The great thing is, you don’t have to drink the kool-aid.

Matt: Actually, you have to sell your soul, too.

Justin: I worship the devil. I don’t know what they’re talking about. Justin. Satanic.  If you’re looking for a little sound-byte quote, “I worship the devil” would be my recommendation.

KP: I love taking sound bytes out of interviews.

Matt: How about, “Hey, so you’re the pope, you shave ‘em.”[laughter]

KP: This whole interview might be a whole giant sound clip. No transcribing, no fonts, just a giant sound clip.

Aaron: That is the single funniest thing I’ve heard. Matt is incredibly hysterical. He’s got one of the best senses of humor I’ve ever heard in my entire life.

Justin: Next question.

Aaron: Yeah, this isn’t really an interview. What’s going on here?

Justin: Hey! We’re jowlin’. We’re just jowlin’!

KP: I like conversational.

Justin: Can I ask you a question? What is your favorite color?

KP: My favorite color? Green.

Justin: Nice, that’s his favorite color.

Aaron:  What color?

KP: Green:

Aaron:  Peace!

KP: Ahhhhhh!

Aaron: I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.

KP: Yeah, you did.

Aaron: Yeah, I did. I wanted to psych you out. Psych!

Matt: So now what’s your favorite color besides green?

KP: Red. Obviously. (I dorkily hold up my red interview moleskine.)

Aaron: Red is tasty. Marinara sauce, BBQ sauce, ketchup, blood.

Matt: What about purple?

KP: My roommate… I had two years with a roommate who was obsessed with purple. Her entire bathroom was purple, her room was purple, so…

Justin: My favorite colors are deep purple, mellow yellow — it’s a tie between deep purple, mellow yellow, and shocking blue. And green jelly, the band! Remember that — the song?

Justin: We’re playing a show with them, actually.

Aaron: Yeah, that’s show we’re opening up for the Rolling Stones, right? It’s Green Jelly, then us, then Rolling Stones, Radiohead, then — The Beatles. Minus the dead ones.

Justin: No, they’re digging them up. They’re digging up the dead Beatles and they’re just going to put them onstage.

Aaron: Have you been to Strawberry Fields in New York?

KP: No, I have not. I’ve been to Abbey Road, though. In London.Everybody graffitis everything on Abbey Road. Like, “I love you, John!”

Matt: The thing about Strawberry Fields that pissed me off was that it’s a tourist trap. All it was, was like selling John Lennon memorabilia.

Justin: You should check out Ground Zero.

KP: I want to go.

Justin: They’ve got commemorative box cutters down there.

KP: Ooo.

Aaron: Hey, too soon. Too late. Too awesome!

Matt: Remember the one about 9/11?

KP: No.

Matt: I thought you’d never forget.

KP: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Justin: Could you try to maintain your journalistic integrity, please?

KP: Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to happen on this interview. It’s already gone to the wayside. So, tell me about the new album.

Justin: It’s called Howlies Drop the Deuces! We’re recording it five different ways and we’re going to decide what way we like best and then put that out.

KP: Sounds really complicated. And sounds expensive too.

Brandon: Oh, it’s not expensive. We just borrow stuff and don’t give it back.

KP: Like your wig?

Brandon: It was an art pile.

Justin: It was art objects piled together in an art pile to make an art pile.

Aaron: Filled with lice!

Justin: Artistic lice-ense

KP: So what’s the difference going to be between the previous album and this new one? Are you going about it a different way?

Justin: There’s going to be different songs.

Matt: I think it’s going to have a different title!

Justin: The first record was recorded in four days and this album, we’ve been working on it for over four months now, so I would say it’s going to take longer. [Laughter] Looking like it’s going to take longer. And because of that, perhaps more thought out. I think the songwriting is stronger.

Matt: I think the bass-playing is a lot better.

Justin: Sounds better too, because the first album, we didn’t have a bass amp. We flew out to California and we didn’t bring any of our own gear. So I think this one sounds maybe more like what we sounds like live because we’re playing with our own shit. Yeah. I’d say it’s better. Probably going to be less songs, higher quality, it’s going to cost more, it’s going to make you as a listener feel more, and therefore you’re going to want to give us more money for it. So, it’s a value, really.

Aaron: We’re starting the bidding at $10.

Justin: Yeah, we’re going to do the Radiohead thing. Pay what you want, but if you don’t pay high enough, the screen is going to say, “WRONG.”

(Jason, from The Spruce Campbells, announces he sold merch for the Howlies)

Justin: One of these lost graduates who don’t know what to do with their life offered to be our merch girl. I said, alright, meet us in Pensacola, Florida at the Handlebar, July 2nd, 7pm. You’re hired. And she seemed like she’s into it.

KP: What if she shows up? What are you going to do?

Justin: Let her sell merch. And probably gangbang her. [laughter] I’m joking, of course. We all have girlfriends. (leans into microphone) And we love you. We love you, ladies.

KP: HAH! I’ll make sure that comes across sincerely.

[Laughter]

Brandon: We picked up a couple girls in Boston and let them ride with us for about 10 minutes, then they got really annoying and we kicked them out of the van.

Justin: They were like, “Why are you listening to this 60s music? This is your parents’ music! Can you put on some 90s music? This fucking sucks!”

KP: I would’ve shoved them out of the van too.

Justin: She also said she hated live bands. Who do you think you’re riding with, you know?

KP: So they pretty much screwed themselves.

Justin: Yeah. Well, they were just drunk girls that were walking by while we were loading out the show and they just got into our van. And we got into our van and drove off and then it was like, oh, who are you? And what do you want from us? And apparently they wanted to give Aaron a handjob, but he wouldn’t let them.

KP: That’s the craziest story I’ve ever heard.

Justin: Oh, and they had a flask of Jameson and we drank it all for them.

Matt: Those girls didn’t see us play, they just walked up to the van and they’re like, let’s get in this van. I go up to the van and I’m like “Hey, what are you guys doing?” Because they’re trying to open the side door and they’re like, “Oh, we’re getting in the van.” And I thought, like, Aaron had talked to them or something, I’m like, oh, alright, so they get in the van. So, they climb in the fucking van and nobody knows who they are. So the one girl’s like, “Oh my God, it’s a band van!” And we’re like, “Yeah, who are you?” And she had the shrillest voice.

KP: What the did she expect? You guys have a trailer or do you not?

Matt: No, so we’re playing… what were we playing?

Justin: It was the mixtape. Like Diana Ross or some shit like that.

Matt: Yeah, it was a lot of Motown stuff. And she starts freaking out. “Oh my God! This is the music my parents listen to! Blahblahblahblahblah” And then, “Change the channel!” She was a huge Hanson fan.

Justin: Yeah, she wanted to hear Hanson. And then she heard that we played a show with Taylor Hanson and she was so into it all of a sudden. ”Oh my God, you guys are big time if you played a show with Taylor Hanson!”

Matt: These chicks were crazy. So they got out of the car at one point and then they got back in the car and finally we arrive at our destination, and then she’s saying something and Brandon’s like, “Jesus Christ, man, your voice is so shrill.” So, she’s like, “Forget it! We’re going to get out of here!” She just fucking — they ran away and what was awesome was that it immediately started to rain as soon as they walked outside.

Justin: They got out of the van one time and then got back in.

Matt: Yeah. Yeah. And then at the end, they got out because of the shrill voice comment. It was pretty funny.

Justin: We refused to change the music and that’s why they got out. She was like, “Pull the car over right now.” She’s like, “I hate live music.”

Aaron: I rarely ever honestly get annoyed by females because I’m completely enamored with the whole female deal. But them — that was the most annoying shit I’ve experienced in a long time.

KP: I mean, chicks get in your van, what are they going to expect?

Matt: I hope they expect to be put on the internet, ‘cause that’s what’s going to happen.

Justin: We filmed the whole thing, by the way. We had the video camera going. Blur out their faces for the viewers.

KP: So, where were you and where did you drop them? Was it a good couple hundred miles?

Justin: No, we were going back to the dude’s house that we were staying with.

Brandon: Which was not very far away but the main road that we needed to take over this bridge was detoured, so it was a pain in the ass to get there. We kept doing circles. We have a GPS, so we were just following it and it was telling us to turn around and we ended up going back to the same places. So, they started getting like, “What the fuck? Where are you guys going?“ and trying to give us directions but her voice was so terrible, I didn’t want to listen to her. It was just like, shut the fuck up. And then they started to complain and I was like, “I don’t even know who you are.”

Matt: We show up in this neighborhood and they’re like, “Oh my God, this is West End! Oh, we can’t be here! Turn the car around!”

Brandon: I guess an old boyfriend used to live somewhere in the area.

KP: So, it wasn’t dangerous? It wasn’t a dangerous area?

Matt: She didn’t want to get the heebie-jeebies by being in the same in the same parking lot as the place where her ex-boyfriend lived or some bullshit. I mean, some girly shit.

Justin: They did have a bottle of Jameson. And we drank it all.

Aaron: That was the redeeming quality of that whole thing.

Matt: The girl, she gave me the bottle, and I was looking at her and I was just like, “I’m going to drink this, give me one second.” And she’s like, “Drink it, hurry up!” I’m just like, “Give me one second.” She’s like, “Give me back that bottle!” I was like, “I’m going to drink it, one second.” She’s like, “Give me the bottle back!”

Justin: And when I say that one of them tried unsuccessfully to give him a handjob, I didn’t see that happen. I just heard, “Don’t touch me. Nonono. MOVE. Don’t touch me.”

Aaron: It was kind of weird. She just kept grabbing my pants and I was just like, “No, don’t do that.” But she wouldn’t stop doing it. Which is kind of not cool because I wasn’t trying to get all up with her. But I did drink all of her Jameson, maybe that had something to do with it.

KP: You think they ever figured out who you guys were?

Matt: No, they had no clue. They walked out into the rain and were never seen again.

KP: Is that the craziest thing that’s ever happened to you guys on tour?

Aaron: No, no, no. That’s pretty tame.

KP: Pretty mild? Tell me something a couple degrees above that.

Justin: Like, I got cut by a girl once.

KP: Like, knifed?!

Justin: Yeah.

KP: Some random chick?!!

Justin: No, it wasn’t random. I was hanging out at a bar with her. And she just had this knife hanging around her neck. And all of a sudden, I felt sharp pain in my arm, and I look down, and she was like trying to dig a little cut into me. She was super-attractive, and I was trying to see what happened. And, they all show up. I was trying to get away from them with this girl. I was trying to get away with them, and they all show up like five minutes later with this dude Kody, who’s like this friend …

Matt: He’s our friend who has basically just limitless money. He’s the money man.

Justin: He’s an Italian baron. So, he’s sitting there watching this girl cut me with a knife like, what are you doing? And I was trying to go along with it, but it hurt. And then I look over at her arm and she’s got all these cuts on it too and she’s like, “Isn’t it beautiful?”

Matt: She has her modeling portfolio, which is basically a bunch of polaroids of her nude.

Aaron: And she just brings it around with her. She’s like, “Yeah, look at my pictures.” And I’m like thumbing through them and the third picture of her is full-frontal, like titties and everything. And I’m like, okay, great. I can’t look at this anymore.

KP: That’s weird. That’s really weird.

Matt: We came across her in Brooklyn and somebody was trying to film a video with her or something like that. He started talking to her and they exchanged bracelets or necklaces or something like that.

Justin: No, we both had voodoo skull bracelets. And we traded.

Matt: So, funny shit. All that shit happens and we go back to New York, months later. And we’re at the Mercury Lounge. And he called her to invite her out to the show. She comes up to me while I’m setting up and she looks at me and she goes, ‘Are you Justin?’ So then she’s there and she fucking starts asking people for their IDs. She was like, “You look too young.” And she was like, dead-serious.

Justin: Like standing next to the stage. Not even at the door or anything. She was standing next to the stage while we were playing, going around to girls trying to get their IDs. She’s crazy. But see, I hung out with her that whole night after the cutting thing. And we went to bar after bar, cab ride after cab ride, went to some restaurant at 3am and had a fucking Mexican dinner and like twelve margaritas between us. I mean, I was just like spending all this money. And she took me to some place and we were dancing and then I went—

Brandon: She took you to the bank is what happened.

Justin: She took me to the fucking bank. [laughter] And we got back to her apartment at the end of the night and she had started talking in a fake British accent

KP: Sounds like you pick the winners.

Matt: Met this girl in Baltimore that took us back to her house, and the other band, the Barberries, who are this crazy fucking punk band.

Aaron: You really going to tell this fucking story?

Matt: It’s a good story. Talking about crazy. She hates her fucking roommates. That’s why she invited us, didn’t tell her roommates. And it’s like this two-bedroom apartment that nobody can fit in. And there’s like eight dudes just crashed out. Everywhere in the house there are shelves with… you know what Warhammer is? Shelves of Warhammer. Like $40,000 of Warhammer shit. Just like bookshelves of that shit. And they have full-on dioramas. The whole place. People sleeping under that. So, a lot of crazy shit went on that night and she ended up having sex with one of the dudes from the Barberries in a room with me and another guy that were sleeping on an air mattress.

Justin: It’s like dudes jacking off dudes and girls jacking off girls.They were cutting each other… And they had Warhammer involved!

Matt: She had cuts like every single part of her body, there were lines like scars. Like lacerations. She wakes up, goes to work, leaves us there. I wake up first, everybody’s hungover, whatever. I’m like, I’m going to get in the shower first because there’s eight dudes here  I get in the shower, I get out of the shower. Fucking open the door. Soon as I open the door, the roommate opens the door. She looks around, sees all these fuckers. ”Who the fuck are you and what are you doing in my apartment?” And I’m like, “Hey man, that girl who lives here said we could stay.” And she’s like, “Oh my God, that fucking bitch!” and then starts banging on her door.

Justin: Oh yeah, she reamed her out in front of us all.

Brandon: We went to after hours club one time at Jimmy Valentine’s in DC that was pretty cool. It was a lesbian/prostitute hangout. And real low-key, like you gotta know someone to get in there. And the guy that runs the bar is not taking shit from anybody. And he is playing this music that Aaron just decides he doesn’t like. And Aaron is fucking shithoused. And he just climbs up on the bar and is trying to reach over to the CD player. And the bartender’s on the other side of the bar watching him like, “I’m trying to decide if I’m going to kill you or not.” And I’m like, “Get down, *get down.*” Another ten seconds and that guy was about to go fucking apeshit.

Matt: We ended up spending the night with this chick who met Brandon and was totally into Brandon. Brandon got us a ride home. She was loaded. Loaded. Had this fucking awesome penthouse. First, she busted out a bottle of Maker’s Mark or whatever and we started drinking. Afterwards, where we slept. I remember we took all these pictures. And we didn’t even know about it. The next day, or maybe a couple days later, I’m looking through my phone, like holy shit… it was around Christmas time, we had taken Christmas lights and wrapped our heads in Christmas lights and taken all these pictures.

Brandon: I don’t remember that part of the night at all except through the pictures.

Aaron: It wasn’t regular Maker’s Mark too; it was some really expensive shit. And that was really awesome

Justin: D.C. is blacklisted for us now.

Aaron: We’re never going to go back to D.C.

KP: Really?

Aaron: We just haven’t had a good show yet.

Justin: We’re waiting for our presidential summons

Aaron: If Obama wants us to play, we’ll play.

Tripping with the Howlies is available now.  New album is due to be released this Fall. Check out their blog here.

INTERVIEW : NEON INDIAN

June 12, 2010 | Brillobox | Pittsburgh, PA

Photos by Laila Elizabeth Archuleta


A couple days before New Years my friends and I were gathered in an upstairs room of a house we were renting.   The effects of the night’s consumption were just starting to over take our eyes and ears. The flower curtains were blooming, the table tops swirling, sounds splitting and then rejoining.  Each of us were taking turns on the stereo, curiously choosing songs or albums we thought would blow our minds while under the influence of what we had taken. I giggled to myself as I scrolled through my iPod and landed on Neon Indian.

Everyone stopped. “Who is this?!”

"What album is this?"

"This is so awesome!"

"This is exactly what I want to be listening to right now!"

Since that night, Psychic Chasms has been my go to album whenever I needed a smile plastered across my face.

I arrived at Brillobox in Pittsburgh with half my friends from that trippy winter evening in tow. Laila, the photographer met us outside and we introduced ourselves. A mutual friend had put us in touch when she learned I was in desperate need of a photographer for the interview.  We immediately hit it off.  As we entered, I could hear Neon Indian still sound-checking upstairs, so I ordered a beer to calm my shaking hands and thumping heart.  The restaurant of Brillobox was small and intimate with red booths lit warmly with yellow glass shaded sconces. My friends and I couldn’t resist the delicious smells that were emanating from the kitchen so we ordered a few appetizers while I waited for Alan Palomo to come downstairs.

I was mid-sip in my Dortmunder Gold when I saw him out of the corner of my eye.  Up shot my anxiety.  I always get a little bit worked up before an interview, but this is an artist I creatively admire and had a total geeky crush on.

Alan’s tour manager approached me and introduced himself then called Alan over.  He politely shook my hand and smiled shyly.  He was a bit shorter than me, about 5’6” with a mop of dark brown hair, and intense eyes shielded by large framed glasses.   We settled into a corner booth towards the back.  Alan was sipping a rather spicy looking Bloody Maria…
 

Alan Palomo :  It’s funny, I didn’t start drinking Bloody Marys until I moved to Brooklyn.  It’s kind of like a Sunday custom because everyone in Brooklyn has brunch.  Everybody wakes up, incredibly hung-over around eleven.

KP:  There’s a place in Columbus that has the best Bloody Marys I have ever had.  So, if you ever come through there you have to stop by.

AP :  What’s it called?

KP: Betty’s. So good.  You just came back from Bonnaroo, what, a day ago?

AP  :Yeah,  like 2 days ago.

KP: How was your Bonnaroo experience?

AP : It was unbelievable. It was definitely one of the most surreal experiences I’ve ever had. I mean, when you look at a crowd that big and you realize it’s like 10,000 people, I mean you stop seeing individual people and it just becomes this big undulating flesh toned mass and you’re just trying to process it. So, yeah, it was pretty incredible. The only thing, was during Deadbeat Summer, a group of questionably wasted chicks climbed on stage with like, Indian Feather headdresses, completely topless, with paint, and just ran on stage and just started dancing. I mean, you’re in the middle of a performance of that stature,  and you can’t really stop, you don’t know what to do. So we kind of like just soldiered through the song and it just felt kind of awkward. I think as far as they thought it through, it was like, “We’ll get on stage!!” and then once their up there they just kind of danced aimlessly. Yeah, people thought that we hired them.

KP: Yeah,  I saw that on Hipster Runoff.

AP : It was like, why would I compromise the biggest show we’ve ever played by hiring a bunch of drunk girls to dance on stage in a very tacky fashion.

KP: He tends to misinterpret a lot of stuff.

AP : Of course, that’s his whole deal, his whole sleaze.

KP: You just signed to  Fader Label a week ago?

AP : It’s actually more a collaboration with my own imprint, Static Tongues, So, I mean, I guess it’s going to be working with those guys because I mean, Static Tongues is a completely new endeavor.

KP: Are you going to re-release your album?

AP : Well, yeah, Psychic Chasms in all actuality never really has had a proper full release. I mean, the album was available online and …

My beer glass slides like phantom across the table.

AP : Wow, that was weird wasn’t it.  Just moved on its own!

KP: That was so weird…

AP : It was available in some stores, but if you really went to any record stores, like Amoeba, or Ear Wax in Brooklyn or something, you could never really find it. So this is finally the opportunity to put it out properly.  Aside from that, we have a re-mix album that’s coming out with it. It’s going to feature some stuff from Javelin, Yacht, DNTEL, Who else is on it? Why am I drawing blanks? I’ve been so lethargic today. This is going to kill me, it’s on the tip of my tongue, Here we Go Magic as well, a couple of bands.

KP: How was your experience working with Green Label Sound?

AP : It was good. I mean, like for what it was just putting out a song that was just a collaboration between me and Chris Taylor. I’d definitely say that the experiences were positive. It’s always funny though when you’re interacting with an entity that is in some way affiliated with a company and you kind of have to very distinctly clarify your motivations. You know, it’s like  you’re going to get a budget to make a really awesome music video and have the opportunity to really put your music out there then it eventually becomes about that, it’s not really about that, it’s not really about creating a certain beverage which is just kind of ridiculous.

KP: Yeah, I always thought that was weird that they were associated with Mountain Dew.

AP : Yeah, exactly, but, you know, you have like the Kia singles. Scion sponsors every party. I mean, at some point it becomes a little bit inevitable to flirt with commerce a little bit. You just have to maintain it or manage it in such a way that so that it doesn’t compromise your artistic integrity.

KP: Yeah, they’ve worked with so many artists already. Would you recommend it for bands starting out?

AP : Um, yeah, as long as you have a very distinct and finite vision of what your project’s about and how you want people to interpret it brand wise. Yeah, I’d totally recommend it. I mean, if you’re just someone who takes the road passively and just sort of let people do promotion for you then, I don’t know if I would. You have to take a very active role. Whenever you’re involved in anything like that, I mean, I’m always kind of a skeptic for companies. It seemed like a really great opportunity and the people who were working it were actually really phenomenal.

KP: The music video was really rad. I really enjoyed it. It seemed like you guys had fun shooting it too.

AP : Oh, totally. For me, right from the get go one of the primary motivations was Psychic Chasms didn’t get any proper music video before its release. We’re finally working on them now, which is more coming from the motivation of wanting to make something unusual but make it more centered on the video rather than the singles which have already been out. Sleep Paralysist was an opportunity to have a new song and then shortly thereafter have it come full circle. It was funny because I don’t think people really fully interpreted the song until they saw the video and for me that’s when it finally reached the end game of what I wanted to do with that. People could finally see what it was about. When they see the making of the video at some insane fucking house in Lexington, Kentucky… We just had a really amazing three or four days there.

KP: It seemed like a really cool process. I was reading your tweets about the horse with the LED lights and then I saw Green Label Sound updating the making of it. It was really cool to watch that unfold online.

AP: Awesome!

KP: What’s it like playing with a full band?

AP : Well, I mean…

Glass moves across the table again.

AP :  Wow! There’s some ghosts in the machine!

KP:  [Laughs] I’m just going to set this over there…

AP :  it’s interesting… because the record was written entirely on my own with the exception of Ronnie on guitar for Ephimeral Artery and Terminally Chill. So it was kind of this thing where I had this collection of songs and I knew that I wanted to work with my friends from Denton and I was already working with Ronnie and Jason and Vega. You’re putting yourself in a position in which you have to re-contextualize your own songs to make them enjoyable for a group of people is like kind of a feat.  It’s not something we did right off the bat. I think it took a good twenty shows to let it evolve in such a way that it could really feel like one long fluid set. I mean I think we had a couple of really awkward first runs. You know, each night you’re kind of culminating different ideas until you realize what works, what doesn’t work. You get to the point where you memorize the parts well enough so you can start deviating from them in fun and interesting ways. The best way you can describe it, I remember what James Murphy said about LCD Soundsystem, it’s like you become the best LCD Soundsystem cover band you can be! It feels true in that respect, coz when I was recording it, I never had any intention of putting it in a live format.

KP: So, What’s your recording process like, how do you start creating songs?

AP : Well, it’s kind of funny because with Vega its always been like this formalized pop esthetic where you write a song and it starts out with this verse and it leads into this bridge and chorus.
But with Neon Indian since I tend to work with sequencers so much, I have this simple drum rhythm or synth line that’s like looping, four bars become eight bars become 16 bars, its just like a circle that keeps expanding, and eventually you hit this four minute mark where you think you have a song and then you start adding all kinds of weird auxiliary shit to kind of make it a little more spontaneous. It’s really weird coz it does feel kind of circular, coz I kind of just you know, space out on these really simple loops and it  becomes something else entirely.

KP: So, I’ve heard two things about “I Should Have Taken Acid With You”…I heard it started it started with an acid trip, or it started with a dream about an acid trip?

AP : It started with a dream about an acid trip.

KP: So, how was that translated into a song?

AP : Well, the full story is that I had a dream that I had taken acid with my ex-girlfriend Alicia, and um, I shot her a text about it. I was like, Ah man, I had this really bizarre dream She said, oh, is that something you’re interested in doing? So, a few months later sometime in December, we were supposed to get together and have this experience where we take acid, or at least some kind of potent hallucinogen, I think she had like Peyote or something. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it coz I was in Dallas and logistically I just couldn’t drive down fast enough.  I missed her by a few days. So, needless to say, I felt kind of bad, and a few weeks later I was just thinking about it. It almost started as some tongue in cheek apology. In like six hours I had this track that just kind of flowed out. It was weird coz I didn’t really know what to do with it at first. I tried to re write it as a Vega song, and it totally didn’t work. I realized that that incarnation was exactly what it needed to exist, and if anything, I should just start writing more songs like that. Then I just wrote an entire album.

KP: So, that was the start of Neon Indian. That’s really cool. So, are you still planning on doing Vega, or Ghost Hustler, or anything?

AP : Ghost Hustler is definitely done.

KP: Isn’t a member from Ghost Hustler in Miniature Tiger, or is that somebody else?

 AP : Yeah, that’s something else. Miniature Tiger is just some friends from New York. I’m trying to think, one of the Guys in Ghost Hustler is in Fur now. The other guy has his own project called Love Life. They are all out doing different things. I remember when Hipster Runoff wrote about Love Life, said, kind of sounds like Neon Indian. I was like, man, Noah is not going to like this. I felt kind of bad coz I mean, it sounded like its own thing.

KP: He really likes to start shit. It’s so funny.

AP : Yeah, he stirs the pot! I mean, I know him. He’s a guy from Texas. Yeah, some of the more audacious things that he likes to claim. I have a lot of ambivalence about it. The readership is divided into two kinds of people, right. It’s like the kind of people who understand it as like this jokey voice, his very self referential humor. There’s this kind of like satirical quality about it. Then you have this other fan base, it’s just people who take it completely literally and essentially, it shaped their sensibilities. Its really weird coz he has like this whole mock racist tone and says some really offensive stuff. Then you have like, tweens that are just completely eating it up and taking it without a grain of salt with complete sincerity. HRO is definitely a very ambivalent topic.

KP: Yes, and he likes to latch onto you a lot too.

AP : Yeah, maybe because we know each other. I think at the same time it’s also because he is obsessed with the notion of chill wave given that that was him who coined it.  It’s funny because the interview question that I get asked the most and I have nothing to do with the conception or the coining of chill wave. I mean, I didn’t find out about Washed Out, or Memory Tapes, or Toro Y Moi until much after the fact until we were all apparently part of some movement together.

KP: I actually interviewed Chaz two days ago.

AP : Oh, yeah, Chaz is awesome. Man, that kid is so incredibly talented. I am just incredibly impressed with some of his stuff he’s doing.

KP: Yeah, he’s a really gentle spirit which I liked.

AP : He’s a total sweetheart. He’s a really nice kid.

KP: So, my last question is, Fathers day is approaching, and I know your dad was…

AP : Wait, is that this Sunday?

KP: No, I think its next Sunday so you got a little time, gave you a fair warning. [Laughter] So, your dad was a musician, and he was pretty popular in Mexico, right?

AP : Yeah, yeah I mean, I wouldn’t call him a pop star necessarily coz its also just weird saying that about your dad, But he had a stint in the late 70’s and early 80’s where he had quite a bit of moderate success being a singer in Mexico and he put out two records. By the time I was born, by the time that my brother and I were born, he had already put out a whole discography.

KP: So what kind of influence did your dad have on you as a musician?

AP : Well, if anything, I’ve always really respected that he, especially living in a community and growing up around musicians that are just the most unreliable drugged out, or just the most incredibly drug addled crowd of people that I’ve ever run with. He’s also had this mentality about it that I also see in a lot of musicians that I really respect in general. Like Scott Walker, or Todd Rundegren where they are like these total formalists where they seem that being a musician is a discipline like any other that involves a lot of self sacrifice. He’s always kind of had that. I mean, obviously I’m way looser, because I mean we’re a pretty laid back crowd. You know, we don’t always make it to the hotel lobby on time in the morning, or make sound check. He helps me sort of see it as a vocation and it makes you feel like you’re really doing something and it’s something completely worth losing yourself in. He’s been doing it his whole life and he’s still doing it. I got to respect that.

KP: So he’s really supportive of what you’re doing right now?

AP : Yeah, totally. I think that when I first decided to take some time off school, to just pursue Neon Indian. It was definitely this thing where he  was like, “Oh yeah, you can take some time off. I mean it’s not like we didn’t come to this country so you could get a college education…” Immediately I was like, fuck! What do I say to that!? I got nothing!  I mean I think it took a little time to fully convince them that what I was doing was very much real, and wasn’t just an excuse to sit around and get high and play Guitar Hero  or something! It was like, I’m really doing something Dad!  But it’s funny because I don’t think it was really until Jimmy Fallon or something like that. You can tell your parents that you’re being written about in some blog like Pitchfork or Gorilla Vs Bear or something, but it’s not really going to translate until they see it on some medium that they completely identify with, you know.

KP: I find that that’s a really common theme when I ask people about their parents and how supportive they are. They say their parents didn’t believe it till they saw a write up in the New York Times, or some familiar press.

AP : Totally.

Psychic Chasms is available for purchase through InSound.  Any of you planning to go to Pitchfork Festival?  I’ll be at Neon Indian’s set on Sunday dancing my face off.  Make sure you say hello!

Thanks to Tracey for transcribing this interview for me!

INTERVIEW : TAME IMPALA

Varsity Inn | June 15, 2010 | Columbus, OH

Photos by John Danner

As soon as the first few notes hit my ears, the sounds of Tame Impala made me wish I had a genie to grant me a grab bag of … “sound and sight enhancers.”  I listened and re-listened, each time was better than the one before. Their EP filled me up, took me on a psychedelic journey and left me breathless.

(Never did get that grab bag though.  Oh well.)

Never in a million years did I expect this underground Australian band to come State side within the first year of laying ears upon them. Then, one day, while making the best of company time, I was editing JitP’s Myspace and the news feed updated with a California concert date for Tame Impala.  I thought it was a fluke, or just another show I’d secretly hate all my west coast friends for.  Then, another date appeared…. then another… and another.  All with MGMT!  I watched as the announcements crawled across the country. When Colorado was posted and I decided I couldn’t wait any longer.  I headed over to Promowest’s website and checked out the opener for the MGMT show. There it was.  Like it was no big deal… Opener: Tame Impala.  I jumped up from my desk chair and threw my hands in the air!  Then smoothed my skirt, sat down, and went full force on getting an interview.

Day of the interview came. By the time I got out of work, the air was hot and heavy and threatening to pour rain and traffic was gnarly. I was so scared I wouldn’t make the interview in time.  John can attest to how on-edge I really was.  We arrived at The Varisty Inn, a small old hotel… with a drive-up check-in window on the southwest side of Ohio State’s campus. Yes. Not the greatest of places, such is the life of touring musicians.  Tame Impala’s tour manager Jodie Regan met me outside the room and we chatted for a bit about MGMT’s kidnapping of the boys the previous night.  ”Dom and Paisley are napping b/c they’re so tired and hungover,” she informed me. “But I can wake them up if you’d like!”  

“No, no its ok.” I chuckeled.  I had actually figured they were going to be tired.  I was at MGMT’s acoustic set at  CD101 earlier in the day.  Andrew VanWyngarden looked a bit hazed as he told the audience of their kidnapping of Tame Impala. 

I was introduced to Kevin Parker and Jay Watson.  Both looked exhausted, but enthusiastic, sitting barefoot on the double bed across from the one I sat on.  I set the iPhone recorder between the two of them…

Kevin: We were at the show last night, we were playing the gig, and we saw a guy hold up his iPhone with an animation of a lighter and a flame and he was holding it up and waving it. And he did it for MGMT –

Jay: When someone told me that afterwards, I was just like, here we are… in America.

Kevin: Here we are in 2010… in America.

Jodie: I’m pretty sure people have been making jokes about that happening for like years now.

Kevin: Really?

Jodie: ‘Cause you know people put their lighters up and do their thing.

Kevin: Yeah, I couldn’t believe it. He was doing it for like a substantial amount of the gig.

Jay: Dude, maybe he was doing it like tongue-in-cheek. Surely, he knew it was hilarious. Or you think he was just like, oh, sweet, I’ve got this lighter app on my iPhone. [laughter]

KP: He downloaded it specifically for your concert.

Jay: Yeah, he did it to MGMT as well.

KP: How long have you been on tour in America so far? Like two, three weeks?

Jay:  We can tell by this shirt! Kevin, what’s the first date?

Kevin:  The first date was the 28th of May. And… um, and we are in Columbus

KP: Oh, you’re almost done!

Kevin: Just over two weeks.

KP: But you guys are doing some headlining shows here and there, right?

Kevin: Oh yeah, yeah. We’ve got some stuff to do.

KP: So, how’s your American experience been so far?

Kevin: Cool. Amazing. It’s like a new experience around every corner.

KP: Have you guys ever been here before?

Jay: No, never.

Kevin: I was in New York for two weeks mixing the album, but that was about it.

Jay: I’m constantly surprised at people like yourself’s ability to look healthy living in this country. [laughter] The food is just outrageous. The stuff people eat here is just ludicrous. The cheese and stuff and the meat,

KP: What’s the weirdest food you’ve eaten here so far?

Jay: Nothing weird, it’s just like you get a sandwich and there’s that much meat on it and like orange cheese. And we have like kind of nice cheese and a tiny bit of meat.

KP: American cheese is not really cheese.

Jay: It was cool for awhile because I like junk food. But then after like a week or so, we were just like, wow, we can’t find anything. ‘Cause we were mostly eating in like diners and roadhouses and stuff.

KP: Yeah. Especially on the west coast. There’s a lot of diners out there.

Jay: At least they have Mexican food — I love Mexican food. But yeah, that’s my most interesting thing is your guys’ general… as an average nation, the levels of unhealthy food that is consumed. [Laughter]

KP: What’s been the weirdest thing about American culture except for the food for you guys? The biggest shocker?

Jay: How friendly everyone is. Everyone’s friendlier, generally, over here than at home. Um, I don’t know why I thought that Americans weren’t going to be super-friendly, but everyone seems… like, when you meet someone or you see someone in the street, they do something for you. Like everyone’s a lot nicer. I’m taken aback by how nice everyone is.

Kevin: I’m trying to think about what the most shocking about American culture is…

KP: Didn’t you guys come across some kind of cult in the middle of the desert or something.

Kevin: Oh, that’s Nick’s blog.

Jay: That’s wildly exaggerated for poetic effect. That’s just his way of writing. He was trying to go for some sort of On the Road, Kerouac-thing.

Kevin: I can’t put a finger on it, but it’s something to do with like everyone being really excessive and like you being allowed to eat as much of something as you want. Or, you know, if you want something, you should be allowed to have it. Like if you want a large Coke, you should be able to get a fucking gigantic Coke. Yeah. I think the general scale of everything is bigger than Australia.

Jay: The food portions are definitely bigger.

Kevin: Yeah. The size of the pick-up trucks — we call them utes in Australia. But like, some of them are just like gigantic – [Laughter]

Jay: And they never have anything in the back of them! Like in Australia, people have these small utes and they’re filled with workman’s gear or ladders or, you know, whatever people have got they bought, it’s the best place to carry (?) And then you just see dudes driving these massive pick-up trucks and they’re always empty in the back. It’s like, why didn’t you just buy a small truck? I guess it’s just like a big macho kind of massive car.

KP: Just wait until you guys drive through West Virginia. They get bigger and scarier.

Jay: We’ve been in some pretty like — what’s the word? We’ve been in a few quite redneck places. We’ve been pretty much everywhere on the west to middle of America so far.

KP: Yeah, you’ll get the other side of the Mississippi. Tell me the biggest challenge about international touring.

Kevin: Biggest challenge… staying healthy, I guess. Or staying in a bodily state. A bodily state where you don’t feel like you’re slowly withering away. [laughter]

KP: Especially being kidnapped and everything like that. By MGMT.[laughter]

Kevin: Yeah. That has something to do with it too.

Jay: Touring is a lot harder and less glamorous… ‘cause people, you know, you go to a show and you see the band that night and you’re getting a drink and there’s lights and stuff and then the band disappears. But you never think that the band’s been driving for ten hours just before they went on and they’re just going to leave after they play. But yeah. I don’t know, we’re pretty used to it now.

Kevin: At the same time though, when you’re a band that has enough money to pay for a tour manager and a stage techie and stuff, I think you start taking it for granted? Like, some guy setting up all your stuff every night. Suddenly, when you go home and you have to like play a gig for some reason and you don’t have a tour manager and a stage hand and everything, then it’s like, aww, I gotta set up my own amplifier, are you kidding? So you do get quite sort of like, um, what’s the word…??

KP: Spoiled?

Kevin: Yeah, I guess so, spoiled. And oh, fuck, I’m not going to remember the word. It’s a really simple word…

KP: You’ll think of it as soon as I walk out the door.

Kevin: Oh, I probably will, yeah.

Jay:  Accustomed?

Kevin: No…. it doesn’t matter.

Jay: These interviews are so funny, because you think of a concept and then spend the next 5 minutes thinking of what you should have said. [Laughter] Everyone’s just like uhhh!

Kevin: [Laughs] You get the general idea.

KP: How did you react when you found out you were doing the American tour with MGMT? I know you guys, you toured with them in Australia. So, when you found out they picked you up to come here…?

Jay: Awesome.

Kevin:  Yeah, pretty shocked. And it was hard to look forward to it because we were on another tour at the time in Australia; we had another tour to do. It’s hard to get into the mindset of going on another tour when you’re still on another on. You kind of just want to get through that one first. We were getting asked if we were excited about America. I had to say yes because I knew it was a good thing, but it’s so hard to —

Jay: We flew to L.A. straight after we played our last show in Perth.

Kevin:  Yeah, we did. We did a tour of Australia. We did our headline show of Australia. You know, quite decent venues, quite a few people. And yeah, an hour —or a couple of hours after the last show in Perth, we were driving to the airport to go to L.A.

KP: Well, it seems like, from what I’ve heard, it’s been going really well for you guys.

Kevin: Oh yeah! There hasn’t been a hiccup.

KP: Have you been surprised at the American fan base here?

Kevin: Yes! A few people have known us or wanted a picture or whatever, which is completely shocking. It reminds me of when that happened in Japan. There was someone who recognized us in the street in Japan and wanted a photo; we were like… ??? You know, it doesn’t compute in my brain

KP: Really? In the street? I have a hard time recognizing people on the street, so…

Kevin: Yeah, well, I think it would have been pretty easy for them, in Japan. [Laughter]

KP: Yeah, that’s true. [laughter]

Kevin: Complacent is the word I was looking for! [Laughter]

KP: There you go! InnerSpeaker is such a well-formed album in my opinion, it’s a really mature sound. I wanted to know who your main musical influences were when you were recording that or in general?

Kevin: Um, I generally just go for whatever sounds good, but it ends up sounding… Influence is like a subconscious thing. But I love they’re a Swedish kind-of psych rock band. They’re the band that I always accidentally end up sounding like because it’s hard to do something that’s not like what they would do. Anyway, Dungen. I always kind of liked dream-pop bands, like Beach House and stuff like that. Um, the Beatles, I guess, even though they’re not really like a conscious influence. Yeah, half the time it ends up sounding a particular way, it was unintended. You know, like, people say the album sounds like the Stone Roses, but I don’t even like the Stone Roses.

 KP: Yeah, a lot of people I’ve talked to seem to say Cream seems to be a big one.

Kevin: Yeah, that -

Jay: We had one song off that EP that we had for ages and threw it in the album that was particularly like Cream-sounding.

KP: You know, Eric Clapton lives like twenty minutes away from here.

Kevin: Oh, really?

KP: Yeah. My friend’s son goes to school with one of his kids or something like that? So I was like, call your friend’s mom and have Eric Clapton come out to the show.

Jay: So he lives in Ohio?

KP: Yeah, he lives in Dublin, OH?

Jay: It seems weird that he wouldn’t live in like New York or LA or something?

KP: Yeah, or London or something.

Jay: Or London, yeah.

KP: But apparently his wife’s from the area. He lives pretty close to here. So we were trying to get him to come out to your show —

Jay: Oh yeah?

KP: In some weird roundabout way, trying to get him to come out here.

Jay: Yeah, I don’t think as someone who’ a devout audio file, I don’t really hear Cream in that album.

Kevin: Yeah, I think it’s more of just an easy reference point for people. I’m pretty sure that everyone who says it sounds like Cream hasn’t actually heard that much of Cream.

KP: I pretty much brought up the Cream to bring up Eric Clapton. [Laughs]

Kevin: Oh, there was a time when I was obsessed with Eric Clapton. Not so much now.

Jay: I was never obsessed with Eric Clapton; I liked Cream…

KP: Well, if he shows up to the show tonight… you know that Tracey got him there…

Kevin: Whoooooaaaa. He’ll probably hate it.

KP: What’s your creative process like when you sit down and record songs?

Kevin: It’s usually, the first time a song gets recorded anyway, it’s a quick like 30-second demo that I’ve just got to get out into some sort of physical form so that it doesn’t evaporate in my brain. A lot of songs, I think, don’t end up getting pursued because I forget them. I don’t have time, I don’t get the chance to go and like record it in some way. Even if you write it down, it doesn’t work — I’m not good enough at note-taking music, so I have to get to like an 8-track or some sort of thing where I can demo it. And then that 30-second demo exists for a long time with me deciding whether or not it’s good enough to make into the rest of the song. And so the album is just taking a whole bunch of sound clips and stuff like that and figuring out which should be proceeded with. And yeah, it’s very much a sort of calculated, like pieced-together thing of making songs.  There’s very rarely any jamming, you know, as a band that turns into a song. It’s usually just aiming for one thing and then trying to get it.

KP: Does everybody write their own parts?

Kevin: Uh no, it’s like a recording project. It’s mainly mine. So I record most of the instruments. And these guys have their own bands. And we all have our own like things, and some of us are in each other’s things. In Perth, we’ve got a large musical circle of friends, where we all — it’s quite incestuous. There’s lots of music being made. And the fact that each one has a name is almost irrelevant, I guess.

KP: I know Peter Arko of Ears of the Beholder.  You recorded for Yours Truly out in California. How was that experience?

Kevin: Yeah, really fun.

KP: Yeah, it looks like you guys had a good time.

Jay: Yeah, it was cool. It got pretty hot in the end.

Kevin: Yeah, it was the most amazing thing at the start. And then like, by the end, we’re like, alright, let’s just do a good take. ‘Cause like everything was getting to be hot. My pedals were burning. And his cymbals…

Jay: I was really paranoid of my drum kit, which was fairly new, warping. Because that’s happened to me before, like the shell would warp in the sun.

KP: But it survived?

Jay: Yeah.

KP: You know the music blog over here, YVYNYL? From  what I noticed, he picked up on you guys six, seven months ago, and then it just seemed to explode from there. And he wanted to know if you guys surfed in Santa Cruz.

Kevin: Surfed? No, no. We can’t surf.

Jay: We’re not the Beach Boys. [Laughter] We go to the beach a lot and we like the beach a lot, but we can’t surf.

Kevin: I’ve been surfing a couple of times.

KP: I think he had his heart set on like the image of you guys surfing in California.

Kevin: No, well…  for the record: I love surfing and surf everyday. [Laughter]

Jay: Andrew, I think went for a surf. He surfs. From MGMT. But he taught himself in Australia.  He had like a few months off and he taught himself to surf. Now he surfs like pretty much every time he can, but we can’t surf. We haven’t got time to surf!

Kevin: Yeah, I’ve been meaning to get into surfing. My girlfriend surfs.

KP: Yeah, you should teach yourself.

Jay: I think it’s just because we’ve got somewhat brown skin and long hair and live on the beach and like the beach.

KP: I think Americans have this big assumption that Australians should just automatically know how to surf.

Kevin: Oh, we go to the beach like everyday in the summer.

Jay: But it is pretty weird that none of us know how to surf though, Kevin. Like a lot of people who like went to your school around your area would know how to surf, like a lot of guys and girls.

Kevin: Hmmm, not really. In the proper coastal inland.

Jay: I reckon most coastal suburbs, like most of the teenagers who live in coastal suburbs can surf to some extent.

Kevin: No.

Jay: No? 

Kevin: No. There was like a handful of guys at my school that surfed and they were called like the salty dogs

Jay: Well, I think it’s more popular on the east coast. Like my cousins lived in—-

Kevin: Yeah, that’s true.

KP: Do you guys have day jobs when you’re back in Australia, when you’re not on tour?

Kevin: Not anymore, no. Apparently we can stand on two feet now.

KP:That’s cool. That’s really cool. You know you’ve made it when you don’t have to work.

Jay: Yeah. Five hundred bucks a week. Each.

Kevin: Yeah, we’re not rich, though.

Jay: Yeah, we get — we’re kind of getting quite popular in Australia. Like commercially, like on commercial radio and stuff and like playing quite big shows ourselves. And get played by mainstream radio and stuff. And people in Australia think we’re a lot richer than we are because we do quite well there. Over here, you know, it’s the way it actually is, we’re like quietly staying in quite crappy hotels and stuff. In Australia, people think we’re pretty rich and we’re definitely not. Definitely not rich. I got Kevin to buy me my ice cream at the service station last night because I didn’t have any money left.

Kevin: Yeah, I didn’t remember. No, actually, I can remember, like tunnelvision.

KP: Soft-serve ice cream?

Jay: No, no, like those… drumsticks, sort-of?

KP: Was it a big one? Was it a huge one?

Jay: They’re big, yeah, like — those drumsticks in Australia are like *that* big.

Kevin: I remember it being really big, I was like, dude…

Jay: And your ones are like… *makes sound effects*  Takes about forty minutes to eat! [laughter]


Innerspeaker is available from Modular People.  But make sure you check out the album’s official TRIPPY website.  

Another big thank you to Kristi for transcribing this interview faster than I could have ever asked for!