SXSW Interview: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
New York's most gentle noise band gets ready for a national stage
New York's most gentle noise band gets ready for a national stage
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The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart has a precious name and a noisy sound that calls to mind bands like Black Tambourine, My Bloody Valentine, and The Wedding Present. In fact, the New York group supported the Wedding Present on a UK tour late last year, just before releasing its extremely solid self-titled debut on Slumberland Records. Now the ball is rolling: The band is set to play 10 shows during SXSW and will embark on an East Coast tour in April. Decider spoke with three out of the four members of The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart—singer-guitarist Kip Berman, bassist Alex Naidus, and keyboardist Peggy Wang—about good lyrics, the philosophy of noise, and getting signed by your favorite label.
Decider: You all started playing music together a couple of years ago, and you just released your first album earlier this year. Did your sound change much in the time between?
Kip Berman: I think our sound was similar to what it is now. I mean, we had a drum machine in the beginning and we were trying to figure out stuff, but we sounded like an early form of the band we are now.
D: Were you going for a specific sound with this album? Because critics compare you to a ton of different bands, some of which sound nothing like each other.
KB: I think there's a philosophical connection between a lot of the bands that we pull comparisons to. Loud and noisy, but poppy. It's like a general brotherhood. When we started the band we all liked lots of different kinds of music; I don't think it was like, "Let's start a band that sounds like Black Tambourine!" It was more like, "Let's just play in a band that's plays pop and is loud and is fun."
Peggy Wang: Noisy pop is my favorite kind of music. I've always had the opinion that there's not enough of it.
D: As opposed to, say, Belle And Sebastian?
PW: Exactly. My personal aesthetic is more toward the noisy stuff.
KB: Critics compare us to all sorts of bands, but it's all stuff I like, so even if it's not accurate it's pretty flattering. I'm like, "Whoa, we're in the same league as that band?"
D: A lot of the bands people compare you to—Black Tambourine, Rocketship, Velocity Girl, among others—all released records on Slumberland, which is your label. How did you end up signing with them?
KB: Mike [Schulman, who runs Slumberland] was DJing at Cake Shop one night and saw us play on the first night we played with a drummer. He was very into it. And once he offered—
Alex Naidus: There was no conversation about it.
KB: Our ambitions are very minimal, and when we started we were like, "Maybe one day we'll be able to put out a 7-inch on Slumberland." So it was like hitting the jackpot. Not to brag about the label we're on, but there's something about Slumberland where the chances are, if I listen to an album they release, I'll enjoy it.
D: Your lyrics are fairly ambiguous—do they pertain to specific experiences or more general sentiments?
KB: I think they're based on shared experiences. I mean, I write them, but I think they're based upon not just my life but on all of our lives.
PW: We're pretty involved in each other's lives.
KB: It's really important, though, that the listener sees what he wants to see in the song. It's not like there's a bright answer at the bottom of the page that you can read if you turn it upside down. I think things are so much more meaningful as a music fan when you can listen and give your own meaning to them.
D: Are there musicians that you think do that well? Who craft songs with the right level of ambiguity?
PW: My favorite bands are the ones that I relate to in a certain way. There's part of me that likes the Mountain Goats, but I can't relate to all the songs because I've never been to Timbuktu, or wherever [John Darnielle] is singing about. But when lyrics are too trite or too simple, it's boring as well.
KB: I've always been really drawn to bands with a strong lyrical component. It doesn't have to be hyper-literary, like, "I'm Colin Meloy, and I imagine myself as a 17th-century space-faring pirate." It's more about trying to say something genuine and emotionally direct. I definitely think we printed our lyrics on the album for a reason: They're important to us. I know if you're Bob Dylan you're supposed to have a smartass remark when someone asks you about your lyrics. I think I shy away from bands that try to get to the heart by invoking these universal situations that anyone can relate to, and so no one really strongly relates to them. I'd rather have a few key people really strongly relate.
