Interview Pissed Jeans’ Matt Korvette

Originally hailing from Allentown, Pennsylvania, excessive noise-generating punks Pissed Jeans have befitted from word-of-mouth and two full-lengths on Sub Pop to forge an enviably devoted cross-genre fanbase. Releasing their first singles and debut album, Shallow, through Parts Unknown, the four-piece has consistently put quality before quantity, from their recordings to their less-than-grueling tour schedule. The increasing rarity of the band’s live shows, a ferocious and fun spectacle of Flipper-ish volume, makes their occasional appearance that much more of a celebratory spectacle.

Despite this, 2011 still seemed unusually quiet for the band. Following the late 2009 release of the critically lauded King Of Jeans, a spat of dates in 2010, and the Your Life Is Worth Pissed Jeans 7-inch, not a lot has been happening publicly with Pissed Jeans since since we last spoke to them. With an upcoming Toronto show on Jan. 20 at Sneaky Dee’s, we grilled Matt Korvette about the band’s recent activities and future plans.

The A.V. Club: You guys didn’t play a ton of shows in 2011, so what motivated you to plan this short run coming up that’s going to take you to Toronto?

Matt Korvette: We always like to play shows, it’s just a matter of making it happen. It seemed like a good time to go to the Northeast—the middle of winter. What could possibly go wrong? The roads should be great, no weather conditions, I’m sure. Give it our best shot.

AVC: It’s an ideal time to tour, I imagine that was what made you want to come here.

MK: Toronto is a cool city, we just don’t have that many chances to get up there.

AVC: The last time you played here was a while ago, in 2010. At one point, I believe, your mic cut out and the sound guy had just wandered off. If we’re remembering right, you just carried the monitor around the stage for five or 10 minutes. Is that what went down?

MK: I think so. I do recall there was a microphone problem, which is a shame, but you do your best.

AVC: When that stuff happens, especially when you’re a band that doesn’t tour constantly and you won’t be back in a city for a while, does it get you down?

MK: Not really. As long as people are enjoying it, who cares? I’m not as concerned with exact musical accuracy live—a beautiful recreation of the CD—so much as I am just having a good time and hopefully having the crowd really enjoy it. Although it is annoying to not be able to sing, but what can you do.

AVC: That is the thing that you do.

MK: But I can make do. I can stand up on stage and cook while they play instrumental songs. I could do that.

AVC: There was dancing that went along with hoisting up the monitor that was just as entertaining as anything you could have sung into a microphone.

MK: I think the songs are great, so of course I’d love to dance to them. It’s not tough getting me moving to these greats songs.

AVC: So where is everyone moving these days?

MK: Three of us live in Philadelphia, and Brad [Fry], our guitarist, lives about an hour and a half away. We’re also working on a new album right now, so that’s been consuming a lot of our free time. And three of us have had kids in the last year, so that’s been pretty time-consuming.

AVC: Congrats on having kids.

MK: Thanks. I’m one of the three. And our drummer, actually, his girlfriend is due in March. He’s completing the circle. We’re just breeding the next members of Pissed Jeans to take our place in 2026.

AVC: You’re a full-on, proper dad-rock band now.

MK: Hopefully a child-rock band, like when your dad’s a lawyer and you’re forced to be one even though you don’t want to. It’s going to be like that.

AVC: Sounds perfect.

MK: Yeah, they’re going to have no interest in music whatsoever, and we’re going to stand there at the side of the stage as they cry through these songs.

AVC: How has that affected the life of the band?

MK: It’s definitely slowed things a little bit, but it’s not like we were ever road dogs. We would tour three weeks out of a year max, so it’s not like we had to bring things to a shutdown halt. And we’ve been trying to work on new music, which we’ve been doing, so it’s been fine. And it’s been nice that we’re all doing it at the same time, so everyone gets each other’s deal, and no one is angry at each other for having to do a family thing.

AVC: Are you guys all going to be softball coaches for your kids?

MK: It’s quite possible.

AVC: Get all the kids on the same soccer team?

MK: Yeah, maybe. We’d like for them to all just date each other and eventually give birth so we can become more united as a band.

AVC: It’s a good plan.

MK: Have our kids have sex with each other? Yeah. The four of us have missed that chance with each other, we’re pretty much tied down.

AVC: So I assume 2011 was so slow because of the beginning of the writing and birthing process.

MK: Yeah. The world shuts down for a month or two right after you have a kid, so there’s three instances of that. We’ve played shows here or there, but we basically just wait for people to make us offers we can’t say no to, versus going out on our own and be proactive about getting shows. We’ve just played random things like that. So I’m psyched to go out and play Toronto and Boston. Plus, it will be nice to get away for a little bit.

AVC: Where are you in the writing process? Are you going to be playing new songs at these shows?

MK: Yeah, for sure. We’re recording our next album in April, so we’re pretty close to wrapping up.

AVC: How far into the process are you?

MK: We’ve got 10 songs. We’ll probably aim for 12, just to narrow it down a bit. Everything’s sounding good so far.

AVC: In relation to past Pissed Jeans material, where do you feel like this slots in?

MK: I’d say that it definitely fits in after King Of Jeans. It hopefully should be the most appealing album to people who like to hear good songs. It won’t be as antagonistic. It’s hard to say right now—we’re trying to write memorable songs. We’ve done three albums already, and you learn which songs you want to play live. Now we’re trying to write songs that when we’re coming up with the set list for the show, every song on the new album will be one we want to play live.

AVC: Where are you guys recording? Will it be with Sub Pop again?

MK: It will be with Sub Pop. We’re going to record somewhere in Philadelphia, I’m not sure, but it’s going to be with the same guy who did King Of Jeans, Alex Newport.

AVC: You guys have a Facebook page that was only updated for one day, a year ago. Do you anticipate having to do more online with the new record, or is that just a part of being in a band you’re not interested in?

MK: I don’t think any of us really care enough to keep up with that sort of thing. But we’re not adamantly against it. We’re not trying to do the thing where you pretend that the Internet doesn’t exist.

AVC: Well, you do have a website with your tour dates. You’re there.

MK: We’re not playing the game, though, where you’re like, “Hey, I just recorded this new song in my basement, check it out! And check out this pizza we made together! Here’s photos!” Some bands just blow you away with information. “Week two, you may have forgot, but we’re still here! I released a cover song, check it out!” It just keeps going on until you’re totally exhausted by this band you once liked because now you have to buy 17 tapes they put out this year. I’d rather keep it simple. If you like us, we have six records. You can get them all. On those six records we will have tried our best each time. Rather than, “Hey, I know you haven’t seen us lately, but we’re still here! We’re still here!”

AVC: We like the notion of posting about the pizza you just made.

MK: I feel like that’s what bands do these days. Everyone is so afraid that once they get their moment in the sun, they will be forgotten about directly thereafter.

AVC: There is an information overload that is expected of bands, which is strange.

MK: I can’t get into it. I’m not so old that I’m against the Internet in general. I’m on the Internet all the time. But I don’t care about following a band I like to that degree.

AVC: The punk and hardcore scene, in a really general sense, that we associated you guys with initially, has really evolved over the last few years. So bands like, say, Fucked Up and No Age, are big, and other people are broken up. Where do you guys see yourselves now? Who are the bands you now consider influences or peers?

MK: I don’t even know at this point. The bands that we like to play shows with generally don’t sound anything like us, and we like to play shows with them because they’re our friends. We’ve made friends over the years that we appreciate and are inspired by, but it’s not really on a musical level where we’re locked in on the same ideas, and it feels like, “They wrote a song that could have been by us,” or vice versa. We just played a show on Saturday with Blues Control, they’re really cool, and they sound absolutely nothing like us. Closer would be Purling Hiss, who we’ve also played with. They shred on guitars, so there’s that similarity.

AVC: The shredding that brings everyone together? 

MK: Yeah. We both shred.