One day, around this time of year in 2007, I was really craving new music. I went to Demonoid, my favorite BitTorrent site at the time and found a torrent someone put together called "Best Music Of The Year So Far". Sounded good to me. Most of the albums and bands in there I hadn't heard of, so I was excited. After adding it all to my iTunes, I just hit play. About an hour later, after some music that came and went without anything special, I heard some crazy yelps. "Got a sideway stare like a signal flare!" For the next 40 minutes I was completely enthralled. Once the album was over, I played it again. And again. And again. Almost on a constant loop from then until now. I have had to opportunity to see their legendary live show twice. Neither times happened. The first time, lead singer Billy McCarthy nearly cut his pinky off after falling off stage. The second time, when they opened for The Gaslight Anthem in Asbury Park, it just became a good old fashioned fall apart the day before the show and we didn't end up going. I have been waiting patiently for another chance to see Billy, along with bassist Eric Sanderson, guitarist Nate Martinez, and drummer Tomislav Zovich live, and that will hopefully come with a new album, Rise Ye Sunken Ships to be released "Late Summer."Here is where this get's good. A little further down the page, I will be posting an interview I conducted with Billy McCarthy for a zine I was planning that may never happen, but I am honored to have gotten the chance to speak to him so I refuse to the let it just sit on my desktop.
But before that, I would like to introduce you to the music of Pela. One of the hardest things to do as a writer is to describe what something sounds like without sounding like a complete idiot. So here I am giving you a (kinda) complete Pela song list, linking to YouTube videos of these songs. Check them out, enjoy, and read the interview farther down the page.
Anytown Graffiti (2007)
- Waiting On The Stairs (on KidRockers. A MUST WATCH!)
- Lost To The Lonesome
- Drop Me Off
- The Trouble With River Cities
- Cavalry
- Song Writes Itself
- Your Desert's Not A Desert At All
- Tenement Teeth
- Rooftops
- Anytown Graffiti
- 7th And 17th
- Juarez
- Augustine
- Strange Days
- East Los Angeles
- Rise Ye Sunken Ships
- The Chapel Song
- Cut Our Names
- California's Son
- Philadelphia
Me: So how are you doing today?
Billy: I’m doing very well man, just out in the sun at my friend’s motorcycle shop in New York. It’s a little too nice to be at home. Is it nice over there in PA?
Me: It’s actually really nice, it’s a bit chilly, there were snow flurries the other day but it’s really nice today.
Billy: Well, we’re almost there man, it’s almost spring.
Yeah. Well I just want to start out by saying Anytown Graffiti has gotta be one of my favorite albums of the past five to ten years, it’s just phenomenal.
That means the world to me Jim, I really appreciate that.
Now you guys have been pretty much steadily on the road since Anytown’s release, and Chris Herb has recently re-joined the band, how did that come about?
Chris is an old friend of mine. Me and him, we dropped out of high school together and decided to embark on this whole crazy mission. Chris actually happened to be living in east LA when we were recording the first draft of the new record and he’d been coming and hanging out so much at the studio. Me and him were kind of like this roaring hitchhiking folk duo and I hadn’t seen him in years because he was in Australia, but initially he was part of what is now Pela years ago and he wasn’t doing anything and he decided to stop by and spend time with us. I actually covered one of his songs on the new record so I felt like it was only right to ask him to come play with us.
Going back to your older stuff like the All In Time EP. From there to Anytown Graffiti it seems that there was definitely a shift towards more aggressive songs, was that intentional?
You know I was reading a great interview with Hüsker Dü who are one of my favorite bands and they were talking about the difference in their first album which was very fast, and I think what they said was that they were playing fast because they were an opening band and they didn’t have a whole lot of time to play their set so they wanted to get as many songs in as possible. I think that its kinda possible that the aggressive sound was more of the live stage experience and I think that we feel like we’re getting out point across that way with the tempo and the tone.
You guys have been touring a lot in the past two years and been doing a lot of headlining stuff recently...
Yeah. we’ve been playing now for seven years so we’ve kind of seen it all on the live front.
Well how is the experience of opening and headlining different?
It’s been nice, and what it basically means is that we get to play longer. So, we kind of actually have been experimenting with that, I think our longest show was over two hours and now we have a whole new record so it’s getting exciting to see how far we can push our boundaries live.
Now you’ve had some past issues on tour, you had the hand injury in Chicago and you broke your foot in Seattle, are you more careful on stage now do you take any special precautions?
Yeah, I take it into consideration now. I went to the hospital forty times this year with physical therapy and surgery and I think it’s just an altitude thing. I think the precarious situations were about me climbing up things so I probably won’t be doing that as much anymore, although, if you get a couple beers in me who knows.
You were mentioning before about the new album, do you have a release date for that yet or how it’s getting released?
Basically we’re in talks with a couple different labels and we’re kind of in the selection process of which company we want to work with for the next, i guess it would be the next few records. So we’re trying to choose carefully and we anticipate it coming out this summer.
So you guys have been playing a bunch of these songs live I guess?
Absolutely.
How has the reaction been?
Well one thing that is always a bonus for people who take pride in the live show is that if you get your songs on stage early, it’s like the earlier the better so you can work out the kinks. That way you don’t put it to tape and try to change it later. It’s always strange for everybody when a whole intro is missing or things are extended. I mean we’ve had the benefit of having a few of the songs in our rotation before we recorded them, and for any young, indie band out there I would suggest definitely play it live before you record it as much as you can.
One of those songs, called “Philadelphia”, is one you’ve been playing for a while...
Yeah, that’s a real fun song and only getting more fun and it’s definitely on the new record. It’s this grandiose giant rock and roll song, it’s really fun to play.
Well as a Native Philadelphian, I’m interested as to where that song comes from?
I have an old friend I went to grade school with that lives in Philadelphia that was going through some upheaval personally, I think, with the fiance and it was very difficult for me because I went to visit once and I really didn’t appreciate the way he was treating her. And it was strange to be in an adult frame of mind with an old friend that I remember as a childhood friend and I believe that I wrote it thinking of her and how much I really didn’t like this dude. I mean I grew up in Northern California so a lot of it’s kinda imagined, it’s like how believed Philadelphia would be in this scenario I guess. So it was kind of me meditating on the situation my friend had found herself in and the backdrop would be Philadelphia where she lives.
Well it’s a great song, although with the first line “The city hasn’t twinkled in ages,” it was definitely twinkling the night we won the World Series.
(Laughs) Yeah, congrats on that, that’s big.
Yeah I was actually at a show in the city that night at the First Unitarian Church.
Yeah, we played there once with Mission Of Burma.
Really?
Yeah, they have no air conditioning there.
No, and there’s about six ceiling fans but only two work.
(Laughs) Yeah, we were burning up, and there’s no alcohol which is probably cool. I think we got drunk down the street, and it was pretty weird being drunk in a church, but you know, you gotta do what you gotta do.
Yeah, and we’re trying to keep our heads up with the Phillies starting 1-2 this year so far...
Yeah, you got a lot of heart, you Philly boys.
I love the place.
It’s a good town man, a beautiful town, it reminds me a lot of Brooklyn, and Brooklyn was actually a happy surprise for me. I moved here sort of before the “Brooklyn music explosion” and I happened to just accidentally move here. So that was actually a pretty interesting comedy of errors I guess. I had lived all over the country and was doing music and I’d seen some Spike Lee movies, like I just happened to catch one on TV and thought, “now that would be an interesting place to live.” I think it was Do the Right Thing so I moved here and shortly after I did, everything kind of exploded. So I laugh because I just sort of lucked out that there was a music scene, I mean I was prepared for it to be old men sitting on their stoops. So I kind of lucked out that there is a music community here, I wasn’t anticipating that.
I think right now the general conception of Brooklyn is a lot different than the Spike Lee movies.
(Laughs) Yeah, it’s changed but I think I was going about it from the writing standpoint and I was really looking for some authenticity and I thought that is was in proximity to Manhattan but I’m really not a city person as strange as that is so I thought I could have the best of both worlds and Brooklyn seemed really great. I hadn’t even been here before I moved here, I’d never met anybody that had ever been here, I just kinda moved here.
The thing about Brooklyn is it seems that the music scene developed organically, and if you try to force something like that it doesn’t seem it would work too well.
I guess when things happen naturally, that’s when they’re really special. I’ve seen that, I’ve lived in cities where people were trying to force some kind of energy and it’s a little underwhelming sometimes when that happens.
And the community in Brooklyn is something special, I mean, when you guys did the After the Jump festival there, you were just playing in the middle of a street.
(Laughs) Yeah, that was cool. I felt bad for the neighbors a little bit, only for like an hour and a half, it was another marathon show.
Now, you guys seem to cover a bunch of songs live. You’ve done “Raining In Darling” by Bonnie Prince Billy, “Holiday Song” by The Pixies, and I think I saw a set list recently with “Guns Of Brixton” on it?
That’s right man we finally stepped up to The Clash, which is no easy thing man.
Not at all, but I was wondering how you decide, how do you go from liking a song to deciding you want to play it live?
You know, I think at the end of the day we’re all big music fans, and it’s really humbling to kind of explore a song. When you cover a song you have to learn every single nuance of it, and it’s a different way to experience a song. So, I think when we fall in love with a song we get excited because we really go into song writing 101 and we really start to wonder you know, why did they add that extra bridge there, that was brilliant. You start to notice things that maybe the average listener doesn’t clue into. Personally speaking, I try to choose songs that are going to teach me something, and what was nice about the Bonnie “Prince” Billy song was that it was a song that’s on the end of a record that’s like thirty seconds long and maybe you didn’t totally notice it but it’s really profound. Actually, towards the end of our time playing it I was actually doing it a cappella which was an even funner way to do it. So I think that fun is kinda the key word there.
Well I’ve heard audio of both a full band version and the a cappella version of that, and it seems for the a cappella that the audience is a bit confused at first and then they quiet down to listen.
Yeah, I think to do something like that you’ve really gotta be comfortable in your skin, and it’s like the moment you start doing it you know you’re losing people but I think that what you gain for the people that get it far surpasses what you lost. So you gotta kinda be a daredevil with this stuff.
There’s actually a YouTube video of you singing the song a cappella and it’s labeled “Billy McCarthy Breakdown”, so I guess someone thought you were having a mental breakdown on stage and recorded it.
(Laughs) I haven’t seen that man, that's funny. I guess playing rock and roll music is some sort of suspended breakdown.
Well on the topic of YouTube videos and bootlegs and that stuff, what’s your outlook on that stuff?
Um...I think in the new landscape of music, you can’t get enough music out there. Personally, being a musician, money comes and goes and I haven’t purchased a record in a while because I also don’t like to accumulate trash and I try to be as green as I can and it makes me feel weird. I mean, I buy it for the album art often and some people don’t even do album art anymore, so I’m stuck with this piece of plastic so I understand it. I mean, I know people get precious about it but they really have to understand that people just want to listen to music and any way that can happen is okay. If we can get past money and all the ridiculous business bullshit I think what you got is people finding their way to music and I wouldn’t want to impede that at all. I mean, people want to listen to art and that’s kinda why we’re doing this right?
I can’t even begin to list how many bands I’ve found through music blogs and those kinds of things, especially through their live stuff. I mean I’ll look for live stuff just as much as studio stuff because music is a live art.
Yeah, that's a big Pela value. A thing we’re really proud of is that, I think when we step on stage it’s not really conscious, but the show is not about us. It’s about the listener, it’s about the audience you know? You guys are coming out and our comfort level is secondary. We’re trying to give you a good time and help you forget, you know, whatever recession or bullshit is going on in people’s lives and we’re trying to elevate and forgot about our mundane lives. I wish more people felt that way because I’ve seen people pull rock star moves and be ridiculous and it’s like, “man, if you could just understand that it’s not really about you, it’s about the fans that come up to you and talk to you about their lives and what stuff means to them,” that’s what it’s about.
Music venues could be much happier places if more people had that mindset.
Yeah, and I also feel that way about the audience. It pains me to see kids standing there folding their arms and they’ve got this “show me something” vibe and I kinda find that music is rewarding on both sides of the stage when it’s interactive and that’s something that Pela really, really tries to go for.
Well, when I’m at shows I see those kids with their arms folded and, you know, I’ll really start moving and a lot of those kids get in it and get really pumped but they just need to be pushed.
Yeah, well I think that’s one of the benefits of being older and seeing music go through a couple different phases. You know, a lot of people before my generation, the older guys, the Fugazi guys, those crowds came to dance and have a good time. It’s tragic to me that I’ve seen that kinda disappear so we’re trying to bring that back as strong as possible.
I’ve seen videos of Black Flag shows where Henry Rollins punches fans in the face and they’re absolutely loving it.
Yeah, I mean don’t we go to shows to have a memory? So we try to approach it that way.
Got a big one for you here. If you could make any dream bill, say three bands and Pela, who would it be, alive or dead?
Wow. Well, I’m really into Hüsker Dü right now, I would love to have seen what those guys did live. Obviously, the Pixies in their day were a force and I think probably Manu Chao.
Really?
Yeah, well I lucked out and got to be his guitar tech last year at a show, and he’s a South American musician and he’s just phenomenal. He speaks like four languages and plays interactive, amazing shows, I’d just love to play with Manu Chao.
If someone who has never heard your music came up to you and asked, “What does Pela sound like?” and in response you couldn’t say anything but you could only play them one song, what would that song be?
I would say it would have to be a song off the new record, a song called “Augustine.” It seems to encapsulate where we’re at right now.
Have you guys been playing that often live?
Yeah we have, we get super excited about it. It’s super nuanced and difficult, we use two keyboards and like five vocal mics, it’s pretty crazy.
I haven’t heard that so I guess the tapers haven’t caught that one yet.
(Laughs) Well they’ll have their chance soon, we’re gonna be busy for a long time.
Are we going to see a headlining tour later this year?
We’re flying out to headline a show in Seattle soon but as soon as possible we’re gonna get back to doing what we do and playing super long rock and roll shows. I mean I like supporting but we just really enjoy being up there.
You guys gotta hit Philly again too since you never rescheduled your canceled date when you got hurt.
Yeah, we gotta get back there and I promise not to break anything this time.
1 comment:
i learned about manu chao in my spanish class. we got to listen to one of his songs on mtv's unplugged. pretty political guy, according to my professor. nice husker du and mission of burma reference. pela seems like a real down-to-earth group. glad they could do the interview.
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