What are the amenities of writing for a music zine? I mean aside from getting to drive fast and expensive cars, hanging out with even more expensive German supermodels and spending all your hard earned cash on Cuban cigars? You get to go to gigs for free. That’s exactly what I hoped for when I wrote to Dan, the KATP chief editor, asking if he could get me on the Pains Of Being Pure At Heart guestlist at Heaven on 29th July. Which he did. But then he asked me in return if I could interview these Brooklynites two days prior to the gig. Happily I agreed. “Jesus, that’s even better than hanging out with Cuban cigars and driving German supermodels!” I thought.
So I meet up with Kip Berman and Peggy Wang downstairs at the Book Club in East London and I’m initially surprised by their accessibility and all round good-humoured nature. Of course, given this is my first proper interview in a long time, I’m nervous. What makes things even worse is my constant worrying about my little recording device: an old mp3-player with a built-in microphone that wasn’t exactly very expensive. But, as you can see for yourself, it worked just fine.
I first ask about the tour, which kicked off ten days earlier in New York. Peggy replies: “I thought Spain was really amazing and we played one of our best shows ever in Madrid. I feel we gel together as a band now and I also feel better about our performances. The crowds in Spain are really heartfelt and enthusiastic. They are so effusively sweet.” “We had a really lovely time in Spain and then came over to England to play the Indietracks festival, which focuses on the core kind of music that inspires us” continues Kip. “The honour of getting to play and headline that festival was just… I just think we did something right in our lives.”
We talk a bit more about life on tour and I ask them if they have any countries they particularly like or dislike when touring. “I really, really like Spain. My only complaint would be that it’s hard food-wise: it’s a lot of meat and cheese” says Peggy the vegetarian. “But people there are so warm, and true music fans. We actually judge countries on what people drink there.” “All countries like to drink,” interjects Kip, “that’s the good thing!” It’s worth mentioning at this point that both of them are sipping Pimm’s throughout the interview. “We like the UK for that” smiles Peggy. Kip is especially enthusiastic about Germany: “In Germany the beer is really good. Ah, Germany is insane! I would say, even though we had this great time in Spain, Germany always stands out. It’s almost the most hospitable place to bands like us. We’ve only been there last summer, but the level of warmth shown to touring bands is… you know, you always want to explain to your hosts that they don’t have to be that nice to you, they could be much less nice and you would still be having a good time.”
But there must also be downsides to when you’re on tour, right? “I miss my home, that’s obvious” says Peggy. “But at the same time it makes me appreciate my home so much more. And my friends would be totally sick of me if I would be there all the time.” Kip echoes Peggy’s thoughts and then points out more positive aspects: “The opportunity to do what we get to do is so rare and unexpected. If I sat down in a room with a genie in it and it asked me ‘describe your perfect existence’, I would probably write out something very similar like this: playing music with your friends that you really believe in and getting to go to places you’ve never been before. It’s not something we would really have taken for granted. It’s an amazing feeling to tell your grandparents ‘We're gonna spend the summer travelling around.’” That genie must have listened closely then…
Considering they are still a young band that formed in 2007, releasing their debut album to much critical acclaim just two years later, I wonder how they coped with this sudden success. Kip: “A lot of the bands we grew up loving and cared about - even a lot of our contemporaries who we really admire - often didn’t get any kind of recognition. Even bands you consider better than yourself don’t get recognised. That sort of puts everything in perspective, so much of it is just luck. I don’t know if we were overwhelmed by pressure but we realised that the opportunity we got was just falling off a tree.” So what about all the obligations that subsequently arise, like having to do interviews like this? “But that’s fun ‘cause I want to talk about music anyway” replies Kip. “You just get to know new people who wanna talk to you about music; it’s like meeting new friends.” He laughs and continues: “When I was in high school I would basically do the same but there was no microphone there, it was just a milkshake and some French fries. Me and my friends would just sit around and talk about the bands that we like.” The two of them concede that they’re happy to have not yet reached that level of success met with potential hostility from the press. “We haven’t eaten many truffle fries yet” jokes Kip, hinting at the notorious M.I.A. interview in the New York Times. “That’s like a forbidden fruit!”
We somehow start talking about the next Strokes release (Kip is a big Strokes fan), and at that point they reveal that they also started working on a new album themselves earlier this year. Kip: “It has been really fun, it was a different and exciting experience. We're gonna be finishing the album off after our touring is done, it will come out in 2011. We’ll see if we come out first or the new Strokes album. It’s like a little friendly competition.” I enquire about the writing process, was it different compared to when the first album was written? “A lot of the songs were written after our first album when we didn’t do any touring” explains Kip. “We’ve been working on them for a while, so it’s some sort of relief to finally get them recorded. Some of them are brand new though. The writing process was more or less similar to the first one but I feel it was also more informed by the experience of playing in front of people consistently and understanding a little bit better what kind of songs you wanna play in front of people every night.”
During the course of the interview I learn that their families are very proud of what they’re doing and are generally supportive of them, Peggy’s mum always enquires about how the record is doing in Taiwan, and Kip’s grandparents even tried to order TPOBAH t-shirts in order to support their grandson. There’s so much more I could write here on these pages, but, alas, there just isn’t enough space.
The band’s music mirrors the personalities behind it perfectly. They really are nice, natural and very witty people, happy to talk about anything you can possibly think of and grateful for the positive attention they have received so far. My initial fears about doing the interview were completely unfounded as it was held in a laid-back atmosphere, marked by lots of giggling and laughter; even my little recording device did a good job. So what is left to say? Another amenity, aside from smoking expensive cars etc., is that you get to interview some really cool people.