With a recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel, countless re-mixes of their single “The Reeling,” and a nomination in Spin for Best New Artist, Passion Pit are blowing up bigger than the Tiger Woods sex scandal. While criss-crossing the nation as part of their world-wide tour they stopped in Seattle on an unusually frigid day that was more reminiscent of their Boston home base. Bassist Jeff Apruzzese and Keyboardist Ayad Al Adhamy sat down with us before the show to discuss the tour, square watermelons, and the fate of pop music.
melophobe: I was so happy that the show was able to be re-scheduled because I was crushed when the October show was postponed. Although I had seen the Pogues the night before so that would have been a busy show schedule for one weekend.
Jeff: The Pogues probably involved a lot of drinking.
melophobe: It was. A lot of drinking, plenty of mosh pit action. I just saw that you were nominated in Spin’s reader poll for Best New Artist so congratulations.
Ayad: Really? I didn’t know that. That’s awesome.
melophobe: I have to say that I am pretty envious of Boston right now, as much as I love Seattle, because I saw that you recently played a gig there with Spoon and Phoenix. The three of you are on heavy rotation on my iPod. I was wondering with the upcoming release of Spoon’s new album and your lengthy tour schedule, any chance of more shows together in the future?
Jeff: I don’t know, our touring schedule is different. When they start to ascend ours will be winding down. We will be touring more but in territories we haven’t been to. For a good part of next year we will be out of the country, in Australia and Japan and several dates in the UK. I don’t think we start touring over here again until April.
Ayad: Yeah, that was a radio show and radio shows you can get bands that might not usually fit on a tour together. I don’t think we would fit on a tour per se but on a radio show you can put all kinds of bands together.
Jeff: Yeah it would be cool but would never really happen.
Ayad: I’m a massive Phoenix fan.
melophobe: They are coming to Seattle in January I think?
Jeff: Oh are they really? Those guys just don’t stop.
Ayad: They have been doing it for years and years and years.
Jeff: We’ve actually gotten to play five or six shows with them this year. It’s been really great and we’ve actually become better friends with them. And just at the last show it was finally at a point where we were comfortable enough where we were on stage and they were checking out all our gear. And our guitar player, Ian, was so freaked out and so nervous but we were sound checking and Branco and Christian their guitar players were like “Oh, what’s that pedal and what’s that pedal do?” And Ian was like’ “Uh, uh....”
Ayad: They are so much older and been around so long, we have such huge respect for them. When we are on tour with younger bands its just like “Oh hey guys. What’s up?” With them it’s like “Uh, you guys just got nominated for a Grammy.”
Jeff: This last show we did with them they found out fifteen minutes before they were about to go on stage that they were nominated for a Grammy.
melphobe: I feel like Phoenix is having a re-surgence, they’ve been around since ’92 I think? But with this last album they’ve gotten a lot of radio play here in Seattle on KEXP.
Jeff: Yeah their latest album has really pushed them. I love KEXP.
melophobe: Me too. That’s where I get two-thirds of my music.
Jeff: KEXP is one of the first radio station sessions we did. It was on the Yelle tour that we did.
Ayad: Oh my God! That was the last time we were in Seattle. Like a year ago, at Neumos.
melophobe: And now you’ve upgraded to a much, much larger venue.
Ayad: Yeah and we were supporting on that tour.
Jeff: We were supporting for Yelle on that tour, our first tour ever actually.
melophobe: You’ve opened for huge bands like the Killers at Hyde Park and played big festivals, how does it feel to be on your own, headlining your own tour?
Jeff: It’s a completely, completely different thing.
Ayad: When you are opening for a big band you get to learn from them and see what they do. It’s different.
Jeff: Yeah like probably with athletes, it pushes you to play better and with a band that has been around longer and achieved a lot of the success it’s nice to see what they’re doing and get advice from them. Especially being a kind of tech-savvy band, I think that playing with bands of that nature and seeing what they do on stage to re-create their record is helpful.
Ayad: Like Muse.
melophobe: They are going to be in Seattle next week at the Deck the Hall Ball. And Phoenix too. Also, Metric and Vampire Weekend.
Jeff: Oh, awesome! What show?
melophobe: Deck the Hall Ball.
Jeff: These holiday shows are so dope. They make like super, super band line-ups.
melophobe: Yeah mega shows, like Ozzfest but better.
Jeff: And the venues are big enough but not like too big, just a right size for a good amount of people and still retain a certain amount of intimacy.
melophobe: Yeah, you can still get closer to the stage and have that interaction with the band and you’re not miles away.
Ayad: Muse used to play arena shows right? I’ve loved them since I was about fifteen.
melophobe: Yes. And they have a new album out as well. I am excited to see them and Phoenix at the Deck the Hall Ball.
Jeff: Have you seen Phoenix yet? They put on a really good show. I know people who saw them a few years ago and they were playing rooms to like fifteen or twenty people and now they are selling out shows everywhere.
melophobe: I read somewhere that you re-released Manners in Japan with some new tracks included to get some buzz going over there.
Ayad: It actually was just a release, not a re-release. It hadn’t been released in Japan yet and it was an import.
Jeff: Yeah, yeah. I think the one thing that was big over there was the Capsule re-mix that was on there.
Ayad: Actually it was the album and then three or four tracks from the EP and two re-mixes, the Calvin Harris and the Capsule. Have you heard of Capsule?
melphobe: No.
Ayad: Capsule is one of the band’s biggest influences. He’s a Japanese producer and he wrote a bunch of songs for Japanese pop bands like Perfume and some other bands and has done some DJ stuff. Well, Capsule is like the best sounding produced stuff ever and even before Manners that was one of the bands we listened to a lot.
Jeff: Our roommate was really into it and said, “Oh you have to hear this.”
Ayad: In Japan he is really well known and his “The Reeling” re-mix is probably one of the best ones.
Jeff: Yeah it’s probably one of the top re-mixes of that song.
Ayad: But nobody in America knows who he is.
melophobe: On the band’s website I saw that most of the shows in Japan are sold out. That must feel good.
Jeff: We were only gonna play two, one in Osaka and Tokyo, and Tokyo just sold out so we added another one. Which is cool.
Ayad: I think we are charting on imports over there.
Jeff: Yeah, I think we are starting to get really popular there.
melophobe: The music that is coming out of Japan right now is so interesting. And the style, the street culture in general. The fashion and expression.
Jeff: Yeah, I’ve always been a fan of the Japanese street fashion and culture so I am really excited to go over and just experience it.
melophobe: That is one of the places that I have always wanted to go and the culture is so different from here and it would be really interesting to immerse in that. I’ve always wanted to go to Tokyo and be totally overwhelmed by the lights and all the people.
Ayad: And eat sushi.
melophobe: And the square watermelon.
Ayad: Wait, what was this?
melophobe: They are really expensive. Yeah, they grow them square because they are limited on space.
Ayad: So it is a square shaped watermelon? Whoa. You could cut it like a loaf. Watermelon is my favorite fruit.
Jeff: That is so weird. A loaf of watermelon.
Ayad: It would be the best thing ever.
melophobe: With your tour, do you get to have any input on who the opening acts will be?
Ayad: Yeah, as a headliner you always get to choose. It works that there is a list that we would look at or we might want to ask someone we know to come with us. Usually we have a list of ten bands or sometimes people submit that they want to come on tour with us and then we approach bands we are interested in. We were on tour with the Harlem Shakes for awhile. Or The Joy Formidable. Have you heard of them?
melophobe: No, I haven’t.
Jeff: Yeah they’re from Wales and were at SXSW last year and we were so into them. Girl singer, shoegaze type sound. And on our UK tour, we were like “I wonder if these guys would want to tour with us?” and we shot them a random email and they were into it. Our label has always been really supportive of our creative direction and whatever we want to do. We’ve been lucky that we’ve always been able to have the final say in who we want to bring on tour. It’s been cool that we have been able to do it with bands that we like and we can help them out by playing in front of bigger audiences.
Ayad: We did also ask this cover band to come on tour and it didn’t really work out except for LA.
Jeff: The two shows that they were there for were amazing.
Ayad: It was an all star backing band. Like the guitarist from Goldfinger was playing bass and Madonna’s regular guitarist and then the singers were drag queens and so it was like awesome. They were doing Lady Ga Ga covers and everything and it was just the best thing ever.
Jeff: It was crazy because it was an all ages show so there were eighteen year old kids whose minds were being blown and they had just no idea.
Ayad: And the drag queens were like “I can see you lookin’ at me you little guy. You like me?”
Jeff: Yeah, the singers were eating it up. They were so into it.
melophobe: That sounds so awesome. Really fun!
Ayad: Fun as hell.
melophobe: I’m a big fan of Pyramiddd, well they changed their name recently, they used to be Starfucker. Your opener here in Seattle.
Ayad: Oh, is that who it is! We’ve been trying to find out and no one has told us.
Jeff: Ohhh. And they changed their name?
melophobe: Yeah, maybe to get more radio play? Since it had the word “fucker” in it? They actually held a contest I think to have the fans re-name the band.
Ayad: I wonder how many people like them because their name is Starfucker?
Jeff: There’s gotta be that segue period where you still have to mention the old name for people to know who they are.
melophobe: Exactly
Jeff: It’s hard to tell when that will die down.
Ayad: Oh awesome, I didn’t know that. They are really getting good.
Jeff: Yeah this tour has been crazy. We’ve been playing all the holiday shows lately.
Ayad: Every day we’ve been up at six a.m. This is day five of shows and then a day off.
Jeff: With all the holiday shows and the make-up shows that we’ve been playing there’s no logistical routing to it. And after the tour was set up they were like “Oh yeah you just got confirmed to play on Jimmy Kimmel.” It’s a lot of up and down and back and forth and up again.
melophobe: I wanted to ask you about your band name. When the other members came on board, was Mike already operating under the name Passion Pit or did you come up with that collectively?
Ayad: He had the name covered as well. He played one set as Passion Pit before forming as a band. That’s how it kind of started because Ian went to go see Mike perform with his laptop and it was like, “This sucks,” but it was still a Passion Pit thing. So it was kind of nice because we didn’t have to choose a name, naming a band is a difficult thing.
Jeff: The name was there and we were all ok.
melophobe: When you hear the story of how Passion Pit got together, it sounds like it all happened really quickly. What were the two of you doing before you came on for the live shows?
Ayad: Yeah we all were in music school, music school dorks kind of thing. I just graduated in January. Ian and I did some film scoring, Mike was at Emerson but he didn’t graduate because of the tour.
Jeff: He’s on leave right now.
Ayad: Yeah, I don’t think he’s gonna go back. Do another year at Emerson, right. So it was kind of awesome that we were all kind of hanging out at the same time. This was the first band I was in in five years. I was in some metal bands, doing shreddy stuff. Jeff, he was in an indie band with Nate. We had another drummer and bassist and Jeff started playing with us in April 2008.
melophobe: Mike and music journalists have described your music as pop, with electronica and rock influences. Do you ever feel like pop music is a bad label because a prejudice exists, people think Britney Spears? Now there is this trend to label everything as indie to make it more credible or justify it.
Jeff: I can totally relate to that.
Ayad: Now indie is so not indie. There are so many indie kids. It should be so alternative right now.
Jeff: Even for me, pop music used to leave a sour taste in my mouth, you know? Because when you think pop you think Top 40 pop.
Ayad: But now people think, “Wait these guys don’t look like N’Sync.”
Jeff: Now I hear pop music and I can appreciate the production on it.
Ayad: We love Miley Cyrus.
Jeff: Yeah we love “Party in the USA”
melophobe: Is that who sings that? I hear that song all the time and couldn’t figure it out.
Jeff: We drive around and play that all the time, it is so good.
Ayad: I’m gonna do a cover and change it to “Party in the U.A.E.” I can do that since I’m and Arab. “I’m off to the mosque [singing].”
Jeff: The whole pop music thing has definitely changed for us.
Ayad: In the 80s pop music was Michael Jackson and Kate Bush.
melophobe: I agree, pop music was great in the 80s.
Jeff: It’s totally different now.
Ayad: But that’s why we want to be called pop because then we can go “no, that’s not pop.”
Jeff: It’s just how you hear it. Pop music is just something that has a hook and gets stuck in your head. That’s good pop music. So if it’s Top 40 pop it’s still the same as indie pop.
melophobe: Following up to that, who are your dodgiest musical influences?
Ayad: Dodgiest? Jesus Christ. Well, we were young once.
Jeff: I went through phases you know?
Ayad: When I was thirteen I was Tupac and Biggie-ing it. Then I started guitar and switched to Metallica.
Jeff: When I was younger I was really into Ace of Base.
Ayad: Oh God!
Jeff: Ace of Base was so cool. I was such a little punk; I bought my mom an Ace of Base CD so I could tape it.
Ayad: The worst thing I bought was Peter Andre.
Jeff: I’m not going to shy away from stuff that I was listening to.
Ayad: I’ve only been living in America for six years even though I sound really American. But I grew up in the Middle East and England so you don’t get the small bands that you can see down the street, it was only big bands that came over there.
Jeff: When I started playing in bands I was going to see stuff like the Alkaline Trio and Dashboard Confessional, when he was still on his own and actually following his beliefs. I still listen to Blink 182.
Ayad: Oh yeah.
Jeff: I’ve probably seen Blink 182 thirteen or fourteen times. I was screaming like a girl when I found out that they were getting back together.
Ayad: And then we found out that Mark Hoppus tweeted that he was listening to us.
Jeff: When he tweeted that he was listening to our band I was like “Oh my god [high pitched screaming]!”
melophobe: Well I’m a big Robbie William fan, so I take a lot of shit for that.
Ayad: Wait; Take That, best boy band ever. Didn’t you scream like a girl when they did the reunion tour?
melophobe: But Robbie wasn’t a part of it because they had a falling out.
Ayad: Oh that’s right.
melophobe: Well I don’t want to keep you any longer. Thanks so much for your time and have a great show tonight.
Two songs go in, one comes out. Pick a side.
Columbus Short Would be an excellent match for Sam Cooke (especially if this movie was to include Sam’s Soul Stirrer years). Just as long as in the movie Sam does the singing of course lol. But as far as physical resemblance my boy Columbus Short all the way. View this clip of Cadillac Records were he played lil walter… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmxTbcnW6bY
by Akin Z on Wed Feb 1, 2012 at 12.37 am from the entry: Sam Cooke to get a movie
Oops meant Aloe Blacc not Black. Sorry about the typo. If you doubt that he should play Sam check him out here on you tube singing Loving you is Killing me. The likeness is uncanny - but the voice is quite different.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yJuyaVcL2I&feature=artist
by Tamara L on Tue Jan 31, 2012 at 08.30 am from the entry: Sam Cooke to get a movie
I have read the Peter Guralnick book and it is thoroughly researched down to the minutest detail. Amazing.
I would go for Aloe Black because he looks so much like Sam, but for heaven’s sake why are we talking about the quality of the actor’s singing? Sam’s singing has got to be dubbed in. We want the real thing not an impersonator. There is only one Sam Cooke. The actor can act, let Sam do the songs.
by Tamara L on Tue Jan 31, 2012 at 08.24 am from the entry: Sam Cooke to get a movie
Thanks for the mention, we do appreciate your time and attention. Please check us out@DirtyDurdie.com.
once again thanks for noticing us.
by Dirty Ice on Tue Jan 24, 2012 at 11.04 pm from the entry: Yasiin Bey - Fete (Providence, RI; Dec.10, 2011)
John Boutte should play Sam Cooke. Except the point someone made about him dying young, this is true. Boutte may be a bit too old.
by Brendan on Tue Jan 17, 2012 at 06.17 pm from the entry: Sam Cooke to get a movie
La cara de kurt de: NO ME DIJERON NADA :| ajajjajajaja
by asdsad on Tue Jan 17, 2012 at 04.29 am from the entry: Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic Weigh In On Kurt Avatar
Blacks say the word 50+ times a day. Fuck the double standard, stop trying to create controversy.
by Steve C on Fri Jan 13, 2012 at 02.00 pm from the entry: John Mayer is about to get swallowed up in public outrage
Sounds like this was a fun interview! I like the questions you asked.
Are photos 5 and 6 of them dancing to “Party in the U.A.E.?” They should really record that.
Agreed. This gal asks some good questions and seemed to make the band comfortable. Loved the square watermelon thing! Crack me up and them from what it sounded like.
I also liked her past reviews on this site. More from her in the future please.