Thursday, January 3, 2013
Q&A Pink Pompeii's Courtney King on art of slow-burn recording
Posted by Amelia Shackelford on Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 1:37 PM
- Courtesy Pink Pompeii
You don't see a lot of electronic bands with cellists around. How did y'all get started?
Nan [Kemberling] and Rob [Gal] were doing this little folky duo called Da-Dun. They had a few songs and we thought it would be cool to make them more dancey. So they asked me to join, and we become an electronic band. We all just got together and started writing.
... We like Blondie, Goldfrapp, Swedish Girls... We sometimes like to sound foreign. Sometimes we're a little punk, a little surfy, a lot of pop, and we like to keep it weird and quirky.
A while back, you did a mime-themed photo shoot ...
Yeah! People were like, "Really, guys? Okay, that's cool, I guess... It was a little scary, but okay... "
Well, I thought it was adorable, but I'm not scared of mimes... You're celebrating releasing your new album. How long have you been working on it?
We worked on this one for about a year. We worked at our own pace. Rob does all the recording. He worked on it for about six months after we recorded it, playing with beats, giving it different feels... We wouldn't be able to do that if we were working in someone else's studio.
... On all the other albums I've worked on, you just get in and knock it out. Get all your guitars today, all your vocals tomorrow. Then you mix it, do a couple of revisions, and you're done. This album... It was a slow burn.
It sounds like an organic process, but the danger would be that, "It's never done!" feeling. Were you afraid you'd be tweaking every song forever and never finish?
Rob's really good at that. He just gets to a point, like, "I can't do it anymore! No more tweaks!" I think he's like, "If I listen to it one more time, I'm gonna puke." You have to just know when that is... You have to get it right, then hope you'll like it when you listen to it again in a year... Or tomorrow.
Obviously you all get along ...
Well, Rob and I are married, so... Being married and in a band together is sometimes hard, but it actually kind of makes it easier in some ways. You can just tell each other exactly what you think, and nobody gets their feelings hurt.
And you just added a drummer?
Yes, Al Porras just joined us. He'll be performing with us for the first time at this show. We're still gonna have backing tracks, but he'll be adding live drums. It'll add some movement, some organic sound.
Pink Pompeii, Black Lodge, Kate Leotard, and Sex BBQ play the Star Bar tonight (Thursday, January 3). Free. 9 p.m.
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