HV: So you just recorded a new CD, right?
Alex: Yes. We're all done with it. We're just
working on the artwork.
HV: What's your recording process like?
Alex: This one was... we did 18 months of touring.
And over that period of 18 months during sound check
and at shows we worked on the songs that we just finished
recording. I guess, tightening them up, making them
as exciting as they can be. Shortening them, editing
them, arranging them, changing lyrics, etc, etc. And because
we had such a long time to work with these songs, we
went in the studio, we were there for like four weeks or
something. Pretty short for a record. And we worked with
one of our favorite producers, Dave Fridmann, whose
done The Flaming Lips, Mogwai, Longwave. Worked on
Weezer's, Pinkerton record, Mercury Rev, did something
with Jack White. But anyway, he's one of my favorites
and he took all of his experience and know-how and
turned us up a notch in the best way possible.
Darren: We kind of just tell him what we
want and he just makes it happen.
Alex: And I think We're really proud of
it and the only thing we've been arguing about is
the artwork and the name. The artwork's coming together and
for now we've just been calling the record, "We Win Again,
Mother Fuckers," exclamation point. But I don't
think we're going to keep it. That's about all
I can say about that.
HV: What's your favorite part of the
music business... touring, recording, writing?
Alex: Each serve their own specific purpose.
Writing is sort of like designing clothing and
then recording is sort of actually making the
clothing and then playing live is wearing it in
battle. Does that make sense, I can say it better.
(laughs) Ok, it's like, it's like, ok... Writing songs
is like hitting a hammer on metal, right. Hitting
a hammer on metal. And then recording is turning
that metal into armor and then playing live is
wearing that armor into battle.
Darren: I like touring the best.
That's just me.
Alex: I like that analogy. It took me
a second to get it, but I got it.
Darren: It took me a second to understand it.
HV: What CDs or artists are you currently
listening to?
Alex: (to Darren) Um, I'll do
three, you do three, how about that?
Darren: Sure.
Alex: Ok, A Certain Ratio, which is
a very good band from the late 70s until today actually,
they're still around, a CD called Earlier, which is
a compilation of their earlier stuff from 1978
to 2001. Uh, I'm listening to Bruce Springsteen's
Nebraska, which is a very beautiful record. And...
Darren: That's three.
Alex: What? That's only two.
Darren: That's three.
Alex: No. You gotta stop getting
high so early in the day.
Darren: I'm not stoned at all right now.
Alex: I'm kidding, but why'd you
get so defensive about it?
Darren: Cause I really did get
high. (laughs) I'm just kidding.
Alex: (laughs) And uh, let's
say Syd Barrett's The Madcap Laughs.
Darren: You do the older stuff,
I usually do the more contemporary. That's
the way that always works. Uh... I've
been listening to Blond Redhead a lot.
The new Outkast record I think is
really good, Andre 3000, the CD. What else,
Alex? Oh, Radiohead. The new Radiohead record
is great.
HV:If you could be a CD which would it be and why?
Darren: If we could be a CD? Like
a CD in human form or something? Uh, some
Beatles record, I guess. A Beatles' album... I
think That's the safest answer.
Alex: Yeah. Or you be the
Beatles, I'd be probably Elvis
Presley's [30] #1 Hits, cause
that shit lasts forever.
HV: What's been your favorite band to tour with thus far?
Alex: I have my most
fond memories from Guided By Voices.
Darren: Those guys are really cool.
Alex: But also when we were
on the festival tours in Europe, that was
a good time too, but that doesn't
really count as a tour, I guess, cause we
were playing with so many different bands like
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club or the Donnas,
and The Vines. But that doesn't count, does
it? That's not really a tour. But that
was great cause we'd just hang out
with those guys on the bus.
Darren: Incubus was cool too.
Alex: Incubus was fun,
those are nice guys.
HV: If you were to choose any
band to tour with who would it be?
Darren: Radiohead. So
I could watch them play every night.
Alex: I... would... like... to...
play... with... well, for the sake
of seeing what they did live, I
would try a band called Melt-Banana
from Japan. They're crazy.
Darren: Or Lightening Bolt.
Alex: Oh, Lightening Bolt would
be so much fun. That's a good one, I gotta
remember that one.
HV: Do you have any interesting tour
stories or crazy fan stories?
Darren: (to Alex) Tell them the
one about Indianapolis. The one, what you
did to the tray, what happened after the show.
Alex: Oh. I had to piss really
bad in this little hell hole of a bar
and there was no bathroom. So to get my
revenge, I peed in the ice bucket that holds
the sodas. But there weren't any sodas
in there anymore, so it was safe, no one was
going to put anything in there anymore. Uh,
we come off the stage after the show, and
Darren didn't see me piss in the —
Darren: No, I did see you piss into it.
Alex: Oh, you did. But he'd
totally forgotten and was like, "I'm so sweaty",
and he just starts splashing it over his
face and like, "Ah, oh, it's so refreshing." And
I told him and he stops and looks at me, and
I said, "Listen man, I'm sorry, I pissed in
there." And he's like {pause}, "I'm so
fucking hot, I'm so fucking hot," and just
keeps doing it, which was so funny.
Darren: It's good for the skin.
Alex: It was good for the skin.
Darren: The ammonia and the...
Anyway, next question! (laughs)
HV: How and when did the band get started?
Alex: Uh, the band officially formed in
1994. And we've had all the same members except
for one, the drummer, Jason. So we've been
together as friends for 10 years now, but since
the new guy's been here, who's really
awesome, he's one of my favorite drummers of all time.
Darren: One of my favorite people
of all time, such a great guy.
Alex: We're a new band, so I'd
say we've been a band for six months. Which
is kind of cool, gives us a new lease on life.
HV: So you guys were just
friends then started a band?
Alex: We actually started as
just randomly high school kids that
liked the same music. I guess That's how it
usually starts. And then we became friends after
the fact. Some of us haven't even, like Darren
and I haven't even become friends yet. We
don't like each other very much. (laughs)
HV: Where was this?
Alex: Los Angeles, California. The
new guy's from Minneapolis, brings a
new little twist to it.
HV: Accent?
Alex: No, he's lived in LA
for 5 years now, so that sort of knocked
it out of him.
HV: What was your worst job?
Alex: Worst job? Uh, I was
really unhappy, I made... ok, I'll start
at the beginning. At twelve years old, my
mom says that I have to do something exciting
with my life. Forces me to read Catcher in
the Rye and then says, "Ok, now, you're
going to Japan but you have to earn the
money yourself". I don't know whose parents
give their 12-year-old children assignments
of going to Japan? So my mother says, "You're
going to Japan and you're going to
have to earn the money yourself. The tickets
are $2000". This is in 1991. "The tickets
are $2000, make the money, you have
three months." Little did I know she had
found this program that did exchange student
stuff, but you still had to pay, whatever. I
must have mowed a thousand lawns, blown leaves,
raked leaves, watered things, changed diapers
of babies, dogs, etc, for this Japan trip.
That was the worst experience of my life
and then going to Japan was the best,
by comparison. (to Darren) Did you
have a bad job or anything?
Darren: Well the worst experience that
I ever had working that I can think of
is when I was with my ex-girlfriend when
I was 15 or 16 years old. And one of her
friends was having a wedding and she and I
had to be waiters and waitresses to wait on these
people that were the most obnoxious people
I've ever met in my entire life.
Alex: Like drunk family people or what?
Darren: Oh my god, yeah. It was
awful. Some guy kept asking me to get him
drinks and it got to a point where like the
owner of the club was yelling at me. I was
like, "I'm just serving", I mean I
was like a young little dude, but it's
the worst experience I can think of.
Alex: It always sucks getting yelled
at. I forgot, one of the chores I had to do...
I was helping my neighborhood, by the way,
I didn't explain myself. I went door to
door asking people if they needed jobs. I
had so many jobs that I had forgotten one
of them, and it was a very important one. I forgot
to feed my neighbor two streets over's cat for
two weeks while she was on vacation. She
came back and the cat was like... still alive but
totally lost all his weight, like shed the
fur off of its tail. And I got yelled at pretty bad.
Darren: Awful, That's awful.
HV: So what would you be doing now if
not for music? Did you go to school for anything?
Alex: I mean, I went to school for
music too. Like music theory and computer programming.
Darren: Check this out, what note am
I doing right now? {sings a note, long pause}
It's not supposed to take this long! (laughs)
Alex: Uh, sounds like A.
Darren: I was just hoping you'd say
a note and I'd say "That's right".
Alex: I don't even know if that
is an A, that doesn't sound like an A
after awhile. It's the humming of this
engine... Uh, so I'd probably either
be an engineer or a record producer anyway,
which is involved in music.
HV: (to Darren) What about you?
Darren: I'd probably try to be
in a band. Cause I really enjoy being in a band.
HV: No backups?
Darren: Um, I don't know, I'm
the kind of person where if I'm doing
something, I like to dedicate all my time
and all my energy into it. So if I wasn't
in a band, the first thing that comes to
mind is maybe being a writer. I used to
want to do that. But I would put all my
time and energy into it.
HV: Do you have any favorite places
to play? Or least favorite?
Alex: Favorite and least
favorite? Uh, my favorite places to play,
especially on this tour... no, in any tour...
is usually the smaller clubs where you can
really see people's reactions and see
people's faces and there's that relationship
between the two. People in the
audience and me, or me and say, the guy
in the front row who's like singing along
or not to happy with the tempo of the
song or something. Where I can actually gage
how someone's reacting to the music we're
playing or the music I've written or
whatever. Uh, and least favorite are usually
the huge, huge, huge shows, where like maybe
a festival where no one knows who you are and
people are there waiting for you to get
off so that they can see the next band that
they were there to see. Where it's totally
impersonal. And festivals are all about promoters
making money anyway, so like, fuck that. (to
Darren) Do you have a least favorite or favorite?
Darren: Not really, but as long
as a place sounds good and sounds good on stage
while you're playing it, that's the
most important thing. Cause it's hard to have
a good show if you can't really hear what's
going on. And there's times when it's like that.
HV: Any locations?
Darren: First place that comes to
mind as far as favorite venue is the
Glasshouse in Pomona, California. Everybody that
works there is really nice and the sound
is great there and the stage is huge.
Worst place? Seriously, nothing comes to mind.
Alex: Usually a least favorite place
to play would be associated with a
bad performance. And we haven't really had
any terrible, terrible performances recently,
that's why I can't think of any.
HV: So how did you guys come
up with the band name, Phantom Planet?
Alex: First of all, I want to
go on record as saying I really hate the
name of our band more than just about anything.
Darren: I think That's also just
because we've had it for 10 years.
Alex: Right, but we picked it
when we were 13 years old, it sounded cool
at the time. It was when Red Cross was out and
I thought I could hear Jed the Fish, who's
this DJ on KROQ, I could hear
him saying, "That was from Phantom Planet, next
up, Red Cross". And now it just sort
of signifies our longevity. it's a
testament of the amount of time and effort
we've put in to this band. Which is probably
why I hate it so much.
HV: What about "The Guest"?
Alex: The name, how that
came about? I had written this song that we
had forgotten about and didn't make in the
record, The Guest, called "The Guest".
I forget who said it, I think it was
Jason who said we should start playing it live
again, and we started playing that. And
we were like, The Guest sort of
signifies this introduction to people or
when you think of the word 'guest"
you think of being hospitable to a guest
or inviting a guest over or the mystery of
a guest. Because a guest doesn't necessarily
have to be a friend, it could be someone
you've invited in. But it's someone you've
invited in... a guest. So we just wanted
this record, this first record that people would
be hearing on a wider scale, to be something
inviting and for people to understand that it's
an entity and it's a very classic sounding
title and hopefully it would last a long time.
Darren: On the cover of that record
too, it's kind of hard to tell, but there's
someone running through the photo. Kind of
just a foot, kind of out of frame. (to Alex)
Should we disclose who it is?
Alex: Yeah, we have before. We're
on tour with him, it's Ben Lee running
through the cover. You know, I got to see
some of the outtakes of that photo shoot.
Darren: With the dog?
Alex: Yeah, and by the way,
him running through the frame was totally by
accident, but it just sort of worked, things
just come together that way. And some of
the other things, some of the other people,
because we were just sitting on a
San Francisco street. Some of the other things
that walked by, there was a woman with a
baby carriage, there was a dog that was
so hilarious. We should?ve done the dog,
by the way. It was so good. And there was
an old woman and a guy riding a bike. But
the Ben Lee one just worked.
HV: How do you feel about your
song being on "The O.C."?
Alex: I feel pretty good
about it. I mean, it doesn?t really matter
too much to us. We were happy that
they just asked to use a song of ours.
Luckily that show isn't too terrible.
It's sort of like the 2000 version
of 90210, which I was a big fan of, back
in the day. But, yeah, it's cool. It's fun.
HV: Do you have any favorite movies or shows?
Alex: On the bus, all we've been watching
are Altman movies, The Family Guy... I have
a feeling between Jacques, Sam, and Jeff, they've
watched the Matrix Revolutions back there
seven -- er, the Matrix Reloaded -- seven times
or something. What else have we seen? Specifically,
The Long Goodbye, we saw. Today we saw
The Royal Tenenbaums. We've seen so many movies...
Darren: Movies we're going to watch
are: The Goonies, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The
Breakfast Club we watched last night. Stand By
Me... all the 80s, like John Cusack movies are good.
Alex: Yeah, those are good. And I
brought a bunch of my haughty taughty French
new wave films by Godard and Truffaut and Rohmer.
HV: What's your earliest childhood memory?
Alex: (to Darren) You go first, I
have to think.
Darren: Actually, this is kind
of a weird one too. There's a picture of
me in my room at my parents' place when I
was like, less than a year old. And my
dad was painting outside on a ladder and my
parents showed me this picture a few years ago.
I looked at it and it actually sparked the
memory. I remember sitting in the crib looking at
my dad while he was painting. I don't know how
the hell I remember that, but somehow I did.
That's very strange.
Alex: I think I just remembered too.
When I was four in 1980 -- whatever it was?
Four? I did a painting... (to girl walking around)
You want to make more noise? (laughs) I was
just kidding. Just kidding, Suzanne... I
did a pencil drawing of my mom that I
thought I remember at the time being so
proud of and thinking it looked just like her,
I was four years old. So... actually, it could
have been earlier, maybe I was two? Whatever
it was, cause I'm trying to think, at four,
I was a bit of an artist. Maybe I wasn't two?
Darren: You were three.
Alex: Maybe I was three. And I
drew this on a piece of paper, this picture of
my mom and I ran outside, she was gardening, and
I showed it to her and she was so proud of it.
And I remember this very, very intensely. Then a
few... like a year ago I went back to my house
and saw the drawing that I did.
Darren: Does she still have that? That's cool.
Alex: Yeah. Which sparked the
memory again too. It looks like a crazy
piece of shit. (laughs) It's got two
circles and like an X, and her eye's drooping
over half of her face and it was either
that memory or I think maybe there
was... I think I can remember my mom watching
Nova on PBS and I still had diapers. And
I ran through the hallway really fast and accidentally
shit myself. (laughs) When I was supposed to
have been potty trained and I felt really
embarrassed. But I still had diapers on,
I remember that.
Darren: That's hilarious.
Alex: That's all I got.
HV: That's good, That's all our questions. |
