Michael Caswell (SCENE): So first, how are you guys doing?
Sarah Barthel: Good!
Josh Carter: Pretty good.
(SCENE): How’s the tour so far? I know you’re on a pretty short one right now…
Sarah: Good, it was fun, we’re almost done, tomorrow is our last show.
SCENE: Where is that going to be?
Sarah: Seattle. We’re playing a Seattle University.
SCENE: Do you guys enjoy being on the road?
Sarah: Yeah, it’s fun!
SCENE: It’s still pretty new for you right? You’ve been around for a couple years now, since 07.
Sarah: Yeah it is still pretty new for us. Our first year we didn’t think about anything but touring and everything so we kind of suffered a little bit, but it was great…
Josh: Because we toured so much?
Sarah: Yeah we didn’t have any time off, well, we didn’t give ourselves any time off, but it paid up…
Josh: We don’t really give ourselves time off, right now either.
SCENE: So it’s been a couple years of just straight, working on this?
Josh: Yeah, I mean, do you think we give ourselves time off?
Sarah: No, but compared with the first year, when we were on the road. It was just the two of us as well. We didn’t have a tour manager, a sound guy, anyone to help us drive…
Josh: No drummer.
Sarah: No drummer, it was just the two of us and it was either, I was driving and he was sleeping or vice versa.
SCENE: That’s pretty intense, then you guys kind of just, blew up … The last time you were in town, was opening for the Flaming Lips at the Malkin Bowl right?
Josh: No we were opening for Metric, two nights in a row at the Malkin Bowl. (Laughs) I wish it was the Flaming Lips.
SCENE: Oh yeah, of course, got those 2 mixed up… I shot Metric but couldn’t get a photo pass for you guys, but I will tonight so that will make up for it!
Josh: Oh sweet.
Sarah: Nice.
SCENE: People will ask me to recommend music for them to check out, most of the time I will give them a short list of stuff and Phantogram is almost always on there. What do you think makes your music popular and so easy to recommend?
Josh: I think it’s unique, it’s definitely a different sound yet within our music there is something sort of tangible, there’s a pop sensibility, and there’s familiarity within the kind of weirdness that exists in our music. I think that’s what makes it so easy for people to like.
Sarah: We have a lot of influences, we listen to a lot of music, people say we sound like this genre or what genre or whatever, so everyone is familiar with one thing and maybe other parts or elements of our music grow on them some more.
Josh: Yeah to add on to what she’s saying, sometimes people who listen to just hip-hop will come to our shows and love it, but then, because we don’t make hip-hop it has some of that kind of groove a lot of the time, it often opens up their, palette I guess, ‘I really like Phantogram maybe I should check out, the Flaming Lips, or Radiohead, or Portishead, or something like that’. Or people who only listen to Indie Rock will come to our shows, you know, who only listen to like, maybe the Flaming Lips, and they go ‘oh maybe I should check out J-Dilla or Madlib, something like that cuz I really like these weird like, raw beats, and stuff’.
Sarah: Yeah yeah, I get that from some fans that I’ve talked to in the past, you know, ‘you opened up my mind to new kinds of music’, and they’re really excited about it.
SCENE: I’m actually really glad you said J-Dilla I’m a huge fan of his, he clearly has been an influence on you guys then.
Josh: Certainly, yeah.
SCENE: You’re still pushing Eyelid Movies right now, right? Are you still enjoying playing those songs live?
Josh: Yeah you kind of have to enjoy it you know and sorta put yourself in the zone every night.
Sarah: It makes it a lot more fun when you have a drummer and a sound guy. You saw us at the Malkin Bowl right, it was just the two of us?
SCENE: Yeah.
Sarah: It brings a lot of different dynamic, um, different ranges of… dynamisy?
Josh: Dynamisy. That’s a word.
All: (Laughs)
Sarah: It’s awesome live, it’s a lot more fun for us too, because it’s not just, not that I get sick of looking at Josh but it’s fun it see somebody else up on stage.
Josh: I don’t even look at Sarah anymore now.
All: (Laughs)
SCENE: Oh that’s a lie (Laughs) I saw the sound-check you gave her a little kick at some point.
All: (Laughs)
Josh: Live I just look at Tim and I blow kisses to him (Laughs). Um yeah, our music…
Sarah: Dynamisy. (Laughs)
Josh: Dynamisy is not a word, Sarah. I don’t think.
SCENE: I don’t think so.
Josh: Unless you’re Al Sharpton.
SCENE: We’ll get to the bottom of that. *Editors note: no it’s not really a word.*
All: (Laughs)
SCENE: So are we going to hear any new stuff tonight?
Sarah: Yeah we’ve been playing 2 new songs…
Josh: That are going to be on our upcoming EP, which is coming out in a couple months.
SCENE: Right on, what can you tell us about that? What’s it called and how many tracks do we get?
Josh: We don’t really have a name for it yet, you’re going to get 5 tracks, and I think it’s going to be a continuation of Eyelid Movies, in a way.
SCENE: Is it sort of like a B-Sides almost, or is it new stuff?
Josh: It’s all new stuff. Kinda, yeah, like a continuation of Eyelid Movies. The record’s still doing really well, that’s why we’re still touring on it and it’ll keep our fans more interested for our US headline tour and then after that, I think we’re gunna go in a real, not a totally different direction, but super like, what am I looking for? Just a more, focused direction, as like, aesthetically as a whole album.
SCENE: What’s next for you guys, apart from the new album?
Sarah: Tours.
Josh: Tours.
SCENE: More and more tours?
Sarah: Tour, finish the EP and…
Josh: Tour.
Sarah: Tour (Laughs).
SCENE: Have you been all over the world now?
Josh: No, we’ve only been to the US and Canada, Dominican Republic…
SCENE: Australia?
Sarah: No Australia yet.
SCENE: Caribbean is kinda cool.
Josh: Yeahhh, we played in Santa Domingo. That was awesome.
SCENE: What’s the story there?
Josh: They flew us, these people who were trying to get an indie scene going down there, flew us down there and shacked us up for 4 days in a really really nice Hotel and fed us really well. We played, you know, a 45 minute show and lots of people came and loved it and it was, awesome.
SCENE: It can’t be an easy life touring all the time but there are some perks right?
Josh: Yeah (Laughs) that was cool.
Sarah: That was a perk, (Laughs) for sure!
SCENE: Did you get to the beach a lot?
Sarah: We went for one day yeah it was fun, beautiful.
SCENE: Are you hockey fans at all?
Sarah: No…
SCENE: No? Well, I will give you a little tip, there’s a huge game going on tonight, if you give a shout out to the Canucks tonight you’re going to get a lot of good vibes. They are actually playing right now, which is good because if they were playing later…
Josh: Nobody would come.
SCENE: Yeah. People might not show up.
Sarah: I was just going to say, we played a show in Montreal during the Olympics, we played on a Sunday and there was the biggest hockey game between the US and Canada, it was the final game and we played, and hardly anyone showed up (Laughs).
SCENE: I wouldn’t take that personally, Canada loves hockey (Laughs).
Sarah: Oh yeah, we were like ‘fuck dude this sucks’.
SCENE: That was one of the most historic hockey games for us ever, if not the most historic especially because we won it.
Josh: What if the Canucks lose tonight though? *editors note, they did lose but the band gave the Canucks a shout out anyway* We can’t give them a shout out…
SCENE: Umm… Well, we will still be up 2-1 in the series, so it’s not going to be too bad.
Josh: Oh ok.
Josh: Yeah we don’t really know anything about hockey, it hadn’t been part of our culture growing up.
SCENE: All you have to do right now is walk outside, onto Granville Street and it will be everywhere!
Sarah: Right, that’s why people… ok!
Josh: I was asleep so…
Sarah: Yeah you didn’t see it (Laughs). People were all wearing jerseys.
SCENE: It was a pleasure to meet you guys, thank you so much for taking the time out…
Sarah: I have a question for you…
SCENE: Ok cool!
Sarah: What’s your 3 favourite bands right now? other than us of course (Laughs).
SCENE: Um, ok so Phantogram…
All: (Laughs)
SCENE: And then… oh I don’t know, that’s tough I bounce around all over the place.
Sarah: Or just one.
SCENE: There are some I’m always listening to… Animal Collective, huge huge fan. J-Dilla I’ve been listening to a lot recently so it was funny you mentioned that.
Sarah: What about new music?
SCENE: New stuff? Well, Panda Bear’s new album, from Animal Collective…
Sarah: Oh yeah yeah, I haven’t listened to that yet.
SCENE: Deerhunter.
Josh: I like Deerhunter.
SCENE: We interviewed YACHT last week. That was a really good show.
Sarah: Oh cool! And what’s your favorite music blog?
SCENE: SCENE IN THE DARK .com
All: (Laughs)
SCENE: Of course.
SCENE IN THE DARK EXCLUSIVE SHOW CONTENT
