I wanted to start by asking about your relationship with K and Sarah Records, how you first discovered the labels and how that affected the music that you make. I saw that you played with Heavenly at Trans Pecos–
Kip: Well, first of all, playing with Heavenly and singing “C is the Heavenly Option,” like two octaves higher than Calvin sings it, with Amelia Fletcher was legitimately, no exaggeration, like everything I’d ever hoped for in music had suddenly been something real. It was just like– I'm on stage with Amelia Fletcher, and not that I'm a peer of Amelia Fletcher, but it was awesome. I got an email that said, “Hey, Kip, would you like to sing this song with us?” It was one of those things where even random friends from way back in the day were like, “You got to sing with Heavenly!?” It was a big deal… I came across Sarah Records sort of indirectly. When I was growing up, Nirvana would talk a lot about bands that they liked. I’m 45 years old. So when I was 13, I guess it was 1992, it was kind of around the time where there was this big cultural sea change of Nirvana emerging and suddenly the music that your friend's older brother told you was cool wasn't cool anymore. I know that’s an easy narrative and I mean, I think Nirvana liked hair metal, it's not always cut-and-dry like that. But more or less Nirvana was the thing. Nirvana would sort of deflect the crushing attention they’d get by talking about other bands that they liked. They felt very set apart and they didn't want to feel that way so Kurt would always be like, “Hey, you should listen to The Vaselines, you should listen to Teenage Fanclub or the Meat Puppets,” or countless other bands that he thought were cool like Beat Happening! So I think I first got into some of those bands through Nirvana, which was cool, but then I sort of forgot about it or got into other stuff… we don't have to delve into Kip's emo phase in high school, all his Promise Ring tapes or whatever… But as I got older I discovered bands like Belle and Sebastian and I was so psyched on Belle and Sebastian…I was looking for anything else that was like that. I was on allmusic.com looking for similar artists being like “Please tell me! This band seems out of nowhere, like nothing I've ever heard before! Are there other bands like this?” And I think that took me down the road of a lot of other Scottish indie pop bands. So again, Teenage Fanclub came up, even though they sound different, and Sarah Records was always cited for if you like Belle and Sebastian. I got a Sarah Records comp when I was eighteen or nineteen, I found it at a record store in Boston one summer and it was called Gaol Ferry Bridge. It had Heavenly on it, it had East River Pipe on it, it had all these other great Sarah bands. I really loved this compilation, but the Heavenly songs stood out, all those bands were great, but Heavenly, they really brought it. So I got into that…and I guess K Records was likewise through Nirvana and the Pacific Northwest. I went to University at Reed College in Portland so there was this big kind of K Records contingent of bands from when I was at school. Dub Narcotic played at my college a lot, Calvin was sort of a known entity. It was a big deal when one of his bands would come by… So yeah, that was a very long way of saying Nirvana told me these bands were cool and I listened to Nirvana.
Is that why you wrote a song called “Kurt Cobain's Cardigan”?
K: Yeah, probably right? That was just what we wrote on our MySpace profile in the “sounds like” section describing the band. You had to fill out this questionnaire to describe the enormity of your artistry in HTML. I just really liked “Kurt Cobain's Cardigan” because we always wanted to play indie pop music really loud or loud music really soft. I always felt like we were the loudest soft band or the softest loud band. We’re probably going to be the softest loud band at this Slideaway festival… But yeah, it was the idea of infusing the twee music that we loved with a different kind of energy– and it used to have that kind of energy too. It wasn't like twee music was always very passive in its sound, but the area that we were in at that time there was an emphasis on gentle sounds singing about gentle things. I think you can sing about gentle things, but you can't sing about them gently, or you can sing about scary things, but you have to sing about them gently. I feel like you have to have some kind of balance in the world or else it's too much of one thing. So “Kurt Cobain's Cardigan” was just how we described our sound. Then we had this song and we just threw that title on it. We don't say the words Kurt Cobain's cardigan in the song, but it's sort of this idea of the cardigan as the symbol of indie pop, but worn by like Kurt who took that sound and pushed it in different ways.
You just put out a B-Sides compilation record (with that song!) Could you tell me the story behind one of your favorite songs from ‘Perfect Right Now?’
K: The B-Sides compilation record–We put it out because sometimes people do Deluxe versions of their albums, but I don't like how in the streaming era…I just want to hear the record. I don't like when there's 15 songs tacked on it. I just want things to be succinct that way and I also don't want people to have to buy a record they own to get the extra songs on vinyl. I know people are kind of happy to do that now, they don't really care, but I'm always really sensitive to the fact that records seem to cost a lot of money. I feel like when things cost a lot of money it prohibits it from being adopted, except for by people who are 45 like me who are just like “Oh I buy vinyl records for $27 each!” or something, and that's not particularly cool. I can't even afford to do that. But what's the story? My favorite song on that album… man that’s a tough one. I really like “Higher Than the Stars,” but I also really like “Ramona.” I played “Ramona” here [at wnyu] so I think “Ramona” is really nice. What's the story behind that song? I was hanging out with… I don't know, this is probably inappropriate to recount it entirely. The guy that recorded our first album was talking about a relationship he was in and someone breaking it off with him and saying they just needed some time. He said, I don't need time, I just need her. I was thinking about that idea, “I don't need time. I just need you.” And it's that sense of certainty about something where you don't need to reflect on the experience, you're just like, you feel sure of it. So then the song “Nothing to do and nothing to be done/ So you go and stole your mother's medicine”–It's kind of just about hanging out and doing bad things when you're young with someone that you care a lot about, but maybe it's not the best basis for a relationship in a mature way.
Speaking of the Trans Pecos show earlier, how did it feel to go back and play your first reunion show at TP? What was that experience like?
K: It was very crowded. I wasn't expecting it to be so crowded. We just kind of wanted to make sure we knew how to play our songs before going and playing songs for a lot of people. It was surprising that everyone was that excited and missed us. It seemed like people were very happy that we were doing that. It made me feel really just… surprised? I don't know how to say this, but I really believe in the power of negative thinking. I'm not saying you shouldn't believe in yourself or what you're doing, that's important. But I always try to remember no one cares. We suck. We're, you know, we're kind of janky. You kind of have this story you tell about yourself that is not like, “Oh man, we were this band that people liked and wanted to see.” The story in my head is kind of like, people made fun of us on the internet and sometimes we played shows and it was a disaster. Then to go to Trans Pecos and see all these people that were just really excited to see us play a show. It was a surprise and it contradicted my memory of how people felt about the band. I know that sounds like, what's it called?... It's not imposter syndrome. It's not false modesty, but I just kind of remember all the negative things. And I don't remember that people actually liked our music and why they came to our shows. I remember people saying “The Pains of Being Pure at Fart” on the internet. Not that I ever read the comments, but that one stuck with me. It's just so clever. It was just so good! It was right there! But yeah, it felt really nice to feel like people had a nice memory of our music and wanted to experience it again. It was very forgiving.
Can you tell me about your favorite Halloween memory?
K: I remember dressing up like the Grim Reaper and thinking I was really scary. I thought I was actually like death. I think I borrowed my mom's black boots. I had the Grim Reaper mask and I had the plastic scythe, I just felt like I was a truly menacing gothic vision of death. But I was probably eleven or twelve and someone probably saw a little twelve year old boy with his Grim Reaper costume like “Oh look it's the Grim Reaper. Here's some Snickers. Here's some Starbursts. Here's death. You can take two deaths. Don't take three! That's right.” I remember wearing the costume to school and having my mom's black heeled boots with a pointy toe and trying to play soccer and it was very uncomfortable. So I have had a lifelong respect for people who do wear fancy pointy heels. It seems really uncomfortable, especially if you're trying to play soccer with your friends and look like death.
Alright. Speed round. Favorite day of the week?
K: Sunday…because waffles.
Album cover?
K: I really like…Oh, that's so hard…It sounds silly, but there's this Kings of Convenience album [‘Riot On An Empty Street’] where there's the nerdy-looking guy and the handsome-looking guy and the woman who's brunette and they're all sitting around this retro futurist apartment. It's almost like they're inviting you into the apartment to hang out with them.
Pasta shape?
K: Don't say penis pasta. Don't say penis pasta… Um, I think any kind of wide noodle… and that was not like a penis pasta joke. It literally wasn’t. I didn't go from one in my head to the other… I guess maybe a nice linguine.
Piece of music gear?
K: I would say capo– I can sing like three notes and to find those three notes, sometimes you have to move like the capo around. I mean, sometimes four if I'm lucky. It's just a nice way to make music that's comfortable for you, a little capo. They’re like $15.
Favorite scent?
K: Lilacs!
check out kip's session at wnyu (video by me, engineered by jamie):
