The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

08 May, 2009
by: Stevros

It seems like every other band that I hear about these days is some sort of lo-fi noisy pop act, or no-wave-shoegaze-come-psych-band. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are not merely this, and despite hailing from Brooklyn they are definitely not The Strokes.

Their debut album represents a sonic collage of My Bloody Valentine and Jesus and Mary Chain style walls of sound, with Mission of Burma tape hiss and an early Sonic Youth experimental vibe. This cacophony of noise is delicately juxtaposed with the damaged, trebly pop songs that they pen, which give subtle nods towards the Beach Boys and The Beatles' art of capturing and exploiting a melody. They boast a plethora of cross-genre appeal.

Released on the legendary (and relatively recently returned from the dead) Slumberland Records, their self-titled record has been making quite a stir amongst lo-fi indie fans in this post No Age/Times New Viking era. Having miraculously belied the vulgar display of praise from mainstream British music press which would have probably tagged them under the Nu-Goth bracket, they are now taking their dark, sparkling pop music on the road around the UK and mainland Europe.

We caught up with The Pains of Being Pure At Heart singer Kip Berman, to see if they're looking forward to their upcoming UK stint, and to see if they think they deserve their reputation as a modern day, underground, Velvet Underground.

I read somewhere that the band name comes from an unpublished children’s story that a friend of yours wrote. It sounds like an unusual title for a children’s story: what was it about? Did you feel it represented something in your music, just enjoyed the title enough for a band name, or is it a white lie to add intrigue and mystery to the organic process of being a band?

The book's moral is that the time and adventures you have with your friends when you are young are the most important things - that worldly power and material accomplishments don't matter as much as the experiences you share with the people you love. Not only is the name beautiful to us, but the moral is fitting. We are all friends and we're having the time of our lives together.

What are your favourite authors/books?

I mostly like Babar and The Little Prince. That's my approximate reading level.

You guys have played over here before right? How were those shows?

The experience of being able to come abroad and play was so amazing. In addition to the shows themselves being amazing, we got to meet so many 'pop heroes' of ours. Getting to visit Monorail Records in Glasgow was especially great, as it afforded us a chance to stalk/'accidentally' meet Stephen Pastel.

What do you like about touring outside of the US?

New, strange and wonderful candies. Our band generally spends a good portion of whatever income we have on snack food, and traveling in foreign lands allows for us to stock up on rare, exotically flavored chips [crisps], chocolates and my favourite - gummy candy. I can't wait until we can go to Germany: the home of Haribo.

What are your interests other than music?

I like hanging out.

How are your shows generally in the US? Do audiences get involved often or do you feel your words are falling upon deaf ears?

Things have actually been incredibly wonderful for us in the US. We never could have imagined the level of enthusiasm we see when we play out here - it's just totally life-affirming to see so many people respond so passionately our songs. As we try to play All Ages shows as much as possible, it's especially great to see teenagers like the teenagers we used to be (awkward + overly passionate about music) get so emotionally into it.

I apologise for lazy, overused comparisons but with you drawing influence from old British bands such as My Bloody Valentine, The Pastels, and Teenage Fanclub, are there any current acts that you particularly enjoy?

You mean current British bands? I really like Shrag, The Manhattan Love Suicides, Comet Gain and Ladyhawke, though technically she's from New Zealand and just lives in London. Still, she's amazing regardless of country of origin.

There’s a really good music scene coming from America at the minute, which is getting noticed. Who do you see as your contemporaries and which are your favourite acts in the US currently?

It's impossible to answer this without leaving several amazing bands out - but we're particularly excited about two bands we'll be touring with in the near future. Zaza (disclaimer: Kurt plays drums in this band as well) and Girls. Kurt's other band, Depreciation Guild is also incredible and they have also been/will be tourmates of ours.

Obviously, New York has an amazing lineup of bands, from Grizzly Bear and Chairlift to Crystal Stilts, Knight School, Vivian Girls and so many more... I literally could name 15 super bands in New York right now and that would still be leaving a lot of great stuff out.

It seems at the moment there are a huge amount of noisy, lo-fi indie rock bands. Do you think there's a resurgence of Velvet Underground, MBV and Jesus and Mary Chain influenced artists, or simply that there are a lot of bands around at the moment with decent influences, something that I feel hasn't been a given in music over the last few years.

Influence is totally great and shouldn't be denied. Every band you love has loved some other band when they were growing up and tried to make music like the music they loved. I think the most important thing is that songs are strong, memorable and meaningful. We're always honest about the bands we love, and we hope that people hearing our music will go back and learn about the music that inspired us - especially as so much of it was so undervalued when it was around.

What can we expect from your live shows in the UK?

Well, I hope that we have some voltage converters so that our equipment works... aside from that, you can expect Peggy's head to bob up and down a lot and a second guitarist (Christoph Hocheim) to add to our riff-heavy mosh-ready headbanger-approved sweater pop. Maybe some Converge covers?

How was the recording process for this record? Are you tired of playing the songs live yet?

Recording was really fun. We tracked it at Honeyland Studios (i.e. my friend Derek Mabra and Eric Sheppard's basement in Brooklyn) and mixed it with Archie Moore (Black Tambourine + Velocity Girl). We definitely got a 'bro deal' and we're psyched that the record sounds like us. There's not a lot of 'wizardry' on it, but basically just us playing these songs that we all love.

As for live, we're ALWAYS excited to play these songs, we're just so thrilled seeing people singing along and dancing and sometimes moshing (this happens at the 'mosh riff' part of our songs).

What are your plans concerning future releases? And what are your aims for this band?

Well, we're really excited about the record that just came out less than two months ago. And we've just released another single from it, 'Young Adult Friction' that came out in the US and I think comes out in the UK in May. After that, we'll probably have another non-album 7" that comes out in the summertime. The 'a' side is called '!03'.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are touring around the UK , including a show at Cargo on the 10th of June

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Stevros