This interview is getting posted really late and I apologize for it (there I go again, apologizing). Phantogram had come to Toronto on February 20th and played at The Drake Underground. I sat, talked and had a Heineken with Josh Carter and Sarah Barthel of Phantogram.
C2: Have you guys been to Toronto before?
Both: No.
First timers eh?
Sarah: It seems like a cool city. We only drove through it, but it looks nice.
I’m proud to be in it. It seems pretty neat. All the stores and stuff, it kind of reminded me of New York a little bit.
Sarah: Yeah, definitely.
Except no snow, this year.
Sarah: So you normally get snow?
We’re normally hit by snow around this time of year. We’ve been experiencing a drought of snow.
Josh: Do you like it better without the snow?
It’s better for driving and parking. In terms of going out to go snowboarding and skiing – not so much. We require the snow.
Sarah: Do you have mountains around here?
The nearest one, I could be wrong, would probably be Blue Mountain.
Sarah: Oh nice! Very cool.
We have smaller hills, but you can only really use those for tobogganing.
Sarah: Yeah, definitely. Toboganning, I have done that in geez…twenty-six years.
How’s the tour been so far?
Sarah: Great! Really great! We’ve been selling out a lot of shows. We weren’t expecting that. I mean it’s so wonderful that so many people are hearing about us and coming to our shows, supporting us, buying CD,s and merch. We’re getting to meet some people and making fans.
I was going through the twitter feeds earlier this morning and there’s so much love for you guys on twitter, on facebook and on other websites. Can you guys even believe it right now? The album just came out two weeks ago.
Josh: Yeah, it came out like one week ago or maybe two weeks – I have no idea. I have no concept of time when we’re on the road.
Sarah: I don’t even know what month it is.
Josh: How many days have we been touring?
Sarah: laughs
Josh: It’s really exciting. We didn’t expect to be in the position we’re in now so early as a band. You know that we’re small potatoes right now anyway. This album we originally planned on releasing on our own, just in our local city in Albany and Saratoga Springs. To get signed a few cool labels and have the word spread with people picking up on it is really awesome for us.
Sarah: Yeah, it’s great!
Phantogram Photo: Aaron Richter for www.self-titledmag.com
So I know the two of you have been friends for a long time and band didn’t officially get together until 2007-ish…
Josh: Yeah around 2007. We’ve been playing for a little over two and half years. We’ve known each other since high school and decided to just play music together a few years ago. It just sort of clicked. I was working on a lot of music on my own, not really knowing what I really wanted to do with it. As Sarah and I have been hanging out a lot just as good friends, she would sing a lot to the radio or if there was a piano in the room she’d play some cool stuff. All these years, we’ve been good friends and I didn’t really know these special talents that she had – that were almost hidden. I asked her if could help me finish a song ad she did and it turned out really cool. So I was like, ” Why don’t we start a band”?
And that’s how it all came together?
Sarah: From day one when we decided we wanted to work together that we’re gonna take it very seriously. That we would set goals for ourselves and work everyday. That was all we did other than work as waiting tables to make money for bills and stuff. From day one we were just like, “Okay, let’s do this”.
Josh: Yeah, we just wrote a ton of music and played a ton of shows.
Did it take you guys a long time to get noticed by a label?
Josh: No. No it didn’t. Labels started taking interest through word of mouth and internet sites like myspace. Eventually, some labels asked to see us perform live. We ended up really liking Barsuk Records ’cause we’re also a big fan of their roster as well. They were really cool people and we went with them.
Sarah: We’re very enthusiastic about the music that we shared with them and they were extremely interested in working with us.
Nice! Have you guys met any of artists yet, from Barsuk?
Sarah: Yeah!
Josh: Yeah, we meet a lot of them like the guys from Nada Surf.
Sarah: Ra Ra Riot.
Josh: We’ve played a few shows with Ra Ra Riot. We haven’t met Death Cab For Cutie yet.
Sarah: Menomena.
Josh: One of the guys from Menomena and David Bazan. We meet a lot of them. They’re all really nice people to meet.
So let’s talk about the album, “Eyelid Movies”. Why the title “Eyelid Movies”?
Sarah: The reason for “Eyelid Movies”, I think it explains our vision for we were going for – the visions we wanted to give the audience. Eyelid movies happen when you close your eyes and you’re going to bed. You’re kind of half asleep, but you’re still awake and you start seeing images on your eyelids right before you fall asleep.
Josh: They’re like those mini-dreams that you have right before you fall asleep.
Sarah: So we thought that would be a perfect name to go along with the songs that are on there. To kind of picture your own dreams or your own visions along with the music.
I actually have to tell you guys, this CD here, was a mission to get a hold of.
Josh: Oh really?
Sarah: Was it? That’s what I heard. Someone else said that to me the other day.
HMV doesn’t carry it. Criminal Records here in Toronto, didn’t have it. They told me to go this store called Soundscapes, but I didn’t have time. One store in Toronto however, carried this album and I got it yesterday. I was just like ” Oh my God, thank goodness”!
Sarah: Oh cool! Well that’s good. Thanks for your support.
Josh: We hope you like it.
The sound of the album, there are a lot of influences, I find. There’s a lot street beats, there’s a lot of…I want to say j-pop because there are some songs that remind of some j-pop tracks. It sounds like some of what’s going on in the U.K. How do you guys think your sound stands out from the rest of the other bands out there?
Josh: I think we’re not a typical indie-rock band. We play music that I think can fit into a lot of different bills. We’ve played lots of shows with hip-hop artist. Kids who like nothing, but hip hop come up to us afterwards and say, “Wow, I really like that”. We play a lot of indie shows. Thu indie kids like it a lot too. I just think that we have a diverse enough sound, yet a cohesive enough sound to where it does get noticed by people who like different genres. A lot of my friends and a lot people that I meet have very diverse taste in music. I don’t anybody that listens o nothing, but The Beatles or “I only like My Bloody Valentine or Slowdive and that’s it”. People just have diverse taste and so do we and we incorporate it in our music. I think people appreciate that.
It sounds really good. There aren’t a lot of albums out there that have a varied sound in terms of their music. Some albums out there end up sounding like the same song over and over again. The very first song on the album, “Mouthful of Diamonds” reminded a lot U.K. bands like Marina and the Diamonds or Florence + The Machine. You get to “Running From The Cops”, which is more of a murk hip-hop influenced track. It’s just really great to hear artists vary their sound and jump genres from time to time.
Josh: It’s kind of tough. I think one of our big influences on us is a band, like I mentioned before, The Beatles. They were always switching their songs up especially if you listen to “The White Album”. Every song has its own style or take on a certain genre – their own twists on things. That’s what we wanted to do. We didn’t really want to paint ourselves to hard into a corner. But at the same time, it might make listeners a little weirded out because they can’t quite put their finger on what kind of genre we’re playing. So I hope that doesn’t come across that we’re a little unfocused. It really isn’t. It’s just that we have so much that we want to do. We don’t really wanna dive into one certain sound.
Phantogram Photo: Aaron Richter for www.self-titledmag.com
Let’s talk about the recent announcement! The Antlers! The west coast! That’s so exciting!
Sarah: Yeah! That’s gonna be awesome!
Josh: Those guys are really nice guys. We played with them at Urbana, Illinois. It was like a festival. Also we played a show with them at Mercury Lounge, it was our second show in New York. We played a couple shows with them and they really liked us a lot and we really liked them a lot. They asked us to tour with them. So we’re excited about that.
Sarah: That’s going to put us to a completely different audience, that we’ve probably hit, one way or another. We’ve opened up for other indie bands, but they’re pretty big.
They were just here on the 16th of February with Editors.
Josh: That’s great. How was it?
It was so good.
Sarah: They’re touring with The National too later on this summer.
Short set though. They only played for about half an hour.
Sarah: Bummer.
I hope you guys play for a lot longer!
Sarah: Yeah I don’t know. It all depends, so who knows.
Josh: This is our first headline tour. So we’ll be able to play about a 50 minute set. We only have one album out so we couldn’t really play for an hour and a half. (laughs) I mean we could if played..
Sarah: Were gonna have to learn some covers.
Josh: Well if we’ve played everything that we’ve written we can probably play for three hours. We can’t remember most of them though.
Sarah: (laughs) Yeah, we learn them.
Josh: Yeah, we’re excited about that tour.
It’s too bad it’s just out in the west. I would love to see you guys with them too.
Josh: Hopefully, we’ll tour with them twice and come back to Canada. We’re actually on a four day tour with a Canadian band called Hot Hot Heat.
Sarah: Five dates. We haven’t posted them yet, but they’re announced.
Oh wow. They’re pretty big here.
Sarah: That’s what I’ve heard, yeah. It’s gonna be a good show.
So have you guys been remixed a lot?
Josh: Well, we’ve just been offered a few cool remixes. This guy who did a Yeasayer remix and a Temper Trap remix and some other stuff is remixing “Mouthful of Diamonds”. I think he did Passion Pit as well. But I forget his name, sorry. This other guy on Ghostly, they do our vinyl – they’re called Ghostly International – this guy named Michna is doing a remix of one our songs as well.
I can totally hear some of your songs being remixed and turned into a dubstep or subdub track.
Sarah: That would be cool to hear for sure.
Josh: Yeah, I don’t know. I’m curious to hear what any of them might sound like. We’re not even really that familiar with the remix world. We’ve been asked to do a couple remixes so far. We haven’t time, but when I sit down and try to think about it, I feel a little weird because I feel like I’m going to taint someone’s original idea for a song.
Sarah: Yeah, but that’s the whole point.
Josh: That’s what a remix is.
Sarah: I’ve never remixed anything, but I would like to try it.
Josh: I’ve remixed when I know that nobody’s gonna hear it. So I can butcher the shit out of the song.
But that’s thing about remixes. There’s going to be people that love it and people that don’t.
Sarah: That’s true. That’s very true.
Who you guys currently listen to? like favourite artists and such.
Sarah: Favourite artist at the moment? Why?
Josh: Why?
Sarah:…and their new record “Eskimo Snow”.
Josh: Yeah, that’s an awesome album. We were listening to that in the car on the way here. We were listening to Sigur Rós. Who else are listening to?
Sarah: School of Seven Bells. This guy who’s opening up for us, he’s awesome. Junk Culture, he makes really cool beats. He’s perfect for opening up for us.
Josh: He’s been fun to tour with. He’s a really funny dude. He’s from Oxford, Mississippi. Who else are listening to? (points at my t-shirt) That Miike Snow record is pretty good. We listen to all kinds of stuff. I’ll probably get any Madlib record that comes out – I’d be inclined to pick up. The new Beach House album is really. I like their second album a lot too. We listen to all kinds of music. We listen to Sonic Youth a lot, Slowdive, The Beatles, David Bowie and Pink Floyd. We listen to classical music…
Sarah: Howard Stern. (laughs) We’re just kidding. We have Sirius Radio in our car rental, so we’re just getting as much as we can out of it. There’s a lot of talk radio on it.
As much Howard Stern as you can before you have to return the car (laughs).
Sarah: (laughs) Before we play a show, yup. It gets us amped.
So apart from writing music, writing lyrics and making music, what do you guy do on your downtime?
Sarah: That’s a tough question (laughs).
Josh: We write music on our down time.
Sarah: Right. We try to spend as much time as we can with our friends and family, when we’re not working on music.
Josh: ‘Cause we’re never home.
Sarah: Yeah, see shows and hang out with some people that we never get to see. So I have to say that’s our downtime hobby at the moment.
Josh: We always talk about how we want get into drawing and painting more because we used a lot when we were younger.
Sarah: Or making cool videos, but we never have time.
Josh: It’s such a lame excuse too because we should be able to make the time. When we’re home it’s nice to see, like Sarah said, our friends and family for the short time that we can. Before we hit the road again.
Sarah: We absorb as much as we can.
Josh and Sara were awesome to hang out with and their show that night was fantastic! This interview may be posted really late, but it’s just in time for their headlining showcase at the Supermarket tonight for Canadian Music Week. Go check them out, you won’t be sorry! Also, “Eyelid Movies” is out now! All pics, save for the banner, were taken by Aaron Richter for Self-Titled Magazine
