In Part One of a long chat, Martinez discussed the tour (including shirtlessness & power-cutting craziness in Denver…), their last record, Anytown Graffiti (QRO review), their next album, singer/guitarist Billy McCarthy’s hand injury & recovery (and the difficulty covering the medical bills…), bridging the gap between the band and the audience, KEXP, Paul Simon, and much, much more…
QRO: How has this tour been?
Nate Martinez: It’s been really great, actually. We’ve sort of packed a bit more than a normal band routine on this tour, but it’s been really good. Every night has been filled, if not sold out. It’s been quite rewarding.
QRO: Has this been your first, full headlining tour?
NM: It has, actually. We attempted to do it back at the end of February, but we had to postpone that.
QRO: Do you prefer the headlining to opening?
NM: Oh, absolutely. For a lot of reasons, but mainly, our show, we’re playing a lot of new material that’s going to be on the new album. We’ve turned our shows from a forty-five minute support set into an hour-and-a-half rock show, which has been a lot of fun.
QRO: What happened on your recent Denver date? I read reports of shirtlessness, stage-rushing, power being cut off, the venue shutting everything down & kicking everyone out…
NM: Yeah, that was a great show, but there was a few things that happened. The first being that the promoter booked four bands, which we didn’t know about, and they ran a pretty loose ship over there. We were supposed to go on at midnight and play our hour-and-a-half rock show, but they didn’t keep every band on track, as far as time went, so we ended up going on quarter-to-one.
So we’re playing, and the crowd was going nuts – it was a great, great crowd, a lot of enthusiasm. I don’t know, we had some drinks in us – next thing you know, shirts are off, smoking some cigarettes. The disappointment was at the very end, when they cut the power. The fans started booing at the soundman and stuff; it sort of escalated, and it was all because they weren’t keeping things on track.
There were some words with some of the people who worked at the venue, but anyways, the owner called and apologized profusely to us and the fans for his staff acting like retards. Which was nice…
QRO: You recently played the Sasquatch! Music Festival (QRO Festival Guide). How was that?
NM: That was awesome, man. That was our second, first big festival. We did the KEXP Barbecue last summer in Seattle for about 3,000 people, but this was a bit bigger, and multiple days. It was great, a great experience.
We got up there mid-afternoon, played a forty-five minute set. We played after this band Thao [& The Get Down Stay Down] (QRO spotlight on), she was right before us; she puts on a good show! They were playing, and we were like, ‘Wow – she’s got a great crowd.’ She got done, and the crowd dispersed, which we had forgotten – we hadn’t been to a festival or anything like that in forever.
So we saw all these people leaving, and we were like, ‘Oh, shit! Are we going to play for like two people?’ Sure enough, the place got really, really crowded, and people were really participating with the music.
The whole deal, where we’re getting at with the concerts we’re putting on, is absolute crowd participation, and make it a mutual experience, as opposed to you just playing your music and the fans just sitting there and reacting. We’re trying to bridge that gap, and it’s cool to do it on a small club level, and then go to Sasquatch! and have that experience, too. It was pretty rewarding.
QRO: Your last show in New York was a ‘Kidrockers’ show at The Living Room, for adults & kids. What was that like?
NM: I wouldn’t consider it like ‘a full show’. Our last real show was at the end of February at the Williamsburg Music Hall (QRO venue review).
But [with Kidrockers], basically, the parents get to go and enjoy the music, and the kids get to partake in this thing that isn’t all ‘Barney-centric’. There’s different types of music; it was really cool. These kids were ranging in age from, I don’t know, two to ten? Some of them knew what was going on, others didn’t; it was really cool to be in that environment.
Parents get to hang out and listen to music, too. I don’t have any [kids], but I can only imagine it being more difficult to get out to actually see shows. To make it a joint effort with your kids has got to be fun. There’s an exclusivity – if you have a kid, you get to go. It flips the script a bit.
Pela playing “Song Writes Itself” live @ Music Hall in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY:
QRO: Last CMJ (QRO recap), you played a KEXP radio session at the Gibson Showroom. What was that like?
NM: That was great. We love those guys. They’ve been huge supporters, and we’ve been trying to support them as much as possible; we have a pretty great relationship.
That was our second in-studio that we did, and we’ve become good friends with all of them. In the end of August, we have a song that’s going to be on Live at KEXP: Volume Four, so we’re going to go out there and do a special show out there at the end of August.
It’s fun to be in an environment where you feel welcome. We’ve all, for years – KEXP has been such an arbiter of quality, good music. To be able to take part in anything KEXP, we’re very excited and honored to be part of it. We’ll do an in-studio any time we’re on tour, if they’ll have us, which sort of seems to be the case.
We know the Gibson people, so we’ve been up to that showroom to buy guitars, playing, just checking out different stuff. Actually, one of the coolest times, when were first went up there and got acquainted with them, part of their family deal or whatever, we were walking around and, I shit you not, the woman who was giving us the tour was like, ‘And… Paul Simon’s in that room right now, getting ready for tour. He’s working on some Graceland stuff.’ We put our ears up, and it’s fucking Paul Simon playing in the other room!
We were like, ‘Holy fuck!’ It’s the former Hit Factory. That’s a legendary studio – a lot of great albums have come out of there. That’s where he recorded a bunch of Graceland and stuff. So it’s always cool, being up in that building.
QRO: How’s Billy McCarthy’s hand?
NM: He’s fine, fully recovered.
The longest show we did was in Minneapolis – we did a two-hour show, ‘cause those fans are nuts. The next morning, I think he had some stiffness and stuff.
He’s doing his exercises and stuff, to make sure that everything’s moving, but it couldn’t have been a more successful recovery, considering it only happened two-and-a-half, three months ago.
QRO: How did he injure it?
NM: We were doing an encore, and we had some fans come up on stage to sing and dance along. A strobe light went on in the last ten seconds; the people who were dancing were knocking into us. A few of us actually got knocked into, but Billy lost his footing and fell over the stage, and landed on a broken pint glass on the ground.
The strobe was going on, he lifted his hand up, and it was just like, ‘Oh, god…’ Immediately went out the fire exit. It was a bad scene…
QRO: Is this tour sort of a ‘make up’ for the previous tour, since you had to cut that short?
NM: Yeah, yeah definitely.
QRO: Do you think you jinxed yourself when you labeled that tour the ‘There’s No Off Switch On This Thing Tour’?
NM: Haha – no, I don’t think so.
Whatever the case is, all the bad shit is gone. I don’t think we jinxed it, at all. I think we actually learned a lesson about not having fans up on stage.
QRO: But then came Denver…
NM: And then came – the thing is, we had no control over that. They just came up with shakers and tambourines. We didn’t instigate any of that shit.
But what are you going to do? It’s rock ‘n’ roll, I guess…
QRO: Were you a little nervous, when you returned to Schuba’s?
NM: Everybody had different feelings, I think. I don’t know if it was any ‘nervousness’, ‘cause we knew nothing like that was going to happen again, but certainly coming back and still seeing a little bit of the blood on the wood floors, that had soaked in… I guess it’s got to be a little bit weird, any time you return to the scene of the crime, or whatever.
But whatever – we had a great show. And the whole crowd was amazing, and Schuba’s, they’re just great – great venue, great people.
QRO: How have you been handling the medical bills?
NM: This program called ‘Music Cares’, they’re affiliated with The Grammies, they stepped in and helped out a bit, which has been great.
In addition, we decided to reach out to the fans directly and say, ‘Hey – Billy doesn’t have insurance; we don’t have business insurance. Music Cares was covering a fraction of the total cost, but if there’s any way that you can reach out and lend a helping hand…’
And the response is pretty amazing: I think we raised over $4,000 so far. Which is awesome – and we’ve still got a lot to go, still. Schuba’s is trying to figure it out and help out – we’re just trying to narrow the gap. He didn’t intend to have anything like that happen, none of us planned on anything happening – it was just sort of an unfortunate event.
Go here to donate: http://pelamusic.com/medfund.html
QRO: At around the same time, the guitarist in The Constantines (QRO interview) injured his hand at– but they’re Canadian, it happened in Canada, so I guess it all covered. Has this brush with America’s health care system made you guys any more ‘political’ at all?
NM: I tell you, we’ve always been pretty… Are we ‘political’? I don’t know. Do we follow politics, and do we follow world politics? Absolutely. Do we think the health care system and industry is messed up? Well, well before this happened… It just sort of outlined the bureaucratic bullshit that you gotta go through.
The way this health care system works – it seems like everybody’s had some sort of horror story, how big or how small, and how it’s some sort of cat-and-mouse chase: you have to call these people, follow these people, get this referral to get to this place. They make it such an arduous process that it just seems really unhealthy. And that definitely happened to Billy.
Hopefully, it will change. Maybe Barack Obama will change it…
Somebody from Okkervil River (QRO album review) actually reached out to Billy to say, ‘Hey, this happened to me, too, some years ago.’ There was a tremendous amount of community that actually just sort of popped out of nowhere. We thought we were on our own. The whole experience, as bad as it was, it was pretty tremendous to see community.
Pela playing The Pixies’ “Holiday Song” live @ Bowery Ballroom, New York, NY:
QRO: How was making Anytown Graffiti?
NM: It was a great experience, actually. It was our first stab at a full album, and we were quite limited by our finances, because we financed it ourselves.
It was really exciting.
that you can talk to your friends about, and you can read about it until the end of time, but it’s not until you go through the experience…
But it was pretty great – we were really happy with the way things came out. It took a while, and we weren’t happy until it was completely done. It took a long time – and then it took an even longer time to get it out. We recorded the thing, I kid you not, we started recording… in November, it will be three years. Which is a long time.
And now we’re in the middle of this next album, which we though we were going to be done in the winter, but again, we just stepped aside and we were like, ‘We need some perspective on it.’ So we’re going to go back in, all this summer, July, August, September, we’re going to finish it up.
QRO: Are you guys currently looking for a new label?
NM: You know, I don’t think we’re looking for a label right now. We don’t have a label, but I think the most important thing we’re focusing on when, once we get off, is that we need to go and finish this album, and then, in the fall, we’re going to be going to Europe for the first time, focusing on that…
Are we trying to figure out how to put the album out? I’d say yeah, we’re trying to get it out early February next year – I just don’t know how it’s going to happen yet. I’m sure we’re going to be having talks with some people, but not just yet.
Pela playing the new “St. Clyde The Cop” live @ Music Hall in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY: