Phantogram Moves in the Right Direction

Formed in 2007, New York’s Phantogram is just starting to hit its stride. The band, based out of the quaint rural town of Saratoga Springs, is the brain child of Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter. The two have been lifelong friends, but just started making music together relatively recently. Just last year, the duo released its debut full-length, Eyelid Movies, on indie label Barsuk, and Phantogram has more or less been hitting the road to promote it ever since. This fall, Carter and Barthel are set to hit the road again on a month-long headlining tour that will coincide with the release of a new “mini album” titled Nightlife.

Carter hasn’t been taking the rigors of being a band on the rise lightly. Submerge’s first attempt to call the band’s songwriter for our interview was left unanswered. As it turned out, the interview occurred a few hours later. An apologetic Carter confided in us that he was out for a run during our scheduled interview time–an effort to “change up my lifestyle a bit,” he said.

“I’ve been smoking a pack a day for about 10 years–of Newports, nonetheless. That’s like the worst cigarette you can smoke,” Carter explained. “I just want to get healthy, you know? I feel like it will be good for my music. I’ve spent a lot of time on the road drinking way too much and drugging and smoking.”

Carter said he started running about two weeks prior to our phone call. Though he hasn’t been able to cut out the cigarettes just yet, he seemed determined to kick the habit.

“I’m on Chantrix, so hopefully I don’t murder anybody,” he said plainly.

Though this is a new regimen for him, he said he thinks it will ultimately not only improve his well being but also improve his potency as a songwriter.

“People have told me they hit this stride–well, it was my dad, actually–they hit this stride where it clears their minds,” Carter said. “That hasn’t happened yet, but I think it’s going to be a good balance for my life and help my creativity.”

He’ll need all the clarity he can get with the band’s upcoming schedule. The most recent headlining tour, which begins Oct. 20 in Millvale, Penn., will take Phantogram through some cities it hasn’t been to before, such as Santa Fe, N.M.; Baton Rouge, La.; and Houston, Texas. Carter said that he’s looking forward to the challenges of winning over new faces.

“I’m curious as to what kind of draw we’ll have or not,” he said. “But it’s fun to hit up new cities, and sometimes it’s pleasantly surprising, and sometimes it’s just what you expect, like, ‘OK, no one’s ever heard of us here,’ but a show is a show. And either way, we enjoy playing.”

The tour comes on the heels of an eight-week stint that wrapped up in mid-August and an appearance at this year’s Bumbershoot in Seattle in early September. On top of that, Carter said he has an “itch to create” that compels him to be “constantly writing music or making beats.” In fact, Carter said he’s already looking forward to getting back to the studio to make another full-length Phantogram album.

Until then, there’s the matter of Nightlife, which Carter told us would be released the first week of the tour. He called it a bit of a departure from Eyelid Movies, though “it points in that direction.” As far as direction goes, it’s difficult to pin down where Phantogram’s moody songs are coming from. Hip-hop beats bump and grind behind Barthel’s dream pop vocals, while guitar lines slither through a forest of lush synths. He elaborated on why Nightlife may have a more of a raw sound than its predecessor and hinted at what direction Phantogram may be headed in the following interview.

I read a recent live review of your band, and the reviewer said that he’d seen you before, but now you really seem to be coming into your own. Do you feel that on stage? You and Sarah have known each other forever, but are you really noticing a stronger bond when you perform live?
I just think that we’re a new band. We’re pretty young. I just think that we’re getting better at it. I don’t know if you’re a musician or an artist or whatnot, but it takes time to really hit your stride and get in your groove with those sort of things. I think we’re getting better and better every day as a band, and it’s been a lot of fun. We’ve hired a drummer, a friend of ours named Tim Oakley, and that makes it a lot of fun live. I really don’t know what to say. Whoever wrote the review could have seen us as a two-piece and then saw us with the live drums and felt that dynamics change or whatever, but it’s all about just kind of doing it a lot.

Why did you decide to add a live drummer to the mix?
We envisioned our sound to be bombastic and loud, but after a while of playing as a two-piece, we got sick of being just a two-piece, looking at each other. I had played in a few bands before, and I’d turn around and there’d be no one behind me. It was a lot of fun as a two-piece, like, juggling around with the beats and sampling, but we just wanted to add more texture, more dynamic to the live show. We thought having a drummer would make it a lot punchier.

I’d seen the video clip of you guys at the Moog headquarters recording “16 Years.” It’s a really cool video, and it must have been a lot of fun getting to play with all that equipment.
We were like kids in a candy shop, you know? Playing with all that cool, analog gear was so much fun, but as much recording and producing that I do, I’m still not a gearhead, per se. It takes me longer to figure out things, and we had limited time, but we had a lot of fun with what we chose to use. We made a pretty cool rendition of that song, I think. Everybody at Moog was super friendly. They sent us a Little Phatty synthesizer too for doing that, which was amazing. I had a blast, and we got to see the factory. It was in the factory, and I had never realized how much of a boutique company it is. They only had 10, 15 people tops working in there, testing out the oscillators by hand. Their equipment is expensive, but you can really see why because there’s so much attention to detail.

How did that come about?
They asked us to be part of their series that they wanted to start. Since they knew we were into synthesizers and thought we would be a cool band to have.

Earlier you mentioned that the new EP is in some way a departure from Eyelid Movies. Why do you think it’s a departure?
It’s definitely in the same vein to a degree, but when I listen to it, I hear a lot of emotion. I hear a lot of emotion in Eyelid Movies too, but it’s raw. It’s a bit more…hmm…I don’t know. I don’t really listen to our music that often. I wish I could compare and contrast, but it’s rawer, and it feels very emotional to me. Maybe it’s just a departure for me because it’s new. I guess we’ll have to wait and hear what other people think.

Was it the subject matter of the songs that make the new release feel more raw?
It’s really dark subject matter when I write our songs. I write a majority of our music and write the lyrics to our music. This year for me and Sarah–I’m not going to elaborate, so don’t bother asking–but it hasn’t been the easiest year on us emotionally. It’s been a great year for us being in a band, but we’ve gone through a lot of ups and downs. The subject matter hits really hard, really close to home for me.

You said you’re really looking forward to doing another full-length next. Have you put any thought into that yet?
Not exactly hunkering down. Just about every night of the week, I’ll hunker down and work on something, but we do at the moment have a mission statement for the next album. But I’m such a flaky person that that could change in a second. I expect the next album to have a lot more separation sonically. I sort of picture things–and both of us do when we write our music–in a visual sense. Right now we’re thinking really stark, high-contrast black and white. But who knows? Maybe we’ll put out this super duper layered, drone-y, shoegaze, hip-hop, whatever-the-fuck psychedelic record. I don’t know.

Could you share that mission statement?
I think we should keep it under wraps, because it could change.

Mystery is better anyway.
We both listen to so much different kinds of music that we’re not influenced by anything in particular. I think after touring with The XX and listening to that new James Blake record, I really like the idea of more separation, and I guess minimalism to a degree.

Phantogram’s headlining tour comes through Sacramento on Nov. 1, 2011 at Harlow’s. Showtime is 8 p.m. and tickets ($15) can be purchased through Harlows.com. Reptar will also be performing.

Neon Indian’s Alan Palomo Rides the Chill-Wave Early and Often

Many people aren’t awake at 4 a.m., unless they work a graveyard shift or are still stumbling around after a night of heavy drinking. But before the crack of dawn, Alan Palomo has “crazy, sleepless, caffeine, adrenaline fueled” music sessions. He is busy recording his sophomore album as Neon Indian, while an ample supply of green tea, cigarettes and synthesizers keeps him awake.

Submerge caught up with the man of mystery over the phone after he was working on the finishing touches for his next record.

Your first record was pretty much just you and your laptop. Can we expect the same for the second album?
I was definitely hit with that option of just doing another bedroom record. To me, Psychic Chasms is perfectly representative of what was available to me at the time. It was just like, how much can you get out of one synthesizer, a laptop, and a couple of random effects? This one, the location has changed, the circumstances have changed, and the sound has changed too. I have developed a philosophy that I never want to write the same record twice. I always want it to make it feel like the perfect little snapshot of where I am in this particular point in time. And that’s exactly what this record is feeling like.

During the ‘70s and ‘80s your dad was a Mexican pop singer. When you were watching your dad as a kid did you always know you wanted to make music?
Oddly enough growing up, I related a little bit more at least creatively to my mom, who was a film buff. I really wanted to explore that medium at least in whichever way seemed available at the time. In a strange way, writing an album or a collection of songs always sort of feels like filmmaking in that sense. It’s sort of looking at it as one complete concept. It’s like a series of moments or narratives that’s all kind of meant to explain one idea and then move on to the next. That’s sort of the whole foundation of Neon Indian is that there’s not really a template or a way in which it’s supposed to sound, you can always expect it to be its own individual thing every time I do it.

How do you normally get the creative juices flowing when writing music?
I think it takes a lot of cigarettes and for it to be pretty late at night. I have to really create an environment and sort of state of mind to just allow ideas to tumble out. If I’m in a good place, I can finish a song at night, but if it’s just something that I’m forcefully doing, then it’s just like this long grueling process. It happens over the course of several days. I don’t really know. I’m still trying to figure out what exactly it is that puts me in that sort of happy place, so to speak. But when it’s there, I definitely like it.

How did you first fall in love with synthesizers?
I think there was this one keyboard at this pawn shop in San Antonio, Texas, called Krazy Kat Music. It ended up being this thing called the Oberheim OB-X, and I just saw it there. As soon as I flipped it on and just hit the first note, I was overwhelmed at these sensations of childhood and lot of the pop music that I grew up listening to. I think these instruments really do have a way of making these sounds that can create a time and a place or a context, almost out of thin air. I think ever since then, I’ve gotten progressively more and more obsessed.

How was playing on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon?
Very, very surreal. When we were asked to do it, it was literally two days before because, I guess, Kings of Convenience had dropped out. It was a pretty bizarre experience and it ended up being one of the coolest moments of my life. It’s so weird; I don’t really remember it. As soon as [Jimmy Fallon] was holding the record and said our name everything got really slow, and I kind of blacked out. When I look back at it and watch the video, it’s really strange. It’s like I wasn’t even there.

I hate to bring up bad memories but last time you were in Sacramento, there was a little incident with someone stealing your sound equipment. Did you get any of that back?
No unfortunately not. It’s kind of a bummer because the synthesizer that I wrote my first record on is still just out there somewhere. Somebody parked in the wrong hotel parking garage and the next day there was a hole in the window and all of our shit was gone. It was a real damper given that was our first real extensive tour. It was kind of a whirlwind. I’m sure somewhere around Sacramento there’s a synthesizer. It was a signature series Prophet ‘08 synthesizer. It’s somewhat rare. If you turn it on and it has the sound from “Dead Beat Summer” [from Psychic Chasms], then you found it.