It resounds in a rush — fuzzed out guitars crafted in big city streets, punctuated by lyrics of drug addiction and the calamity of love. The sound — unmistakable, yet fresh — elicits ’80s underground rock and forgotten bands such as The Field Mice, Rocketship and Black Tambourine.
The Field Mice? Rocketship? Where do 20-somethings find these bands? These inspirations? Unknown depths of coolness wrought from tales of big city excess? No, someplace darker. Think Moons Over My Hammy.
“I grew up in suburban Pennsylvania with my mom and hung out with my three friends, sitting in Denny’s smoking section but not smoking, drinking bottomless cups of coffee, discussing anarchy and wondering if anything cool would happen,” said Kip Berman, lead singer and principal songwriter of Brooklyn’s The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. “We’d go to punk shows and stuff, but were never as punk as the real punks. We’d talk about how there was never anything to do, but looking back on it, I think that we had fun all the time.”
Started in a warehouse to celebrate the keyboardist’s birthday, POBPAT (“taken from the title of an unpublished children’s book,” Berman notes) still isn’t made of real punks, but finds itself with plenty to do. Comprised of Berman, drummer Kurt Feldman, singer-keyboardist Peggy Wang and bassist Alex Naidus, the band recently embarked on an international tour to promote its self-titled full length debut and in the process, far exceed its wildest expectations.
“I always used to joke with Peggy, ‘all our dreams are coming true’ — like when we played a sandwich shop in Tallahassee to between three and six people,” Berman said. “But now, they really are.”
Those dreams are sowed on the strength of Pains’ initial LP, a collection of shoegaze gems and bouncy beats belied by forlorn lyrics (“Can’t you see his arms are a hell and won’t ever leave?” Berman sings on “Stay Alive”). “Everything With You,” found singe success and steady airplay on Sirius XM. Signed to slumberland Records (home to dreamy indie pop bands), POBPAT finds the label suits its musical and commercial tastes.
“Growing up, we loved so many of the bands they put out — Rocketship, Velocity Girl, Aislers Set,” Berman said. “Thanks to the Internet and home recording, there’s a great leveling of the playing field, because now a band on a small indie label can still record for cheap, get attention and distributed.”
Pains saw the Internet’s power firsthand. Touring to support its debut EP in 2007, the band grabbed a Saturday afternoon slot at Athens, Georgia’s Popfest, and an hour before it took the stage, the Black Kids leapt into indie buzz history with a blazing set that sent bloggers into a frenzy. And though Pains missed the online bustle that day, it did stumble upon something just as satisfying.
“We did a tour to Athens Popfest and there were less than 10 people at every show,” Berman remembers. “The wonderful thing was, we were all having so much fun, it wasn’t disappointing in the least. We ate a lot of Dairy Queen, especially in Georgia, where it was 105 degrees in August, and discovered Jagermeister — at first in a tongue in check ‘we’re doin it” way, but then…”
Those small show days are long gone, as the Pains hype grows. Pitchfork called the LP one of the year’s best and NME and The New York Times praised the band’s retro-yet-new-sound rise to prominence. Berman appreciates it all, realizing it wasn’t long ago he wanted to sit where he is right now. After all, being cool happens when you’re not looking for it.
“I know it’s hard for people to understand, but no one was a super cool 13-year-old listening to The Flatmates and Meat Whiplash,” he said. “We were pretty much typical teenagers into Nirvana and learned about The Vaselines and began to know about these other amazing bands like Teenage Fanclub, The Pastels, Beat Happening, and the underground pop bands of the ’90s and ’80s. Don’t worry about being cool, because lots of cool music isn’t ‘cool” — I mean, we all jam out to Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘Siamese Dream’ in the tour van more than people might assume.”
