INTERACT

10/07/09

Text: Nik Mercer

Over a very short span of time, the Soft Pack (previously known as the Muslims) have released two 7" singles and a full-length album; toured the nation with France's biggest rock band, Phoenix; gotten picked up by Kemado Records, the label that will be releasing their next LP; and become musical fodder for everyone from the frat boy you know to the wiry hipster you see at your favorite coffee shop. From an intellectual angle, the Soft Pack represents the democratization of pop music at its best; from a let's-get-drunk-and-party angle, the group makes sure you rage right, thanks to their unique hybrid breed of surf rock a la the Beach Boys or the Ventures (who doesn't love "Perfida"!?), straight garage, and pop of the preppier persuasion (think the Violent Femmes or the Clean). We wish we were making it up, but alas, they really are that friggin' good.

Before their Bowery Ballroom gig―the first and last they'll have in the Big Apple until their album hits in February of 2010―we sat down with Matt Lamkin (guitars/vocals) and Brian Hill (drums) for a 30-minute catch-up session.

Oh, and download a couple songs to rock out to! The Phoenix cover is an Anthem favorite at present.

the Soft Pack - Nightlife (MP3)

Matt Lamkin: Yeah. Press photos. We kind of just went around town, so that's what took most of the time. Photo shoots for us are usually like, "Stand by that wall with graffiti" or "Put your arms around each other."

When you try to make arty press photos, they sort of wind up looking weird.

Brian Hill: Yeah, and do people even want those ones?

So, when the equipment was being loaded in, you guys were outside, and one of the guys setting up your gear asked me if I was in the band. I said no, obviously, but if you were to add a fifth member, what would he play?

B.H.: Organ or something. Keyboard. Maybe some percussion.

One of the random floor tom bangers?

B.H.: Yeah, I kind of like it when bands do that―except when they do it right in the front and are like, "I have a floor tom!" and just go for it. Like with the Birthday Party―which is cool, but...

Have you guys been playing around with keyboards at all?

M.L.: The last album had two songs with keyboard, and this one has two songs too.

B.H.: Just recording, we added it for texture and stuff, but I don't think that's anything we'd do live.

In respect to recording, you did the whole thing in New York?

M.L.: Yeah, we already recorded it in Brooklyn. Saltlands Studio... it's sort of in Dumbo. We recorded with Eli Janney. It's kind of in the mastering process right now, so we've got a couple weeks or something left.

That's a big leap, San Diego to New York―especially when your sound is somewhat tied up in the West Coast.

M.L.: We just really liked working with Eli. We'd done a couple songs with him before, but since he has a wife and kids, it was easier for us―a bunch of guys in their 20s―to just [go to him]. Plus, we've got family and friends out here, so it was nice to hang out with them.

That was the motivation? You didn't say, "We should go to New York to obtain X, Y, and Z" or anything?

M.L.: No. First, we wanted to have it done in L.A., where we all live right now. But we wanted to record with Eli... and he got us a good deal at Saltlands.

B.H.: That's where he's most comfortable. We did a couple trial songs with him in L.A. and really, really liked working with him. Then we heard songs that we'd rerecorded in Dumbo and they were, like, 10 times better, more powerful. It turned out to be a better-sounding record altogether.

Where there any specific things you added to the mix? Did you do anything different during the recording process?

M.L.: We just wanted a cleaner-sounding record.

B.H.: The last one, by nature, had a lo-fi sound to it because it was done on a computer that a friend of ours [used]. We were trying to progress, to sound better...

You've not made any huge leaps since starting out, I think, but you've made these slight alterations to your sound over your career as a band. You've smoothed some edges and also seem to be making more melodious hooks.

M.L.: We want things to be a little more driving... a little more energetic. We want to capture what we do live a little better.

With Brian and Dave [Lantzman] on this record, it just opens things up, too. Most of the first stuff was just me and Matty [McLoughlin], so it was more rudimentary songwriting.

I was trying to figure out who you sort of sound like, and you have this garage rock thing going on, but you also have this sort of geeky, nerdy, twitchy thing going on, too―like the Violent Femmes or something. I feel like you're warming up to that sound more than the bombastic punk stuff...

M.L.: Yeah, we embrace that. We like getting compared to the Violent Femmes or the Dead Milkmen or, what else... ?

B.H.: The Clean.

M.L.: Yeah, the Clean is like that.

I really love how you use your vocals to sound like another instrument a lot of the time. Like, in "Beside Myself," you sing in such a way that makes your voice sound like it's just another instrument as opposed to a vehicle for lyrics.

M.L: It just kind of happens that way after running it over a few times. A lot of the songs are written as a band, so it's not me, sitting there with an acoustic guitar: I'm writing the lyrics as I'm playing with the band. That's probably where it comes from―jamming as opposed to songwriting. Songs like "Parasite," too.

So you moved from San Diego to L.A., and those two cities, along with S.F., are the epicenters of Californian music. Did you feel affected by the S.D. scene? The L.A. scene?

M.L.: We love San Diego bands, and that's not something we were running from or anything. We kind of moved to L.A. out of, well―we all grew up in San Diego, and I think we were all looking for a change. I went to school for film, so I wanted to be in L.A. to pursue that. We were all either tired of living in San Diego or looking for jobs.

B.H.: Yeah, we were definitely influenced by [the San Diego scene]. Like, realizing there was so much there and you didn't have to go to L.A. to hear it was a big deal.

I lived in L.A. for tears after moving from Cleveland, and while I don't like the sun and ocean all that much, there's something about being in an environment like L.A.'s that changes your outlook and demeanor. Do you ever feel like your environment affects your music?

B.H.: When we were recording the record [in New York], it was the summer, so the only difference was the humidity. If we were here in the dead of winter, then I'm sure there'd be an alteration.

M.L.: Yeah, it's sort of like we went from 90 degrees in L.A. to 90 degrees in New York. It wasn't that much different.

I saw that video you did on a beach somewhere, and that got me thinking about environments and all again. I also thought about your incorporation of acoustic music since everything you record is electric. What made you go to the beach and do the acoustic song?

M.L.: Well, we just did that basically because [we like] the beach. It's in Newport and is called the Wedge. The waves get to be, like, 20 [feet tall], and it happens, like, six days out of the year. So when that happened, it was all over the news, and we decided to get down there that day and record one of our new songs. Obviously, we couldn't bring amps and stuff down to the beach. It was just a fun thing to do for a day.

You were saying that you studied film. Do you work on the videos for the band?

M.L.: Yeah, basically they're done by me and a friend, Felipe [Lima]. I'll come up with the ideas or, if it's just live footage, [Felipe will handle it]. He has a really cool style where he runs films through these old... analog things that make cheesy cross-fades that look sort of like public access TV. He studied film at Northwestern... between me and him, we do the film stuff.

I get the sense that you guys are conscious of your image and presentation, through your films and graphics and all.

M.L.: We just want to be honest and get our personalities through, and that's why all the ideas are really simple. We don't want anything to be about some flashy video or artwork. We want to be sincere and directly representational of us.

I'm thinking of the Muslims' album cover... the one with the holes...

B.H.: Those are bullet holes.

Oh? What was the idea behind that?

M.L.: Pretty much, we didn't have any money, and we had these white record sleeves. We were into hand silkscreened images, but we wanted something that was a little more classic for the cover. Since we didn't have any money, the cover was part solution, part frustration.

That reminds me a little of the Durutti Column LP that has a cover made out of sandpaper.

B.H.: A couple bands did that. The Feeders did that. Secret Fun Club―this San Diego band―had the same kind of thing, but they couldn't even afford to buy the jackets, so they just bought a bunch of crappy records that were all scratched up and then put pink skateboard tape all around the sleeves. That record I have to, like, double bag since it will destroy everything around it.

M.L.: We like stuff like that.

One of our friends' dad shot them 25 at a time, so we ordered the white jackets and gave them to him to shoot and send back to the [vinyl producer].