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![True Stories Can Be Stranger Than Fiction [Extra Extra ]](http://austinist.com/assets_c/2009/01/nightskyline-thumb-110x110-53663.jpg)
True Stories Can Be Stranger Than Fiction [Extra Extra ]
[Ed. Note -- Pretty Girls Make Graves are playing tonight, Thursday May 25th, at Emo's with Giant Drag and The Joggers. Tickets are more info here.]
A lot has changed for art-punks Pretty Girls Make Graves in the three years since the release of their universally-acclaimed sophomore album The New Romance. They’ve had their gear stolen out of a Seattle parking lot, lost guitar player Nathan Thelen and added keyboardist Leona Marrs. While some bands might crack under the strain of so much change, PGMG are embracing every last bit of it.
We recently chatted with bass player Derek Fudesco about their new record, their renewed energy and their love of French graffiti.
Very excited to see you guys play in Austin - it’s been a while. Did you ever get your stolen gear back?
No, we never got any of it back. We got the van back, but none of the gear. But we were fortunate; a lot of people helped out and donated money to help us replace the stuff pretty quickly.
So you got new gear, but then lost a guitar player. When did you officially decide to not replace Nathan?
Pretty much right away. We had decided that we didn’t want to go in that same direction, and it was a chance to try new things. It gave us an opportunity to open things up – to do more with the music without having to have two guitars going all the time.
Has that always been a goal for the band though – to evolve the music? I mean, The New Romance, I think, was a change from Good Health in a lot of ways.
It’s hard to say if we’d still be stuck in that same pattern if we hadn’t lost someone, you know? I just knew that when it happened, it was good in that it gave us a chance to try some new things.
I think if we would have just kept going the way we were going - there’s only so much you can do with a two-guitar, loud rock band. I really feel like we had put out two records that were similar, and if we didn’t change the way we write, it would have just been more of the same, and that’s not good for any band. I know some people disagree with me – I know some people wanted that. But, I mean, we have some songs now with no guitar at all. Try telling TWO guitar players that you want to have a song with no guitar. It’s a lot more difficult.
You even got a new producer for Elan Vital. This is the first time you haven’t worked with Phil Ek, right?
Yeah - after writing the record, we really wanted to try something different in every aspect of the process.
I think that with this record, more than any other record, everybody really put their influences in it. In writing past records, we’d all fight, and we’d try to cram everybody’s ideas into each song. For this record, we took turns taking the backseat. Like, “do you have a vision for this song? Okay, go with it”. This is the first record where we brought, in some cases, whole song ideas to the band. And I think there’s gonna be a lot more of that in the future. It’s the way most people write, but it was such a foreign thing for us to do that. It was really exciting though – it almost put a new life into the band.
It’s always been pretty obvious that you’re better musicians than the songs on Good Health. And that’s not to say that those songs aren’t good – it’s a brilliant record – but for a band with chops like yours, that kind of music could seem limiting after a while.
Yeah, it absolutely was. We made that record, and we’re all proud of it and everything – but that was a time and a place in all our lives, and we’re just not that kind of band. We’re not a factory that’s gonna crank out the same shit because we know it’ll gain us fans. There are a lot bands that put out a record that does really well, and then they concentrate on making a duplicate of that record to continue their success. But honestly, I don’t give a shit if a lot of the people who were into the first record look at us now and are like, “what the hell?”
I don’t look at our band like some sort of career-minded machine that’s like, “put out a record and tour to sell it”. At the end of it all, it’s got to be good for you and interesting for you. You’ve gotta feel it. And the more we change and the more new ideas that people want to try, the more exciting it gets.
On this tour Nick bought a cello. He just found a cello on craigslist. He doesn’t know how to play, but he’s taking it out every day and practicing and learning – and that’s awesome, because it means somewhere down the line, Nick’s probably going to bust out the cello and take a break from the drums, and that’s something new and exciting to build around.
How has it been working with Leona? She toured with you before you made Elan Vital, right? So it’s not like you went in cold not knowing each other musically?
She’s been awesome. She just jumped right in one hundred percent. She’s been contributing with all the songwriting – with everything. We’re really lucky to have her. She had toured with us and we had a chance to work together before making the record, and we all feel really lucky that things worked out with her.
It’s gotta be tough being on tour deciding which record to play in the van. Do you find you share a lot of musical interests outside of PGMG?
Usually we don’t play things out loud. There are six sets of headphones going and everybody’s listening to their own thing. We all really like different things, and each one of us gets our inspiration from different things. Nick is really into girl groups and pop stuff; Jay is really into psych records and long songs and wailing solos. Lately I’ve been listening to Fleetwodd Mac and Bob Dylan. I like that Wolf Parade record a lot. So it’s sort of a mish-mash of things.
You recently ran a contest through YouTube where you got fans to make a video for The Nocturnal House. The winning video is…
Yeah – it’s awesome. We watched the whole thing and wondered if she had already done it and just put it to music. But then at the very end it tied in, so that was kind of a big surprise. Matador actually came up with the video idea. But it was very cool and flattering to watch all of the videos that were submitted and to see the fans’ different takes on the songs.
You just came back from Europe, and you're going back after this US tour. Do you find a huge difference in the audiences over there?
Yeah. We just did Paris, Hamburg, Manchester and London. Everything is different over there. The way shows are done, they’re just much more enjoyable. In Paris, you soundcheck and then everybody sits down to have a nice dinner together. They actually break out the wine and French bread and everything. Here, you show up in a cold club with cock and balls graffiti and you wait around forever. Plus, it's nice to see the French take on the cock and balls. We’re in the process of putting together a cock and balls coffee table book. It’ll be called “Cock & Balls Across the World”.
We tour a lot, and we tour because we love to travel. It’s awesome to be able to go cross-country visiting friends, and to go overseas and to have all these amazing opportunities. We’re living the dream: playing music with our friends and seeing the world.
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