Papadosio spends the majority of their year on the road. For over a decade, they have been pushing their limits both sonically and visually. Their new album, Extras in a Movie, is a showcase of their hard earned abilities. On a warm January afternoon, we caught up with Anthony Thogmartin (Vocals/Guitar) and Sam Brouse (Keys) to discuss song composition, music trends and creative puppetry.
Blank: I recently read a book called My First Guitar. It is about musicians and the stories behind that first instrument/step into the world of performing live. My first guitar was purchased when I was 15 years old out of the trunk an old car. It was in a Perkins parking lot in Jonesboro, AR. I got it for $25 and two cd’s. What got you into music? What was your first instrument
Anthony Thogmartin: My family was big into singing. The first instrument that we all played, was singing as a family while driving around. It was a weird thing that my parents used to do. If we were driving to grandmas, we would sing, “Over the river and through the woods…” or that kind of thing.
Sam Brouse: I would say that singing started me off too. My earliest memories are listening to music with my dad. I found my brother’s electric guitar in his room and at some point it became mine. I don’t remember how it happened. I remember being really young and having this electric guitar. I would tune the strings down and kind of play bass. That started me down the path of never ending gear acquisition. It’s crazy now that I am thinking about it. My parents got divorced when I was six, so must have been four and somehow got a guitar. I think my grandma got it for us. My parents were super pissed about it at first, but they quickly changed their minds.
Blank.: Recently I read an interview you did with thatdrop.com about playing with European death metal band and the smell that was left behind with the goats heads they used as part of their performance. I once attended a similar show with my friend Brian Coakley, who owns The International in Knoxville, where you will be performing on 1/23/16. I think we caught John Oates beforehand at Tennessee Theatre, so it was an odd night all around. They were dumping real goats blood on themselves. That’s commitment…I guess. How did you end up following that act?
A.T.: It was just part of the tour. We just booked the room. It was the right size. Had we known that it was paired up with a smell that would probably ruin meals in the future for people, we might not have played it.
S.B.: (Laughing) Yeah, I still don’t eat lamb at all.
Blank: The “Epiphany” video – It’s hilarious watching everyone cheesing out, especially during the phone call. Where did you shoot this? Was anything playing in the background while you danced?
S.B.: It was at my house. I’m standing outside right now where we shot the video. I had the idea to play the song at half speed over these speakers and would puppeteer the puppets at half speed. They set the table at half speed and were dancing at normal speed. You can shoot a video at twice as fast and slow it down, but I wanted to see what would happen if we shot it twice as slow and sped it up. I don’t know if it came out awesome or not, but it was definitely hilarious.
Blank: I don’t think that the two don’t have to be separate. It was awesome and hilarious. I once helped with a video shoot and we were told to move in slow motion and then they sped it up. It was a one shot, so no mistakes or we started over. (Laughing) I remember the director telling us to raise the roof. It was like, “what is happening here?”
A.T.: (Laughing) It was definitely hot, and hard to keep it together.
Blank: Extras in a Movie was released in October to rave reviews. Creatively speaking, the range that it offers solidifies your experimental nature. “2am” is a New Orleans style, piano driven, dance party, while “Bypass Default” fades in out out of ambient electro pop to edgy rock. All of this is done without compromising the jam aspect. You have said that you write the music first and then the lyrics. Do you find that helps assign one to the other? I.e., the lyrics based on the feelings that the music creates in you.
A.T.: For me, the lyrics are the last thing that happen in a song. When you hear a rock and roll guitar riff, depending on what riff and the notations and chords that are in the song, it will give you a certain emotion. If you can combine what inspires you musically and what inspires you in your life literally…The lyrics tend to happen on their own, after the music is written. At that point, you can make a melody that you really like before you put words to it and let the melody determine the cadence and the rhythm of what you are saying.
S.B.: It definitely takes a certain level of mastery in music. People like Elton John, who essentially get lyrics, look at the lyrics, and have to convey the emotion of the poem into music, that’s a whole other thing. That’s really hard to do. I feel like, in order to be efficient in songwriting, it helps to get an idea musically and hope for the best that you can make it. I don’t think that I have ever written a poem or lyrics before there was any idea of music in my mind. (Laughing) It would be awesome if we could do that. It’s just really, really hard.
Blank: “The Wrong Nostalgia” has a few lines that I love. “What happened to the corduroys/And the middle fingers from the flannel boys?” There was a time in the early 90’s, when the radio was great. Bands like Pearl Jam, RHCP, Radiohead, Nirvana were all coming on the scene. Now, well it’s iffy at best. Rare gems like Lightning 100 in Nashville break through, but for the most part, it’s top 20. Internet radio offers a choice, but that’s not an option for everyone. Do you think there is hope for the radio?
S.B.: I think it kind of always was to advertise what the record labels thought was cool. Back in the day, they thought that grunge was cool. I’m sure there were were a bunch of people who grew up in the 70’s that were like, “What the hell is this? This sucks.” It’s the same thing now. It’s all these teeny boppers talking bout their butts. It’s like, alright, great, but what about all that sweet stuff I grew up with? It’s just this one big loop. There is always going to be music that wasn’t on the radio, like vinyl collections. The streaming services make it a lot easier. It’s frustrating, as artists making music that you want people to hear, but they don’t, because somebody, somewhere, decides it’s not cool or not happening right now. There is hope for the radio, but I think it’s a different entity than how people intake music now. You listen to the radio in the car for 15 minutes while your driving and are like, “this sucks.” I don’t know if it’s ever going to change.
Blank: Recently our owner attended a conference about trends in live music. He said that the majority of what was being discussed is music that had an electronic element. Where do you see music going in the coming years?
A.T.: I personally think that music is going to go in every possible direction that it can. Whether it gets funded or becomes a huge festival…I feel like, in some ways, that we are gong through the disco age again. The rock bottom crap is so easily accessible to the ear of those who don’t think about stuff that much and consume stuff easily. It’s in the same way that fast food is to people that don’t eat well. What’s happening, is that the music industry is just trying to figure out how to reorganize itself to see what it can make money off of, and has been for the last 20 years. What’s happening, is that you’ve got these huge EDM concerts, because the lowest common denominator of a complete and utter lack of creativity, is what is popular and what’s making money. It’s got to change from the bottom up and the top down. The people that are pushing this kind of music are just as much to blame for other stuff not being novel and popular. There is a lot of music that is coming out today that is still getting pushed, that is totally different and absolutely awesome. It tends to get pushed aside by the biggest EDM festival names that are just remixing someone else’s mix of someone else’s mix, and regurgitating utter and complete crap. Where do I think music might be going? I hope that it’s somewhere that people are taking chances at the top. Where they are saying, “we found music that is amazing and underground and is the Kurt Cobain of 2016.” And then pushing it. And saying that we are not going to bend to whatever people are buying. We are going to take a chance with something that is fantastic and new, and whatever that is, is what gets pushed. Basically, someone has to be okay with losing their ass on something in order for music to go in a direction that makes sense. At this point, it is just sort of absorbed by a market minded, money minded system that gets worse and worse over time.
S.B.: I feel the same way. It’s about whether or not those people at the top, who have power, will stop marketing to the mass lack of attention span. EDM artist come and go so fast, besides the few OG ones. Hopefully people will wake up and realize, that life is moving so fast, and will want to grab onto something that has longevity. Then, they won’t be able to market to short attention spans anymore. But the way that it is going now, it’s just “Bigger, Faster, Harder, Stronger.” That is a wise song by Daft Punk. It is exactly what’s happening.
Blank: Before the internet was so prevalent, we traded tapes and then cd’s of live shows. They were like gold to us. Do you think that the ability to release live shows, in an easily downloadable format, helps with the aforementioned insufficiencies brought on by the radio, as well as presents a way for an audience to experience your music above and beyond an album?
A.T.: I think that there is a certain community that wants the live sound more than the studio sound, because it’s unique to their experience. If you were at a show that was recorded live, you get to say, “I was there man.” It gives you domain over the space. It gives it a special access point that is unavailable to other people. Maybe you weren’t there, but have the knowledge of that show and there is a part that you want your friends to hear, because it’s novel and different and new. That is something that has been working out for us. All of our shows will have something different and new, because of the improvisational nature of our music. It gives them the ability to get deeper with something that they really like.
Blank: You’ve spent an endless number of hours recording, practicing and touring. Can you share something that stands out from that barrage?
S.B.: For me, it’s that I can’t believe that our fans are so supportive. It’s overwhelming. So many kids come to so many shows, in a row. It’s very humbling and definitely keeps us going. Every night we are in awe of seeing the same people, and they are so excited. Things can get monotonous on the road. They make it so that we play better, and want to play better. I can’t believe that we get to be a part of this whole family of people and get to touch these people’s lives. It’s really reciprocal. That’s pretty special.
