{"id":314,"date":"2017-03-13T20:43:43","date_gmt":"2017-03-14T00:43:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/?p=314"},"modified":"2017-03-13T20:43:43","modified_gmt":"2017-03-14T00:43:43","slug":"interview-public-access-t-v","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/2017\/03\/13\/interview-public-access-t-v\/","title":{"rendered":"INTERVIEW: Public Access T.V."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BookScanStation-2017-02-25-03-16-14-PM0002\"
\nPhoto by Kristen Lay<\/em><\/p>\n

Public Access T.V. recently began their tour in Boston with Splashh and The Britanys on Thursday, Jan. 19 at the Great Scott. Before the show, WTBU DJ Kristen Lay spoke with the band about Brooklyn, social media, and their show in D.C. on Inauguration Day.<\/p>\n

Kristen Lay: The last year and a half or so has been pretty exciting for you guys. You\u2019ve been doing lots of touring\u2014I actually saw you in October 2015 open for Hinds here\u2014you\u2019ve played at Governor\u2019s Ball, and releasing your new album, so a lot of exciting things have been going on. This is the first date of your tour, so what are you looking forward to in the next couple of weeks?<\/b><\/p>\n

Xan Aird (guitarist): I\u2019m looking forward to surviving; there are eleven of us in the van, and we\u2019re on tour with our friends Splashh\u2014they came over from Australia. We\u2019re playing in D.C., so we have to get through that without any of us getting arrested.<\/p>\n

KL: Do you guys run into a lot of trouble on tour?<\/b><\/p>\n

XA: Eh, just that we happen to playing in Washington [D.C.] on the day that that man, whose name I will not say, is being inaugurated as our next president. So we leave [Friday] at 7 a.m. and we\u2019re gonna be driving into the\u2014<\/p>\n

Max Peebles (bassist): The eagle\u2019s nest.<\/p>\n

XA: [laughing] Yeah.<\/p>\n

That\u2019ll definitely be an interesting day in D.C.<\/p>\n

XA: My mom said no Molotov cocktails. That\u2019s what she said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a good piece of advice.<\/p>\n

XA: [To the band] What are you guys looking forward to?<\/p>\n

MP: I\u2019m looking forward to going to Detroit.<\/p>\n

XA: This guy loves Detroit.<\/p>\n

MP: I love it there.<\/p>\n

XA: Can you believe this? He went on his honeymoon with his wife, not to fucking St. Bart\u2019s or fucking Europe; he went to Detroit. That\u2019s how much he loves Detroit.<\/p>\n

MP: Love Motown, love The Stooges, love the MC5, love that town, love everything it has to offer.<\/p>\n

John Eatherly (singer\/guitarist): Lot of great history in Detroit.<\/p>\n

MP: And I have a lot of friends there. [To John] You?<\/p>\n

JE: I just feel very fortunate to be on tour with friends. It is crazy all being crammed into this little van, but if it was with anybody else I think it would be really hard. We know everybody, we\u2019re all close, so it\u2019s just a really good vibe. I\u2019m looking forward to everything. I\u2019m looking forward to the drives even. I like a mix of people, and when you travel a lot with the same people, it\u2019s nice to change it up and have a conversation that you haven\u2019t already had a thousand times with a new person.<\/p>\n

KL: That\u2019s good to hear. So early on you guys have gained a lot of popularity\u2014I saw NME wrote about you guys three years ago when you\u2019d only just released \u201cMonaco\u201d. Do you feel like your relatively quick popularity is by chance, or do you think there\u2019s a reason some people got so hooked onto your music?<\/b><\/p>\n

JE: Well it wasn\u2019t necessarily a quick popularity. It was more of just a quick hype, and because of that\u2014coming on so strong in the very beginning\u2014we had to play a lot of catch-up the next two years I\u2019d say, touring and becoming a tight band. Before that song came out, we\u2019d all played together in other projects and stuff, but this was a new thing for us so it wasn\u2019t like we\u2019d already been playing shows for six months, then we were tight and then it came out and we were able to go tour. It was like, that came out and then we had to get our shit together and learn how to play the songs. We had to play catch-up a little bit.<\/p>\n

XA: I\u2019ll tell you something about music journalists. Music journalists, they just wanna hang out. Like they all used to be in bands and they failed, so they just want to hang out with the rockers, the cool kids. So if you know how to show them a good time, they\u2019ll write nice things about you, right?<\/p>\n

JE: Yes, that\u2019s basically the name of the game I think: take them out for a couple beers and become their friends, and maybe they\u2019ll write some nice words about you.<\/p>\n

XA: That\u2019s really how it works. That\u2019s professional advice for you.<\/p>\n

KL: As far as advancements in social media, it\u2019s easy for lesser known bands to get their music out there, but it also means there can be an overwhelming amount of music on the Internet. So would you say that it\u2019s easier now than say twenty, thirty, forty years ago for bands to spread their music, or would you say that the Internet has made it more difficult?<\/b><\/p>\n

JE: I think beyond being a talented band, because now anybody can do it, it takes a lot more work and a lot more persistence of just staying busy and putting out music. I think maybe if you were one of the lucky bands that got signed that was talented forty years ago, a lot of that work was a little more done for you. You\u2019d come out and you were in every magazine and people would read about you before social media. Now it\u2019s kind of like, if you\u2019re a band that\u2019s worthwhile\u2014hopefully you are\u2014you just gotta do it all. It\u2019s a lot more busy shit you got to do I guess.<\/p>\n

MP: I would say it\u2019s harder because of that, because there are so many bands now. Social media just works for you.<\/p>\n

JE: It\u2019s very overly saturated.<\/p>\n

MP: In the old days, there were DIY labels started\u2014even those got big now even, so it\u2019s harder. Everyone wants to be in a band, and it\u2019s not hard to do if you have an Instagram or Soundcloud. Whether you\u2019re good or not is another question. You\u2019ve got to put up videos and stuff like that, get people interested.<\/p>\n

JE: Maybe in another sense it\u2019s harder to connect with other people now. Because there\u2019s so much that, as a band, it\u2019s hard to actually get a following going. Like you were saying [gaining a following] happened in the beginning and it was this sudden popularity, but we\u2019re still, three years later, with like five thousand Instagram friends or whatever, so it\u2019s just different. I think I would prefer the old\u2014nah I like it this way. It\u2019s just going to take some time. And work.<\/p>\n

KL: I\u2019ve noticed a lot of people, when they talk about Public Access T.V., make comparisons to a lot of popular New York City bands, namely The Strokes. While I\u2019m sure you guys find these as compliments, what do you think of these comparisons?<\/b><\/p>\n

XA: They\u2019re lazy. Like, yeah we live in the East Village. And we play guitars. And we wear leather jackets. Well, he does [pointing to Max].<\/p>\n

MP: Yeah it is lazy.<\/p>\n

JE: Of course, I think it\u2019s clear that we were all like thirteen years old when The Strokes came out and we loved that band. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we were all down with them.<\/p>\n

XA: Yeah man, I was driving down Beacon St. when they came on WBCM 104.1. I\u2019ll never forget it.<\/p>\n

JE: But it\u2019s how many years later now?<\/p>\n

XA: That was 2001. September 2001 that record came out.<\/p>\n

JE: Right so I\u2019m saying, you know, we\u2019re not sitting around in our rehearsal space talking about them and referencing them or anything. I think at that age it was like an introduction to rock \u2018n\u2019 \u00a0roll, in a way. MTV was only playing pop trash, and then a band like [The Strokes] I found out about on MTV, which is pretty crazy. Then that introduced me to a lot of other shit.<\/p>\n

XA: You\u2019re probably too young to remember, but I used to watch TRL after school and it was like fucking Kid Rock and Britney Spears, and I have no problem with any of those artists, but there were no rock bands. Yeah, of course we like The Strokes.<\/p>\n

MP: But to compare us to them is lazy.<\/p>\n

KL: Right now it seems that there\u2019s a lot of focus on music coming out of Brooklyn\u2014a hotspot for New York City bands I suppose\u2014but you guys are kind of changing the game a bit being from Manhattan, specifically the East Village, right in the heart of Manhattan. Does it feel exciting to be shifting the focus back to this area or do you not see Brooklyn like this?<\/b><\/p>\n

JE: I don\u2019t know, I think the game\u2019s kind of changing on its own anyway. I think that whole Brooklyn wave has kind of changed and maybe the wave isn\u2019t as big as it used to be like eight years ago or five years ago. For us it\u2019s exciting being in Manhattan I guess\u2014we all live there\u2014but it\u2019s not like we\u2019re a part of a scene there. There are not a lot of other bands that we know; it\u2019s just where we live. As far as Brooklyn goes, I don\u2019t know how do you guys feel? I feel a little bit out of the loop with Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

XA: I think it\u2019s just an issue of economics, like bands come out of Brooklyn because bands can afford to live and rehearse in Brooklyn, and we\u2019ve always figured out a way to live and rehearse in Manhattan, and that\u2019s pretty much it. But now Brooklyn\u2019s fucking as expensive as Manhattan, so you don\u2019t really hear about a lot of new bands coming out of Brooklyn; I haven\u2019t heard of any.<\/p>\n

JE: We\u2019ve just stuck it out for a really long time and figured out how to live cheaply for eight years now, and the only way to do that is to stick around and try to survive. If you were a kid moving from someplace else, I wouldn\u2019t move to Manhattan to try to start a band. You wouldn\u2019t be able to do it. To afford it\u2014it\u2019s ridiculous.<\/p>\n

KL: And definitely in Brooklyn you have a lot of DIY venues and spaces that perhaps make it easier for other bands to come together and play together, but in Manhattan you don\u2019t really have that\u2014or at least you probably don\u2019t find as many DIY spaces in Manhattan.<\/b><\/p>\n

JE: No, and even the ones in Brooklyn have kind of changed neighborhoods at least.<\/p>\n

MP: A lot of them have closed and a lot of new places have opened up. But talking about Brooklyn bands\u2014I don\u2019t know if you\u2019re speaking specifically of bands that were using laptops and wearing day glow and nylon. Like that fad has kind of gone. It has run its course. Right now I think in Brooklyn there are more punk bands than anything that is very DIY.<\/p>\n

XA: I fuck with punk.<\/p>\n

MP: Things go in fads. But it\u2019s true, like you said, Brooklyn is just as expensive as anywhere, so it\u2019s hard. Queens, really, is where people are moving to and there are a lot of DIY spaces in Queens.<\/p>\n

XA: And The Ramones come from Queens.<\/p>\n

KL: I\u2019d say many would say you kind of give off a \u201870\u2019s vibe\u2014at least with \u201cEvil Disco\u201d you give off that vibe. Obviously style isn\u2019t always intentional, but was it something you were leaning towards or was it something that just came naturally?<\/b><\/p>\n

JE: Style is always intentional in Public Access T.V. [laughing].<\/p>\n

MP: We like it. Style we like.<\/p>\n

JE: We like a lot of bands from that period I guess. It\u2019s a fun way to play dress up and make a video\u2014you know videos can be pretty, I don\u2019t know, stupid I guess.<\/p>\n

XA: We\u2019re not taking it too seriously but we like a lot of bands from the \u201870\u2019s. It\u2019s a good decade. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s intentional. It just kind of happened.<\/p>\n

JE: Yeah it\u2019s in a lot of our roots and music that we grew up listening to. In the defining years in high school with your friends, when sharing records and stuff, there were definitely a lot of classic \u201870\u2019s albums in the mix. If you were to cruise in our van to the next city I\u2019m sure there would be a lot on the playlist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo by Kristen Lay Public Access T.V. recently began their tour in Boston with Splashh and The Britanys on Thursday, Jan. 19 at the Great Scott. Before the show, WTBU DJ Kristen Lay spoke with the band about Brooklyn, social media, and their show in D.C. on Inauguration Day. Kristen Lay: The last year and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[33,26,29,52,25],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":318,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions\/318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}