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Interview with Future Punx

Interview and photos by Emily Nagle.


Future Punx are not worried about fitting in. The post-wave band from Brooklyn, with members Jason Kelley, Jake Pepper, Chris Pickering, and Heather Strange, take performance and production to a whole new level – or to a sci-fi utopia full of flashing lights and colorful fog-filled rooms, by forming their own genre called post-wave.

The group aims to entertain, and they come fully loaded with a projector, fog machine and futuristic costumes, as well as their electronic synthesized post-punk rhythms that are so vibrant and provocative that the audience can’t help but dance. Future Punx have a rare sound, combining punk and electronic through layers of sound and storytelling lyrics that create the genre called Post-Wave. That is how it was on Saturday, June 11th at Alphaville in Brooklyn, where I got to sit down with the band before their show for an interview. The members of the band take us a step into the future by telling us at Alt Citizen how punk can save lives, their favorite music memories and about conformity and coming of age.

 

You define your genre as post-wave. How do you think the previous influences have helped develop the genre?

Jake: It’s definitely based on our influences. Where post-wave comes from was originally conceived to describe that we are influenced by post-punk and new-wave music primarily. It’s come to mean a lot more than that to us, but as far as the music is concerned, that’s where we were really originally coming from and it’s really our foundation and original influences there with bands like Devo and Talking Heads, but also a little further back like Art Rock, Era of Burning Ego and Velvet Underground and all that great stuff. But we’re also trying to draw through into the future and that’s what our name implies kind of tied in with post-wave, incorporating more modern pop and dance influences into those ideas.

In the first song on your album, Post-Wave, you sing, “through a music we call punk, our lives were saved.” How has music as well as punk saved your lives, and what is it’s importance to you?

Chris: Well, I wrote that song. I guess what that song is really referring to is kind of like a hypothetical sci-fi utopian future where punk actually does save culture, but on a personal level. I don’t know, just growing up, Jason and I are both from the suburbs in north Texas. It’s very conservative and you’re not very encouraged to go out of line, so punk growing up was something that for the first time, we found that there’s more the world out there than just these small town lines that were used to, so for me personally it saved my life by opening up my brain to all these other ideas, whether it was when I was an atheist when I was younger or kind of learning about punk and realizing that you do need to question authority and question the system and how our society is. I feel like punk music brought me to that. None of us eat meat and I feel like if I had never been in the punk scene then I probably would never become vegetarian or thought about the ethical or moral sides of certain things of life that before punk just wasn’t in my head.

A common theme I got from listening to your album is fighting conformity, like you mentioned, then taking action to find yourself. What are your thoughts on conformity and how do you avoid feeling like you have to fit a certain role? We’re in an age where we are constantly exposed to so much media, so how do you stick to your own sound?

Jason: I love that you picked up on that, because that is the goal. Also, while punk did save our lives and expand our minds in a lot of ways, the more we found ourselves embracing punk scenes, we started to realize this shit’s mad closed off as well and it can be exclusive and very close-minded. Like if you don’t dress a particular way and if you don’t listen to particular bands, then people can kind of push you to the side. That was the whole point and embracing electronic music and other elements that might have been offensive to very deep punks who will only listen to specific brands of punk, so its kind of like we’re trying to open people’s minds and just be, like, live in the present moment. Just enjoy life.

What are you trying to do? You say open people’s minds. How do you try and get those people to listen to your stuff and open their minds up to your sound?

Jason: Well, we work our asses off by playing in the band and we play a lot of shows with a super diverse range of other bands. We’ve played hardcore punk festivals next to D-Beat bands in small towns in Germany or we play with popular electronic bands like at Baby’s All Right right down the street. The more that we play and expose ourselves to people, the more they get to know us and realize that we’re very genuine, that we’re really trying to do something positive.

In Post-Wave, you sing, “this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no rave, this is post-wave,” so what are you trying to communicate with the song as a genre and as your own group?

Chris: That’s a reference to a Talking Heads song when he says “this aint no disco” and then in Depeche Mode’s song, they have a song called “This Ain’t No Disco.” I have a lot of lyrics where I reference parts of the rock and roll lexicon and so that was kind of where that line came from. We put the “ain’t no rave” part to put a modern twist on that 70s thing, like “this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no rave, this is post-wave”. Post-wave is a genre that is beyond, not rigid, it’s not disco, it’s not rave music, it’s not even really punk, it’s supposed to be everything. So it’s kind saying get with the future, disco and rave. Let’s embrace all, include everybody, punk or electronic or all the different genres.

In your music, you speak also about self-growth, individuality, and not having regrets. What does this album signify to you all and what do you hope others take away listening to it?

Jake: Were really hoping to turn people on with our music and the album in particular is structured to tell a story, which follows the process of self-transformation. We really hope to encourage people to look inward and also lose themselves in the music at the same time and try and hear our messages with their subconscious self. I believe that if you do approach our album that way, it can help change people for the better, to put it somewhat vaguely. We really want to leave it open to interpretation also, because there really are very specific structures and a narrative that we followed when we put the album together, but that’s kind of for us to know.

I definitely got that coming of age message when I listened to it. As a band how do you move forward and further develop your sound and your projects?

Chris: Right now, it’s been a while since we’ve been able to work on any new material, but we finally decided to start working on some new stuff. We’re not ready to make a new album yet because when we do make an album we want it to be highly conceptual and a very thought out thing. We don’t really have the time to really even crank something like that out at the moment. We’re just going to try to focus on a few singles that can stand on their own to kind of keep the creative juices flowing and hopefully maybe next year start working on a concept for our second album.

Jason: I’d like to add that we’ve been doing all of our own production and engineering and making the album was a huge learning process. That was incredibly inspiring actually, we’re inspired by our own art. And now that we have this body of work, we can look at that and see what we can do to make it better. We’re really excited to do that, to progress sonically and with our writing.

What is your process for making music?

Jason: It’s kind of every changing. It just depends on the song really.

Jake: We all write and in the past we’ve all brought stuff in. We all kind of bring in songs and then work on them together arranging all the parts and we work extensively with electronic sequencing to include layers that you wouldn’t necessarily hear in your average rock band. And that’s a huge part of our writing process, to make sure that these electronic elements fit in with the organic elements we’re playing in a way that feels natural and fun to us.

Jason: I imagine its about to evolve drastically as we just got some new gear that’s really gonna change the game. I think the next couple writing phases should be more improvised all together in a room, but we’ll see. In the past we’ve all written our own songs and then worked on them together.

Chris: We do want to try a different approach rather than be like here’s my song an it’s pretty much finished. We want tobe like here’s a groove, let’s jam on it, and see what comes out, so that’s kind of what we’re looking forward to doing is just jamming with each other and seeing where it goes and then making a song out of the different ideas that we have and seeing what we come up with but not putting any limitations or anything on it.

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What’s your favorite part of the recording process?

Jason: I am probably the biggest recording nerd. Every single member of this band is an audio engineer so we all love it. For me just being finished with the mix and I like to, ya know, smoke a spliff or something and sit down and listen to how it sounds and I’m usually pretty stoked on it.

Chris: Also when we did our album, we got to record on an analog tape machine, which is something we’re all pretty into recording. We’re not strict about only doing analog recording. We like to find a balance between using digital and analog for the best of both worlds. That’s kind of exciting for us. When you’re working on a record and you’re actually recording the tape and it just sounds so great and you’re in the studio and making a rock record. That’s the best part for me, seeing that tape machine rolling and it just feels like a classic moment going down. And then every time you hear the album, you’re like, yup I remember that tape machine spinning, I remember laying that baseline down, so it’s fun.

Heather: I have only been playing the band on keys for like, 3 months so I don’t have much to contribute in the process of the album, but maybe next release.

Chris: She’s been in the band doing videos and lighting since the beginning.

How did you get involved in playing?

Heather: We had another member, she played keytar and she had to leave for other projects she needed to work on, so I stepped in and we figured out how to get everything automated with the lighting and I run projections while I’m playing so I learned the parts quick and play a lot of shows to get into the swing of performance life, which is pretty fun.

Jason: New York shows are fun, cause we have a lot of support from our friends, but when we play outside of New York, our shows are especially explosive. People just go crazy, cause they’re not burnt out, they don’t see a gazillion bands a week like we do here in New York, so we have some really fun times play shows to just young excited people who will just dance their asses off from the first moment that we hit a note. That’s very exciting.

Do you have a favorite memory of playing a show?

Jason: Yeah, like earlier I mentioned that punk festival in Germany. That was out of this world. We played in 20+ year squat that they’ve been doing this all volunteer run festival that’s like super positive, very feminist, they’re anti-racist, anti-fascist…

Chris: … Total DIY-run, they’re just like a straight up punk squat and when we first pulled up it’s, like, are these guys gonna like us? Cause its kind of like crusty punk guys but then the show…

Jason: … Pretty much everyone in the audience looked like 1982 mad max, just punk as fuck, and we think oh they’re not gonna like us even though we very much come from that scene but we don’t dress the part, but they still just went crazy and danced their asses off and we had a blast. Actually, were going to be playing a lot more shows like that, but that was especially beautiful because of how it was volunteer run and they provided vegan meals to like hundreds of people. It was just an incredible experience.

What was the last show each of you guys went to where everybody was dancing their asses off, you and everybody else in the crowd?

Jason: Aw man, it’s been a while.

Chris: Heather and I were on our way to SXSW. We DJed this thing called Freakin’ Weekend in Nashville and this band called Push All played. I mean we’re a little older and we were DJing and we were kind of off to the side, but these kids were just going crazy.

Heather: … like 7 people were crowd surfing at once and it was like a shared artists space. It was a bike shop and a print shop, so it was a small little set up but everyone was just going wild. You could tell that for everyone that band hits home for all of them.

Chris: I remember thinking I’m too old to have that much fun, but I’m glad those kids were having that much fun.

Heather: Recently I’ve been to a Guerilla Toss show at Palisades and everyone goes totally wild, so that’s super fun. It’s a really good crowd.

Jason: I personally have to go a few years back for that, and it wasn’t dancing per say but this band Mayyors, I saw them in Portland at this festival called Summer Bummer and I lost my fucking mind and so did everyone in the audience. They’re very heavy and an intense band. They were completely captivating and it was impossible not to just be like “ahh this rules.”

Jake: I’ve had some mind blowing shows, but its hard to think of one where everyone was going off the wall recently.

Jason: Thee Oh See’s, Thee Oh See’s usually bring it.

Heather: There was a lot of stage diving at their SXSW show, but I wasn’t dancing for some odd reason.

Jason: Jake of all people, I figured you would have one.

Jake: Well I just keep thinking of shows that have blown my mind, but not necessarily in that way. And I’m thinking of shows that we’ve played too because that’s a large portion of my show-going life. The last show of the tour we just did in Kutztown, Pennsylvania at the Spaghetti House was mind blowing. It was packed full of the kids who go to the school in Kutztown.

Chris: I think its University of Pennsylvania at Kutztown. Everyone played, Beth Israel, Suburban White Dads, they were awesome.

Heather: There was that Jersey band – they were called SPOWDER. I just added them the other day.

Jake: Go to a show at Spaghetti House and it’ll probably pop off it seems like. They were just ready to party well before we played. They had been partying for two days before we got there.

Heather: We actually got locked out of our van and these kids on acid helped us break in, in the rain. The kid popped the door open and then they just were like ‘let’s get outta here!’ and I never saw them again. They saved our lives.

Jason: Now their university is going to crack down after this interview.

Jake: Spaghetti House no more.

On an ending note, what are rituals that you do before you go on stage or perform or wrote?

Chris: We have one ritual that we do before we go on stage where Jake will roll up a spliff and then we smoke it and then we go on stage.

Jason: I’m a big fan of stretching out and yoga. I just want to let all the fellow punks out there know that yoga is perfectly acceptable and cool. Feel free to take care of your body.

Jake: You know what’s cooler than cool is meditation. Do it all.

Heather: Mine is getting an even layer of fog set in the room before we play.

Check out photos of the band from the Dull Tools / Wild Wild Life Northside Showcase at Alphaville.

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