Shoutmouth Spotlight: Panda Bear

Let's just get one thing out of the way: Panda Bear is one of the best and most influential artists on the planet right now. Let's take care of something else, too: I was scared shitless to meet him for that very reason.

But, when I arrived at Hi-Fi, a bar in the East Village of Manhattan, my fears were put to rest by a smart, humble, thoughtful young man named Noah Lennox.

While everybody and their mother is psyched on his latest, Person Pitch, Lennox is psyched on just about everything...

Can you tell me about your early life?

High school was at a school called the Kimberton Waldorf School. It wasn’t a boarding school, but my parents had sent me to a Waldorf school in Baltimore. It’s sort of an alternative-type, progressive-type thing. I was psyched on the kind of education I was getting. My parents were pretty hands-off people. They were kind of like, “Hey, what do you want to do?” And then they would sort of accommodate that and it was my decision. I should say that the school in Baltimore was only up until eighth grade, but there was a similar style of school in Washington, D.C. and there was one in Kimberton, Pennsylvania -- which is like a 45 minute drive outside of Philly. My older brother was already going to this school, so I was like, “Alright, I’ll try it to.” But, it’s not technically a boarding school. It was more like we put an ad in the school newspaper to see if anybody was willing to house me – if there was a family that would take me on. And I ended up staying with this family – The Lehmans.

So your family didn’t move?

No, I stayed with another family for the four years of high school. The father was Polish and the mother was Dutch. It was a really amazing experience. They were amazing people.

Were they off the boat?

No. Not quite, well, I think she grew up in The Netherlands, but I think he was a little further removed from his Polish roots. I think his family had been in America a little longer, but she was Dutch through and through.

After that I took a year off and I was with Josh from Animal Collective in Baltimore. We sort of put together a little studio and played music a lot with Dave from Animal Collective.

The early international influence pervades his life (he lives in Lisbon with his wife, Nadja) and his music. He's as global as you can get these days.

Check these drums:

So, how long have you known each other?

I knew Josh in second grade; I’d known him forever and he met the other guys in high school. And I would come home on the weekends a lot and in the summers, obviously. And we’d play music and give each other tapes of music we were working on. I think we just had a mutual respect for each other and got excited about playing together.

Were you playing drums at that point?

With the guys I was playing drums, yeah. But, I was writing my own songs and produce them in a really shitty way. But when I was playing with those guys I was playing drums pretty exclusively.

Were you doing four-track stuff by yourself then?

Yeah, I had an eight-track 488. It was a Tascam 488 eight-track tape machine. It was really awesome; I loved that thing.

So when did you start making your own music?

Probably fourteen.

Did you study music at your high school?

The school was trying to push the arts side of things, as well as the science and math. That was kind of the whole deal, trying to incorporate everything together. But, I definitely had a lot of music. I really loved singing in the chamber choir in high school. It was an extra-curricular activity at nighttime. I was so psyched about doing it in school…it was kind of a more “pro” version of what you would do in school. The songs were a lot harder, it was a lot more serious, you kind of had to work at it a little bit. But I really loved doing that. And I feel like the way I sing now is fully an extension of what I was learning singing in choir. I feel like my voice is really basic and not too elaborate or idiosyncratic. I feel like the way I sing is very much informed by having to sing with a lot of other people or singing the same part as other people and not really wanting to stick out too much. I feel like my vocals are very “in the mix” rather than being way on top of it.

It's really hard to grasp how rich and varied his voice can be without seeing him sing live. His pipes are absolutely essential to his sound and success.

How do you square that with your solo work and singing by yourself? Is that nerve-racking?

When Animal Collective first started playing in New York, I remember being intensely, intensely nervous before those shows – particularly the first five. Then once we started going on tour sort of heavily…I feel like the nervousness is still there, but somehow my mind just ignores it and I feel my body getting really anxious with a lot of energy, but I don’t get scared so much anymore. But, the solo shows are definitely pretty terrifying.

Still?

Still, yeah. I haven’t done it as much. In the band not only is the music kind of like intense and noisy and crazy, but there’s other guys I can sort of hide behind a little bit. Whereas if I’m doing it solo and something breaks or there’s a bad note – it’s painfully obvious. So, I think it’s a little more stressful because of that.

Did you do any solo shows for Young Prayer?

Yeah, I did like four or five. Talk about nerves. That was probably most intense nerves I’ve ever had. Just me and a guitar.

Do you still play any of those songs?

No, it would probably take me a week or two to learn those songs again. It sounds like I’m kind of just making it up, but they were very…written songs.

Were there religious influences on that album?

I’m not a religious person. I wasn’t brought up in any religious way; my parents weren’t religious people. But I’ve always been fascinated and excited about…I feel like I realize that it really helps people and makes their lives better. I’m not speaking about a particular one, but kind of across the board I feel like it fulfills something in people that they can’t really get elsewhere. I was always interested in what that was about because I’d never really experienced that sort of thing before.

And I think that I’ve kind of had things in my life that are similar to it. But I’ve only had tastes of it. That album in particular was…I guess because of the intensity of what was going on, which is to say, my dad was dying…having to think about certain things that are larger than life in a spiritual or sacred way.

I knew that the number three was a special number in those terms; in religious terms it’s a special number. So, I wanted the album to be in threes. All the songs I tried to think about that number…it was really heady at first. It got less so, it became an instinctual thing after a while, but in the beginning I was really rigid about: “Everything’s got to work in threes. Every song has to have three parts. Every song has to move from a low register to a high register (in the hopes that it will be this uplifting experience).” And, I think, in a good a way, all the stuff I was thinking about doesn’t really come out in the music. It’s not like you get punched in the face with the conceptual side of the record. I’m really happy about that; there was definitely that level to it for me.

It’s kind of a tough mentally -- maybe obviously -- to have somebody really close to you gone. And that was really the first time that somebody that close to me had just been taken away. So, I feel like my mind was scrambled.

How old were you at the time?

I was twenty-one, twenty-two.

Young Prayer is absolutely heart-wrenching, but calming at the same time. I used to listen to it when I did meditations for a Tibetan Buddhism class at Boston College. When I told Noah about that, he said he had wanted to be a theology major, too, at Boston University. They didn't have the major, so he just took philosophy and religion classes. He must've been a better student than he lets on: Young Prayer is more poignant than any of my theology papers ever were.

Listen to the first track here (they're all untitled).

Because of Young Prayer and the way it sounds, people have been saying, “Person Pitch means he’s a happy guy now.” Was that your intention? Is that true?

There is a truth to it. It’s not quite so black and white like I was really depressed and now I’m happy. I think the music reflects a trend in my life in the past couple of years of making decisions that would make it easier for me to be a happier person. I met this girl in Portugal and I really, really liked her. I thought to myself, “This person is important enough for me to make a lot of sacrifices and get over there to be around this person a lot.” And I think that freaked a lot of people out that were close to me and it freaked me out. It was a scary thing to do. I think we all were nervous about what the band was going to do and how we were going to deal with that. But, it’s actually worked out really, really well. So, I’ll take credit for that.

So, how did you meet your old lady?

It was on the Sung Tongs tour, but it was before we had recorded the record. At that time, live, the songs were way noisier and way more intense. But, it was at the end of a long period of touring. We had sort of gone on a six-week tour around the U.S. and that was the longest tour we’d ever done. We were back for four days and then Mùm, from Iceland, asked us to tour with them for another couple of weeks. So, we did that and we got off for a short time and then went on tour with Kieran’s Four Tet in England. My mind was totally gone at that point.

I’ve never been very good with touring. It’s always been sort of a difficult thing for me. It’s gotten a lot easier now, mostly because we’ve got this guy, Brad, who kind of tour manages us and is an amazing guy. He’s also an amazing guy to have on tour. He keeps us in good spirits and he keeps us really level-headed and he’s really smart and good at that sort of thing. It can be an emotional roller-coaster: you don’t get a whole lot of sleep and you eat crap all the time. It’s just an intense thing to go through, for me.

So, we had decided at the end of all of that touring to take a couple days off in the last city where we were going to be, which ended up being Lisbon. And neither of us had ever been to Portugal before so we wanted to check it out. And I think Dave and I, at that point, had been around each other so much…we were a little bit at odds, I should say. I remember, it was a really dark point in my life. So, I just met this guy walking along the street at four in the morning after I had been drinking all night long – it was pretty sordid. I hung out with this guy and they wanted to go to this club, because that’s how Portuguese people do it: they go out at midnight and the night ends at ten the next morning. So, I hung out with these people all night long into the morning, just talking, and one of the people in this group was this girl that I got along with really well right off the bat. I went to visit her one time a month after that and then she came to visit me here in New York. It just kind of snowballed after that.

It sounds sort of grandiose, like, “Somebody should make a movie of that!” But, it was way more mellow and less intense.

The Sung Tongs LP was very driven by Panda Bear's ear (see below) and somebody's desire to wear creepy masks.

What’s the music scene like in Lisbon? Do you feel out-of-touch with American music?

I feel out-of-touch with everything, in a way.

Is that helpful for you?

Yeah, it is. When I have cable in my house – which is sort of sporadic, because we use the guy downstairs’ satellite and it gets fucked up sometimes – I’ll watch MTV and MTV2, the British versions (which is what we get over there), all day long. I love to watch that stuff; I love to watch music videos. My daughter does, too, coincidentally. Between that and reading magazines and the Internet…I constantly am checking out people’s MySpace pages. There are certain blogs I look at a lot. The guys in the band know everything – those are the guys that always buy records and listen to everything, whereas I don’t at all. Between all of that stuff, I get a pretty good grasp of what’s going on, even though when I’m at home I’m kind of in the dark.

But, I kind of like it like that. When I’m home it’s kind of like a vacation for me. My wife and daughter take up 98% of my time. I don’t really talk to anybody; I don’t really have a whole lot of friends in Lisbon. I don’t mean to make it sound like it’s sad; I actually kind of like it. I’m kind of a loner in some ways, I feel like I can breathe there.

Will your family come over for your tour?

No, they’re not really into it. I’m not really into it.

Has your wife ever seen you play?

Yeah, we played over there and she saw one of our performances. But, she’s seen me play solo every time I’ve played there, which is to say six times over the past two years. I’ve played there more than anywhere else.

Oh, so you try out stuff there?

Yeah, in Lisbon and Porto. All the Person Pitch stuff…I would have a show in Lisbon and write three or four songs to make sure I had new stuff. All the Person Pitch stuff is Lisbon shows that I eventually created a studio album from the songs that I liked the best from the songs I was playing at those shows. All of those songs – except for two of them – I played live before I recorded them. “Comfy in Nautica” and “I’m Not,” I had done for Rusty’s label.

What was your audience there? Were the shows in small bars?

Yeah, I played in this place called ZDB, which is an amazing place. The two guys who booked it I knew really well. They were the reason that Animal Collective came to Portugal in the first place…these guys Nelson Gomez and Pedro Gomez. They do really good work; they bring really good shows to Portugal. They don’t work for ZBD anymore…it’s kind of like an art gallery and music space.

Here are a couple cuts from his ZDB sessions in 2004:

So what it is that you do in your recording process?

All the songs worked exactly the same way. They all started out with me trying to randomly sample all kinds of stuff and mash things together as far as the rhythm and the tones. And I would speed stuff up and pitch it down and work with it until I got something that I felt was mine and not just stealing somebody else’s sweet riff.

Where would you cull the music from?

Records that I had. The Internet. Anywhere I could get it. It’s a very web-centered album. I was psyched about the fact that I was using all digital equipment. I was psyched about the fact that it leaked, that it was an Internet album.

You liked the leak?

The leak did amazing things for the album. The album has sold pretty well and I don’t think it would’ve…I was hoping that it would do a little bit better than Young Prayer and in the first two weeks it has sold more than Young Prayer had. So, I feel like the leak really helped out in that respect.

I should say, though, that Animal Collective is more my job, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. That’s more where my focus is, musically speaking. So this was just like…I had a really good time doing it. At first I would give live copies of my shows to my friends and people I had a lot of respect for as musicians. So, it was all about wanting people to hear the music. That’s another reason I was psyched on the leak. I was like, “The more people that want to listen to it, the better.” And it still sold pretty well, so I can’t complain about it.

When the leak happened, "Comfy in Nautica," "Good Girl/Carrots," and "Bro's" hit the winding tubes first. The "Bro's" version was cut in half and eventually got made into a video.

And then the vinyl just came out…

Yeah, I think it looks really, really good. I had to switch around the order to preserve the sound quality. One of the longer songs takes up a whole side and so I switched “I’m Not” to the last three songs, so I hope that doesn’t bum you out.

It was a really tough decision to make and initially I didn’t even want to release the album on vinyl because I thought of the album as this “web thing” and that’s how this music is supposed to be experienced.

So, did you use one computer program?

I used Cubase, the free version of Cubase that came with my soundcard. I’ve used Cubase for a long time. I used to do all kinds of MIDI stuff. For this album I only used Cubase as a multi-tracking machine to mix. I really didn’t use any plug-ins…I wanted to keep things live as much as I could. That’s why I tried to play the music in a live setting first and I would basically record a performance of the song and then add stuff where I thought it made sense, retouch it a little bit. I didn’t want it to be structured, I wanted it to be an organic thing.

So what do you have onstage?

I have a mixer and two SP-303 samplers. And that’s it.

Can you throw some kinks into things if you want?

Not really; it’s pretty structured, it’s pretty composed. I guess that’s part of me getting so stressed out, because I really have to play the stuff. There are a lot of loops and stuff, but if I hit one of the buttons slightly off, it’s really obvious that it’s not fitting together. But, it’s not like I just go up and play a tape. It may look like that, but it’s quite a bit more involved.

The new Animal Collective stuff is pretty structured, too…but the songs have started to grow in weird ways.

Did you hear that Domino is pretty pissed about the new songs leaking?

I heard they sent out a thing; I know they’re stressed about it. It’s a complicated issue. I know, from our side, after a second of them being upset about it, we were like, “Forget about it. Don’t make a big deal about it.” I know they traced back the leak to one person and he was going to get fired, and we don’t want to do that to anybody. We don’t want anybody to get fired…I don’t think he’s going to get fired anymore. I’m happy about that.

At the same time, you trust these people with these things and, you know, the leak was really good for my record…and we had to send the promos out really early because of travel schedules and other things. But, I think the label will mellow out about it. The only thing we’re really upset about with the leak is that it’s only parts of it. I think there are six songs out there now. People aren’t even able to get the full experience of the album, which bums us all out quite a bit. So if you’re listening leakers [speaking directly into the tape recorder], put up those other three songs, man, pronto.

Of the songs that I’ve heard, it sounds like there’s more of your influence on Strawberry Jam than, say, Feels.

After Sung Tongs, which I felt like my side of things was coming out quite a bit – where I was at the front of the stage, playing guitar and I was kind of tired of that. I remember thinking that I was kind of tired of that and I wanted to be more of just a drummer for Feels. I wanted to focus on the percussive side of things. On Feels only one of my songs is on there, three of my songs are on Strawberry Jam.

On Feels, you really do find yourself asking, "Where the hell is Panda Bear?"

But, for this current tour we just played some songs that are newer than Strawberry Jam, so we’re way ahead of ourselves…or behind, however you want to put it. Two of the songs we had been playing I did for this Portuguese radio show.

Ma Fama?

Yeah, this guy Sergio is a sweet dude.

Rad indeed. Check out his set and a little bit of a chat:

So are you playing Animal Collective songs solo?

Yes, I’m playing “Chores” in my set. And a couple others.

"Chores" you say? I hope Domino doesn't try to get me fired.

On the liner notes to Person Pitch, you list your influences…

Yeah, I did that because I’ve never really been good talking about it. And I always thought it was lame to be like, “No, I’m totally original.” Because that’s not true. It’s coming from somewhere. So, I really wanted to take about what made this album what it is for me. And since it’s such a sample-based album, I thought it was appropriate to give thanks to different musicians.

The way the album is laid out is very symmetrical. It’s a short song, medium song, long song, short song, long song, medium song, short song – a mirror image. And I wanted the artwork to reflect that. So I did personal thank you’s and then my influences.

If I had to name the main ones, it would be the stuff at the top, because that’s what I though of first. A lot of the Kompakt guys like Wolfgang Voigt, Dettinger, Moody Man, and Cat Stevens. The Beatles and The Beach Boys…the guy La Luomo is probably the main one for me. He has a deep love for dub music, I have a deep love for dub music. If I had to name one influence, it would be Luomo. He’s a genius.

Here goes the man from Finland:

Do you mind The Beach Boys, Brian Wilson comparison?

I mean if you’re a painter and somebody compares you to Picasso then it’s pretty alright. I don’t think of myself like that, that would be an arrogant thing to do.

So, where did the whole moniker thing come from?

When I started out making songs, using that eight-track, I didn’t even really have a concept of what an album is about. I didn’t really listen to music back then. My mom was really into ballet and my dad played the Top 40 radio. When I was making these tapes, I drew little panda bears, because they were my favorite animals and I was psyched on the image.

So what about the other guys?

I don’t ever remember talking in these terms, like defining it…being like “animals are these instinctual beasts”…we never talked like that.

For a really long time I was kind of upset about the “Collective” part of the name because it seemed too academic. But, I think there’s an actual grammatical term like, when you say “a herd of cows,” that’s an animal collective. So I’ve gotten really excited about that aspect.

So did you not dig academics, Boston University?

I hated college. Since then, if something goes wrong, I just say to myself, “At least I’m not in school anymore.” I guess it just wasn’t for me. I’ve never worked an office job before, so maybe that’s why I didn’t like school, gearing up for that kind of lifestyle.

So for various reasons I moved here. At first I just wanted to not finish the year of school and go hang out with my girlfriend in New York. And it became playing music with these dudes and not going back to school.

How’d you stay afloat?

I worked for Other Music. At first I did modeling for art classes; naked stuff.

Oh yeah?

I guess I only did it once. It was kind of one of those “I wonder if I can do this” sort of thing. The allure of it sort of wore off after the first time.

The interview for that was crazy, though. I went to this guy at SVA [School of Visual Arts]…this guy brings me into this office:

This guy was like, “Have you ever done work like this before?”

I was like, “No.”

He goes, “Take off your clothes.”

And I said, “If that’s what I’ve got to do to get the job, then I’ll do it.” So I just totally got naked in front of this guy. I got the job.

Animal Collective releases Strawberry Jam in September and tours the U.S. for most of that month.