Passion Pit

0:00Hi, I'm Mike Langelakis from Passion Pit and you're watching Emissane Exclusives. I'm doing very well, thanks. Yeah, this record is, I mean, I know it's been out for a while, but now we're getting to talk about it and I love it. Thank you. It's just you, really. Well, I mean, on record, it is me, but the reason why anyone really knows about us is because we play as a live band and we promote it.

0:45So, yeah, on record, that's my baby, but what's really promoted it and gotten us to this level is a live band. Yeah, absolutely. Two different entities, really kind of, but yeah, it is on me. And I do want to talk about the band too, but I found that fascinating that you're doing everything yourself on the record. So, where does the song start? You start with programming, you start with synths on a guitar, like, how do you write? So, I guess when a song starts... Let's go with Carried Away since that's the new video. Okay, that's a great example. I was on a plane to LA to work with a producer. I was just going to meet and just trying to find a good producer to work with and co-produce the record with. And on the way there, it just popped into my head.

1:31And I remember walking down the aisle and singing it to my engineer and co-producer Alex Aldi, and he was like, record that near phone. The chorus for Carried Away, so I recorded it into my phone. I have about 400-something recordings on my phone now. At the time, maybe I heard about 200. And then I had about 200 little demos going on. So, that, you know, essentially it should come to you like, it's magic or something. You shouldn't be able to really... There's no real environment that caters to it. It just happens. And those are the best songs I think happen that way. So you don't sit there laboriously working over and working over? Oh, I do. And those songs took... There were songs I took like...

2:19Just the earlier the soundscapes, like for instance, it's not my fault I'm happy. It took about three months to make. But really two days to finish, if you think about it. So it was just the state of mind that you're in when you're making a record. And you have to be really careful that you don't overdo it and don't overthink it. It just has to be very much from the gut. You know, it has to be really... It has to feel like the most obvious thing. I feel like making pop music is about the most obvious melody. And that's where I find something brilliant about the Irving Berlin song books and Gershwin and Joan Kerns. Like all their melodies just seem...

3:06Gershwin's especially... They're just so perfect and they're so simple. And it's basically like watching figure skating or something. Like that seems kind of easy. It looks easy. They make it look so easy. And that's kind of what really good pop is like. It sounds so simple. It's so simple. But the simplest stuff is the hardest stuff. I hear you kind of want to make a simple record. I mean, people asked if I was interested in doing that. I mean, I said yes and we can't think. I love other than that. I mean, if there's demand for it, I mean, I'd love to. But at this current juncture, I don't only have time.

3:51Which is fine because I mean, we're working. But I mean, I've done so many live recordings. I guess if I compiled them, you know, James Blake did that. And that was really great. I love that little compilation that he released for free. But we might be putting out a live album as a band. So I'd rather that kind of take precedence. So how did the band reinvigorate these songs? You're talking about you guys. It's a band, passion bit. It's not just you. What differentiates us from other artists in our genre, I suppose, is that we use all analogs and everything. We actually perform everything live. So it's like a rock band playing electronic music. And that's not really often the case. So, you know, one of our favorite bands is Hot Ship.

4:36And Hot Ship, we actually co-headlined the Hollywood Bowl with them. Which is amazing. 17,000 people. It was amazing. And we were watching them play. And it was like a completely different animal. Like we were watching all the MIDI sequencing and everything. And like basically with all, like, with some digital and mostly analog gear, like, you know, almost DJ-asset, it was extraordinarily musical. And everything they were doing was very musical. But we sit there and have all these keyboards on stage and actually play every single part. Or at least as much as we can. So I think the willingness to do that and to make the shows pretty laborious and taxing on the band.

5:26I think that's really amazing. People really see that and feel that. And it looks like a rock band is playing it. But we get the reaction for that electronic axe yet. So it's a weird type of, I don't know, we're somewhere in the thoroughfare between those two things. It was nice and square-grained. We sold it out. And there was, of course, a blizzard. So, because of course, I mean, why not? Just one time there's a blizzard this year. It has to happen on a night we're playing. And that's where we're going. We've had so many setbacks this year. We've had so many setbacks. I personally have had so many setbacks. And that's what the group has. We all have. And it was a really emotional moment when you had over 11,000 people going that crazy,

6:15you know, at the world's most famous arena. We honestly never went into this thinking that that was ever a possibility. So we're very grateful and we felt like we probably could show the feedbacks been almost like we basically silenced all the haters because no one wants you to be successful basically in this world. And especially, you know, we, I mean, everyone just couldn't believe we pulled it off. I mean, where we were six months ago, seven months ago, I wasn't even supposed to be touring. I thought I would never tour again. Talking about emotional, like this record is super honest. Even Jeff was saying in an interview that I was reading that when he went, I guess you guys were rehearsing the songs for the first time.

7:02He was just like, dude, you really put, like, you put everything out there. I don't think you should ever question your work in that way. I think you have to be pretty much, you have to stand by your work. There's an accountability that every artist or specifically writer, every writer has to, I mean, have. You can't be doing it for any other reason, other than like this is what this is the right thing to do or this feels like the perfect thing to do because as painful as it was, it was my way of kind of coming to terms with a lot of issues in my life. I don't know, it's not the first person to write a very honest open record. Does it have to be everybody in pop music though?

7:48At least not something that's played on the radio. Well, I mean, you know, I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. It's just, I'm happy that people have responded to it in a way that isn't, well, I mean, it's interesting. Some media outlets will still boil it down to like just a headline and others will be very sensitive to it and talk about, you know, what kind of what you're talking about, like, you know, how it isn't very, you know, it's not usual for people in the spotlight to open up, but I'm not really in the spotlight. I'm not really at that point where it's like, like, Rihanna level or like, I'd never want to ever get to that point actually. I hope I just happily live in some kind of, I don't know, limbo because that world to me seems like you can't live a normal life and you can't ever be honest, actually.

8:47You know, I'm very, I'm very happy with talking about it and being open about it. It has changed my life and it has changed what I've heard, changed a lot of our fans' lives. I get messages all the time from people who thank me for what I've done and what I've written about and how open I've been about things. I mean, it makes me feel a little better about the whole, you know, me having my hobby be my main source of income. So it's nice. You know, because it's really, you get kind of, it's kind of, you feel kind of guilty at the end of the day. It's like, I get to have fun every night kind of in for a living and make, you know, it's so weird, it's weird. And you want, and it's just one of those redeeming qualities of being open and honest.

9:36Right. I'm going to let you go. So we use something called Five Questions. Five good questions. One word answers. Oh, God. In these pods that we have not talked about at all, but it's pretty cool we're sending them. Yeah. Roder Studio. Studio. Lendinger McCartney. McCartney. When you hear a song what usually hits you first, lyrics, melody or rhythm. Melody. Song you've written you're most proud of. Constant conversations. And in one word, passionate bit. Screwed. You mentioned constant conversations and it's your most proud of, but I heard you didn't even want it to be on the record. Like Rick Rubin pushed you into it. He made it homework.

10:21Made it homework. That's good. He said, I showed it to, I showed him the chorus. I recorded the chorus for it and he was like, you're going to have to finish that when that's your homework next time, you're not allowed to like come back until you have it done. That's amazing. And I sent it to him. And he was the reason why he went on the record. That and I was also someone at the label that I brought, pretty much everyone kind of was all peer pressure. I was pushed into putting a walk on the record. I didn't want that to go on. That song I don't like very much. Before it became the massive hit or? I mean, dude, I've been living with it for years. It's like, yeah, I love when people are like, someone's the next album coming out. It's like, we're like mid-cycle.

11:07It's hard to explain how the industry works. But I was on that song before the original, the real Gossamer sessions happened. I went and did it on my own. I thought it was just to get the flow going. Cool. I got to let you go. Thank you so much. Thank you.