INTERVIEW: The Public

While all my focus is on Brooklynola this Friday, life still does go on in New Orleans, and the Public will be playing at the Circle Bar with the Green Genes and so to show my love back home I dropped a line to the boys in the Public to see how things are these days.

photo of Travis from the Public by Tamara Grayson

STATIC: Have a Jazz Fest hangover?
JACK: No i had to work through jazz fest. I did get to wait on a number of 50 year old men with pony tails and Hawaiian shirts, though.
TRAVIS: ha! i was going to see Kings of Leon, but i was actually too hungover from djing circle bar the night before.

ST: What were some of the highlights?
TV: my hangover highlights included a Rocky's pizza and watching Wolverine while gingerly sipping a frozen coke.
BRYAN: It's nice because I play alot of private parties, which is always fun.

ST: I know you guys are a storied New Orleans band, but for people like myself who don't know much about your past, how did you get here?
TV: Long story short, a friend of mine i was working with at a TV station put me in touch with Bryan and he put us all together. We had all three played in Falling Janus at different times in the late 90s, so we definitely knew we had a common background. Our bassist, Ryan came in from a very different musical perspective, and it all gelled into this weird mash of a New Orleans rhythm section with post-punk melodic sensibilities over it.
We did our first show at Howling Wolf in '03 and played The Mermaid Lounge and One Eyed Jacks quite a bit after that.. sold out One Eyed Jacks for our CD release party. Then the storm came around and scattered us and our following all over the country. We were one of the first rock bands playing in town after the storm, started traveling more. A few months later, we got signed to a label in NYC after doing a mini-tour. We're currently finishing out the record we did in NYC and are doing two EPs at The Living Room in a couple of weeks with our new Bass Player, Ronan Bradley.

ST: Public is of or pertaining to the people. Do you feel you create music for the public?
TV: Originally that was the concept, Jack named the band with The Smiths' very non-descript, generic name in mind. He wanted it to sound a bit socialist like "the people's band". I'm not really a very political writer though. Most of the lyrics have turned out to be more in the vein of some kind of apocalyptic heartbreak story. We Are The Public was sort of a Ballardian (RIP) dystopian construct, Saturn Missile Battery was about an impending breakup, No Love is Permanent (the new LP) is sort of a mash of the two concepts fit with a group of songs we wrote after I had lost most everything in the storm right after my girlfriend of 8 years and I had broken up. Needless to say, i was in a pretty self-absorbed and dark place then and pretty much creating music for myself... I'd like to think it's relatable, but not necessarily 'for' the public.

ST: Your sound isn't very New Orleans as far as I can tell. Where does it come from?
TV: I've been hearing that a lot since we fired our accordian player (joking) It's not unprecedented for New Orleans to have some kind of "underground" rock sounding band around. There were The Normals, Red Rockers and The Cold back in the late 70s/early 80s, our beginnings were in that huge goth/punk scene we had here in the late 90's. This city seems to have always generated some band or other that is a result of the discontent of living in what can be a very harsh and violent environment.
In my mind, that rootsy sounding traditional "New Orleans" music is the Bourbon St to our Lower Decatur St. Nothing wrong with it, but it's more at the surface of what really goes on in New Orleans. Anyone that lives here knows that it's not all daquiris and beignets and some guy playing sax on the street corner, there's a great deal of emotional anxiety that can come with living in a city where you can get shot walking to buy groceries and run the potential of getting wiped out by a hurricane every fall. There isn't any other band from here really articulating that right now. Our sound comes from living in real-life New Orleans and not postcard New Orleans. I don't see us as any more or less authentically "New Orleans" than any other band from here, we just embody a different aspect of the same place.
However, with all that being said, we can bust out a pretty serious funk jam if pressed for it, and often do that in other cities for soundcheck for the sheer purpose of baffling soundmen haha

ST: You guys lost a band member this past year a way most bands wish to never lose a member. How has your transition to a new member gone?
JACK: It's harder than you can imagine. Especially since two of us knew Ryan from when we were children. We definately lost a major part of our sound. Ryan was completely unique as far as a musician and a person.
TV: Ronan and I learned to play our instruments together figuring out tab out of Guitar World when we were in high school. He's fitting in great and writing really well with us, bringing a little bit more punk to it. Ryan was more of a funk player, and the sound is changing as you would expect it to with a new member. So it's different, but still very much in keeping with what we do. It's been hard on Ronan to fill Ryan's place due to the nature of his death but he's been doing well with it and everyone has been very supportive.
I should also take a second to express our thanks to Jonathan Logan (formerly of Krush U.K. and the Molly Ringwalds) He was working with us before Ronan moved here and really helped us get through that period, but unfortunately we weren't able to get a show together while he was with us. If it wasn't for his contribution, we might not have been able to continue.

ST: Summer vacation plans? It always seems bands like to take road trips for their summer vacations.
TV: We've started working up a couple of mini-tours, nothing more than 5 days. We're all working stiffs, so it's kinda hard to break away from that sometimes.
BY: no plans except going to disney with the family.

ST: Now that my poor hornets are all done, we now move our focus to the Saints. What are your thoughts on their draft this year?
JACK: I'm just waiting to get the Saints' Super Bowl tattoo. I have all the games marked down on my calendar. I'm ready and hoping for the best.

ST: Promote your show on Friday night. Doing any big things?
RONAN: staying sober enough to play is always a big thing.

ST: I know you throw Action Action Reaction and you have a tendency of getting people to their underwear. Going to top that?
TV: Haha yeah we've created a monster with the dance party. For the record, I don't know how the underwear thing got started, but I ain't complaining. Friday's going to be a great show. The Green Genes are one of my favorite locals. Those guys are amazing. Makeshift Lover just moved over here from the Mississippi coast and I think people are really going to love them too. It gets pretty hot in the circle bar, so who knows, we might just end up in our skivvies before the night's through

Well I can only hope some people get get into their underwear up here as well this Friday! The Public was kind enough to give up a few MP3s.

MP3: The Public - Almost Perfect Moment
MP3: The Public - Control Self Panic