These Are Powers Interview: SXSW 2010

These Are Powers make frenetic noise-pop that reflects the mile-a-minute nature of the band's home base of New York. Ex-Liars bassist Pat Noecker met vocalist Anna Barie while on tour with her former band Knife Skills in 2006. When original drummer Ted McGrath left the band in 2006, the pair left the drum kit behind and recruited Bill Salas on electronic percussion. As the band prepares for its SXSW performance, Spinner talked with Noecker about inventing and outgrowing the 'ghost punk' genre, channeling his subconscious and the allure of modern hip hop radio.

Describe your sound in your own words.

It's a beat-heavy sound, layered with live electronic manipulation that comes out in the form of pop songs. For me, the music is an expression of a higher state. It's a form of communication, a way of expressing ourselves and what we want to do with art and music. People tell me a lot that These Are Powers has something original going on, and I think that reflects three people trying to speak to one another through music, and hopefully speak to the planet and beyond.

You just released the 'Candyman' EP with three new songs and two remixes. What is the remix's place in music today?

I think the process of remixing involves the ... experimenting and sculpting of space through sound. More so, I think that we're in an era of interpretation ... through the use of electronics, people can reinterpret each other. The language of music is expanding. I'm sure there are some purists who say you shouldn't mess around with something that's already been done or created, but that would be like saying jazz musicians can't reinterpret each other's work. I think it comes down to this thing that technology is giving musicians the ability now to collage works that have already been done, to reinterpret and to restructure. It's something that the visual world has been doing for a long time, and the music world has the tools now to really make this possible.

Your music has been labeled 'ghost punk'. Did you come up with that term?

When Anna and I started the band, we were half joking, saying, "Let's come up with our own term to describe the music to give people something to latch onto." So we did that and it kind of worked. But ghost punk has been officially dead for about a year and a half. The birth of a new sound was the funeral. When Ted left the band, that marked the death of ghost punk. We wanted to completely go in a different direction, so when Bill joined the band, that's when we definitely had a palate to work with a new sound.

How did your band form?

I met Anna about five years ago. Her band and my band did a tour together, and after that tour, both bands split up, and Anna and I started this band. We met Bill on our first tour when he opened up for us, and we really liked what he was doing. When we got back from that tour, Ted quit, and I put in a call to Bill in Chicago, and he was very interested in trying it out. We split an airplane ticket for him to come out to New York, and he tried out. Then Anna and I went to Chicago for five weeks about a month after that, and basically we've been touring ever since then and putting out records.

What are your musical influences?

Everything -- just walking down the sidewalk and seeing something interesting or hearing something interesting that someone says. Everything is an influence. It ranges from peaceful to very chaotic and intense, and all those things, I think, subconsciously come out in the music.

How did you come up with your band name?

Originally, we had just Powers. Then this photographer from Germany wrote and said, "I like the new band, but sorry, I have that name for my band." So we added 'These Are' to kind of get around that, because we liked what the word 'powers' means on a lot of levels. And we wanted to have something spiritual and strong to describe us. Good band names invite many layers of conceptuality.

What's your biggest vice?

I guess vice is rooted in desire, and I desire an expensive coffee every morning -- a split shot Americano -- and I get it from Gorilla Coffee in Brooklyn, because they know how to make a deep coffee.

What's in your festival survival kit?

Okay, these are the things that are not going to destroy me. Lots of water, green tea, probably some dried food like granola, some seeds, maybe some powdered greens, food from that Whole Foods down there that's so fun and awesome to go to. Keeping hydrated and having a good time.

What's your musical guilty pleasure?

Hot 97 in New York. After a while of listening to it, you start to feel like you've eaten too much candy. I do like getting in the van and turning on Hot 97 to see what weird, modern production thing is happening on mainstream hip-hop radio. "Guilty pleasure" should be an oxymoron, really.

Beatles or Rolling Stones?

Beatles' more trippy shit. The more psychedelic Beatles.

What's the craziest thing you've seen or experienced while on tour?

It's all kind of crazy; it's not like there's one epicenter of craziness. Going to China and touring was fucking crazy. Flying that far away from home and playing was like being on another planet. Going to the Great Wall and playing in Shanghai. It's not like you're waiting for something crazy to happen ... you are in the middle of craziness when you do something like that.



Zack Zoeller is a contributor from Seed.com. Learn how you can contribute here.