I Can Play "Smells Like Teen Spirit" But Only On One String!: The Phantom Planet Inerview

Phantom Planet have grown on their second album. The Guest is a very varied piece of clever pop. In this interview Alex Greenwald, Jacques Brautbar and Sam Farrar speak about being desperate to get to Los Angeles, working with Mitchell Froom and Tschad Blake, sounding like your own Mom and their new motto "Harder, better, faster, stronger".

Robert Pally: You never just have one producer for your albums. Why is that? Are you difficult to work with?

Alex Greenwald (22): No, get out of here!! This happened completely coincidentalyl. Our first record Is Missing we did entirely with Paul Fox. Afterwards we decided that we were not happy with some of the songs. So we did some with another producer. They never worked together. That’s different with our new record The guest. Mitchell Froom and Tschad Blake always work together. We were very fortunate to have the two for our new album. They play off each other and we play of each other. All works very well together.

RP: The guest has musically compared to your first album many sides. Beside other influences I hear elements from Elvis Costello, the Beach Boys, some Radiohead and Travis. Was that planned or is that completely coincidence?

Jacques Brautbar (23): I think in between our first (1998) and our second record (2002) we had a lot of time to mature personally and musically. Over this period we wrote around 50 songs. We were and we are still not really sure exactly in which direction we are going. The songs that worked best together were an eclectic mix of some poppy songs and some darker songs and some straight end rock songs. That is actually quite nice because there is something for everyone’s taste.

RP: How did you go to the studio, with completely written songs, or did you just have the structures?

Sam Farrar (23): We had pretty well rehearsed all the songs except for one: "Turn smile shift repeat", which had not played before as a band. We build it from the loop and laying some more on the top of it. For all the rest we were ready to go. It took a couple of takes and that was it.

RP: Mitchell Froom is known that he tries to put his musical stamp on his productions. How was it working with him?

Jacques Brautbar: We had a ruler. Every time he tried to stamp it we smacked his hand (laughing).

Sam Farrar: Producers are supposed to have their own sound. Especially Mitchell and Tchad have their own sound, for sure! They have their own way recording wise. They are definitely minimalist. We never could use more that 24 tracks as a rule. They tried to get the largest dynamic of the least amount of tracks! If that’s a stamp than I see it. The only thing I could possible think was: We asked if he wanted to play keyboards on a song.

RP: What is for you the main difference between Is missing and The guest?

Alex Greenwald: The amount of time we spend recording! Which is irrelevant of the way they sound like. The first one took 6 month, with 12 hour days. A lot of overdubs. We were only 16 years old and still in high school. A lot of things were going on. You can hear that on the tracks. We also were a bit musically underdeveloped at that time. It was our first record. It was more of a learning experience. The guest took only 3 weeks to make. Really quick. 7 hours a day. We did a song a day, almost. We recorded the basic tracks and used the next day to sing it or correct a few mistakes.

RP: So you went well prepared into the studio?

Alex Greenwald: Yes. Some of the songs were 3 years to a month old, that we have been practicing. We never stopped playing shows. The more shows we played the more songs we added to our repertoire. We felt what worked and what did not work. By the time it was time to record we had many songs that already had a certain lifespan. A year later the same song on the record sounds completely different because it kept growing and we grew with it. Mitch and Tchad taught us, which is something we didn’t learn when making the first record, sometimes less is more. I already mentioned their minimalism. Mitch taught us: the way you record a song, as long as you are happy with it, thats the way its gonna be live. That’s what our curse is and I think that is the curse of many artists. You look back on your past works and you don’t necessarily enjoy them. You always wanna change something. Mitch said: that’s what is gonna happen. You have to deal with it. A song is a song the way it lives on a record. Its just like a photograph. The way you take a photo when you are child is not the way you take a photo when you are an adult. That amount of time makes you different. You are still the same person. Like you still have the same song but it may sound different. We made The guest a year ago. Now the songs look a bit older! Maybe even more handsome in my opinion (laughs). They lost a bit of baby fat.

RP: I mentioned before Travis and Radiohead. Were these bands an influence?

Alex Greenwald: We first started playing in 1994. That was when Nirvana, Weezer and Radiohead were big. Those 3 bands at that time were big influences in addition to bands like the Beatles, Beach Boys and Elvis Costello. I definitely think that Radiohead and Travis are bands that we respect.

Jaques Brautbar: All this band take from the same sort of melodic and good lyrical content with a backing Rock’n’Roll. Each of these bands are unique.

Alex Greenwald: If they were painters, they would use the same primary colors but it's what they do with them that is different and exciting. The way they mix them together.

Sam Farrar: Their careers have really been an inspiration to us. Like Radiohead: Every record they have done is completely different from the last. I think that is a really important thing about a band. You should constantly evolve.

RP: So, you already have written new songs that go in a different direction?

Alex Greenwald: They are still similar. We have been on tour for 9 months. That’s a long time. We only got 2 weeks for Christmas. I feel that we take our playing and our dynamic as band and in the songwriting stronger directions. Maybe more exaggerated. Harder, faster, stronger. There is a song by Daft Punk called "Harder, better, faster, stronger" from their last album. That’s our motto. That’s is our way of saying: keep growing. We always try to do better. The new songs are more raw. We also feel more comfortable as band now. I don’t think that we are hiding behind our instruments on The guest. We feel more confident and have less to hid behind our instruments. The next record may in terms of learning of that minimalism, that Mitch taught us, we will try even less to get more. Maybe more intimate.

RP: Maybe also more atmosphere? Rick Rubin is good in creating that. On the album of Johnny Cash he got a great atmosphere without using many instruments. Is this something you are heading towards?

Alex Greenwald: Yes. I think the most important thing even over the sounds, the engineering on a record, the instrumentation, what stuff you use. Its all about the energy that the people in the band put on a recording. You can have the best sound, stuff that is exiting to hear but if the minds of people are not focused on what they do there is no use.

Jacques Brautbar: It’s almost something metaphysical, it transcends. You can feel it. You can not say: okay, lets do it. Its something that’s magical, that you can’t really grab and put to tape. But I feel because we so play long together that our chances are better to get that!

RP: Sometimes mistakes can also turn into something beautiful!

Alex Greenwald: One great thing about the Rock’n’Roll format is that it is unpredictable. Sometimes mistakes can be great. Leaving the chance / danger of having a mistake makes it exciting.

RP: I hear some Beach Boys in the song "California". What actually made you write it?

Alex Greenwald: Is was more the sun in California than the Beach Boys that inspired us. We were on the east coast doing a tour for our first record. 17 years old, fresh out of high school. We got a bit lonely and homesick, although we only got for a month. Like now we got for 9 month (all laugh). Its like we were a bunch of babies. That’s ridiculous. We all got pretty homesick and missed the family and our girlfriends. That’s when the idea for "California" came about. We said: lets write about going home. It has just the right amount of syllables in California. Not to mention there were times when you drive all night. You are all at the point of delirium. When you see the sign "Los Angeles 150 Miles". You say: "we gotta make it, we gotta make it". You are desperate to get there. To get home. Its an amazing experience. Every one now get in your car and drive 6 hours out of the city. Stay up all night, turn around and drive back! And see what is gonna happen.

RP: In Switzerland you would cross the border and be in Germany after 6 hours (laughs)! We live in a small country.

RP: "Lonely day" and "In our darkest hour" are then more melancholy. Were you depressed on tour?

Alex Greenwald: Both songs have to do with not being happy with were you are. In a place or just mentally or emotionally. We went through a number of years questioning whether or not being in a band was the best thing to do. We had pressure from out parents. What are going to do with your life!?!

RP: That’s the big question!

Alex Greenwald: You start questioning what am I gonna do with my life. What is the right thing to do. «In our darkest hour» I wrote in college. We all went to school together. Even the tinniest thing, in this case it’s a cigarette burning a house down. One little idea can drag you down into depression. Or in the same sort of idea: One little mistake can affect the rest of my life. Just fuck myself.

Jacques Brautbar: You sound like my mom.

Alex Greenwald: I sound like my mom too! «Lonely day» is more about having gone through that waking up and release this is getting a shity day. Who knows if I get over it. I might as well sing about it.

RP: At the moment things are going good for you!! Is the album in the charts?

Alex Greenwald: Yes, its somewhere in the hundreds. Its such an honor to be in charts at all. We had high hopes for it.

Sam Farrar: We already sold 70,000 copies of it. We never thought that we would sell that many!

Alex: That’s about 1000 times more than what we sold from "Is Missing".

RP: I read somewhere that you are best known for your drummer Jason Schwartzman. Why is that?

Alex: Before we released our first album Jason called us up from a party and said: They asked me to audition for a movie. Shall I do it? We answered: Yes, totally, man. That’s funny. Lets try it. He did it and got the part. It was an independent film called Rushmore. When that film came out our album hadn’t come out. So Jason was first known as being an actor. A month after the film our record came out. Because of this it looked a bit as if he was an actor first. Jason has well known face now, but he is not like Leo (laughs).

RP: Now we come to the boring questions: How did you come up with the name "Phantom Planet"?

Sam: Phantom Planet was the name of a sixties science fiction movie. I think from 1961. Alex had this CD of theme songs from various movies. Star Trek, Close Encounters and others. All came in Disco versions. Cheesy seventies style. One of the tracks sound particular strange. We never heard it before. We looked on the cover and it says "Phantom Planet". At that point we were all in high school and kind of ditched our friends. We played all the time music. We didn’t go to any party.

Alex: Ignoring our score! Ignoring our friends.

Sam: As cheesy it might be, we were in our own little world.

Alex: We were in that romantic stage like in a relationship. When you first meet someone. You are so happy with what you do that you forget about everything else.

Sam: Coming up with a band name is probably the hardest thing you can possibly do.

Alex: Especially, when you have five different opinions.

Sam: When Alex said "Phantom Planet". We all said: yeah, okay, cool.

RP: Can you tell me briefly how everything started with Phantom Planet?

Sam: Jason knew Alex from elementary school. Jason had started a band with this guy Darren, who is now our guitar player. They needed a vocalist. Jason remembered that Alex could sing.

Alex: One time I was over to his house and played the guitar - I had just learned how to play. I sang a song. Then I was 12. Years later Jason calls me. All he knew was that I knew how to play "Smells Like Teen Spirit", but only on one string. I still only know how to play on one string.

Alex: So while that was going on, Sam and I started a band. One day I met Jason in a guitar shop. After a few month of courtship we started to rehearse together. The chemistry was there.

Sam: We all knew the same songs and the same bands. So we stuck with it.

Alex: So far, all we got is this lousy t-shirt and this interview in Switzerland.

RP: Your new album is pretty successful. Can you tell me what triggered that?

Alex: Lots of money to the right people (laughs)!

Sam: It’s a bit of luck and making sure playing as many shows as you possible can.

Alex: We would play for anyone, anytime, anywhere. That gave us a name out there.

RP: Maybe it was your appearance in "Sabrina the witch" (smiles)?

Alex: That was almost more a favor to Melissa Joan Hart. She wanted us on her soundtrack. We met her and she was very nice and very much into our band. She asked us if we wanted to be on the show. So we did it.

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