Q+A: Passion Pit

Jeff Apruzzese and Ian Hultquist, before their set at WILD. Photo by Matt Ström.  More on Flickr »

Few bands rocket into stardom like quasi-electro youngsters Passion Pit, whose two year anniversary marks milestones ranging from signing to a major label to touring the world.  ELEVEN caught up with Ian Hultquist (keyboards, guitar) and Jeff Apruzzese (bass, keyboards) before their set at WashU’s fall WILD concert to talk about how they went from Berklee to music festival stages at the drop of a hat.

Passion Pit – The Reeling

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How did you two begin playing in Passion Pit?

Ian Hultquist:

Passion Pit started with Mike [Angelakos] by himself in a bedroom, writing songs on a laptop.  And, I’d been friends with him before and we had played in bands together, and he did one show where he played these songs.  It was just him and backing track, no band or anything and I was looking for something else to do, music-wise, so I said we should start a band and then play these songs live.  And that’s what started it, but it was a long process.  We spent an entire summer and fall learning how to play keyboards, because we never did that before – we’re all guitarists.  [We’ve been] learning how to make these songs work on stage, and we’ve still been working on that for the last two years.

[To Jeff] How did you get involved?

Jeff Apruzzese:

I was friends with everyone, but initially Mike hated me because I was a Fixed Gear kid around Boston (laughs), but we put aside our differences.  We all pretty much had common friends, and I had kind of been asked to play with the band last summer, filling in for awhile.  Things progress[ed] really rapidly, and two weeks after I was in the band, we were signing a record deal.  Things happened really, really fast.

With the decision to sign with a large label so soon after joining Passion Pit, it sounds like there were some big choices for you to make.  What was the turning point where you decided that this was what you wanted to do as a career?

JA:

The four of us, sans Mike, went to Berklee [College of Music], so we all were musicians.  We were studying music and this was something we wanted to do.  But, I don’t think it was something we thought we would be doing without day jobs.  I think the point [when] I realized I was gonna do it was when I had spent all summer after I graduated trying to find a job, and I finally got a job because Ian was working at the Apple store, and I got a job [there].  I went through two weeks of training, and when I was supposed to have my official first day, we were having a show in Martha’s Vinyard with RJD2, and I had to quit via iPhone because we weren’t going to make it back in time.  That was when I made the decision – take this out and ride it for as long as it lasts.

How did putting out the EP help you get noticed by such major labels so quickly and secure a deal a year into the band’s history?

IH:

Mike had put out the EP, but it was just by himself, but it wasn’t on a label or anything.  He just burned copies on CDs and gave them to people.  So, Frenchkiss was the original [label] that released the EP, and then once we signed to Columbia, they kind of re-released it.

JH:

I think the craziest part about all of it was that the first time we played in New York City, when we did a residency at Pianos in the Lower East Side, and it was crazy because the first show sold out as we had gotten there, the second show sold out the day beforehand, and the third show sold out a week or two beforehand.  What was crazy about it was that just as we had gotten signed to an independent label, we had major labels coming to these small crappy shows that we were playing.  We had just signed to an indie label and major labels were already looking at upstreaming us.  So much was happening so fast.

Many bands spend years searching for and defining their style and sound, yet Passion Pit seemingly instantaneously nailed it down.  Are you happy about skipping years of climbing the ladder, or do you miss the ability to take time to play with the group’s songwriting and live abilities?

JA:

We all played in bands, and we’ve all busted our asses in those groups, so we all put in the time.  The thing that was kind of weird was that for a lot of the beginning of this tour, we were essentially practicing in front of 500 person audiences.  It was like we were still learning how to play our songs in front of these huge crowds.  The first tours we did were kind of pathetic, because we were headlining theses shows and doing month long tours, but we only knew seven songs.  So like, on a slow night, and this was before we had everything mapped out to a click, some nights our show would be a half hour, and sometimes it would be 22 minutes long.  At a headlining set, people would be asking us to come out and play an encore, but we’d be like “we don’t know how to play any other songs right now.  This is all we can do.”

This past summer, you guys had played a ton of festivals for the first time. Do you have any thoughts about the jump from playing small club shows to huge festivals?  I can imagine having an audience 50 times larger than that of a year ago could be nerve-wracking.

IH:

I’d say it’s kind of funny, because for me, when we played Lollapalooza, which was like 11,000 people or something, I almost feel less nervous.  But let’s say we go play for like 250 people, like we’re all shaking before we go on stage.  There’s that intimacy which you really have to be aware of – they’re standing right there.  We played Electric Lady Studios, and there were 30 people sitting on the floor staring at you.

JA:

We were literally freaking out before we went on.  I was like shaking, and the night before we had played Central Park in front of 5,500 people.

IH:

We played Providence right after that, in this really tiny theater where bands aren’t supposed to play because it was that small.  People were standing literally a centimeter away from your keyboards like this [puts his hands close to his face] the whole time.  I feel that we’re more comfortable with a bigger audience than we used to be.

So which style of show do you enjoy more?  Ironically, larger shows may have less pressure, but at what venues do you feel the tightest as a band?

JA:

It’s the comfort level – there’s kind of a threshold that can kind of be met.  If we’re playing a small club with a big enough stage to fit comfortably, that’s amazing.  With the amount of stuff we have on stage, if we’re playing small stages, it gets really uncomfortable.  I’m usually the one who gets the most pissy – I’m stuck behind Ian and Mike.  The smallest show we played was in Glasgow, Scotland, and the stage was so small that literally Mike, Ian, and Ayad [Al Adhamy]’s keyboards were all facing the front and all touching because the stage was so small.  We were so cramped up there.  But you know, with the smaller shows, there can definitely be more energy than in a huge outdoor festival.  And that’s what we thrive on, putting our energy out there and letting people take it and receive it, and give it back to us.

In the past two years, Passion Pit has gone from composing songs on a laptop to headlining tours and releasing the much acclaimed LP Manners to a worldwide distribution.  Now that Passion Pit has been thrust into the limelight, do you feel any different?

IH:

I don’t know if I necessarily feel different.  I try to take everything as humbling, and try not to lose my head about any of it, because I never want to be that person. For me, I hope for the most part I’m the same guy I was before this band started.  I hope other people would agree for the most part (laughs).

JA:

Yeah, I think we’ve all tried to maintain that humbleness and down-to-Earthness.  It’s kind of funny, because people expect you to change based upon it. I had seen an old friend when we played in New York, who I hadn’t seen in four to five years.  She acted surprised that I was still the same person that I was in high school, and I was like “why would we be any different?”  We’re just really gracious for the opportunity we’ve been given, and that we’re able to play.  In a time like this too, with this horrible economic stuff that’s going on, [it’s incredible] that we’re able to survive and play music every night.  And you know, people come to our shows.  That’s what we’re really stoked for.

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