20 Watts

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart have captured ours and countless others

Alex Naidus and Kip Berman were cubicle-mates at a standard office job until Berman entered the office one day with a fully formed band plan in mind.

“I want to start this band called ‘The Pains of Being Pure at Heart,” Berman told his friend.

Several years later, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart have become Generation Y’s answer to the saccharine dream pop of classics like My Bloody Valentine and The Pastels.  Their self-titled debut, released last February, rode a wave of blogosphere hype to universal acclaim and several international tours.  20 Watts spoke to bassist Alex Naidus during the band’s recent stop in Los Angeles.

20 Watts: What do you like to call your music?
Naidus: We typically call it pop music — short songs, really catchy. The main thing we add an addendum to is that we like loud pop. We all bonded over guitar-heavy, but also, like, really sugary songs. We’d say loud pop. I personally don’t think of us as shoegaze. We don’t use tons of guitar pedals; we don’t actually gaze at our shoes. We typically have more fun.

20W: Are you grateful to websites like Pitchfork Media and Brooklyn Vegan? Do you like the way the Internet is helping the music scene?
Naidus: It’s pretty exciting… It’s a really crazy time to be alive, but in terms of being a music fan its super exciting to find anything you want and hear it immediately. It’s obviously helped us a lot. We’ve also done a lot of traditional things like touring, radio sessions, or whatever else you do, but before we had the capability to do all that the Internet definitely exposed us to a lot of people who never would have heard us before or would have given us a shot. It’s leveled the playing field in terms of getting yourself out there.

20W: How do you feel to be compared to your influences like My Bloody Valentine? You’ve also been called an American Joy Division, how does that make you feel?
Naidus: It’s really insane to even hear those things tossed around. I think its natural for anyone to look for a reference point and those bands are obviously legendary. I don’t see ourselves on that level. We had modest ambitions when we started. We just wanted to play shows and maybe put out a single.

20W: How are you dealing with the newfound fame?
Naidus: I think it’s really good and has been important that we’re actually friends. We go on tour and still need each other. It hasn’t become this thing where we’re divas. We all keep each other in check, especially on this tour. We showed up in Boise, Idaho and there were 15 people there. It’s not like all of a sudden I walk down the street and I get tackled ’cause I play bass in Pains. We are just like everyone else. We have just been given a really, really exciting opportunity to tour and to live for music.

20W: Speaking of touring, what is your favorite venue you’ve played so far and which is your favorite venue to see a show at?
Naidus: We have a soft spot for Cake Shop on the Lower East Side because we’ve played so many shows there and we played shows there before anyone else. It has a nice hometown feel. I also really love playing Bowery Ballroom. Growing up in Jersey and living in New York for a while, there were so many shows that I loved there. It means so much to me [to be] actually playing there — we were kind of pinching ourselves onstage. To be on that stage was just crazy.

20W: You attended Skidmore College, another Central New York school.  What was the music scene like up there while you were at school?
Naidus: When I was there it was all jam bands and blues cover bands. I worked for the radio station and I would hang a lot with the record nerds, that was super influential. They told me about this local band called The Snakes, who are still one of my favorite bands. They are a capital-region gem that gets passed on from Skidmore generation to Skidmore generation. I hope the kids there now still know The Snakes and still like them.  I always found it incredible that a band like that could last for so long.

20W: Any words of advice for bands looking to break into the music scene?
Naidus: I think its pretty simple; just don’t expect to blow up immediately or anything. Just do it for fun. Obviously use the Internet, but just don’t forget to tour and play shows. Play locally. I personally think the model of sending demo CDs to labels is dead. It seems kind of antiquated. Put your stuff on MySpace and start playing shows. Then if it’s good, people will notice.

– Darren Bleckner