Puscifer is currently touring their new album Conditions of My Parole. As the tour made their way to the midwest, Puscifer played a show at the Peabody Opera House in St. Louis. Puscifer lit up the opera house with their unique mix of sound and the audience stood at their seats awed by the amazing theatrical show that put on before them.
The members of Puscifer are as follows, Maynard James Keenan, Mat Mitchell, Carina Round, Matt McJunkins, Jeff Friedl, and many others. Mat Mitchell took some time between shows to answer a few questions.
Elicia Nichols, Popwreckoning: What bands have the members of Puscifer been involved with?
Mat Mitchell, Puscifer: Carina Round has several solo albums as well as a band Early Winters, which was a little more folk. Matt McJunkins came from Ashes Divide, Jeff Friedl also plays with Devo and both Matt and Jeff did the latest A Perfect Circle tour. My history is with punk rock bands in the late 80’s early 90’s then I got off that bid. I was doing more soundtrack work and video game kind of stuff, then I got into more behind the scenes work I worked with Nine Inch Nails, Tool and Katy Perry.
PW: How did the members meet and end up forming Puscifer?
MM: Maynard had the skit on Mr. Show and he and Danny Lonard had done one off things for soundtracks, and then when they were ready I was working with him quite a bit we started building the first full length record. Danny worked with us on the Mission.
PW: What brings this range of music together to create such a sound that Puscier possess?
MM: I think what brought us all together as musicians are the range of music and the style we like and similar influences. We enjoy the style of super high tech electronic programming and then bringing a banjo and things like that.
PW: When the idea of Puscifer started was this dynamic range of musical talents planed of did it just fall into place?
MM: I’d say it was planned out we wanted to do something that was not the guitar based drum kind of rock thing. We experimented with different orchestra. We try to deconstruct what rock music is, we deconstruct it to reconstruct it to what we want.
PW: In the song “Conditions of My Parole” was Maynard experimenting with a rap type sound with the lyrics in the sound?
MM: I don’t know if he was looking for that style but he is notorious for being able to give you vocals that will hit you out of left field. When you are working on a song you hear what you think the vocals are going to be he takes it to the next level and he has mastered that.
PW: Since Puscifer formed only three years ago, you are still pretty fresh. Have you experienced any hard ships that a new band tends to face?
MM: Well I think we are in a unique situation where Maynard has such a following that we have been fortunate to not deal with those situations. Something we set early on that this is supposed to be fun so if something is causing stress we try to defuse it right out of the gate it out of the gate.
PW: You listed the Verde Valley as a place of inspiration, how did Puscifer pull the inspiration out the Valley?
MM: Well most of us live in LA, and while I love LA it’s very fast paced it’s hard to focus but there is so much going on the energy is different from the Valley. The Valley is in the Valley you don’t get cell phone reception so there is far fewer distractions. The landscape is amazing, so it’s like when you grow up in the city and then go camping and the shift you get your body that allows you to mellow out. It’s really inspirational and it allows you to be focus on being creative.
PW: Did you write the entire album in the desert?
MM: We did some pick up stuff in LA. We definitely did 99% of it in the AZ and we got together separately and then in a group and put it all together.
MM: The live aspect of things is where we like to push ourselves to be untraditional just like our music. We are not trying to reinvent rock we are trying to push ourselves to have you come to a rock show we want you to not expect a rock show.
Interview and photos by Elicia Nichols
