PVT // Q&A

It’s been over a year since Australian three-piece PVT’s last album ‘Church With No Magic’ and, as The Fly catches up with them, they’re only just winding down its touring schedule. It’s been a cycle that’s seen them support Warpaint in the USA and tour Europe twice. Yet all this has come in the wake of the group being forced to change their name after a dispute with trailer park trash American rockers Pivot, an unwanted change of identity that’s been a tall order to overcome…
It’s not surprising then to find the band’s brothers Richard and Lawrence Pike (keyboardist and programmer Dave Miller is out getting food) in somewhat fatigued form as we catch up with them before their show at Manchester’s Ruby Lounge, in order to discuss identity, album number three and – who else – Lady Gaga…

You’re coming to the end of ‘Church With No Magic’’s cycle. Looking back over it, how would you say the reaction’s been and how have your feelings towards it changed?
Richard Pike: Pretty varied. It’s been odd to see where the positive reactions have come from, because the album’s totally different from the last one and it’s come from places that have been unexpected for us, yet other places we expected feedback from we didn’t get much, especially the media in the UK.
Lawrence Pike: I feel that the change in band name was a bigger deal than we expected. On the surface it seemed such a small change, but for many it was major. That’s been a real drag for us, sometimes I think we should’ve told those arseholes to go fuck themselves. I think it’s been the biggest regret of this whole record, it’s added an extra struggle.

Like starting again?
LP: Yeah, not completely, but when we toured the record in Europe there were a lot of cities where we expected a much better turnout. For a lot of people they didn’t realise who we were anymore; it’s taken a bit of time to rebuild.
RP: Germany was terrible. We went from having an audience there to… it did feel like we were starting again. Maybe they just didn’t like the new record.
LP: I think playing the album a lot’s revealed lots about it to us; it’s created a reaction in my mind about how I’d like to do things differently.
RP: You tour an album so much you’re just constantly thinking about what you want to do differently and by the end of playing it to death you just want something fresh. Having said that we’ve had a lot of fun with it; you get to a point where it gets so tight you loosen up and have fun with it.

What stage are you at with the next album?
RP: We’ve put down some ideas but we’ve just been touring, we’ve not really dug in. But we’ll be at home from the end of May.
Which direction are you thinking of going in next?
LP: The things we’re throwing out at the moment, it’s all talking shop vibe. My big focus is writing things in a certain tempo, something that’s quite constant within 120-130 beats per minute and just doing something a little more spacious. Simple and spacious, those are the two big words – and with strong melodic ideas. The music we’ve been listening to has all been going in a similar direction.

Is there relief that at least, with the next one, it’ll be a completely new start because you’ll be going into it as PVT and not Pivot?
LP: I dunno, we might change our name again.
RP: Yeah we might just do another band, just to keep the numbers down in Germany. We’ll switch to the old band name and go back there and they’ll be like “where did you go!? We’ve been waiting ages for an album!”

Because of your unique sound, your constant life on the road, your geographical location and the more grass roots, word of mouth nature of your profile – do you feel isolated at all?
LP: Hype’s a funny thing; I don’t know what generates it. It’s hard to generate it being an Australian band; anyone who says it’s not is bullshitting. ‘Church With No Magic’ didn’t feel a lot like anything else a lot of people had been doing, not like disco. It seems that to get a lot of attention at the moment you have to be doing what is essentially disco. Ours wasn’t really a dance record …
RP: It felt to me that we were trying to sell apples to people who were devouring oranges. But we enjoy what we do because we get to do what we want to do. LP: I think people who come to see us appreciate that about us, it takes way more guts to do that than write a song that latches onto hype. We’ve just heard that new Lady Gaga song [‘Judas’], have you heard it? The intro sounds like it’s taken from one of our tracks.
RP: A friend sent it to us and we were like “my god!” Maybe Lady Gaga’s listening to us! Maybe we’ll get to go on tour with her.
LP: We’ll have to start wearing meat hats! I think that’s when we know we’ve got to retire.
RP: But we’re talking as if nobody listens to us, we’re actually talking about isolation in a wider public consciousness, and I think we do feel that in some way. It’s a very Australian thing.

But look at artists like Caribou; he was about for a long time before he got to the stage of crossing over. There’s something to be said for slow burning longevity.
LP: Yeah, his last album was disco though…
RP: Exhibit A! He said “fuck it I’m doing a disco album.” Right, the next album is going to be a disco album. We could do it under another name?
LP: The Meat Hats. I could eat a meat hat right now.

What would you like to come next given the cycle you’ve just been through?
RP: We will always focus on an album but I just want to keep making music regardless on whether it’s on an album or not.
LP: We’ve not had a lot of time and space to do that in a couple of years, we’ve always felt like our creative time has been at a premium so the idea of not doing any touring for the rest of the year and just working on the record is pretty liberating. A lot of touring is more focused on performing and surviving rather than being a wholly creative rewarding experience, sometimes it’s just about getting through the night when you’ve done show after show. Having this space for several months is really exciting – I think it’ll have a really good effect too; it’s been a factor that’s been missing to some extent, and it’ll make the music a lot more patient.
RP: We just want to develop our own space and let things find their own natural conclusion whereas in the past it felt like we were trying a lot of things and throwing them out there – which you can hear on ‘Church With No Magic’. It’s an interesting listen because of that, but now it’ll be about taking time, it’ll be like making music for the joy of making music and reclaiming that for ourselves in some ways.