Speaking Plainly: A conversation with Joe Pug

Listen Up Toledo  |  05/02/2013

Joe Pug can quickly silence an entire room. On Friday, when the 20-something Maryland native, Austin-transplant rolls into the Village Idiot, you'll see: his scrappy energy, effortlessly powerful vocals and sharp, poetic lyrics have serious take-over power. Before his show in Maumee ? where he'll be backed by a lead guitar player and a stand-up bassist ? Toledo.com caught up with Pug to talk about new material, giving away music for free and why The Hold Steady's Craig Finn is a super chill dude. 

The last time we spoke, a little under a year ago, right around when The Great Despiser was released, you said the creative floodgates were opening again in terms of writing songs. Has that material shaped into something you're excited about? 

Yeah, I had some time off the road in December and January that allowed me to write. I still think I'm pretty far from a new album, but it certainly has a promising start. 

On The Great Despiser, you worked with some great musicians, producing your most instrument-heavy record to date. How do you feel those guys enhanced your sound? 

It was just a real treat to be able to work with that palette of colors. It was just great to work with those guys, that have a history of being professional musicians. 

Craig Finn, of The Hold Steady, sang backing vocals on the album's title track. How did that come to be?

I had ran into him a couple of times at festivals and different gigs. When we were listening to the playback of the song in the studio, we realized it had this chilling sonic debt to The Hold Stead. Somebody kind of jokingly floated the idea of getting him to sing on it and we kind of had a laugh. Then we said, 'Well, fuck it; why don't we give it a shot?' And we dropped him a line and he was totally cool about it.

After recording The Great Despiser in a full-band capacity, you have played many of those same songs in a much more stripped-down way live. You also play some of the Nation of Heat Songs with the band. Do you think it's important to push songs as far as you can?

It depends. I really think that the recorded songs and the show that we do live are two completely different arrows and they require completely different things. There is a level of intimacy that you can achieve on record, which would be impossible to recreate live. And there is this sort of manic energy that you can create live, which wouldn't necessarily come across on an album, so I just look at them as two entirely different jobs.

What was it about the newest record, The Great Despiser, that was the hardest for you to translate into a live show?

Well, what was really interesting with that is it is the first album where there were songs on the album that we had never played live. We did it on purpose; we really wanted it to be brand new when we hit the road. In retrospect, I don't know if I would ever do it again. I might try to workshop the songs a little bit more. Before we take them into the studio, I like to try some things out and I already am playing a few new songs live. 

When you play new songs live before you record them, do you enjoy the feedback from the crowd?

Absolutely. Yeah. Ya know, but you can't get to the point where you are pandering to everybody and only putting on songs that are huge crowd pleasers. At the same time, it is an art where you are trying to connect to people, so you are trying to walk this fine line between pandering and being completely esoteric. 

Back in the day, you used to send people copies of your EP, The Nation of Heat, for free. In an age where a lot of people get there music from the Internet, what is the importance of putting physical copies in people's hands and how did it benefit you?

Well, when we were first doing that, it was about five years ago ? and there were people that were doing it already ? but it was sort of a new thing: giving away music. But now, it's just sort of standard. Whether it's Spotify or a new band giving away their album for free; it's just the standard thing. We still give music away on our site, but found that we had a lot more traction with that at the beginning than we do now. 

Do you think that because a tool like Spotify saturates people with so much music that it's still beneficial to put a physical copy into people's hands? 

Yeah. You're right; there is such a saturation, so the thing you have to focus on is putting as few steps as possible in between people hearing of your band and listening to your band, whether that's giving them a physical CD or making it as few clicks as possible. People's attention spans these day can be so brief that you really have to focus on being able to connect with them before their attention drifts. It's important to make it easy for people.

You have been touring pretty heavily for the last few years, which has included big venues, mid-sized rooms, outdoor festivals and smaller bars. Do you find certain aspects of smaller clubs, like the Village Idiot, that are special or advantageous?

Yes, I do. I much rather have 100 people packed into a 100-person club than 250 people spread out in a 500-person club. There's something really special about that energy. We've played almost every small club at this point, although we haven't done the Village Idiot yet. I guess we'll check one last one off the list. 

Tickets are $10 at the door. The Show starts at 8pm. The Village Idiot is located at 309 Conant Street in Maumee. For more info, call 419-893-7281.