Five quick questions with Bryan Funck of New Orleans’ THOU. A brief interview for their show at Good Records on Friday, April 22nd. Big Fiction to play at 8pm, THOU at 9PM. Donations would be appreciated very much.
1) – What was the reaction or feedback from THOU’s profile on NPR last year? Did you find it odd to have such a heavy act profiled on NPR?
Bryan Funck: The reactions seemed to be mostly positive, although there were some funny comments that we got a kick out of on the NPR post. It seems like they’re covering plenty of heavier albums–The Body, Harvey Milk, Salome, Agalloch, etc. It didn’t seem too strange. Also, I think the kind of people who pay attention to stuff like NPR, those are the kind of folks we want listening to our music. People who actually care about politics, social issues, the world.
2) – What’s behind all the elaborate detail in the packaging and artwork for every EP and Album?
BF: We think that the artwork in a record should be a nice counterpart to the music we’re creating. The art is there to add depth and help create the atmosphere as we explore certain themes. I think the packaging and artwork we use is generally pretty simple and straightforward. We’re not doing mutli-layered die cuts or fold outs or anything. Most of our records are black and white, with maybe a little red. This isn’t Graf Orlock!
Note: Graf Orlock are known for INSANE DIE-CUT, last 10″ album turned into a boombox; see image below:
3) – How are you all able to release new material on a consistent basis, I think you have Three or Four EPs due by the end of the year?
BF: With a lot of help from our friends who run labels, our friends who record, and our friends who help us put everything together. For the most part, we’ve been writing for releases for the past four years. After this summer, we’re about to clear our plate off completely (except for the Pygmy Lush split), so we’ll finally be able to go back to just writing for writing’s sake. We’ll have to see how that goes.
4) – Does the band ever wear masks?
BF: Only the masks of “humor” and “friendliness.” Only to hide our pain.
5) – Why only Three Texas dates/shows on this mini-tour?
BF: We’re only going out for the weekend because some of us can’t get the extra time off work to do a proper tour. We’re just trying to hit a few cities that are nearby that we’ve been putting off for a while. Why Texas? We love Brother/Ghost in Austin. We wanted to check out the Anarchist Bookfair in Houston. And we’re curious about Dallas, since you’ve been trying to get us to come up for a while now.
* – What’s your favorite place to stop, play and/or eat on tour?
BF: Foodswings in New York.