PT: First, please introduce yourselves to
our readers: who plays what; where did you meet, and give us the story
behind the name - is PAIK a street near where you live, the name of your
rehearsal space, an acronym for some secret CIA undercover operation…?
Rob: We're PAIK from Detroit, Michigan.
Ryan plays drums & tympani, Rob is the guitarist, and Ali plays the bass. We
met in a local bar, over drinks. We were all in different bands at the time,
and those were not going in the direction we wanted, but we had seen each
other play, and we were sort of going the same way musically speaking, so we
decided to try playing together, and see how it went. Well, the first few
practices went so well that we ended up using a couple of those songs on our
first album, ‘Hugo Strange’. We got the name PAIK from an old dictionary
that we had laying around - it's an old English/Scottish slang word for a
powerful blow to the body, or a really hard punch, something like that.
Your overall sound is somewhat akin to
"organized confusion" or "structured improvisation." The songs all have a
"live" feel about them, yet there is a somewhat linear structure to them. Do
you typically sit down and map out a general direction each song will take
or do you just start rolling tape and begin playing until you hit upon a
groove or a vibe that you want to explore and then go back and edit the
material into a more formal "song" structure?
We write our songs both ways. Sometimes
one of us has a pretty complete idea of what the song should feel like, and
sometimes we just play. Rarely do we edit songs together, though¾ they are
almost always created as a whole entity.
Who did you listen to when you were
growing up? Are these "favourites" reflected in your sound or are they
artists you enjoy listening to when you're not "working?"
We each have different tastes in music, of
course, and I think that each of us have been influenced by what we grew up
listing to, but to list bands specifically would take up way too much time
in this interview…. There is no real effort to make music that is
reminiscent of anything in particular, we just bring whatever is in our
heads to practice.
You write all your own material. Do you
incorporate any covers into your live performances or do you envision
possibly covering any favorite or influential songs in the future?
Yes, we always write our own stuff. The
way we play together, it would be impossible to do anything else. There will
never be a PAIK cover of another band's material.
Another artist from the Detroit area -
Dearborn, to be specific - that also works predominantly in the "space rock"
instrumental style is Windy & Carl. Yet your sound is distinct from theirs
in that it is more aggressive and, Rob, your guitar playing is more
identifiable as a "guitar," whereas with Carl and his effects pedals and
things he runs his guitar through, unless you looked at the credits, you
might not realize that that sound was actually created by a guitar. You
thank W&C in the credits to your latest release, ‘Corridors’, so I assume
you're in contact and are good friends. Besides the two of you, is there
still much of a "space rock" scene going on in the Detroit area?
Space-rock is alive, but it's hard to find
sometimes. The bands are out there, but there is no real club scene going
currently. The garage rock scene is pretty popular with club owners right
now because people will fill the bar and drink plenty. Record stores and
word of mouth by those in the know - that's where "space" music and things
like that exist at the moment. Windy and Carl put on in-store concerts at
their place [Stormy Records] and those are always great shows.
‘Grey & The Dawn’ is one of my favourite
tracks off your debut, ‘Hugo Strange’; particularly your guitar sound, Rob,
that seems to be influenced by Robert Smith's playing with The Cure,
especially during their "suicide trilogy" period of ‘Faith’, ‘Seventeen
Seconds’ and ‘Pornography’. Was he an influence on your playing in general?
The Cure was definitely a band I listened
to when I was younger - and my name is actually Robert Smith, so I guess you
could say there's an influence there!
You work exclusively in the instrumental
vein. Is this your preferred format, or is it more a case of no-one feeling
comfortable singing or writing lyrics?
The instrumental format just suits our
style. We like our songs to have an atmosphere, a feeling, and sometimes
vocals can detract from that.
‘E. Grim,’ as the title suggests, is a
very ominous song with an unrelenting, pounding rhythm on your drums, Ryan,
and a driving guitar line, Rob, that almost seems to be propelling a funeral
procession along. Is it just a song title that you came up with to fit the
music? What, if anything does the "E" stand for?
The song is definitely "grim" alright -
that’s where that came from. The "E" actually stands for Ernest Borgnine!
The songs on ‘Hugo Strange’ are, for the
most part, short, distinct and to-the-point. Yet the spacey, psychedelic,
instrumental jam style you're working in would seem to lend itself to
stretching out and going off on tangents. Do your live shows tend to
incorporate more elaborate arrangements of the songs or do you prefer to
stay tight and remain close to the recorded arrangements?
We do a little bit of both. Some songs are
better for stretching out than others, and some need to be played really
tightly.
There’s a tendency to go off to another
planet on ‘Stellazine’ [from ‘Corridors’], which is your longest recorded
track at about 10 minutes, but for the most part you keep things "fast and
loose," as Lemmy used to say. Was that an intentional stretching out?
That song just happened that way. We did a
little bit of editing, about three minutes or so, but that's pretty much how
it came out the first time. Some things take time to bring out the element
you most want people to experience.
Your debut release incorporates a punny
title
"Hugo Strange" is a comic book villain…
Moving on to ‘Corridors’, recorded
just about a year ago. You thank a lot of fellow Terrascope/Terrastock bands
in the credits. Besides W&C, you mention Mike and Amy S. (whom I'm guessing
might be Gangloff and Shea, respectively, from Pelt) and Chris Morris (the
guitarist from Kinski.) Are you fans of these artists or are they bands
you've toured with or would like to tour or record with?
We like both Kinski and Pelt, they are
both great bands, and we would love to play/record with them sometime. But
the Mike and Amy are from this great band in Dayton that we play with often
called "Lab Partners," and Chris Morris is actually one of our room-mates.
[Talk about coincidences! –ed.]
The songs on ‘Corridors’, particularly
your guitar playing, Rob, is a little "fuzzier," not as crisp as on ‘Hugo
Strange’; there's more use of effects - particularly on ‘Strange Familiar,’
a song that builds to an almost grunge-like, swarming distorted crescendo.
Is this just a natural growth of your sound, a direction you'd like to move
in, or just a sound that was going through your heads at the time you were
recording?
We recorded the entire album at full
volume, as a kind of experiment, to try and get our record to sound more
like our live show, which is loud and distorted. It is an accurate
representation of our set list at that time.
You've re-recorded the single ‘Spacer.’
How did that arrangement change in the "2001" version?
The 2001 version is much darker that the
single version. It’s a little slower, deeper sounding.
Why did you elect to include this on the
new album? Was it a matter of continuity, since there was about a three year
gap between albums, or was it simply a matter of needing another track to
complete the album and nothing else was in a finished state?
We wanted to have an opportunity to get
the song out there for people to hear, because we sold out of the singles
pretty quickly. Plus we were playing it differently live, so it just made
sense to put it on the album. We only had enough money to record a couple of
songs, so we put out the single initially. We didn't expect to make money or
anything, we just "did it for the kids."
Another stylistic decision you seem to
have made on ‘Corridors’ is the repetition of a guitar riff as a linking
element from one song to the next, similar to that which Roy Montgomery did
on his release from last year, ‘Silver Wheel of Prayer’. For example, the
fadeout on ‘Spacer (2001)’ blends into ‘Hollow Ki,’ which then builds its
own melody and then as that fades out, the next track, ‘Spanning Time’ seems
to build on the coda from ‘Hollow Ki.’ Are you familiar with Montgomery's
release and did it have an effect on how you assembled and sequenced
‘Corridors’, or were those three tracks recorded as one long piece and then
just edited into three separate tracks for the final release?
All the songs were written at different
times, with nothing whatsoever to do with each other, but we decided to
arrange them in a certain way on the album to get the desired, continuous
feeling. We're not familiar with Roy Montgomery unfortunately. Now Wes
Montgomery….
Towards the end of ‘Spanning Time,’ I hear
what appears to be a keyboard floating around forming the bed as the track
builds to its conclusion. I don't see any credit for that, so is that
actually your guitar, Rob?
We don't use any keyboards, only guitars.
Are the albums more a blueprint for
extended jams that someone attending a live PAIK performance could expect?
Yes, our albums are more blueprints of the
live shows. The live shows also incorporate projection, lights, and truly
sonic volume levels to really take the participant the full distance.
I'd like to end with an update on what's
going on in PAIK land. How about future recording or general touring plans -
perhaps going overseas or branching out beyond your home turf?
We would ultimately like to find a way
over to play Europe and Japan and are currently recording a new full length
for Claire Records that will be released sometime in the spring or summer.
Also, look for a couple of side projects to be released on our Beyonder
Records label at some point. We will also be playing some shows with Windy
and Carl and Landing to and from the [fifth] Terrastock festival in [Boston
in] October of this year. (Ryan adds:) We are super excited and looking
forward to T5! it will definitly be the highlight of our year to say the
least!
Paik interview by Jeff Penczak, ©
Ptolemaic Terrascope, 2002. Introduction by Phil McMullen.