Phenomenal Handclap Band is a seven piece touring band that plays funky, dancy music that one might be tempted to call groovy. Their self-titled album came out in June on Friendly Fire. I met up with them at the start of their tour, in their van behind the 930 club in DC.
PHB: Now that you're here, would you mind taking one of these pills?
EML: Well, if I have to. So, NPR called you guys the 'perfect mix of everything from the last forty years of popular music'. How do you respond?
PHB: [in unison] Thank you!
EML: Eight is a lot of people. How does that go?
Daniel: Well now, as far as touring band, it's seven. This is the first time we're going to try this. My production partner, who we produced and wrote the record together, he's going to stay home a lot more and do more of the the day to day stuff, like at the studio, at the headquarters type of thing. So now it's seven, on the road. He's with us in NY, and in spirit.
It's a lot of people, a lot of personalities to wrangle, but really the only problem I ever find with this many people in a group is getting people's schedules together for rehearsal, mundane things like that. We get along really well.
EML: How do you guys feel about filesharing, mp3s, that whole thing?
Daniel: It's kinda great, so much music is available. Especially older music, I don't feel bad about getting stuff like older music, because that stuff has already been out there. But obviously it's kinda a drag, because like, when we first put out the record, before it was even released, it was up on all these blogs. It makes you really aware of what that really means: file sharing. You don't really think of it as a big deal unless you're directly related to the outcome, to the line of fire. People would blog about us and put entire album, and it's like, why would you do this? Kind of a drag.
[Brief interlude in which I break the dome light in their van.]
EML: You've played here a few times recently. How do you find DC?
PHB: Yeah we were here in the Summer and in September. In the Summer, at dc9, we loved it. That gig was really good. This place really takes care of you well too, so it's great. DC has been one of our first major out of new york city US cities.
EML: How do you find DC people compared to NYC people?
Daniel: Definitely different, seems more collegiate for some reason.
Laura :I lived here for a year before I moved to new york, and there's a really good music scene. You have Adams Morgan, with all those live bands. And the Black Cat has great local bands too. Really cool.
EML: So...Witch doctor?
Daniel: Ha, yeah. Some antiquated nickname I got. The first record Sean and I made was in Brazil. We consulted this spiritual guy, kind of a witch doctor himself, a medicine man, did this whole divining process. There was this thing he did, and this loose translation, and he told me...'you are the witch doctor'. This kinda white magic thing we consulted down there.
Joan: It was actually black magic, but he's editing it.
EML: Joan, you write fiction?
Joan: I do, I write short stories, and some non fiction as well.
EML: Do you find that your musical experience informs that?
Joan: I do! I think writing ficiton is really musical. Structurally, and how you use language, I feel like it's such a musical process, in a lot of ways you're utilizing the same tools in abstract ways. I've also written some short stories that correlate to songs.
The Phenomenal Handclap Band - Baby
