The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart: Your new best friend

New York‘s The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, who blend emotionally driven teenage drama with the fuzzed-out noise rock of bands such as Sonic Youth,  were launched into the national indie rock limelight thanks to rave reviews from their self-titled debut album. In what is sure to be one of the most buzzed over shows in Chapel Hill this year, The Pains will appear at Local 506 next Tuesday with fellow critical darling Cymbals Eat Guitars.

Diversions Staff Writer Luis Torres squeezed in an interview  with Kip Berman, the leader of the busy band, while he was in Portland, Ore., in the middle of the group’s second national tour this year.

Diversions: Given the extent of your recent touring, are you still excited to come to a small place like Chapel Hill?.

Kip Berman: We’re psyched to be coming back to Chapel Hill! We’ve played there once before, also at Local 506 in the spring this year.

Dive: I know you list New York City as your favorite town to play. How does Chapel Hill compare?

KB: We like playing in New York just because lots of our friends are there. But, up until recently, we only played very small shows there. Local 506 is pretty much the same size venue that we were used to coming up in New York.

The thing with expansive touring is that there are awesome places all over.  It’s a misconception that there aren’t cool things in smaller towns; there really are. Whether it’s Salt Lake City or Portland, it’s always nice to come share something with new people. Chapel Hill is a great music city; it has a lot of history with Merge Records and Superchunk.

Dive: Were you a fan of the Chapel Hill scene before you started playing shows here?

KB: Yeah, I was aware of it.  I grew up in Philadelphia, but I knew about the stuff going on there.  Chapel Hill was a great indie rock destination during the ’90s, and there was always an awareness of Merge Records and a lot of the great bands they put out. They put out the Magnetic Fields which is one of the awesomest bands around. I’m a big fan of that label. Also, Sonic Youth has this song called “Chapel Hill,” so that’s pretty cool.

Dive: Your band’s gotten a lot of attention and praise on the blogosphere this year. Do you relish the recognition? Do you ever resent the backlash that comes with it?

KB: We’re very grateful that people have responded so positively to our music.  It was way beyond any expectation we had or anything we could’ve thought possible. We’re extremely grateful and thankful. We weren’t really expecting to get to this level so we don’t have ambitions for fame. We just want to be a band that people like. I guess I’ve always thought of our music as the kind of band that would’ve been our favorite band when we were 17.  As long as someone enjoys it, then it’s fun for us to do. We don’t have ambitions to be huge for hugeness’ sake.  We don’t want to be as big as Coldplay or anything

Dive: What do you enjoy the most about your success?

KB: The most important thing for our band is to tour and work hard, so it’s really exciting that we’re getting to play in a lot of places outside of what we’re used to. We’ve toured in Scotland and England. Glasgow was really amazing because so much of the music from that country is really influential to the music that we play. I don’t know if there’s something in the water there, but so many great bands like Teenage Fanclub and Orange Juice and Belle & Sebastian are all from there and they’re all very prominent and significant to us.

Dive: Your music gets hit with a lot of labels such as “shoegaze” or “indie pop.” Do you ever mind that you get pigeonholed into certain genres?

KB: I think it’s natural for people to view music in that way. You have to call it something so we don’t get offended if people want to call it one thing or another.  We just want to write pop songs, we’re not conscious of one genre or another. Getting compared to older bands is really flattering because it’s bands we really admire. We’re never offended by that.

Dive: Your album cover is a simple black-and-white picture of two smiling girls. What’s the story behind that image? Why did you choose it?

KB: It’s a picture of two friends; they live in Arizona. One of them, her name’s Kendra and she’s an 18-year-old senior in high school and she does a lot of photography. We just really liked that image because our album centers around the idea of having a best friend and being isolated away from the world in a way.  Just having one best friend in high school and doing your own thing and not being popular among the crowd, but really feeling comfortable in your own area.  The image captures it really well.

Dive: What comes next after the Local 506 show?

KB: We’ll be touring in the states and then going over to Europe for a few more shows in Britain. We have a new EP out this month and that’ll give people some music for now. We recorded it in between tours; four songs we just finished in my friend’s basement. They’re really fun songs, and we’re excited to play them live and for people to get to hear them.

Dive: Are you going to put out  a new full-length anytime soon?

KB: We hope so, if we don’t, like, die. That would suck. As long as we’re alive and well, we should have a new album out next year.


Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.