Band with Pants expounds on their mission

In the Kitchen... braved the depravity that is Harkness to interview campus/town band Band With Pants. Oberlin resident Erik von Rippy and junior Trevett Hooper spoke with arts editor Mara Nelson, while the third member of the group, first-year Reesa Gumpp, was MIA.

mara nelson: Okay, since I just found out that I was interviewing you guys, and I just came from an "experimental tea party," we can just carry the theme through and make this an experimental evening… So, Band with Pants, who are you?

erik von rippy: That's Trevett, and I'm Rippy and Reesa [Gumpp] is missing for our first interview.

mn: That's terrible.
evr: Let's talk about our band.
mn: Okay, when did BWP start?
evr: September 1996.
mn: Did you have other bands before this band?
evr: I've been in many other bands, in many other towns.
mn: So what was the impetus behind starting BWP?
evr: I lived here last year and wanted to start a band, but it wasn't working out. This year I went up to Greg Will and said: Greg, Do you want to start a band? And he said yes. But then Greg left the band. That's the beginning of the story.
mn: How would you describe your sound?
trevett hooper: Post-trendy.
mn: What does post-trendy mean?
th: I don't really know.
evr: It's just a word we got stuck with, `cause people were trying to call us other things that we didn't want to be called.
th: Every band thinks they're unique and can't be classified, and maybe we sound like other bands, but to me, I can't really classify us.
mn: But apart from classifying yourselves, do you have a sparse sound, is it dense, what is the sound like?
evr: It's sparser than it should be due to the fact that there's only three of us - there should be a lot more. We have a lot of trouble finding people to play our complicated music, which is actually not sparse at all. It is very maximalist.
mn: What does maximalist mean?
evr: There are more notes per second than usual.
mn: Who writes the music?
evr: Me and Trevett, so far.
mn: I heard you have really crazy time signatures.
th: Yeah, it makes it hard to dance to.
evr: Does it? It means you have to think more when you're dancing I suppose. A lot of music today is rhthymically boring.
mn: Do you expect people to sit down and listen to Band with Pants in their rooms, or do you want people to experience you live, and dance, or sit there…
evr: Well they can't really experience us in their rooms since we're not in their rooms.
mn: I meant on tape.
th: Personally, I'd like people to listen to it, but that's a lot to ask considering that I don't really listen to a lot of other people's music. It seems like the type of music that you can't just hear it and really get it the first time. I had to listen to Rippy's tape about twenty times and I kept hearing more things.
mn: What instruments do you all play?
th: We play everything. Bass, keyboards, drums...
evr: We have a synthesizer that sounds like an organ - two of them.
th: Sounds like a fake organ actually.
evr: We have the fake organ sound because a real organ is too heavy to bring.
mn: Where did the name Band With Pants come from?
th: I think we wanted a name whose initials had more syllables than the actual name.
evr: That's not true.
th: Yes it is. Well... maybe it was an afterthought.
evr: We don't even know how we got our name, but it's the right name and it stuck. Were you there for that?
mike kabakoff: No.
evr: We're talking to the photographer.
mn: Why would Mike have been there for that?
evr: He's often present for a lot of events.
mk: Every time Rippy has a watershed moment in his life, I'm around.
mn: Do you have any questions for BWP since you've seen them through so many of their seminal moments?
mk: What is the relationship that you try and have with the crowd during your show? I've noticed that you play the crowd much differently than say, Bippy.
evr: Are you comparing me to Bippy? Because all I can say is I don't hate hippies, as far as that goes. My relationship to the crowd - I'm the performer, they're the audience. And I want to connect us in some weird way.
mk: Like when you have them tell you the next song.
evr: Sure. I like to get the audience involved with the show, because, you know, they're there. I don't want them to get bored, just watching us.
th: I really don't care. I mean, I do, but I don't either, I just want to play music.
mn: Dan, Dan come here. Do you have any questions for Band with Pants?
dan spalding: Sure. Could you guys tell us what your musical influences were?
evr: Next question.
ds: So, which member of Rush do you identify with most? Neil Peart, Geddy Lee or Alex Lifeson?
mn: I hate Rush.
ds: Okay, you're in a car going the speed of light, your twin brother is on Earth...
evr: That's a good point. The Earth's rotation is very fast actually, much faster than humans are able to keep up with. Humans are slower than the Earth. I however, have felt like I'm closer to the Earth's speed than many people. I try to express this in my music. I also know that the Earth moves at a certain speed and people's cars tend to try to catch up with the Earth's speed, but I realize that that is not a good way to drive, so I like to drive slow and play fast.
mn: I understand so much more now.
mk: Do you identify with the motto: Life is short, play hard?
evr: No.
mk: How do you feel about people who say about trivial matters: That really scares me?
evr: That really scares me.
th: Maybe I'm apathetic, but I don't really care.
evr: I think that question was directed towards me. I personally think it's scary that people are so inclined to repeat things that they hear everybody else say.
th: Me too. I feel exactly the same way.
mn: Is that why you don't use the word cool?
evr: I've used the word cool probably more than anyone in this room, and I'm done with that word.
mn: You've moved on to a new vocabularly?
evr: The new word is sketched out, or oozing on people, or monocular ganking. Okay, more questions about the band please. Aren't you supposed to ask us about our future or something?
mn: Sure, what's the future of the Band with Pants?
evr: Well, tommorrow at one o'clock we're going to practice in Lorain.
mn: Why do you practice in Lorain?
evr: That's where our practice space is since there aren't any available in Oberlin.
mn: Do you feel more professional than all the other campus bands who just practice in Wilder?
evr: Yeah, we kind of do. Maybe we even kind of are, but I don't know. We feel pretty professional driving out to our professional practice space. Wait, this is going to be read by a lot of people, isn't it?
mn: Well, yes and no. It's in the paper, which means a lot of people have access to it, but that doesn't neccesarily mean that anyone is going to read it.
evr: What sort of people read your paper?
mn: I have no idea.
evr: They probably want us to say something shocking and controversial, because people like to read that kind of thing in the paper.
th: Let's talk about music. That's the most important thing.
evr: Oh yeah, music is the most important thing, tell them that.
th: Music is the most important thing, and the wonderful thing about that, is it serves no practical purpose.
evr: Yeah, music serves no practical purpsose, people just think they need it.
th: And they don't.
evr: They don't. And you know what, people don't need to make music either. Everyone wants to be a musician, `cause they see other people being musicians, and they say: oh, this is so creative, I want to be creative too. We don't need more music. There's plenty of music. Go buy every CD ever made, and you will never ever be able to listen to it all. There is such a huge quantity of music, and it is completely useless for people to make more. So you're going to ask us: why are we making music.
mn: Okay, why are you making music?
evr: Because we believe in it. It's completely impracical. Somehow I feel that my life really depends on it, more than a lot of other people's lives might.
mn: Isn't that a tad bit egotistical?
evr: Well, there's so many ways of looking at everything, and I'm just showing you two different sides. It is kind of useless to make music that isn't completely original.
th: It's kind of annoying to sit through a band who is not really good and they know they're not good. Sometimes things turn into popularity contests, not shows. But this kind of goes against my belief that it's totally meaningless in the first place.
evr: Life is multi-faceted, and music is so multi-faceted. Music should just make people feel good, because people get so wrapped up in music and argue about it and fight over it, and what for, it's just some sound that's supposed to make you feel good.
mn: Do you think your music makes people feel good?
evr: Probably not. Maybe some people, it's kind of harsh and dissonant.
mn: What are you thinking about when you're composing your music?
th: My composition process usually lies in having a specific form that I want to use and then I make rules for the particular song. I make rules to try to make me compose in a way I normally wouldn't think of doing. I use a part of my brain that really isn't my own, it's the composition's. Does that make sense? So the composition becomes the thing that's writing and not me. Because my brain is limited. I don't really think of how it's going to make someone feel, because I don't really want to make people feel a specific way.

Band with Pants is playing this Saturday at 9:00 p.m. at Harkness with Endor, Uneducate Evil and Daitura Tide.

Where's Reesa?: Junior Trevett Hooper and Oberlin resident Eriv von Rippy bemoan the loss of their bandmate. (photo by Mike Kabakoff)