Matt Pond returns home after two months on tour

Don’t be confused. Matt Pond is the man, but Matt Pond PA is the band, OK? Their beautifully layered, melancholy pop music, often compared to Death Cab for Cutie and the like, is making people take notice. It’s been a big year. Pond & Co. released their latest CD, “Several Arrows Later” (Altitude Records), made appearances on Carson Daly and Conan O’Brien’s respective late night shows, had music placed on TV’s “The OC,” and got favorable critical nods from Rolling Stone and Penthouse. (We asked Matt about that one.)

We talked to the New Hampshire native on his cell phone as he and the band drove their van, “Vanzig,” to the next show. The band just finished a month-long run supporting Liz Phair before heading out on the current month-long leg, which brings them to Hampton Beach this Friday, Nov. 11, with Guster. Matt Pond PA is Matt Pond (guitars, vocals) Brian Pearl (guitars/piano), Dan Crowell (drums), Daniel Mitha (bass) and Dana Feder (cello).

You guys just came off a tour with Liz Phair, right? How did it go?
It was good, I mean this is all good. That tour kinda slammed into this one, though. The day after we stopped playing with her, we drove like 10 hours to do the first Guster show.

You got to play some big fancy rooms, too. How was it playing (Chicago’s) Vic Theater?
It was cool, they were very cool to us. It’s been a lot more fun these days than before. Other bands—especially Guster—have been really cool to us. It’s kind of... It almost makes us suspicious. “What do you want from us!?” Like, they’re trying to trick us and give us rufies or something.

The Liz Phair tour and the Guster tour are certainly indications that things are going well. You’ve had a lot of good things happen in the past year.
It gets better and better, which is of course, better than before when it was OK, and OK, —and then bad. (Laughs) Now everything that happens that’s bad is counteracted by something extremely positive.

I noticed, among those positive things, that you were featured in a recent Rolling Stone “Ten Bands to Watch” piece.
Yes!

But more to the point, I noticed in your bio that you guys were reviewed in Penthouse. Was that an elaborate setup to look at nudie pictures?
I wish that were true. I wish that we had sat in some dark room and plotted to get into Penthouse—to be able to justify our need for pornography.

Did you guys end up posing?
(Laughs) No! No, no. That would be disgusting. There’s nothing even funny about that at all. I didn’t even see it. I just didn’t have the balls to go into a store and say, “Oh, and I’d like a copy of Penthouse please.” I’ve never even seen the physical copy of it.

Well, someone has seen it because it’s on your Web site. It was scanned in.
We got that as a clip or something. Someone sent that to us. I wish that weren’t the case. Seeing a naked woman right now—it would make me happier than anything. I’ve never seen Dana (Feder, cello) half-clothed, she’s much more modest—but seeing this bunch of dudes in their underwear is not so.....

Not so hot?
No. It’s not so hot.

So, tell me about the new record.
I think it’s just a lot more immediate than any of the other stuff that we’ve done. It’s funny, because some people have said that it sounds more “together,” and I think that in a sense it is. But it wasn’t labored over as much—it was worked out, and then it wasn’t fussed over. A lot of that has to do with Brian Pearl, who played a ton of stuff on the record, and Dan Crowell, who played drums. We did it as a band. A lot of the records we’d done before, I kind of pieced together. But this record is more direct, the lyrics are more direct. It’s really a cohesive thing. It really sticks out.

So did you end up straying stylistically from the family of music you played in the past then?
No, it was just a progression. We’re always going to try and put different things into records, to approach them a little differently, but it’s the same. (Laughs) That’s not really a good way to say that, is it? You’ve heard it a million times before, (but) try it!

So, you’re named Matt Pond PA. What will you do if we send around a petition to rename the band Matt Pond NH?
I’ve technically moved back to New Hampshire, too—with my Mom and my brother, though I still spend a lot of time in Brooklyn. But I’m true to my state.

Where did you grow up in New Hampshire, by the way?
I was born in Lancaster, but we moved all around because of the marrying, and then unmarrying, and then marrying of both my parents—but I’ve lived in Franconia, North Woodstock, Hanover, Jefferson. All over. Where do you live?

Oh, I live in Newmarket.
Might as well be Massachusetts then.

Hey! Them’s fightin’ words!
Tell me about it.

I also noticed in your bio that you refer to your band’s van as “Vanzig.”
We even have vanity plates printed. It’s one of those things that you think is really funny when you do it, but then you drive around the country and you just want to beat your head against a wall.

Don’t you think it’s important for a band to name their rig, though?
I do, and I wish that more people noticed our nod to The Misfits, but it’s like repeating a joke a million times until nobody laughs.

So what can people expect from the tour? Have you guys rallied around some philosophy at your live shows?
I was just about to say that line from Spinal Tap, “Have a good time all the time.” But, it’s kind of true. We are kind of non-stop. We like to have a lot of fun, and we like to do it every day, and it hurts. Staying out really late, having a beer, or a million beers, with your friends. It gets a little crazy.

As for the show, whatever we do on record, we try and push a little harder live. It’s definitely a lot of fun. On both tours the crowd has been really responsive.

So what’s the plan for the band?
After we finish this out, we go to England for a few shows. After that I want to write the next EP, and record it with these dudes, and lady. Then I think we go back to Europe in January, and in February we start another tour with us either headlining or co-headlining.

When you get to the one-month mark of a tour, which we’ve now passed, all you want to do is go home. It doesn’t matter how much fun you’re having—(at this point Matt is distracted) Hey look! There’s a Renaissance fair! No way! Uh, no matter how much fun you’re having, well, I would gladly go home right now if someone could just sing these songs and play my parts.

You guys did Carson Daly a while back, didn’t you?
And Conan O’Brien, too.

Oh yeah, how was that?
Carson Daly was cool, that was fine, but Conan O’Brien—you have a series of dreams in your life and that was one of them. It was really cool to meet him, to have him come over and shake our hands…. We’re selling a lot more records now. I don’t know if it’s the tour or the press, or Conan O’Brien or what.

So do you guys just want to make a living playing music or what?
The further you go, the more things you end up doing. It’s all momentum, and if it works out fine, then great, and if not, then I don’t know—we did it OK for a little bit. We tried.

Anything else to tell the fans who are likely to come to the show on Friday?
We come to rock. Softly.

Matt Pond PA
opening for Guster
at The Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom this Friday, Nov. 11. The show is sold out. Their new CD is entitled “Several Arrows Later” on Altitude Records. Check out the band at www.mattpondpa.com or www.altituderecords.com.