Plastic Picnic: Interview with Brooklyn's rising indie band

"Sad music that makes you want to dance"

If you've ever scratched the surface of New York City's underground music scene, there is a good chance you've encountered the Brooklyn based yacht-pop band, Plastic Picnic.

The dreamy, '80s like sound with a punk edge and the illumination of neon pineapple, a staple of the band's gigs, captures the uniqueness and nostalgia of Plastic Picnic.

All originally from the Pacific Northwest, Plastic Picnic consists of Emile Panerio, Lincoln Lute, Marshall Hunt and Gordon Taylor.  Though some of the members met at different points in their lives, they were all brought together after they separately moved to the big city.

Now, the band has been moving beyond the New York City music scene. They just completed a tour across the east coast, even playing a line of shows at Austin's SXSW.

This past year, Plastic Picnic released their debut EP, Plastic Picnic, gaining over 1 million listens on Spotify for the song "Bite," which has even been featured on Spotify's "Ultimate Indie" playlist.

During their time at SXSW, a video of one of the band members, Lincoln, even went viral. The video features Lincoln, dressed in a printed button up and fedora, working on his combat skills; another staple of the band, a character named Simon.

The Celebrity Cafe was given the opportunity to sit down with the band and discuss their music, recent success, and Simon. Read the interview with Plastic Picnic below!

 What's everyone's name and instrument?

Gordon: I'm Gordon, I play drums.

Lincoln: My name is Lincoln and I play guitar and synths.

Marshall: I'm Marshall, I play the bass guitar and synthesizers.

Emille: I'm Emille, I sing and play guitar and synthesizers.

How do you describe your genre?

Emille: New York City yacht pop. I think it's like if an '80s emo-pop band made modern guitar music.

Marshall: Someone described us as emo-pop the other day. *laughs*

Emille: Yeah, I was not offended.

Marshall: I was not offended at all. I was stoked.

What's the story behind the name Plastic Picnic?

Emile: Lincoln and I moved to New York right before these guys did and we had a big goal, we still have this goal, to capture sonic juxtaposition in the songs themselves. Like having hip-hop elements and juxtapose that with rock elements and more aggressive guitars. So we wanted the name to have something to do with juxtaposition. It was kind of a representation of both coasts; we represent ourselves as being from Seattle but also from New York. So plastic represents the gritty architecture and materialism of New York City. Picnic represents the wholesome; where we're from, family, and nature. Plastic Picnic is the juxtaposition between the materialistic, metropolis world and the wholesome nature world we grew up in.

How'd you become a band?

Gordon: We're all originally from the Seattle area, the west coast, but we all somehow didn't know each other out there. Marshall and I played music together out in the Seattle area.  Lincoln and Emille were out there in a band as well, they moved out to New York playing as a duo. Then, immediately after Marshall and I moved out to the city, a mutual friend said like "You guys don't know Lincoln and Emile? You need to go play music with them." So we met them at the practice space and next thing we know, we'd been playing music for three hours straight. At the next practice, Emille was like "So, for the next song I thought we could start it like.." and I said "Wait, next song? Does that mean we're a band?" and Emile said "Well, I'm down if you are." *laughs*

What is your rehearsal space?

Gordon: Right now, we have a studio that we share with a couple other bands in Bushwick. It's called Danbro studios, it's right next to the sweatshop. When we first started playing together, we rehearsed at this practice space behind Crownvick, which is now the VICE offices or something. It's been torn down.

Where do you look for inspiration whenever you're writing?

Lincoln: We like to stay up to date on modern music. We're really inspired right now by what's happening right now with so many different bands. We try to pick their brains, sonically, by asking what are they doing? What tricks are they using? What are they talking about? But we're also very true to our old, earlier influences. We were just on tour for a bit and when we were in the car, at any moment, we'd dive into any genre of music. Like it would go from country to jazz and then like heavy metal, even acoustic guitar, and Americana. We pull from all over the place but we try and refine that into something that we think is really current and interesting in the music climate today.

Emile: We're very democratic and collaborative so I think sonically that keeps it interesting. It's four different minds contributing what they think is interesting. I think lyrically, for me, growing up in the northwest, listening to a lot of emo-indie music- I've always been a huge fan of Ben Gibbard and Bright Eyes. We went to college with the Deathcamp guys so that was a heavy influence while I was growing up. I've always liked the idea of accessible pop music that has really dark lyrical content. Kinda of like The Cure did, but I like the idea of people dancing to sad music. *laughs* So I think a lot about that, too.

How has your music evolved since you first started playing together?

Gordon: Our whole songwriting process, like Emile said, is really collaborative. All four of us get into a room and work on it together. We've really started to learn how to write with each other much better. That's still an evolving process but we're starting to get much more confidence with that. Between the very first stuff we've written and where we are now, it's gotten a little bit more synth-y and streamlined in some ways. We've been bringing a bit more grit and darkness to our direction as well.

Lincoln: When we first started playing, we wrote music really quickly together. Within a month of sitting down together for the first time, we were writing songs and putting them together. We released those so quickly. It's been really great to have that come together, but although we know we can write songs so quickly, we're trying to give ourselves time to develop and understand each other's musical tastes. We're like an old wine, aging together nicely. Because right off the bat we were like "We can do this! We can write so many songs together, this is so fun and easy!" But now we're trying to let ourselves understand the intricacies of everyone's writing styles.

How was your SXSW experience?

Marshall: It was good, it was actually great. Like Emile said, it was kind of like boot camp for a band, but in a good way. You hear a lot of people talk about how it's kind of challenging and not a great experience. When a lot of people talk about South, they talk about it like it's a horrible, draining chore that every band has to do but we didn't look at it that way. It was successful, one of our most successful tours. We all had a good time and enjoyed the progress we made.

One of your "band members," Simon, went viral... Where is he tonight?

Lincoln: *laughs* He's hiding in the bathroom.

TCC: Right. He's nervous, I get it.

Marshall: He doesn't have a lot of friends, so he doesn't come out when a lot of people are around.

Lincoln: Simon has yet to come out on stage, but at some point, he will.

TCC: Good, I look forward to it.

What are you working on right now?

Gordon: Right now, we are working on mostly a bunch of writing new tunes. We've got a couple things that we've started tracking. Hopefully, we'll have a song coming out in the summer. It'll be fall or winter for the release of an EP or whatever it turns out to be. The main focus is on writing right now. We've got a number of ideas that are floating around right now that are starting to take shape. We're just trying to take time to maybe escape the city for the weekend and try to get to know those songs.

Where do you guys go to escape the city?

Gordon: Last time we did it, we found an Airbnb cabin in Kingston, New York. That was great. We spent an entire weekend there just holed away in the middle of the winter. It was like freezing outside and we made food, drank beer and lots of coffee and just spent all day working on some songs. One of our new songs, half of it all came together right there.

What do you hope to come of the future?

Emile: We're just really focused on writing right now. I think we're in a nice place right now. We don't have any obligation to release anything right away. So it's kind of nice because I think people are still really enjoying the EP, so we're buying ourselves some time and just writing. I want the next release to be received well but I'm also hoping it's a sincere representation of what Plastic Picnic sounds like. It's weird because I feel like the sophomore release is a lot of pressure but since it's just an EP, we don't really feel that pressure so we can still define ourselves however we want. An EP isn't a super large commitment if that makes sense. So yeah, we hope to focus in and release a lot more music and do a lot more touring. We made a lot of friends at SXSW, we're hoping some of those friends will turn into touring opportunities. We'd be pretty stoked to get on a tour with bigger support in the fall or winter next year.

Any advice for young artists rising in music?

Lincoln: I think a lot of bands think being successful is just about playing music. It's so much work and it's so much outside of that. We all have our duties outside the band and they occupy probably a lot more time than just playing music and writing music. You have to do so much more like promotion and organizing and just figuring things out. I think a lot of young bands don't understand they need to be spending 70 percent of their time when their first starting, building their name, branding who you are, recording and structuring and planning out when you need to release stuff; the work aspect of it. It's really important, as is the creative aspect of defining your sound, being unique and offering something to the music world that people are going to find interesting. Promoting it and understanding how to be a band and grow is so important.

Marshall: Persistence. There's no fast solution, it's the long game.

If you could collaborate with any artist, who would it be?

Gordon: Maybe Japanese Breakfast. Or Annie Clark (St. Vincent). That's a couple of our heroes right now. It would be an absolute dream. Annie Clark would be absolutely amazing to work with. It would be fascinating to see what kind of collaboration would come through with her.

Emile: I think both Japanese Breakfast and Annie Clark are ideal for songwriting. We also love the idea of featuring a female vocalist or doing a duet, I just love that sound. I just think that relationship with the male and female voice would blend in really well with our music. I'd love to do that.

TCC: Anyone else?

Lincoln: I was just gonna say: Slipknot.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Emile: Collectively? As a group?

Marshall: Happiness. *laughs*

Lincoln: I would have the power to kill every rat and cockroach in New York City.

TCC: I second that.

Gordon: What is Simon's superpower? It would be like... the ability to speak to dragons. Or to summon a dragon.

Lincoln: I guess the real answer to that is I already have a superpower. And it's Simon.

Anything else you want to add?

Emile: Stay tuned for some music in the summertime. Pray that it gets warmer again soon.

You can follow Plastic Picnic on Twitter and Instagram: @plasticpicnic

 

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