Were you literally singing into your computer mic or something?
Yeah, or I had an 8-inch cable mic that would just go direct in. It sounded awful but I loved digital distortion at the time and I loved compressing the hell out of vocals – it just sounded interesting and whiny and desperate and it was how I was feeling at the time and that’s about it.
You have such a distinctive sounding voice. Did you ever go through a period where you felt self-conscious about singing?
Yeah, up until today. It’s such a weird, unnatural way to sing because you’re essentially in your superhead. It’s not a falsetto because your vocal chords are apart and superhead your vocal chords are together. I’m singing night after night, 45 minutes to an hour and it becomes very difficult, and it’s going to draw criticism because it’s a little different. It’s probably the most divisive element of our music and I think it’s also the element that maybe made this band stick out a bit more. I don’t sing like that. I wish I could sing in my regular register, but I just happened to sing this way and it worked. I always struggle with it. I really do. But what I just started doing recently is I’m not playing keyboards anymore; I just sing, which is a huge step, and we just did it at the last two shows. We debuted it at the Latitude Festival in Suffolk and we did it in Germany at the Mel Festival and the difference in terms of my performance, vocal performance, and just the way the crowd reacts, it’s a whole other show and we just won’t go back. It’s the best feeling thing in the world. It just improved my vocal performance because I can let loose and focus on it and even when my voice is deteriorating because I’m so tired of touring it’s far more likely that I’ll hit all the notes if I’m just singing now.
Also, it’s so much more physically involved.
Yeah, and it’s on its own. When I record I layer it 18 to 20 times. The recording is just layer and layer and layer of vocal, and live it’s one singular voice, which is just really hard to keep up. But now it’s a lot more fun, a lot easier, and I think we’re going to stick with it.
I want to step back for one second before you go ahead on that first EP. What kinds of music were you making before Passion Pit. Did you have other projects, were you working on other kinds of music?
Yeah. I mean, I was always leading bands, and if it was solo projects it was like folk or slowcore. I did a fairly straightforward indie-pop project when I was a junior in high school. I was in a ska band when I was in 8th grade. It’s the best thing though because I learned all about how to arrange with a band of very unruly people and I think it’s still paying off. All of the bands that I’ve been in would have 6-8 songs and we would have a one-off show, and then I’d quit. And I’d say no more. And then I can’t remember the songs, I don’t know what it’s called. I have the shortest attention span of anyone I know, and the fact that this band has been around for as long as it has, is insane. My family especially just cannot believe that I’ve stuck with it for so long. And really it’s just a therapy thing. It’s just extremely therapeutic to be like, “I’m going to work through this, I’m going to make this happen.” But this whole project has been a giant therapy session, really.
The band is only one direction out of many directions that you might want to take. Is that limited in the sense that Passion Pit is going to be on this trajectory and you have a sense of what the boundaries are for it?
I know what it’s capable of doing and I know what it’s not capable of doing, which means I’m in a comfortable position as a songwriter, because if you’re having any kind of identity crisis when you’re working on a project, you’re in a lot of trouble. I think we’re at a point where I think I know where I want to take it next and I’m fairly pleased with that, which is again a huge step for me and even anyone else in the band. I don’t think it’s necessarily a means to an end. I don’t think of any project like that because, I have so many writing projects coming up for other artists and producing and writing for other artists and everything is just kind of its own entity, and I allow them to take up their own space in my life and Passion Pit is taking up a lot more space than anything else right now. But I’m certainly reaping the benefits from it as a songwriter. There are 56 kids in PS22 choir singing my song on YouTube to MTV so the songs are resonating. It means that the formula’s working so I’m going to continue to like play with it. Bruce Springsteen has a specific formula and he beats it to death and that’s Bruce Springsteen. Right now this project is about beating to death a specific successful way of working, and that’s fine. I’m letting it go for now and if we all get tired of it at some point, we’ll move on, but right now it’s a good thing.
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