Perfect Pussy‘s debut last year definitely turned a lot of heads, and not just for their controversial name. The band’s debut album, clocking in at under a half hour, flies at breakneck speed while assaulting the listener with some brash punk and noise rock. By the end of the year, they were lauded as not only one of the best new bands on the scene, but one of the best bands of the year, with their album Say Yes To Love faring very well in the end-of-the-year festivities.
Perfect Pussy‘s debut last year definitely turned a lot of heads, and not just for their controversial name. The band’s debut album, clocking in at under a half hour, flies at breakneck speed while assaulting the listener with some brash punk and noise rock. By the end of the year, they were lauded as not only one of the best new bands on the scene, but one of the best bands of the year, with their album Say Yes To Love faring very well in the end-of-the-year festivities.
While Meredith Graves’ blistering vocals are easily at the forefront of the band, you’ll find the real force of the band in the background: keyboardist Shaun Sutkus. While initially his contributions to the band seem small, as you look deeper into his recording engineering background and the fact that he produced their record, you can find his fingerprints on virtually every component of their debut record.
We got to chat with Shaun, an extremely busy man with enough projects to last him years, before Perfect Pussy’s show at Strange Matter next Tuesday. He shared some of his sonic vision for the band, and their future plans, as well as a peek into his crazy schedule.
Sorry to start off generic, but what’s new with you?
I haven’t really been doing much of my own stuff. I just moved to New York City recently so it’s just been an adjustment. I started playing in a band and we’ve been working on that stuff. You know the band Rubblebucket? They’re good friends of mine. I’ve worked for them for years doing tour managing and in-house sound for them. They’re from New York too, and the main songwriter [Alex Toth] started writing new songs that were a little different. I feel like they’re similar to his style and I can tell they’re his songs, but they feel different, so he wanted to start a new band. He got a bunch of his friends together to help him play these songs that he’d been writing for the past month and he scheduled a couple of rehearsals. Steve [Marion] and Christian [Peslak] from Delicate Steve are playing in that band too. What’s funny is I brought thirty records with me to New York and the two Delicate Steve records are part of those thirty records that made it. Anyway, [Alex] and I had a one on one session one day and then we played a show one Friday and it was really, really fun. It reminded me of the good days in Syracuse – the really cool, DIY shows there.
Any plans for that band moving forward?
Right now, we’re just keeping it simple. I was literally just on the phone with Alex before this, talking about plans for recording. We’re going to try and do some recording, and try and get a tape out soon. Something small so people can hear it and check it out if they want.
So where does work with this band leave you time for the next Perfect Pussy record?
Well, [it’s] going to take a little more finesse and time before [Perfect Pussy] start writing, just because we’re all getting settled in a new city. Garrett still lives in Syracuse. We don’t have a practice space here yet, but that should be happening soon. We’ve got stuff to do before recording.
Is it going to be hectic going on tour without having a practice space at the moment?
Luckily for us, we had a lot of time to work on those songs, so if I didn’t play them for five years, I could probably play them all again just from muscle memory. Rehearsal isn’t really that necessary for us to play live at this point, because we aren’t doing new songs – we’re doing songs that we played for a year and a half. Once you play a show every single night for a year and a half, the same nine songs, you don’t forget them even if you want to. You just don’t forget.
Being a recording engineer, how much of the first record did you shape sonically?
It’s less of shaping and more of just trying to capture the moment in time. The existence of the sound pressure level changing in the space that you’re existing in with. [It] is kind of a funny way of thinking and saying it, but I believe it to be true on everything that I record. That’s what I do – just try to accurately capture the sounds that are coming through. Now, some of the sounds that people are talking about – like it being lo-fi or super blown out – all that comes from running that shit through a tape machine, or really a fake tape machine, and just driving the input of the tape machine, and it adds all of this harmonic distortion that doesn’t exist anywhere else without it.
Since that record came out, have you had a lot more offers to work with people who are interested in your stuff?
Not too many at this point. I’m not really expecting anything to change, to be honest. I’m always trying to work on music with friends of mine and artists that I stand behind. I haven’t done much since. It’s also hard because I don’t have a physical space. I moved from Syracuse and I had a space that I used there pretty cheap, but it was in Syracuse and no one wants to come there. It will be interesting in New York. The new space we’re getting into, it’ll have a tape machine and all my recording stuff there. I’m excited because I haven’t used a tape machine, a real one, for recording since college, so I’m excited to get back into it. Having to maintain it and re-learn how to calibrate it and stuff. That’s exciting for me. I like the challenge.
Anything else you’re looking to put in the practice space?
That’s pretty much it. It’s just going to be a community space with some of our good friends here. Ben Bondy [of Friendless Bummer] is a great friend of mine. Him and I have been working on some noise music together, and we’re talking about doing a small tape label too, so I think the operation of that is going to be ran out of that space as well. That’s the next step for me.
You have got a lot of balls in the air at the moment.
Yeah, but I have to keep myself busy. It’s what I love to do and what I’m here for, so I have to do it.
For that tape label, do you have any big aspirations for it or is it just something small for now?
Small. It’s supposed to be really chilled out. No big expectations. I want it to be really simple, fun, and aesthetically pleasing.
Do you have anything planned or schedule right now with the label?
We’re kind of just in the talking stages. We don’t have anything scheduled like our first release, but I do know him and I are going to be releasing something together very soon. I’ll be releasing another split with my friend Todd Anderson-Kunert from Australia soon. We were also thinking of doing some kind of comp of some Syracuse-related/upstate New York/our friend circle music that hasn’t been released yet. Or at least not in a central spot where people can be like, “Oh, this is all the same people.”
So it looks like even if you did have offers from people coming in to work with them, you wouldn’t have time.
No, that’s no true at all. It’s all about making time. I make time to do these things with my friends. I’m always making time and I’m always just this busy. It’s not like an exclusive thing.
I know you talked about how much you loved the freedom Perfect Pussy gave you – would that freedom be essential to any project you’re working on?
Here’s the thing – it depends on what the person I’m collaborating wants. With everything I do, I’m not ever going to force my ideas on somebody, but I’m not going to hold back any opinion that someone asks me for. Someone asks me my opinion, I’ll give it to them – I’m not worried about that. I think that’s what make the best collaboration. Some kind of direction, doesn’t matter where it comes from, and then people agreeing on moving forward in that direction.
I just had one more question and it’s about your band name. Do you find that your name dominates the conversation about your band as opposed to the music you make?
It comes up frequently, for sure. Someone should make an equation of how often it comes up. It would be pretty easy if you can find a way to search all the articles that have been published on the internet – I’m sure there’s a way to do that. I don’t know if it dominates the conversation as opposed to the music we’re putting out, but it depends. There are other things people talk about besides that. People can ask whatever they want to me [about the name] I guess. I don’t really care. You may not get an answer. A lot of people ask me questions and I just don’t answer them. Sometimes, I just don’t have an answer.
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Perfect Pussy will be playing Strange Matter this Tuesday night alongside The Nervous Ticks and Mens Room. For more information on tickets, click here.
