After Tape Op's online editor Geoff Stanfield interviewed both Noah Lennox and longtime collaborator Pete Kember [#46] for the Tape Op Podcast about their work together, and their recent album Reset, he wanted to dig a little deeper into Noah's musical beginnings and process. Geoff dropped editor Larry Crane a line, who decided wanted to then interview Pete Kember, and catch up with all that's happened in his interesting career over the last couple of decades.
I first came across Noah Lennox, aka Panda Bear, via the Animal Collective album Merriweather Post Pavilion, and then, through some one-path-leads-to-another musical sleuthing, I found his album, Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper. I was taken by the melodies and harmonies that reminded me of some of my favorite records from the '60s and '70s, but fused with modern electronics, synths, drum machines, and driving, danceable grooves. His work felt familiar in an ethereal way, while simultaneously sounding new and fresh. His collaboration with Daft Punk on "Doin' it Right," from their massive Random Access Memory album brought the Panda Bear name to an even wider audience.
What was your path into music?
I guess it started in school; playing the recorder as lots of kids do. I wanted to learn how to play piano. We had a piano in the house. I was interested in it from an early age. I felt it was something I understood well. Music always seemed like something that made sense to me. There was a Christmas where my brother [Matt] got a drum set, and I got a guitar. We had a Korg 01/Wpro in the house too; a keyboard and synthesizer that I'd spend hours making beats on. It was like house music, but I didn't know what that was at the time. Lots of sequences and looping sequences. There are a handful of pieces of gear that I feel I've spent so much time with that it almost becomes like a buddy. I’d develop a rapport with the thing in such a way that it feels intimate. That was the first piece of gear that I felt I understood the ins and outs of so well, from having used it so much. I used to save settings on these little floppy disks. I know that makes me a thousand years old. [laughter] Those were key events in my musical life, having the piano, the keyboard at home, music in school, and the guitar and the drum set. I would always try to play my brother's drum set when he wasn't around, because he didn't want me to play it!
Did you do much singing as a kid?
The event that shaped me, as a musical person, more than anything else is that I did after-school chamber choir in high school. Hearing the different parts of the choir do their thing; like the different sections would practice their part, and I could hear the melodies. Sometimes I'd think, "This is never going to fit together. It seems so weird." We did Gabriel Fauré's "Requiem." It's still one of my favorite pieces of music. It seemed impossible that these parts would be in any kind of harmony when I'd listen to parts individually. The idea of many voices singing together, and creating chords and textures, is probably the single most influential event for me. I also take music as an almost sacred thing. Some bridge to the mysterious, the unknown; all the things that we don't really understand. I've always liked that quality of music.
Do you mean in terms of thought or creating a space for that to exist?
Both. There is something about people singing together and what happens between people in the room that is interesting and powerful. Music can be many things, but I don't mean to say that it has to be a healing force. There are certain party jams that I like a lot. They're effervescent and fleeting, but that's fine. Music can be anything. Some of the music that has meant the most to me either has a "getting in touch with the divine" quality, even though that sounds corny, or a "healing." When somebody tells me my music helped them through a hard time, it's the best feeling for me. I guess that's the hope for this stuff, ultimately, that it's some connection or communication with another person that is imbued with some love or positive feeling. Even if the subject material can be dark, I've always felt that it's some sort of loving communication.
If one was only making music from a purely transactional and commercial standpoint, that well is going to run dry.
Yeah. I was lucky to start doing it so young, because I realized pretty quickly that the feeling I got – when I made something that was an improvement on the last thing that I did, or something that made me feel excited – was its own reward and the beginning and the end of the purpose of doing this. It was one of these things in life that brightens your day and makes you feel good. We all tend to have these big dreams, but I feel like the big dreams, even if they work out, aren't as fulfilling as a lot of these little, small, trivial things are. Habitual and ritual things tend to be the most life-enhancing.
When you were working on your synth and playing your brother's drums, was there a time when you started multitracking and recording?
I was super lucky to have the type of parents that I did. They could tell that some of us were interested in recording and writing songs, so they bought us this Tascam 488 Portastudio. I have seven shoeboxes full of tapes from when I was about 13 until 19. The first Panda Bear CD that we made [Panda Bear] was a compilation from when I was around 15. It's not very good, and I don't feel I struck the thing that I felt represented me in a genuine way. I recorded like crazy all the time when I was younger. It made me feel good.
When you hear any of those old recordings, do you hear little nuggets that have endured?
Yeah. The more electronic music that I was into, I'm still into. Caetano Veloso, I'm still into. Brazilian music, bossa nova. I used to make a lot of Aphex Twin-y kind of music for a while.
You've been making music with the guys from Animal Collective for so long. I always love the drummer's perspective, and I was curious about that as your role in Animal Collective versus what you do as Panda Bear.
I feel I've played a couple different roles with Animal Collective, but you're right, I am the de facto rhythm guy. It's changed a little bit. I used to feel I wanted to match the visibility of everything else, and I had a more outward view, a more aggressive style of drumming. Gradually, over time, it's gotten less and less to the point where now I feel I want to almost be invisible in the track and support everything else that's going on. I'm more into the idea of playing like a machine with the timing and tone of the hits of the drums. I'm still not super good at it, but that's the thing I've obsessed about with playing the drums in the past four years. I taught myself to play in a totally different way. I didn't know all about the Moeller method and rudiments. Like getting the hi-hat and snare ghost notes to get it to chug along. Beyond that is the goal of trying to come up with rhythms that seem fresh; maybe not something that we hear all of the time.
I like the way that you arrange vocals where parts are popping in and out. A tune like "Mr Noah" [from Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper].
I'm a huge fan of James Brown, and that got me into thinking about everything in the arrangement serving or pointing toward the rhythm. Most modern pop music is rhythm music more than anything else. Emceeing is all about the rhythms, and the beats are all about the rhythms. James Brown was the forefather of rhythm-centric pop music, because before that it was more melody-driven. He definitely got me into this idea that every piece of the arrangement is serving some machine-like rhythm.
I know you like to work quickly. How do you start your writing and recording process?
It's different things. For a long time, it was always samples. In the Person Pitch zone, it was always samples. Then I got tired with that and started doing music on guitar, so Tomboy until …Grim Reaper was all guitars. Some of …Grim Reaper was maybe still started on guitar. I went back to drum breaks and the drums informed the rest of the songs at that point. Lately it's a bit of a mixed bag. I guess I mix it up and get restless. Or I get afraid that if I keep using the same thing to start a song it's going to dictate the process and lead me to make similar music. There are bands I really like that have one idea and they refine that idea over time. But it's not my way, I guess.
Are you always recording?
I'm not always recording, but I'm always writing. I'm a big believer in the idea that you can't make inspiration happen, but you can make sure that you're working when it does. I think Picasso said that. ["Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working." -ed.] In my experience, that's how it works. I try to always be making music. Most of it is crap, but I get lucky every once in a while. Other than that, it's about making sure I'm working. If I'm working all the time, hopefully it means I'm improving in some sense. There's a degree of guilt or shame that "this is my profession," where I feel lucky to be able to do it, and I feel I should work as hard as I can.
Are you a good self-editor?
I'm harder on myself than other people are. For …Grim Reaper, we put out a lot of songs. At least half of that was Pete [Kember] saying, "No, this is good! You should use this." He convinced me with a lot of that. And I regret some of it, to be honest.
But there's value in collaboration.
Absolutely.
How do those relationships work?
Working with Pete and working with Animal Collective are pretty similar, in that I feel I'm playing more of a supporting role. I feel maybe the thing I'm best at with music is hearing somebody else's idea and helping it realize itself. But I'm scared to produce other people. I'm too precious about it, and I don't want to mess it up. With my own music, it doesn't matter. I recorded my friend Maria Reis' EP [A Flor da Urtiga] a year ago or so. I'm not the best on the engineering side. I'm better at having ideas for what a song needs, as well as helping create arrangements. I was nervous about the engineering part of that.
Most of the people I know learned recording by doing it.
Yeah, I agree. There's more than one way to do it, which is why I get bent out of shape when people say that tape sounds better, or digital sounds better. They just sound different. There are qualities about one that I like, and qualities about the other that I like.
Noah Lennox and Pete Kember Photographed by Ian Witchell
pandabearofficial.com
