May
29
2007
Interview : Ola Podrida (David Wingo)
Posted by luna6
Album Review : Ola Podrida
Free Downloads : Instead
LP6 : Hello David…how did Ola Podrida the band come together?
David : I wrote and recorded all the parts except for the drums on the record on my own between january - july 2005, and then as I usually do with most of my home recordings, I gave out copies to friends to listen to. But through one of those friends it fell into the hands of a label (not Plug Research) who wanted to put it out, so that spurred me to start putting a band together…even though that particular label didn’t work out, it was definitely a good thing it happened, otherwise I may have never gotten the drive to put together a band to start playing these songs live. So I put the band together with all different friends who I’d given the demos to…I just kind of asked around to see if anyone felt like playing the songs with me and I was lucky enough to have some really talented friends who liked the songs enough and had the time to do it.
LP6 : How did you pick the name “Ola Podrida”?
David : There was a crafts mall/puppet show theater near where myself, Matthew Frank (our drummer), and Johnny Christ (our keyboardist/guitarist) all grew up called Olla Podrida, but Texans that we were, everybody pronounced it as “Ola” Podrida (which translates to “rotten wave” actually). I wanted to name the project after something that only existed for me in my youth (the place closed when I was a teenager) and “Olla Podrida”, although being the right spelling, was never what I called the place. Which all serves to make it all the more personal, which is my whole motive in the first place. And more than anything, I like the way “Ola Podrida” sounds; the sound of the words seems to match the feel of the music for me (although I’m sure that has something to do with the feelings of nostalgia that they probably bring out in me, but once again, that all feeds into the personal aspect of it).
LP6 : What inspired you to make the move from Austin to New York?
David : I was living here for a year before I moved back to Austin in January 2005 and started writing this record…I moved back cuz I was broke and working all the time and never had time to work on music anymore and I knew I had friends back in Austin (where I’d lived from 1993-1999) who I could live with for MUCH cheaper and could work a few days a week at a video store and get by while I tried to write this record. But it was always my plan to come back, and forming the band actually kept me there a whole year longer than I had planned to stay. But we parted ways with our bassist there and Matthew and Robert (our guitarist) both were ready for a change, so once again, I got very lucky and they moved up here with me, and then we started playing with other Texan friends of mine, Johnny and Andrew Kenny (our bassist and the singer/guitarist in American Analog Set), once we got up here.
LP6 : You’ve composed a handful of soundtracks for indie films. How would you compare those experiences with making the Ola Podrida album?
David : Very, very different. With a film you have very strict limitations, which is half the fun of it…you’re presented with a very specific role and it’s really a challenge to find out how make it work given all the parameters you have to follow. Where as with a record, especially a first one that’s being written and recorded solitarily, the limitations are all self-imposed, which makes for a whole different challenge…having every option open to you can be a pretty daunting, creatively terrifying thing in its own right.
LP6 : You must have a close relationship with David Gordon Green. When did your friendship come about?
David : In the 3rd grade when we went to see The Karate Kid together.
LP6 : Out of curiosity, what attracted you to signing with Plug Research? I usually associate the label with more electronic oriented acts.
David : I had sent the demos to several of my favorite labels and some friends of mine in bands had given it to their labels and we were just having no luck, and then Cameron at Plug Research heard a song that had been posted on Gorilla Vs. Bear and got in touch with me. I ended up mixing the record in L.A. with my friend Jim Putnam (Radar Bros.), so I met up with them when I was there, and I liked their attitude about everything, and pretty much decided then that I wanted to put it out with them. And I also thought of them as an electronic label beforehand, but they’ve actually released quite a few acoustic-based records before mine, so they’re definitely covering quite a few different bases at this point.
LP6 : In retrospect was “Ola Podrida” an easy album to make or did you find it difficult?
David : Hmmm…I’ll be able to better answer that question after I make another record or two to compare the experience to.
LP6 : What usually inspires you to write your music?
David : I don’t know honestly…I’ll go more than 6 months without writing a song, and then one day the urge will hit me and in the next 3 weeks I’ll write 10-15. I think Run Off the Road, Instead, Photo Booth, and Cindy were all written in the same week right when I got back to Austin. So I don’t know…it just sort of happens when it happens and I don’t try to question it or force it anymore.
LP6 : Could you tell us what the song “The New Science” is about?
David : It’s vaguely about the religious right and the lack of rational thought that a large portion of our country seems to be driven by more and more all the time.
LP6 : Is “Jordanna” a fictional character or based on a person you know?
David : Ahh…sort of both. Nobody I know, but it was inspired by my excitement at seeing a performer I was getting ready to make a short road-trip to go see with my current girlfriend who I’d just started dating at the time, but it ended up being vaguely about ecstaticness in general…if ecstaticness is a word.
LP6 : Your track “Cindy” is such an impressive track, as well as being the most dynamic song on the album. Please tell us about how that song came about.
David : I had the guitar progression in first and then I just started making up a scene in my head for they lyrics…it wasn’t based on anything, I just knew the first verse and then the last line about the library books and had to fill in the rest. That’s also the only song on the album where the drums were recorded before I started playing with Matthew…I recorded it with my friend Michael Linnen who I scored David’s first 3 movies with and that’s him playing drums.
LP6 : “Pour Me Another” stands out for being the sole piano tune on the album. Tell us a little about how that came together?
David : I’m a very crappy piano player but I love to play it and always come up with these kind of pretty but kind of dissonant lines since I don’t really know what I’m doing. I always get mad at myself for not recording them and doing something with them, so I decided the next piano line that I made up that caught my ear I would make into a song, and that’s what I did. And it sounded very drunken, so it naturally became about some drunk, lonely schmo who thinks he’s in love with his bartender.
LP6 : What is your drink of your choice?
David : I’m from Texas, so naturally…beer. All kinds of it, but if you give me one choice for the rest of my life, I’ll take Pacifico. With lime, please.
LP6 : Who are some current bands that you find to be making exciting music?
David : The same ones that everyone else seems to…I think I get less obscure and esoteric with my music taste all the time. My favorite records from the last 2 or 3 years are from The National, Wolf Parade, M. Ward, Blonde Redhead, Cass McCombs, LCD Soundsystem, Band of Horses, Midlake, Destroyer, Antony and the Johnsons. In the end, a subtle, well-crafted song, no matter what the genre or kind of song it is, will get me every time, and I think all those bands are making just that, with the “subtle” part being maybe the main intangible that makes their records the ones that stand out from the last few years for me. Even the LCD Soundsystem, which you might not first describe as subtle, fits that bill entirely in my opinion…I think it’s definitely the subtle touches and changes that he employs throughout a song that you don’t really consciously register at first that give it that extra push that makes it rise above the rest of the bands mining similar territory, and I think that goes for any music that has real lasting power.
LP6 : Have you made any plans for the next Ola Podrida album and if so what should fans expect from that album?
David : I have some songs I’ve written that I think I could go in several different directions with and I’m still sort of feeling it out. But it probably won’t be as quiet and soothing; I’ve been enjoying really belting shit out lately, so there might be more of that for sure.
LP6 : Do you recall the first concert you ever attended and if so how was that show?
David : Oh man…I got some instant cred here, I’ve got to admit. It was Fugazi when I was 15 and of course it was awesome…it was fucking Fugazi! But I kind of immediately killed any future punk cred that could have given me by directly going and camping out for Morrissey tickets in the Sound Warehouse parking lot. I mean, c’mon; it’s 1991 in Dallas, TX…do you really think camping out for Morrissey tickets was necessary? And we still ended up with lawn seats somehow! I’ve never quite figured that one out…I also recently found out that Matthew (our drummer) was also there camping out as well. I guess they were the other group of dorks in the tent at the other end of the sidewalk…anyway, that’s all sort of a testament to how boring growing up in Dallas is that a bunch of straight teenage boys get excited enough about Morrissey coming to town that we’d go sleep in the Sound Warehouse parking lot over it.
LP6 : So far which one of your band’s live shows has been the most memorable and why?
David : Either our SXSW showcase or our record release party…for the obvious reasons, but also for the fact that I think we really came through and performed better those nights than we ever had before.
LP6 : Have you had to deal with hecklers before and if so what did you do?
David : Not yet, but there was a girl in the front at a show who somehow knew every lyric enough to sing along even though she wasn’t a friend of any of us and the record wasn’t out yet, which would have been totally cool but she was REALLY off-key…like, bad. And she was clapping REALLY off-rhythm (and she appeared to be REALLY drunk). And we’ve got some pretty quiet songs, so it was taking some serious concentration on my part to not let it get me off. Kenny seemed to be down with it though, he liked her spirit…so I guess that goes to show that Kenny is a bigger fan of spirit than I am.
LP6 : You are playing a few shows with Apostle Of Hustle in June. Excited? …and have you met the band before?
David : Definitely excited! I don’t know them personally, but Kenny knows that whole group of folks from doing AmAnSet (their last record was on Arts & Crafts and I believe they’ve played some shows with Broken Social Scene before).
LP6 : When you read about yourself in print, has there been any misconceptions / misunderstandings about yourself that you find amusing?
David : The only real thing was that one review called Pour Me Another “embarrassingly emo” or something like that, which if it was first person it would definitely be…but it’s not. I feel like there’s enough songs on the record that are obviously stories about fictional characters that people would maybe read the songs sung in the first person in the same way, but I guess when some people hear “I” they’re just not going to make that shift. Which is weird to me…I listen to a lot of Randy Newman and he’s all about putting himself into a character and singing from their perspective, and I really love that kind of thing. It makes lyrics work on more than just one level and gives them a sort-of complexity, but I guess there’s not a whole lot of contemporary songwriters that do that so much, so I was always expecting a lot of people to read some of these songs as being confessional or auto-biographical. But none of them are except for Jordanna and Eastbound, which are both only vaguely so…
LP6 : Since you’ve scored soundtracks in the past, I have to ask you to list your top five favorite soundtracks of all time.
David : Days of Heaven
Battle of Algiers
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Wonderland (Michael Winterbottom version)
The Hired Hand
LP6 : What are your band’s plans for for the rest of this year?
David : To keep playing regionally over the summer and to do some national and European touring over the fall and winter…we’re working on getting a booking agent right now in both continents, but if that doesn’t pan out, then we’ll still probably book our own tour in the states.
LP6 : (Random Question) If one synchronized swimmer drowns, does the other synchronized swimmers drown as well?
David : I’m sorry, but I can’t answer that…the question just hits a little too close to home.
LP6 : Thank you!
David : Thank you for listening!