The boy who once stole hearts in such adolescent swoon-fests as Dawson’s Creek, The Dreamers and Hedwig and the Angry Inch will soon step onto a different stage: the one at dirty LES rock club The Annex. Led by actor/musician Michael Pitt, rock band Pagoda is reminiscent of early ‘90s grunge, a sound unsurprising to anyone who saw Pitt’s convincing turn as a suicidal rock star in Gus Van Sant’s Last Days, a fictionalized account of Kurt Cobain’s death. Has the character taken over Pitt’s body, forcing him into a life of writing sad lyrics and slaving over mixers? In fact, it was the other way around;Van Sant cast Pitt after hearing his first demo, and even used two songs of his in the film.
Pitt says he’s been writing music since age 18, when friends taught him guitar by yelling at him, “shut up and listen, just watch what I’m doing.” His success as an actor might have led to a major label deal with all its attendant indignities, but he and his then band mates proceeded cautiously when “trying to find the best way to put [a record] out.”
“I was pretty adamant about the way that I wanted to do it,” he says. “It was important to me that it was about the music.” Enter punk rock fairy godfather Thurston Moore, who met Pitt while working as a music consultant on Last Days and, impressed, signed Pagoda to his Ecstatic Peace label. “Thurston shielded me from that,” Pitt says, referring to any would-be Hollywood hype. Moore produced Pagoda’s self-titled debut, which bears his influence distinctly, as well as the mark of you-know-who via, among other things, Pitt’s raspy, nasal vocals, Middle Eastern scales and lyrics about being “dope sick.”
Two years later, after much searching for “players who wanted to do it for real,” Pagoda consists of Pitt, bassist Willie Paredes, drummer Reece Carr and cellist Chris Hoffman.While the first album was “basically Michael” Paredes says, the one they’re currently working on will be “an organic representation of the people involved,” people whose influences range from the expected (The Melvins, Bad Brains) to artists as disparate as Slayer, Miles Davis and “old Latin music.” “We’re really trying to put together something that’s new,” says Paredes. “People aren’t gonna be able to pigeonhole it into one kind of music.”
This is hopeful news, as reviews of Pagoda mainly centered on just how much it owed to Cobain. “I never agreed with its labeling as a grunge record,” says Paredes, “but it would be laughable if people called this a grunge album.” He says the latest effort will be “more rhythmic,” and will feature more “Arabic influences.”
“I don’t think, ‘too much of this or too much of that.’ I think is it good or bad,” Paredes says, echoing the defense of many caught referencing whichever decade is currently out of vogue. If The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Crystal Stilts are beloved for reminding us of all we loved about the late ‘80s, should Pagoda be faulted for echoing names you doodled in your high school notebooks just a few years later? Unless you’re one of those infuriating contrarians who claims not to like the Seattle sound, the answer is no.
Like Nirvana, Pagoda attempts both social commentary and humor, hitting upon weapons of mass destruction, abortion, gibberish syllables and other elements that may or may not be construed as ironic.The band’s MySpace page has several references to the genocide in Darfur. “Everything that’s happening in this time is pretty intense,” Pitt says. “Everyone has a good sense of humor, but everyone has a clear perspective on what the fucking world is right now and there’s a lot of crazy shit going on.We’re definitely affected by what’s happening round us. It’s important to be conscious of that.”
Pagoda is currently working long hours in the studio, with “a deadline to finish the album by May” and loose plans to tour in July. On balancing a demanding musical schedule with acting, Pitt references the other band members’ day jobs; “it’s tough for anyone. It’s especially difficult nowadays to make a living off music.”
> Pagoda
Mar. 14, The Annex, 152 Orchard St. (betw. Rivington & Stanton Sts.), 212-673-3410; 6:45, $TBA
