Matt Korvette of Pissed Jeans

13/02/06

Matt Korvette of Pissed Jeans answers our Questions of Doom about their secret origins, that name, punk rock, noise and rock’n’roll and much more in this week’s Questions of Doom!

What are the secret origins of Pissed Jeans?

No secret origins… just some friends getting together to play some loud music and break up the monotony of the day. If I had to pinpoint the exact moment that the Jeans started, it’d be on an evening drive between Los Angeles and San Francisco when we were all getting a little crazy from the August heat with ‘WWF: The Music Volume 2’ on the stereo. I think that’s like three years ago now.

On the Darkness webpage they state that they are here to save rock’n’roll, again. Are you here to save rock’n’roll? Discuss.

I’ve never been to their webpage, but if they have downloadable wallpaper and screen savers, I would think rock n’ roll has already been saved. No need for me to worry about it.

ell me a secret about yourself that nobody knows. I promise I won’t tell anyone…

I’ve never pissed my jeans. But at a recent gig, this mess of a guy named Dan the Hippy soaked his jeans for us. He emptied his bladder and then showed me, but I was in the middle of a more important conversation and told him to get lost.

You are from Penns. It seems to me that all these great rock’n’roll bands are now coming out of Penns. Why?

We’re all just doing our own thing. Pennsylvania’s an alright place to be, lots of good friends and family here supporting each other. It’s great to be friends with some awesome bands, sit on a busted couch playing Soulcalibur 2 with these guys drinking Koolaid, then watching them sell out bars and get written up in Guitar Player magazine.

Pissed Jeans. Best rock’n’roll name ever. Discuss.

That’s sweet of you to say, although I think we’re merely a runner-up to 200 Year-Old Wolf Pussy.

On the recent Ramones documentary—Chris Stein of Blondie mentioned that he thought what made the NYC scene in ‘77 so great was that the media hadn’t cottoned on and that the majority of the audience were people in other bands thus letting bands stew in their own juices and become really good—do you think this is the case with Pissed Jeans?

Yeah I don’t know, we definitely aren’t particularly influenced by other current punk scene happenings or whatever, just doing our own thing with the encouragement of other locals. I’m more likely to borrow an idea from Vybz Kartel, Chet Baker or Haus Arafna than whatever bands we’re sharing bills with. Being in Allentown we really didn’t have to worry much about the rest of the world watching, just our friends and their cats, which is a pretty decent creative environment. I would like to be the Debbie Harry of our generation though.

Do you think living in a smaller town provides more fodder for songs and material than a city like NYC?

I don’t know, I’ve never lived in NYC. I’m sure we could get plenty of ideas for songs no matter where we’re at though. I’m sure there are interesting places and people in any town, and after all, I just write about myself most of the time anyway. Stick with what you know.

I’ve played Pissed Jeans too some people and they are in agreement that its fun-fun-fun rock’n’roll ... how do you keep the fun in hardcore?

It can stay fun so long as you aren’t taking yourself totally seriously all the time, that’s when things can get dull. We take our songs pretty seriously, but that doesn’t mean I won’t wear a banana peel on my head. Fun is what we strive for, I get two days off of work a week and try to make the most of them.

When I hear Pissed Jeans, I hear nods to Butthole Surfers, Black Flag and Flipper, yet, you’ve not stolen direct from the template ... your recreated your own Pissed Jeans world—how did you come too this sound?

I didn’t have much to do with our sound, being the singer and all… our guitarist Bradley mainly just put together a pretty mean stack of amps and we worked off of what sounded good coming out of that. Mainly, we’re just trying to seamlessly fuse the heaviest guitar noise with a late 70’s punk rock sensability. Hopefully we can come close to that. We all listen to a lot of music, and are just trying to move towards a sound that we all dig.

Is music a drug?

I don’t think so, but it can get you in trouble and make you do stupid things all the same. Besides, I’d be embarrassed if some dude told me he was a druggie, and I asked him what drugs, and he said music. That’s pretty lame.

What can people expect from a Pissed Jeans live show?

Hopefully to have a good time and be entertained, and see how far you can cram your fingers into your ears. I think we’re uncomfortable fun.

Pissed Jeans seems to be accepted by the noise dudes and the hardcore dudes. Do you find it surprising that Pissed Jeans is a band that refuses to be pigeonholed?

We don’t refuse anything. If crusty long-hairs and bedroom noise freaks dig us, that’s great. Everyone’s welcome, we’ve all got problems, we can all have fun together. One of the Lunachicks came to our gig a few weeks ago, she was screaming her head off about being diabetic. That sums it up.

What’s on your stereo?

Always lots of things. Right now it’s a stack of records I picked up last weekend in Princeton; got the Blaster Al Ackerman LP I’d been meaning to pick up, the new Major Stars single, and Alvarius B’s “Blood Operatives of the Barium Sunset”. I took a nap before the Super Bowl with Alvarius B playing, great way to lose consciousness.

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