An interview with The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

Frontman Kip Berman shares about the band's formative years, the importance of compiling B-sides, sounding like Kurt Cobain’s cardigan, working with legends, and getting the gang back together.

Sometimes a perfect album just arrives at the perfect time. That’s what happened for me with the self-titled debut album by Brooklyn, NY’s The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. In February 2009, I was working as an associate editor for a music magazine when I came across a glowing review and interview (the band’s first) by one of our writers, who was also a friend. I couldn’t help but notice the comparisons he made to “Black Tambourine, the Field Mice and pre-Creation My Bloody Valentine,” so I started emailing him, asking everything I could about them. From my first listen I became obsessed with this new band that was flawlessly recreating the sound of so many great indie pop bands from the past that I loved. While they weren’t hiding their influences, their songs didn’t feel derivative; the album felt and sounded like a relic from the late ‘80s that had been lost for 20 years and finally found. With their warm, fuzzy guitars and heart-on-sleeve lyrics, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart felt like a dream come true. From what I can remember, 2009 was a banner year for music, but of all the great records that came out that year, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart was arguably the one that most closely aligns with my tastes now, 16 years later.

Pains continued for another ten years, releasing three more records before frontman Kip Berman decided to call it a day in 2019. (I wrote a feature on them for their second album, 2011’s Belong, which traded in ‘80s indie pop for ‘90s alt-rock - it’s great!) He continued making music with his solo project The Natvral, a more introspective project he could pursue while raising a family with his wife. But nostalgia is one hell of a drug and come the 15th anniversary of the Pains’ debut album last year, demand for a reunion brought original members back to play some shows. Along with a reissue of their debut, Pains have followed that up with Perfect Right Now: A Slumberland Collection 2008-2010, a new collection of early B-sides, rarities and the Higher Than The Stars EP.

The band - Berman, Peggy Wang, Kurt Feldman and Christoph Hochheim - are set to play a number of dates in Portugal and Spain before taking part in some Slide Away shows and the Kilby Block Party in the U.S., before heading back across the pond for some gigs in Italy and the UK.

You’ve reissued your debut album and now you’ve compiled B-sides for Perfect Right Now. How have you found the experience of looking back on those early years of the band?

Kip Berman: I mean, I’m genuinely just amazed that there are people out there that still like these songs. That’s not what normally happens.

Would you describe yourself as a nostalgic person?

No… it’s not nostalgia. I just like music that, whether it’s for historical or technical reasons, doesn’t quite know what it’s doing. The music of the past - especially the rock and pop music of the ‘60s and early ‘70s - was made by people that didn’t really know what they were doing yet. They didn’t grow up playing rock music or see rock music as a “sustainable career,” let alone an “artform” unto itself. It was probably just kids who liked jazz or R&B trying to be cool by copying whatever The Beatles were doing (or what they thought The Beatles were doing) and accidentally coming up with something new in that process of imitation. If you look at any great band, you find out they were usually kind of obsessives, listening to a ton of records and wanting to be like the people they thought were cool.

And it’s not just that era, there’s always imitation (and the inherent failures of imitation) that leads to a kind of accidental invention. In the wake of punk, grunge, or lo-fi, loads of people who didn’t know how to shred were inspired to pick up instruments and figure they could make songs with their friends. Musical invention is really just incompetence and desire.

I’m always appreciative when a band with solid B-sides decides to compile them into an album. What inspired you to put together this collection?

Thanks! To me, it seems like a bit of a rip-off when bands make you buy deluxe versions of a record you already own, just to get some extra tracks. And in terms of streaming, I don’t like it when I listen to a record, and then there are ten more live versions, outtakes, or demos tacked on to the end, so that I can’t just hear the record as it was released, ya know? And even for things like streaming, where you don’t have to pay for it again, it still feels cynical, as it’s just a way to get a record into the “new release” algorithm of streaming services again and again. That’s just kinda dumb to me.

So Mike [Schulman, Slumberland Records] and I wanted to compile all the tracks from when we made the first record, that weren’t on the first record. This way, people can have them on one one record or CD (if that’s important to them) and not pay high prices for out of print, old 7” singles or have to re-buy a record they already own.

Finally, because it’s on Slumberland, it’s still just $18 for the vinyl, $9 for CD. Mike definitely runs his label like a fan. I’m pretty dismayed when I see new indie records selling for $35. Maybe if vinyl is inherently so expensive, we should just go back to CDs or…. FilesTube lol. I had an iPod filled with every Sarah Records release all thanks to some cool kid in Indonesia that posted them all. I’m still internet buds with him. Shouts to ARPRAHRAN!

In the liner notes you mention how the band formed to open a show for The Manhattan Love Suicides. Can you shed some light on how and why that happened?

Yeah, I’d love to. It’s a bit of a story. Peggy and I were huge fans of theirs. I can’t remember if she discovered them first, or if we both discovered them independently from each other, but we definitely bonded over how much we loved them. We were totally enthralled by what they were up to. They were brash, noisy, and direct. Caroline [McChrystal] sang like the grumpiest teenage babysitter fronting The Jesus & Mary Chain, or if The Primitives were a bit more primitive. But I was shocked because they were on Magic Marker Records, the (usually twee) DIY label that I was obsessed with when I lived in Portland. I’d go to house shows at the “Magic Marker House” when I wasn’t old enough to get into 21+ shows. Even afterwards, as I just loved the bands that played there so much. Katy Davidson aka Dear Nora (an all-time and for all-time favourite of mine) lived there. Jonah [Bechtolt] from YACHT lived there. Andrew [Kaffer] from Kissing Book lived there. I even think Hutch [Harris] from Urban Legends (later The Thermals) was a regular. I saw The Softies, Poundsign, Mates of State, The Lucksmiths, and so many more incredible bands come through that house on tour. Those bands were my life. I remember having drinks with Mark [Monnone] from The Lucksmiths and thinking I was at the coolest party there ever was. I mean, Mark was pretty cool to be fair - he still is. Listen, I’m not asking you to go too deep on living room shows circa 2000 in SE Portland, but this label, run by Curt Kentner, was like the hip older sibling I never had, showing me there was so much more to “indie” music than just Pavement and Sonic Youth. There was this secret world, where anyone could be in a band, anyone could write a song. You didn’t have to be Lou Reed, you could be Moe Tucker.

But as I got older, I found some aspects of that scene to be… I don’t know the right word, because I still love those bands and people. I just remember looking around at a roomful of young adults who acted like (and certainly dressed like) toddlers, as they sat cross-legged on the floor, listening to soft songs about bicycle rides and unspoken crushes. On one hand, there was something really potent and cool about “rejecting the macho trappings of indie music in the ‘90s” with something that was purposefully and heroically amateur, unstereotypically male, and that rejected all the “tortured arteeest” bullshit of what generally constituted “real” or “important” music. I really liked that vibe of things. I still do. But also, I dunno… maybe indie pop didn’t have to be only gentle strumming and songs about bikes? Maybe I also thought The Make-Up and The Gossip were pretty cool too.

So I was sort of blown away that The Manhattan Love Suicides had somehow united the stuff I liked about indie pop, while rejecting the stuff I felt didn’t connect with me anymore. It was direct and rough, with songs about all sorts of depravity and skulls - but they covered Tullycraft and Beat Happening too. It was like, “ahhhh, finally.”

So Peggy and I wrote them some fan mail, and asked them how they got their guitars to sound so bad… and Darren wrote us back describing some broken fuzz pedal I still don’t know what it was, and imagined we were “cool New Yorkers.” I guess if you live in Leeds getting fan mail from New York is pretty cool. We asked them to cancel one of the upcoming concerts they were playing in New York, and we’d throw an epic party show for them instead. Weirdly, they agreed.

At this point, it will start to sound like self-aggrandizing origin story bullshit, but I will say, for a bunch of kids who owned the original Belle & Sebastian EPs (not the compilation), we somehow ended up throwing an epic warehouse party with almost zero idea of what we were doing. We borrowed a PA, had a friend who lived (or squatted?) in an empty warehouse in Brooklyn that used to be a venue, and invited everyone we knew. We booked The Manhattan Love Suicides, Titus Andronicus, Affair D’Coeur, and got my buddy Andy and Joe to DJ. We got a keg and as much booze as we could, we made some flyers, and we started a band to open the show. We were only a three-piece - me, Peggy and Alex [Naidus] - so the drum beats were on a Sony Discman I borrowed from my mom. We had six songs, and it took us about 12 minutes to play them. I think Titus blew up my bass amp by covering “Bulls On Parade” at maximum volume. It was okay, actually kinda funny. The Manhattan Love Suicides invited me to play “Skulls” with them - a song that only had four chords, but I think I played the chords in the wrong order. We woke up the next morning on some couches with an empty bottle of vanilla vodka lying nearby and god knows what else. But somehow I remember finding some trash bags and slowly, painfully cleaning up the debris and then opening the doors of the warehouse and feeling the crushing brightness of day. And the next bit sounds so predictable, so hackneyed and utterly eye-roll inducing. So forgive the “new day dawning” imagery. But I did feel like something had begun and anything was possible. After a lifetime of living in awe of “real bands,” we suddenly, kinda, maybe were one.

One of the songs on the collection is “The Pains of Being Pure At Heart.” Which came first: the song or the band name? A number of bands like Slowdive, Motörhead, Black Sabbath and Minor Threat have eponymous songs. What made you want to write a song using the band’s name (of course, if the band name came first)?

I think Titus Andronicus had a song called “Titus Andronicus,” and Peggy was like, “We should have a song called ‘The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.’” We almost always close our sets with it; it feels really good to play, and also I have a bit of anxiety about dying in transit and it kind of helps me feel invincible (“We will never die, we will never die.”).

What is the story behind naming “Kurt Cobain's Cardigan”? I’m guessing it’s a reference to the one he wore for Nirvana’s unplugged set. That’s one iconic and valuable sweater.

I think we just wrote that phrase on our Myspace as a description of our sound. It was sort of like, if you asked us to describe our sound, we’d say “Kurt Cobain’s cardigan.” Bands like Beat Happening, Teenage Fanclub, The Vaselines were famously loved by Kurt. He had this balance between “heavy” and, a sort of playful, whimsical idea of music. I think he could see how both sounds were worthwhile. But too much of one or the other, and it gets stale or too rigid. I guess it’s hard to explain, but yeah, that’s how we wanted to be: be between worlds and not just one thing, one idea. We’re either the loudest soft band, or the softest loud band.

I don’t think I actually know the story of the two people on the cover of the album(s). What is the origin of that image?

Oh yeah, those were two cool teenagers from Arizona. The photographer and person on the left is a girl named Kendra Rutledge, who did a lot of shots with her friends. Her photo is on the cover of Higher Than the Stars too. We wrote her and she was really nice and gave us permission. Both girls even came to our show once when we played in Tucson. We were going to call our album Romantic Friendship because a lot of our songs were kinda about that idea: the way you have intense relationships when you’re growing up that aren’t necessarily romantic, but also aren’t necessarily not. I always think that image suggests that, but it would have been way too ridiculous to release an album by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart called Romantic Friendship. Though, I still kinda like it, ha ha ha.

Archie Moore of Velocity Girl and Black Tambourine mixed your first record. Alan Moulder mixed your second record with Flood producing. What did it mean to work with your heroes? What do you remember most about those experiences?

I think it can’t be understated how much Archie’s mixing on our album made it the record people hear today. We did a couple overdubs with him: I think some backing vocals on “Come Saturday” (oooh, oooh, oooh) and a different lead vocal on “Young Adult Friction,” and maybe just a few extra guitar bits or harmonies here and there. But when he mixed it, it just sounded so much like… suddenly these were actual songs. He’s brilliant, and Velocity Girl was such a fantastic band. I mean, they were on the Clueless soundtrack!

We had a song we called “Velocity Girl Song” (you can guess which one) and we’d say things like, “Hey Archie, can you make this song more like Velocity Girl.” And he’d say “no, because it already sounds exactly like Velocity Girl,” and we’d all laugh. Oh, and Kurt brought Le Jardin de Heavenly by Heavenly to the studio to see if Archie could make the snare drum sound just like that. It’s kinda funny, because sometimes kids write us to figure out how to get their snare drum to sound like us, but then you realize it’s just turtles upon turtles of ripping off your heroes (and getting it a bit wrong) all the way down.

Flood and Alan Moulder? That’s another story. We’re probably the tiniest band either of those guys have ever worked with. And it was truly impossible to think Belong could have happened without them. The sound of what we wanted to make was just, honestly, pretty laughable in the moment. It seems sort of “normal” now for records like that from bands like ours to exist, but it really was a, “What the fuck is this tear-soaked-cardigan band doing trying to make Hot Topic t-shirt wall music?” At the time when everyone was super into the lowest of fis and the beachiest of vibes, we were like, “Uh, you know who is pretty cool? James Iha in shiny pants.” Were we wrong?

Flood is brilliant. But despite the serious sounding moniker (he actually earned it by being great at making plenty of tea when he was a studio assistant), he is sweet and rather playful. He’s the opposite of what you think a globe-trotting super producer would be. We were kind of taken aback by how not serious he was. But it’s always in the back of your head when you’re with him. This guy made Depeche Mode’s best records. This guy was in the room with PJ Harvey - an all caps ARTIST if there ever was one - when she was channeling that terrifying, pulverizing, tidal wave of her soul. And, of course, he was responsible for perhaps the truest distillation of America lurching into the 21st century - all gleaming falsehood, braggadocio, and mythic self regard - The Killers’ Sam’s Town. (Yes, “When You Were Young” is my karaoke song. I legit love that record. Great songs.)

Anyway, it was a lot of fun. He was just like, “Uh, you guys wanna put all the same string on this guitar and play it and see what happens?” We counted in “Too Tough” on Bono’s Grammy. And true to the origins of his name, he brought his own French presses to the studio to make coffee.

Alan was likewise really kind to us. Kurt is a massive Curve fan, so I remember we got to meet Toni Halliday (Alan’s partner) and that alone was a thrill. Alan’s done Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, The Sundays, Curve, My Bloody Valentine, it goes on… So then imagine this random band from Brooklyn shows up, who are obsessed with instant “cup-a-soups” from the cornershop, and we’re like “Uh, can you make the guitar sound kinda like the guitar on Siamese Dream?” The thing about Alan is, when that great Wet Leg song became a smash, I almost knew when I looked at the back of the record I was going to see his name. If you like Adorable (and I really do), and you wonder why “Homeboy” is such a crushing tune that stands out from the others, you’ll see a “mixed by Alan Moulder” to tell you why.

Just recently I featured a band called Prism Shores that I’m certain took some nods from Pains. How does it feel to have helped shape a number of bands that followed in your footsteps?

I really am touched, especially by the artists in Southeast Asia (Indonesia, China, Philippines, etc) that seem to really find inspiration in our music. Even in the days of Myspace, we’d get so many people writing to us from Indonesia, and even now when we post something, we’re sure to get loads of “COME TO INDONESIA!” It’s really cool to see our songs make sense to people in such a different part of the world.

There are loads of amazing noise pop or shoegaze bands on labels like Lisdia Records and shiny happy records: The Bunbury, Pastel Badge, AGGI, Drizzly, Moongazing & Her, The Sensitive… and, obviously a bit bigger but still super cool is a band called Sobs from Singapore. I feel if there’s a scene where “imitation” is leading to “something new” like I mentioned at the top, it’s in SE Asia. It’s the most exciting place for new indie pop bands right now.

It’s a very different sound, more rooted in the pop of the ‘70s, but one of the bands we played with ages ago when we were in Hong Kong was from Jakarta and absolutely amazing: White Shoes & The Couples Company. We got to play with them again in Jakarta in 2012, but they’re absolutely stunning. Definitely check them out.

You once told me about how bands like Swervedriver and My Bloody Valentine were influences on your guitar playing. You’re playing the Brooklyn edition of Slide Away, Nothing’s shoegaze festival, with Swervedriver, which is pretty cool…

I have a funny story. So at my local post office in Princeton, NJ (where I live now), I used to go in and mail Pains or Natvral records. And the guy behind the counter - he looks like a tough guy, an old-school Italian guy with combed back hair and a gold chain - he starts asking about what’s in the unusually shaped boxes. And I’m like “Uh, they’re vinyl records, ya know?” But then he got really friendly and chatty. And I’m so used to no one really knowing anything about the kinds of bands I’m into, that even when he asked what kind of music, I was like, “Uh, it’s like ‘indie rock’ music.”

Well, the guy turns out to be a massive shoegaze fan, and had a Swervedriver cover band with his friends way back in the day, like in the ‘90s. And when Swervedriver played in New Jersey back then, they went to the show, hung out with Adam Franklin and the band, took pictures, gave him a copy of his zine, and just nerded the fuck out with the band— who were shocked that in the middle of New Jersey, there were kids in a Swervedriver cover band. They’re a legendary band, but weren’t ever that well known in the States. I think they may have opened for Hum (also great band) over here. So the fact that the postman, who looks like he was an extra in The Sopranos, is a secret head for Swervedriver just blew my mind. So shoutout to Ray at the Princeton Post Office. A very cool guy!

How much of an impact did shoegaze have on starting Pains?

I feel a bit sheepish about this, because I think we’re not very “shoegaze.” I was really surprised and didn’t know what to say when we were on tour and people would interview us and ask about something called “nu gaze.” I always thought of Pains as a pop band. I like songs that feel immediate. What we came up admiring wasn’t just indie pop, but it was a lot of stuff on Slumberland Records like The Aislers Set, Rocketship, and Black Tambourine, as well as loads of Glasgow bands like The Pastels, Close Lobsters, Orange Juice, The Vaselines and things that were both really noisy and abrasive, but also filled with a kind of unashamed, up front feeling.

Our friend Derek Mabra, who recorded our first EP and first LP, was the one who knew way more about shoegaze than I did. He played me bands like Ride and Slowdive, and he even played the “bendy guitar part” on our song “Gentle Sons.” But if you asked me, I’d be like “Twisterella” is my favourite Ride song and my favourite MBV is “Paint a Rainbow” and that whole Sunny Sundae Smile EP. And I know those are very much the wrong answers to those question, ha ha ha.

Shoegaze has really become a booming business in its, what, fifth or sixth wave now. Have you been following its rise amongst Gen-Z or discovered any new bands?

I think you nailed it: it’s become a booming business. But there are times I kind of think the “genre” is a con to sell expensive gear people don’t need. I know everyone knows this, but what’s truly important is just writing good songs - songs you can play anywhere, on anything, and they’d still be good songs.

It’s one of the reasons why I love the shoegaze and indie pop bands from Indonesia so much. They don’t always have as much access to super high-end gear, but they find creative ways to get the sound they want with what they have.

As for stuff from around here, and it’s not because they’re our friends (but they are our friends), but Winnipeg’s Living Hour are really cool, and I love Crushed, Shaun Durkan from Weekend’s new band. Nothing are pretty tremendous too. And I recently found this old band from France called KG. They have a song called “Love Me Forever” that is devastating. I could see that being a huge influence for Pains had I heard it back then. And while it’s not shoegaze per se, this band Humdrum and Still Ruins are really good.

But listen, I can’t stand when people who are kinda older act like things aren’t good anymore, because that’s never true. I just don’t have enough awareness of a lot of new bands in that world to know every new artist.

I read that it’s been 13 years since you last performed with original members Peggy and Kurt. What did it mean to be able to play with them again?

I’m genuinely grateful to everyone who has been in Pains over the years. But Kurt is the one that turned our band from playing along to drums on a Sony Discman to a band that suddenly was “not that boring.” He really has an instinct for to how to play our songs, and even though he’s a fancy genius in his own bands (see also The Depreciation Guild, Ice Choir), he took our music places we never really could have imagined when he joined up.

As for Peggy, she was always the person I could just talk to. She always had great thoughts, and was a good judge if a song was good or “meh.” I remember so many nights where we’d just stay up and listen to music at her apartment and talk for hours and hours. Or we’d make road sodas and go out to Cake Shop or other spots in the East Village to see bands we adored, like Crystal Stilts, My Teenage Stride, Pants Yell!, and caUSE co-MOtion!… and we were especially into the Swedish bands from Labrador Records or Sincerely Yours, and that era of “Swedes Please” blog pop. The best bands are just the best ideas, and Peggy always had the best ideas. One of those was asking my then roommate Kurt to play drums. I was thinking of asking this other drummer who was um…actually terrible, and she was like, “Hmm… why don’t you ask Kurt instead? Because he’s actually good.” I went to practice with her the other day, and we didn’t even really practice, we just talked and joked around the whole time.

Christoph has played more Pains shows than everyone except me. In addition to his own band, Always You, he tours with Wild Nothing, Jerry Paper and Dent May sometimes. He’s the best. We haven’t even practiced with him yet, because he lives in L.A., but he’s going to come out before the tour starts and probably already knows the songs better than me. He’s a real savant. If you’re like “Christoph, do you know how to play that Moving Units album in its entirety?” His answer is, “Yes. Yes I do.”

Also, even though Alex isn’t going to be with us on bass for the Spain shows and the festivals this spring, we’re all looking forward to him coming back on tour with us when we go to the UK in November. He became a dad recently, so we are pretty deferential to if and when he can rock with us in the future. He’s the nicest, least weird member of our band. For example, if someone is trying to talk to us about soccer, we just sort of push Alex to the front.

Where does making new Pains music stand? I imagine you are likely writing music for The Natvral.

I think Pains songs were special because they came from a very specific moment of our lives, and were rooted in our relationship to one another. It was about our young lives in New York… not to get too Sex & The City about it.

The music that I make now, or the music that feels connected to who or how I am living, that music comes out sounding so different than Pains. I hope to do a new record this year.

Is there a reason why you chose to tour Europe and the UK and not North America? Do you have any interest in playing more shows in the US and Canada?

Our shows in Toronto always seemed twice the “enthusiasm” as the city before or after. Of course, maybe Buffalo and Pontiac, Michigan just hated us, ha ha ha. Seriously, it always felt really, really good to play there.

As for why we are touring Spain, the UK, Salt Lake City, and Milan only? The first people that wrote to us were in Spain and asked if we’d do some shows. That started this whole thing. And then we said yes to a couple other cool things, but then I got worried. So I just sort of wanted to get out there and play some shows, be together, and see how it goes before deciding on if we'd be doing anything more. If people aren’t sick of us, or we aren’t sick of us, well, maybe we will do some more stuff.