New York University students Misha Brooks, Zach Donovan, Brigette Lundy-Paine, and Mina Walker have banded together to form an improvisational voice band. They aim to "combine the conventions of a comedy improv show and an arena rock concert to create hit songs on the fly."
The group, Subtle Pride, "eludes genre as they redefine pop music by breaking it down to its atoms and repurposing them into a performance that polarizes parody and earnest songwriting. "[They then] pit the two against each other, leaving the rest of us to wonder: is this parody or is it pure artistry?"
Subtle Pride will be live in concert for the first time on Friday, November 20th at 10:00 p.m. in the East Village. We had a chance to chat with them before their show tonight.
In a nutshell, for people who don't know your group or what you're about: who are you guys and what is Subtle Pride?
Subtle Pride is a new type of music collective, expanding the audience's conception of what live and recorded music should be.
How did you guys come to pick that name? Is there a meaning behind it?
Subtle Pride is actually an acronym made up of every third letter from each of our hometowns, alternated equally between the four of us. We all came into this band wanting to reconnect with our roots, coincidentally enough, and thought this 'puzzle' of a name was the obvious choice.
Was there a reason or a spark of inspiration that led you guys to start this troupe?
We were tired of making the same old music time and time again. We really wanted to uproot our traditions and do something, for lack of a better word, out of the ordinary.
How did you guys meet?
It’s complicated. We’ve known each other for a long, long time. We actually met performing in an Italian electronica group of the same name back in 1986, but events such as our label, Labyrinth Records, going out of business and, subsequently, us being born in the early '90s led us to create this new group.
What do you guys enjoy most about doing this?
Probably the music. It’s also our favorite group of friends. If we had to pick one favorite, it would be either of those for sure.
Is there any sort of preparation process before you guys go into a performance? Is a process or method of thought when you guys are actually performing?
We rely on kinesthetic response mainly. Listening to each other is such an important part of the music we make and it's a muscle we have to work out consistently since we make up all of our songs. Beyond that we just try and stay in the groove. As for preparation, in terms of this concert, Brigette was on a film shoot all week, so we were unable to rehearse.
Plans for the future?
We're working on a music video with director Marcelo Gutierrez, and we're going into the studio soon. We couldn't get studio time this weekend, but we've done it before. It's not impossible. We'll hopefully have an EP out sometime in the beginning of 2016. We’d also like to be signed by Atlantic or Universal Records and we’ve got a world tour in the works.
Any last words? (Go for it!)
We’d just like to call attention to what we call terrorism in this country and what we don’t.
“If you look me up on the internet this is what you’ll find…”
-an excerpt from Rat King Cole
Learn more about Subtle Pride here and listen to their single "One Tooth Model on The Wall" here.
