Peter McPoland takes a very different path with latest album

Peter McPoland is in full-on tour preparation mode as our Zoom interview gets underway He s been rehearsing a lot at his Los Angeles pad with his band of longtime pals who will back him on the road show that includes a Bay Area stop Yet on this particular day McPoland is just putting the finishing touches on a keyboard shelf that he s building for the tour You usually buy them off the internet says the indie-pop singer-songwriter who was born in Vermont and raised in Texas But I made it last week I m finishing that in contemporary times That s my goal McPoland s tour-improvement project is very telling of the artist s current mood which is to take no shortcuts to get where he wants to go with his music That is underscored on the in the past few days disclosed sophomore full-length Big Lucky which detected this former Internet sensation who first came to fame with the viral hit Romeo Juliet unplugging from social media and web life in general to focus on recording music in a more old-school way He bought a flip-phone no joke and ditched Spotify in favor of an iPod stacked with Beatles tunes and began recording on a reel-to-reel tape machine as opposed to the computer tracks he utilized on his first album s Piggy The end is a work that is chockfull of fresh vibrant indie-pop songs that fans will get to experience when McPoland and his pals perform Nov at August Hall in San Francisco Showtime is p m and tickets start at ticketmaster com Related Articles Film concert honoring iconic Bay Area singer Barbara Dane comes to Oakland This might be the biggest rock show to hit the Bay Area in Bay Area events calendar for Nov - weekly editions incredible Bay Area things to do this weekend Bay Area arts shows and concerts to catch this weekend Here s my conversation with McPoland which definitely included way more chatter about our shared musical obsession over John Prine than what you ll read here Q I am impressed that you are building your own keyboard shelf Are you a handy guy A handyman A I would say on a scale of like to I m a six I m a little bit good But I m bad at a lot of it I can get by I m better than the average drill user Q I would say a six is good A Yeah it s not bad But it doesn t look that good I m not winning an award But it gets the job done Q I m like a I was just current down certain cardboard boxes with a box cutter this weekend And when I was done I was jus glad I still had all my fingers A That s one of the worst jobs I can not stand emerging down all the boxes That s a terrible job It s scary and it s tedious Q I hear you ve put together a very captivating band filled with childhood friends for this tour Tell me about that A I grew up in Texas and kind of got into music through playing with all my friends Like me and my friend Landon we learned chords from each other Then years went by we didn t play with each other As I got signed to a record deal I was playing with a professional band Then last year I felt that if I am going to keep doing this I really want to be with people who I know really well So it s all my friends I grew up with I ve known all these guys since like seventh grade Q I love that So fun A I think it s fun because none of us are that good at our instruments We are all seemingly about a out We re pretty good But we re not winning an award I think that was what I was really missing when I was playing with my previous band They were all so good that they were never messing up And I missed the ability to mess up So with these guys we kind of lean into the fact that we will mess up And it s fun It makes the whole show more fun Q Is there a downside to playing with a bunch of guys you ve known since seventh grade A I don t know I don t really know if there is a downside Q There must be something A I know them so well There is a communication there that is almost nonverbal We can just kind of understand what each of us wants And maybe that s not the best for everyone else in the touring party We will just do things and not have to explain it to anyone Then everyone kind of gets lost in the mix So maybe we re not the best communicators because we are in our own little world But that s not a downside for me It s a downside for everyone else but me Q I know you were born in Burlington Vermont prime Phish country If you had stayed in Burlington rather than moved to Texas how do you think it would have impacted your music Like would Romeo Juliet have been like a -miinute jam session A Laughs I would perhaps be playing a five-string bass and have a Mesa Boogie stack More laughs Yeah I talk about that a lot genuinely with my mom I don t know if I would have gotten into music necessarily My big thing was theater I did theater for a long time And the scene in Texas was really big There was just a lot of theater to do And I think musical theater and warbling really just boosted my love for performance Maybe I would been in hockey in Vermont I played hockey for two years and I was terrible at the sport But maybe I would have just kept with it I don t know I would be really curious how my life would ve changed Q You and I share a major musical passion John Prine How did you end up getting so deeply into his music A My dad was a pretty big Prine fan And it took me a second to really get into him Then one day it clicked And I dove down this rabbit hole of every single Prine album for a couple years of my life I was obsessed with John Prine and it was all I would listen to all the time I m such a lyric guy And I kind of grew out of it And then I grew back into it As far as lyrics go I don t know if there is anyone better It just is the best It s funny and it s heartfelt And he gets these points across in single lines that are unbelievably profound I have such a connection to the guy Q Me too One of my favorite albums of all time is The Missing Years And my favorite track off that album is Everything Is Cool A Everything Is Cool I have to look I don t remember it Q Listen to it after we get off the phone And I bet like five years from now you will have covered the song A You re perhaps right You are absolutely right I am going to listen to that right when we get off Q You took a very different path in recording Big Lucky than you did with Piggy For one thing you basically disengaged from the Internet while making the album I find that especially engaging given how big a hand the Internet played in your early success A I think because the Internet played such a big part in my early success is how I got to this Growing up I was not really on the Internet as much as I am now I really just liked playing my instrument and like romanticizing about playing in a bar and getting discovered like a Bruce Springsteen story I was like That s what I want Q That s a good story for sure A On the previous album I had done it all on Logic It was computer drums and all patches through Logic It never really felt exciting to do It takes the fun out of making music There is too much choice there is every option in the entire world I liked this new approach because it felt the closest thing to when you re learning guitar and you re alone in your room I got off Spotify and was just doing an iPod and was just listening to the Beatles hits I was like Oh expletive this is insane And I discovered the White Stripes too and that recording technique too I had this tape machine that was just collecting dust in my closet So I conclusively set it up I was walking around San Francisco with my girlfriend and her dad and I reported I am going to do the whole album on tape Q The decision was made A At the point I didn t know how to do it But I figured it out And it s really not that hard But there s something about it that feels so accomplished It just felt like the right option I feel like it s a bit rebellious And that s exciting It feels antithetical to the way the system is Maybe it wasn t good for business But it was definitely good for me