Q&A with PHOX’s
Monica Martin and Matt Holmen

Head, heart, hips, and feet.

After a whirlwind summer of globe-hopping and festival-playing, PHOX was kind enough to sit down and grab coffee with me. Singer Monica Martin and guitarist Matt Holmen theorized about pop music and argued over cheese curds, plus revealed some nerdy secrets. They’ll open for Delta Spirit tomorrow night for the Majestic Theatre’s Live on King Street season finale.

You’re from Baraboo but are frequently cited as from Madison. A lot of other Wisconsin bands make a big deal about place and location, and I was wondering how much that factors into your aesthetic/ethos.
MONICA MARTIN: “I was really surprised that bands would do things like move to L.A. then say they’re from L.A. What’s the logic of saying you’re from where you’re living than where you’re from? I started growing here, I became me here.”
MATT HOLMEN: “You’re reared in your scene. It’s formative. You’re from a place at a certain time; the music is indigenous to where you come from. That is us to a certain extent. I don’t think any of us particularly like Baraboo — but that’s where we’re from.”

This summer has been huge for you — between Lollapalooza, Paste, the Adam Duritz thing, iTunes Festival, the list goes on… how’s it been?
MONICA: “Everything’s a blur! I’m still waiting for us to take a plane over to Europe… I feel like part of me is always experiencing this and the other part of me can step back and say ‘what the fuck is happening?'”
MATT: “We really love it. You wouldn’t be doing it for zero. We’ve just been rolling with the punches. We always came in with the idea we won’t be successful, but you have to have that like voice in the back of your head where you act like we should be. There’s a youthful mindset where you feel kind of invincible, where ‘I won’t crash my car’ or ‘I can jump off this bridge.’ The biggest show we played wasn’t actually the iTunes Festival, it was one in Norway called PStereo. There were probably like 3,000 people there and we were using borrowed equipment and nothing was going right. There’s thousands of people watching you and on one hand you have to feel like you’re an outmatched army that’s about to storm the enemy and you’re thinking, ‘well, I’m gonna die.’ But you just have to be like, ‘well, it’s just music, it’ll be fine, we’ll figure it out.’ It’s a constant back and forth between optimism and pessimism.”

Well, didn’t John Lennon say something like that? There’s that thing of insane self-loathing, but also having a God Complex?
MATT: (to Monica) “Do you feel that? The God Complex is harder to admit to.”
MONICA: “Well, I feel like I have God Complexes in other parts of my life…” (to Matt) ” You shouldn’t say anything about this. Where I’m just like ‘I can fucking do anything!’ but other parts are like ‘I can’t do anything at all…’ I would say it’s like 85/15 — but the 15, the rage, is enough to tell my weak self to please stop being a bitch. But I’ve had so much encouragement from you, my God Leader. You were saying this earlier, but I’ve had absolutely no expectations. I would be a hairdresser or working at a coffee shop otherwise and I’m fine with that! My fear isn’t failing or who isn’t going to like the record; it’s making art we believe in and not…dying? I want to hang out with my sister. So far, people have been really receptive and that’s really fucked up. I’m just now starting to believe in this and just now starting to wonder where we’re going to go with this. Feeling free to write and do stuff. Writing the first stuff was like pulling teeth, it’s scary.”
MATT: “It’s a different kind of relationship. You can only be faulted so much for your personal shortcomings, but if you present an idea to the group that’s unacceptable, it’s frustrating. And I don’t even sing, I only play guitar.” (to Monica) “I’ve always had very high expectations because I was such a big fan of yours initially. I’d like to think I have good taste — I like Breaking Bad and a lot of people seem to like that, so… I end up not liking a lot of pop music, but I mean I guess some of it is fine?” 

Well, I think that’s interesting because I generally feel like artists listen to a broader range of styles than a lot of their fans necessarily do. Do you feel like that sentiment is reflective of PHOX?
MONICA: “We all have a foot in some sort of obscure music world and then also another foot in the most guilt-worthy, if you’re the kind of person to guilt someone about that kind of thing. If I’m going out with my sister, I’m gonna listen to Rihanna and get fucking wild and dance it off. Jason, JShawn, loves Taylor Swift; like, there’s three people in PHOX who love her.”

You definitely have to be selective with her catalog.
MATT: “‘Fifteen’! ‘Fifteen’ is such a good song! But, Everything Everything, we got to meet them and it was so cool! One of the first songs we learned was ‘Schoolin’. We saw them play a broken down set in London, then they ended up playing the same festival, Open Air, in Zurich. We ran into them in the lobby; they were so excited we did a 12-minute cover with a sax solo. That’s one of those bands where they have great pop sensibilities, great hooks that you walk away humming later. But also, it’s just intelligent enough to appeal to people who are loathe to listen to T-Swift or Rihanna. Who doesn’t like Michael Jackson? It’s fine art! That music is so high level. Such smart jazz! This is Jason’s thing: ‘Head, heart, hips, and feet.’ There’s the smart thing, kind of like math rock — head. There’s the heart, emotional. Hips is what makes you feel sexy, like R. Kelly. And feet makes you want to dance. There is no one else doing them all.”
MONICA: “I guess I’m trying to come around to music that appeals to us; first would be trying to fuse our freak-a-leek taste with our love of corny pop music, like Disney and acapella level of corn — and Korn! I think people who reject pop music get so caught up in rejecting pop music, they forget what they like. They end up focusing on what’s cool and not cool. What you like will be cool in two weeks because it’s a constant rotation.”
MATT: “Pop is rarely head-based; it’s mostly below the belt stuff. The Punch Brothers?”
MONICA: “Sometimes danceable, but definitely smart and heartfelt. RX Bandits? Got ’em all!”
MATT: “Kind of, yeah!”
MONICA: “‘As it stands now, I absolutely say what I mean lyrically. And the melodies are pretty edible, from what I’ve seen. It seems like sometimes people don’t even see what I’m saying, which is very freeing. I’m always like ‘No one wants to hear my sad bastard shit,’ but then they’re like ‘ooh, that melody is LIGHT!’ So I’m like sweet, this is the perfect disguise!”
MATT: “We tend to dip it in chocolate, wrap it in coconut…”

So your music is a Take 5 bar?
MATT: “Oh yeah!” (to Monica) “You’re the salty pretzel.”
MONICA: “I am! People are like, ‘What is this? Is this a bone? Is this a pretzel? I’ll take it!'”

You guys have said you want to incorporate new ideas into your music. Is this thematic, instrumental, or both?
MATT: “We’ve been playing the default rock band set up with occasional flourishes, but we’ve tried things like when we played here (Johnson Public House) for a Christmas show we had Matteo play an upright cello for bass. But it’s a huge investment of time and money, so we’re working with what we’ve got. We’ll start recording in a month, so that’ll be exciting to pull from both realms — the deeper, more vocal stuff with acoustic instruments and traditional rock instruments. Plus electronics! We need to be able to sing over stuff at 3 AM so we can send it to each other.”
MONICA: “Yeah, there’s a lot of that that happens.”
MATT: “You just have to keep chasing that, just finding the right balance. Just try to keep the right balance to say what you mean. It always sounds so cheesy to talk about music like this, but…”
MONICA: “I’m glad that none of us are concerned with trying to fit into one genre. If we tried, we’d just argue and none of our selfish needs would be met. We have such a wide array of interests, it’s going to always be represented. But also, we’ll play something and then realize it was from one of our friends. Like ‘Oh, this is a Paul Otteson bridge’ or ‘Hmm, is that a Daredevil harmony?'”

Who wouldn’t want Daredevil harmonies in their songs?!
MONICA: “Jon Sunde is a god! When we realize we’ve taken from them, we’re just like ‘Oh well, better keep it’ and it’s a clear moral choice that we’ve made.”
MATT: “We owe the most to Paul, Daredevil, Cedarwell, We Are the Willows… and Foreign Fields?”

Are you guys gonna go in a Polyphonic Spree direction?
MONICA: “Oh god, I mean it’s kind of already happening. W’’re flirting with the idea of calling on friends. There should just be a Midwestern cult. Sconnie Tour 2014!”

After a long conversation about concept albums, I had one demand: cover R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet” saga.
MATT: “Oh yes! All in one video!”

Well, you guys have dabbled in A/V stuff before, is that something you’re going to continue in the future?
MATT: “Yeah, definitely. That’s just part of our life; it’s important for us to incorporate other forms of media. Our banjo player, Zach, and I have been making videos for 15 years. It’s just fun! It kind of got in the way of our recording process, though, so we’ll see.”
MONICA: “It’s been really helpful for our outreach, not that that was our first intention. We just wanted to make something beautiful and people have really responded to the video.”

I think it makes you more accessible as people, rather than ideas.
MONICA: “Yeah, and that’s really important because I don’t think any of us are actually that cool. I don’t want people to have lofty expectations that I’m a decent person.”
MATT: “I want people to think I go to bed in my leather jacket.”

That your lawn is just littered with broken TVs?
MONICA: “Yeah, broken TVs, sexy women…”
MATT: “My life is that Robin Thicke video!”
MONICA: “He puts on these khakis because he’s humble, but at home he just swims through cocaine and broken bottles…”
MATT: “Cocaine’s not cool, is it?”

Maybe absinthe?
MONICA: “Yeah, that’s actually in our realm of interest. I’ve always wondered if that’s how we’re going to die. Like, get caught up in the sexy rock star thing. I like looking nice, like I’m a hairdresser. It’s fun to dress up and do those things for other people.”

Is image something you guys have consciously thought about, especially since you are expanding into more visual media?
MONICA: “It’s something we’ve all unconsciously been aware of. We don’t wear hoodies onstage, but it’s because we don’t wear hoodies in life. If you looked at me at any point in my life, I was always expressing myself with what I’m wearing. Matt, I feel like, is the same way. When I met him in high school, he had pink hair! I think we dress pretty normally now, just because we want to be taken seriously?”

My roommate is a student teacher and on the first day of school, the students filled out a survey and had to say the most important fact about themselves. One kid made an entire list of facts, but the first one was “I hate lasagna!” What is your most important fact?
MONICA: “Oh boy, this is actually really hard. Hmmm… I like napping? This is really hard. I want to think of a haiku, but that’s a lot of pressure.”
MATT: “I like to have a good time. PHOX likes to dream.”
MONICA: “Fuck that! Phox doesn’t fuck around. Just kidding, we always fuck around. Actually, we ‘fuq’ around. We like cheese curds! It’s hard because a lot of cheese curds out of state are not good.”
MATT: “We had some out on the West Coast that were terrible.”
MONICA: “What? You didn’t like those? Better than those fake-ass ‘Wisconsin’ cheese curds they gave us at South by Southwest.”
MATT: “No, those were delicious.”

Where are the unifying cheese curds, then?
MONICA: “Culvers. And the Merchant. You’re gonna be like, ‘$9? Fuck that!’ but it’s so worth it. But to recap: I like napping, Matt likes partying, and PHOX likes napping and partying. Let’s say this: we only have time for people who play Magic. If we see you, we probably don’t want to date you.”
MATT: “PHOX is reactivating their Myspace! PHOX wants to connect with you on LinkedIn!”
MONICA: “Our true dream is to open a Magic the Gathering harem slash cheese curd/coffee shop? With bagels? A clothing shop? We’re looking for investors.”