Thawing to the Music
by Andrew Collins
Spring, like any season, ought to have a great soundtrack, and we think New York indie pop outfit Panama Wedding brings just the right crisp, feel-good vibes to brush off the winter doldrums and set the tone for a fresh palate of springtime adventures. The band has only released four songs to date, which can be found on their EP Parallel Play, but they have earned the band enough attention to perform on Jimmy Kimmel Live and recently tour the UK as an opener for Dan Croll. With a full-length record on the way, they’re worth keeping an eye on as you start planning your summer beach days and road trips.
A self-described “short white guy who has a receding hairline,” the Panama Wedding songwriter and frontman Peter Kirk does not fit the mold of the prototypical pop star. For a New Yorker, he’s about as unassuming and approachable as they come, and his emergence in the indie pop scene shows how a little talent, a lot of long hours, and having the guts to get up in front of people with nothing but a keyboard and a laptop can go a long way. It’s gotten him far enough, at least, to be playing music full-time with a four-piece band – complete with a drummer, guitarist, and bassist.
RedFence had a chance to sit down with Kirk, recently, before a show at Black Cat in Washington, D.C.
RedFence: Well, let’s start from the beginning. How did you get started making music?
Peter Kirk: I started playing music when I was very young. I think I bought my first guitar when I was in fifth grade. I taught myself Nirvana and Guns N’ Roses songs – anything that was popular in the nineties. But I also started learning piano around that time. We had a piano in my house, and my older brother took lessons. When he was done with his lesson at home I would go to the piano and play around with it. Eventually I taught myself to play and became good enough at it to warrant taking real lessons with a teacher. Around seventh grade one of my best friends’ father was into home recording. Whenever I would go over to his house we would lay down tracks – record together. It was sort of like playing a video game. We were both interested in music, so that’s what our play dates revolved around. That was the genesis of how I became introduced to recording and arrangement – figuring out how to make tracks sound good. I’ve been doing it ever since.
“I had a full-time job in finance, and
I reached a point where I wanted to
do something outside of my job
and not just go home, sit on the couch
and watch TV.” — Peter Kirk
RF: You spent some time working in finance in New York before starting Panama Wedding. What was it like making that transition from a steady day job to doing music full time?
Kirk: I had a full-time job in finance, and I reached a point where I wanted to do something outside of my job and not just go home, sit on the couch and watch TV. I justified the transition into recording as an extracurricular – just like I had friends who were in a volleyball league, or friends who would get summer houses. People would find ways to use their income outside of work to do fun things, and I always knew that I loved recording. Now it so happened that a friend of mine was renting a studio in Midtown, and I was able to sublet the studio at night when I came off from work. Of course, any time you want to do something outside of work it’s a challenge because you finish the work day and feel tired and exhausted. But I loved it. The studio was a private space where I could unwind and come up with ideas and try to make them happen. I wanted to have something that I created that I could show people beyond just being this corporate zombie.
RF: So once you had the studio you started playing solo gigs, which eventually turned into a full ensemble. Was there a steep learning curve there, growing into a band?
Kirk: Yeah I think some of those early shows were pretty pathetic (laughs)*. It was basically me and a laptop. Over time I tried to keep making each show a little bigger than the previous one. Eventually I got to the point where I had to include more musicians, so I would cobble together friends or hire musicians and I would start playing clubs in New York City like Fat Baby, Mercury Lounge, and Cameo Gallery. These earlier shows were an informative experience because when I recorded music I never thought much about how it would translate into a live context. Being able to take existing songs that I had made on my computer and bring them into a live setting was a challenge, and I think it has informed my arranging and my songwriting.
(*Incidentally, RedFence noticed that in the nine months since we first saw Panama Wedding at DC’s U Street Music Hall, Kirk’s stage presence tonight has improved markedly.)
RF: What about the band name, Panama Wedding?
Kirk: I got a manager, Seth Kallen, and he said “Hey, so your music’s great, but you’re releasing music under your own name, and I think people might get different ideas of what your music is because it’s just Peter Kirk. You should think about changing it to something different.” Panama Wedding is actually the title of a song that I had already written about someone I knew who went back home to Panama to get married. I wanted to come up with a moniker that reflected the type of music I was interested in creating, and Panama Wedding was a natural fit. I think it’s been okay so far.
RF: Yeah that was one thing that was surprising to hear about you guys. With a name like Panama Wedding and music that has these warm summery vibes, you wouldn’t expect it from a guy coming out of the finance industry in New York City.
Kirk: (laughs) Yeah.
RF: Your song All the People is the hit that put Panama Wedding on the map in the indie pop world. What’s the story behind the creation of that song?
Kirk: That’s a song I recorded in my girlfriend’s apartment on my laptop. I sent it out to my Gmail following of about 100 people, and it sat on the Internet for about six months not doing anything. At the time I was still released music under the name Peter Kirk. My manager suggested that we try to reproduce it and beef it up a little bit, and so I decided to make it the first song to come out under the name Panama Wedding. We worked on it some more, put it out online, and it exploded. You read a lot these days about the viral Internet. It doesn’t really quite work that way. There’s often a lot of marketing and PR that goes into things going viral, but for whatever reason that song took off without it. It was crazy. And then everybody wanted to know who or what Panama Wedding is. Of course at the time it was just me and a few songs.
RF: Care to speculate what it is about All the People that resonates with listeners?
Kirk: I think it’s just such a simple, good-feeling pop song. It has no frills. It’s not trying to be cool. Production-wise it’s not trying too hard. And it’s raw, it hits hard, and I think sometimes that’s what people want. There very much is a feeling of winter turning into spring, spring turning into summer, all those good vibes. And I think that really resonated with people.
RF: Yeah I remember when I first heard All the People toward the end of last spring. It ended up becoming the centerpiece of my summer 2014 playlist – so case in point.
Kirk: Oh, awesome.
RF: Let’s talk about influences. I understand you’re a classically trained pianist? (Kirk nods) So how does that inform the pop music you’re currently making?
Kirk: I always approach writing songs from this perspective: “can somebody play an instrumental version of it and identify what the song is?” That’s always the bar that I hold myself to. So I think coming from a background of playing instrumental music, I still carry that mindset into the songwriting process today.
RF: What are your thoughts about pop music more broadly as a genre? You’ve said it’s something that can be done very well and intelligently, but it also tends to get a bad rap for being shallow and unoriginal.
Kirk: I think it’s a little bit of both. There is a feeling in the culture, however, that pop music is gaining more respect. The line between what is considered more highbrow indie music and the shallow, empty Top-40 is getting blurry, and that boundary is getting torn down. Look, there’s always going to be really dumb, simple pop. That will never go away. But I think there are a lot of intelligent young songwriters and producers who respect the pop format and understand that it is actually a very challenging style of music to make. You can make something that’s cool and sexy and praised by a lot of people but is also intelligent and interesting. And I think you see that now. There’s young artists – like CharlieXCX is coming out with amazing music. Even Ariana Grande, a lot of the stuff Max Martin’s doing, is just really consistently excellent, great songwriting, great production. And the Taylor Swift record – it’s flawless. It’s an amazing pop record. So well arranged, so tasteful. Like what she did with Jack Antonoff with Out of the Woods. It’s great to see really great pop music that’s done by great producers being consumed by the masses.
RF: Outside of the current pop scene. What other music shapes and inspires your work?
Kirk: Growing up there was a lot of Genesis. There was a lot of INXS – a lot of the adult contemporary pop artists from the eighties. I’m also a big Peter Gabriel fan. But I don’t know if there was a specific reference point for All the People. I wanted to take some of the elements from bands that I grew up on and give them a contemporary feel. If you listen to our songs they’re all different. Uma is more dance-y, All the People is this big summer jam, and then you have Trust, which is this kind of darker, weirder, eighties Prince thing. So the songs are all quite different in terms of how they work.
“I really get enjoyment from taking
a germ of an idea and working on it,
fleshing it out, and creating it so that
it becomes this real thing in the universe.”
— Kirk
RF: But Panama Wedding still has its own distinct style.
Kirk: I think with All the People we clearly captured a sound, and we’ve tried to keep the aesthetic of the rest of our music cohesive. When listeners hear Panama Wedding, they know they’re listening to Panama Wedding. Some of my favorite artists are like that. For example, I was obsessed with The Neptunes growing up. If you listen to a Neptunes song they all have a very similar feel to them. They use similar kicks and snares. They use a very limited palette of synths that reappear. You hear a Neptunes song and you know it’s The Neptunes, and it was important for Panama Wedding to have that.
RF: You’ve clearly worked pretty hard to make Panama Wedding happen and are now touring and have a record on the way. That has to take its toll. What drives you to keep writing songs and going out there and performing?
Kirk: I’ve always loved making music, and I’m not that good at anything else. So I really get enjoyment from taking a germ of an idea and working on it, fleshing it out, and creating it so that it becomes this real thing in the universe that people can share and enjoy. I love that process – it’s such a gratifying thing. For me it’s not about getting number one on the hype machine or topping the charts or being the biggest artist in the world. It’s more about having a fan base and having the ability to make music. If you get to make art for a living, something created with love, that’s the dream.
RF: What about things that inspire you outside of music?
Kirk: In my spare time I like to shoot photography. I have a little Fuji camera that I bring on tour. I also like DSLR video and I do a bit of graphic design when I have the time for it. But my life is pretty one-dimensional with music right now. When the tour cycle’s completely over and the record’s out, I’d love to travel and take pictures.
RF: Speaking of the record, I’m sure you get this all the time, but when is the full-length album coming out?
Kirk: The record’s about eighty percent done, but here’s the thing: we could put out a record very soon, and it would be a great record. Right now, however, I’m lucky to be in a position to have access to great producers that I might not have access to again. I’ll probably finish the recording process no later than May, and then when it gets released is up to the label.
RF: Well we look forward to it coming out very much.
Kirk: Thank you.
RF: Let’s finish with a fun one. RedFence has a running series of articles about the best beverage (tea or beer) for a particular activity. For example, “Best tea for playing chess.” What would you say is the best activity to pair with your song “All the People?”
Kirk: I have to go with leaving the crowded city, taking a car out and going to the beach, getting a cooler of beers, bringing a Frisbee, and jumping in the ocean. That’s what All the People is about – getting out of the city.
RF: I know D.C. residents here can certainly appreciate that. (both laugh) Sounds like the perfect summer weekend. Thank you for your time!
Kirk: Thank you, take care.
