The Cool Kids of Raleigh: Interview with PTA

Based out of Raleigh, North Carolina, PTA is a trifecta of spunk, charm, and do it yourself musicians. Previously known as “Liams Basement” PTA has had a slew of different names but decided on PTA after being inspired by an advertisement . Their debut album Ode to Existence was released Friday, July 24th. The band already had three singles under their belt, “7-1”, “Pleasantries”, and their latest, “Single Frame”. All singles can be found on Ode to Existence.

PTA consists of Liam (drums and vocals), Oscar (bass and vocals) and Frank (rhythm guitar and vocals). “Cool” would be an understatement to describe the three. I was mildly intimidated by their fearless, and dare I say, endearing, aura and presence. But these guys aren’t all about appearance, their garage rock, boisterous rhythms mixed with early punk like vocals creates a sound unique to them. Here’s what the lads had to say

MM: “Why did you start playing music? Has music always been relevant in your life or did you guys come together and decide that this is an experience that’s exclusive to this group?”

Oscar: “Me and Frank went to elementary school together. But all three of us met at a summer camp, like 4 years ago. And then Liam reached out and wanted us to start a band or something, so we started playing and we needed someone to play guitar so we got Frank to do it and then we started writing our own stuff and became like our own band.”

Frank: “Yeah they came to me about it.”

Liam: “We had put out these shitty little EPs and we kept just not being able to play like shows and stuff which was the idea. We had done a short film thing with Frank so we were kind of hanging out, the three of us, and we knew he could play guitar.”

MM: “What influences you as an artist? Whether is be other musicians or art, or simply life itself.”

Oscar: “Pavement. Frank's a big Gun Club fan."

Frank: “Yeah I’m a big Tool fan (laughs).”

Liam: “I’d like that redacted, struck from the record (sorry Liam).”

Frank: “I like metal music and jazz music.”

Liam: “We all like The Black Lips and Ty Segall. I mean there’s a lot of stuff we don’t overlap on. A little post punk too, we try to incorporate some art-ier stuff. Parquet Courts is a big one too.”

MM: “What are your thoughts on the Raleigh music scene? Do you see it as an area that will ever become the next Seattle or Athens? Is there even a Raleigh music scene?”

Oscar: “Not for high schoolers, unless you do soundcloud rap, there’s a scene for that.”

Liam: “All the house shows we’ve play were at our houses (laughs) there’s no circuit. We don’t have a double bill or anything, it’s just us playing. In a way I wish there would be a scene for kids, you know, but it’s also like we kind of just want to leave. Might as well migrate, because I feel like that’s how it works. I don’t know, Raleigh is growing.”

MM: “What does the creative process look like? Do you guys collaborate or is there one member that is in charge creatively.”

Oscar: “Every song is pretty collaborative, everyone brings an idea and will work out their own part.

Frank: “It starts with an idea.”

Oscar: “Yeah, whoever has the first idea it’s their song and they get executive decision on it. But everyone brings their own stuff.”

Liam: “It’s definitely like, pirate rules, or how Oscar always says how it’s all split like three ways. Theres no like spokesperson or anything like that.”

Oscar: “Yeah no front man.”

MM: “Are you guys more analog or digital? How do you produce your music?”

All: “Basement.”

Liam: “Before we started the band I had this Tascam four track cassette recorder that I would just make little demos on, but none of them were very good . We record everything on that still because we’re not very tech savvy. It sort of seems like the way to go about it."

Oscar: “It’s kind of shooting ourselves in the foot though because it would sound so much better if we used GarageBand or whatever. It’s just a lot more fun to do it our way.”

Liam: “There’s not all these plug ins and stuff, you got four tracks and you can try to get more than four by transferring, but like, it never works (laughs) we’re not the best at it but I think it’s sort of our thing. I mean Daniel Johnston wouldn’t sound good if he just recorded to Garage band, you know, it would be kind of sad sounding. But his sound is endearing recorded on tape.”

MM: “Do you think your parents influence your music in anyway? Did the music they played while you were growing up inform your music taste today?”

Frank: “100% for me personally. My dad is the one who has showed me all the music that I listen to now. I listened to the Walkmen, who I listened to when I was in the fourth grade the other day. When I hear them again it brings back these weird memories. As far as lyrically, personally I write about me being angry, and you know, sometimes I’m angry at my parents. Maybe not too much lyrically, but definitely musically.”

Oscar: “Both of my parents are from here and when they were, I guess our age, they started screen printing t-shirts for bands, like that’s what they do for a living now. So growing up it was always like Sonic Youth and stuff. Kim Gordon spent the night at our house and stuff like that. I really took it for granted, it sounds really lame to say that kind of “show offy” but I’ve just always been around that kind of stuff.”

Liam: “Yeah, my parents like Jimmy Buffet, so just trying to harness that (laughs).”

MM: “Do you think the commercialism and capitalization of music makes music lose any of it’s artistic value?”

Oscar: “I mean, we’d love to make money. But also the idea of having a record label, or even having a producer who’s not in the band, seems almost like stepping on our toes a little bit. We have an idea of what we want and watering it down, could make it better for others but not for us.”

Liam: “I mean, it seems sort of like that bands now don’t really need labels, and even labels like Madador seem like they’re major labels. I mean no one knows what label Drake is on because he’s a rapper, but if you look at big indie bands you know, that Parquet Courts is on Rough Trade, and stuff like that. I don’t know, it just seems like bands we aspire to still have free reign but the early stuff is what we gravitate towards.”

Oscar: “Like Ty Segall, all of his early albums are on tape and they sound really cool, and now its moved to a point where its all recorded really nice but it doesn’t sound as interesting.”

Liam: “You don’t have to be a good musician to make good music. They’re mutually exclusive. Sometimes you have to accept that being terrible is your endearing thing. The guy from Black Lips was talking about how Target wanted to use “Bad Kids” in one of their commercials, they weren’t opposed to it, like it’s fine to make money off your music if its not compromising anything. But Target wanted to change the commercial to be like the “ideal kid” so they rejected the offer.”

MM: “To follow up with the last question, How do you feel about profiting off your art?”

Oscar: “Our last show we charged people like $3 to come, it felt good to make like 100 bucks or whatever. But we did spend it awfully quick.”

Liam: “You read about bands from like the 80s and how they would still work day jobs and do music. So it would be nice if it was a profession and we didn’t have to do that.”

MM: “How has COVID changed your dynamic?"

Oscar: “Well, Frank left us to go to the beach.”

Liam: “Kind of a lame move.”

Oscar: “Especially because he didn’t wait until the album was finished, he just left. Made us drag it out like an extra two months.”

Frank: “Hey man the albums done!”

Liam: “There was a point when we thought it would be an extended spring break, we were going to finish this thing like in two weeks. We were aiming for it to come out in April.”

Frank: “It definitely put a damper on things.”

Oscar: “And it’s just really hard, like it’s really fun to play a show. But practicing sucks, its really boring. It’s made being in the band a chore.”

Frank: “I like practicing, just recording sucks.”

Oscar: “Only you.”

Liam: “The act of conceiving a song is like super fun, but then you record a first draft and you’re like “I kind of fucked up” and then it’s three weeks later and you’re still working on it. It’s weird how much perfectionism goes into making something that’s already shot (laughs.)”

MM: What do you see for the future of this band?

Frank: “I can’t see a day into the future with everything going on right now.”

Oscar: “Best case scenario, we all go to college and we get our groove back, or whatever. Come back in November and start the next album, get it recorded and everything. But right now we’re all pretty burnt.”

Liam: “And meanwhile, we attain some cult following. They’ll hear rumblings of our new material (laughs) and by the time the semester is over we just drop out, and head straight to LA. Go right up to the head of Atlantic records and give them our terms.”

If you haven’t already, check out PTA’s new album Ode to Existence on Spotify. Be prepared to feel like the cool kid you always wanted to be.

Big thanks to the guys from PTA for taking time to answer these questions and talk about music.

Interview written and conducted by Ilse Grace Thomas

Photographs by Ilse Grace Thomas