Do you feel that you’re in that character or in the multiple characters when you’re playing the song live?
Julie: Oh god, I don’t know. I never know. I’m bad at this. I can’t answer these questions. I think the music starts and I start, and that’s as far as I think. I don’t really know. I’m not so irrational that I think I’m an actor acting out a point, I don’t know. Also, my characters are not always animate or people.
Brendan: There are no outfits if that’s what you’re asking.
Well, I know there are no costume changes.
Brendan: There’s no deer suit or anything like that (laughs).
Julie: I think the music starts and I do the best I can. And I basically just stop thinking about it. And that’s how the lyrics come too, I don’t have to think about it, it just happens that way.
Okay, so you’ve got the studio release show in Brooklyn in June, but as far as tour dates planned beyond that?
Julie: We’re going to be touring in August, and then we’re going to do stints throughout the year. But going across country is not really, I’ve spoken to a few other people about this too, but going across country has become really difficult because of the financial cost of it, going across an enormous country. So I think we’re going to try to do stints of regional shows, east coast, west coast. As much as we can do.
Are you planning on going overseas?
Brendan: We might just be in Europe actually, but it might just be a little bit of each. We might sort of do a bit here in the Northeast first, and then go over to Europe in a couple weeks, and a couple of stints in the fall, a west coast one. South, southeast.
Julie: If I’m right, I think that this is going to prove the changes that we wanted to make in the way we make music for the album but also for the way that we do it in the live show, it’s going to require that we can’t just be as easily in a setting where you can throw all your stuff up on the stage and tear it down in ten minutes. It’s not going to work that way. We’re going to be changing the way that we make music live as well.
Are you planning on adding any visual element to the live show as well?
Julie: I would love to do it, Brendan would love to do it, it’s definitely something that we’re all talking about, it’s just how to do it in a way that matches the music might be a little tricky.
So maybe, or no?
Julie: I would say yes, just not right in these first trials. There’s going to be a lot of stuff happening on stage that’s not going to allow us to even think about that at the moment. Definitely it will come into play, I think, down the line.
Brendan: I’m hopeful that we will have it worked out by the time we go on tour in August but it’s like in what form it will take. I don’t think we’re going to do any projections or stuff like that, I don’t think the band lends itself to that, I think we’re more about the performance of the band, as other bands are more about accompanying the visuals, whereas I think people when they watch us, we are what they watch, especially with Julie the way she is.
(laughs)
Julie: I’m not sure I like that tone.
Brendan: (laughs) I don’t know, we’ve talked about incorporating lights, but it’s also like, ‘Do we bring someone along to run the lights, or do we try and figure out how to step on eight more buttons while we’re playing?’
Julie: Also, I’m more at this point just worried about falling. Just stepping on stage and falling on my face. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have blinking lights or anything like that, park scenes or whatever the fuck is going to happen. I can’t even imagine incorporating that into it until we’re very well versed.
Well, with all the cables going from all the effects.
Julie: Yeah, if somebody doesn’t burst into flames within the first five minutes we’re going to give everybody their money back. (laughs) But we embrace failure.
It’s better than investing in pyro, because you can barely use it anymore.
Julie: (laughs) We’re going to go budget and just use firecrackers. (laughs) I’m just going to start shooting them at people who look unhappy.
You’ll get invited back to a lot of places.
Julie: (laughs) That’s because they don’t get it! It’s not because of any property damage.
This is an art show, you’re artists.
Julie: (laughs)
But you are, all of you, kind of an intimidating presence live, I don’t really know if having a film clip behind you is really the best thing.
Julie: I don’t know if it would be that. That’s what we’re trying to think about. It wouldn’t be something that we saw somebody else do and thought it was cool to try to do it ourselves. It would be something that was added rather than took away, I think. How to make that happen is a little bit beyond our mental capacity at the moment.
Maybe you should just get one of those dream machines and just put it up on top of some amps.
Julie: That is a great idea. How about a disco ball? That’d be really cool.
Dream machines are way cooler than disco balls. I will have no fun poked at my suggestion.
Julie: (laughs).
Excited about the show?
Julie: I’m worried about pressing buttons.
Brendan: Julie’s never had to worry about anything other than that the mic was somewhere in the vicinity of her face, basically. She’s kind of had the liberty of that as her only technical concern.
Julie: Even now, Patrick, I’ve been like, ‘How the fuck am I going to do this?’ and I was telling Matt and Brendan the other day, and I was looking into ways to do this live, I was doing wrestling moves to trigger the little buttons, whatever they’re called. The jim jams. (laughs). Doing a pile driver to trigger the first sample. I have no idea what I’m doing.
Made Out Of Babies perform at Brooklyn’s Union Pool on Tuesday, June 24, the day of The Ruiner’s release. For more on the show, check out madeoutofbabies.com
