Interview With Pixel Panda
-by Luke Anderson

I recently caught up with the Kansas City group at The Bottleneck. Although missing one of their singers that night (Vocalist Do left that morning to visit family in Korea) they still provided the small crowd with an entertaining, fun, and unique set. This spring Pixel Panda released their debut album "Nation of Symmetry" on House of Tears records. With its contrasting vocals colliding with their unique melodies , it makes for a quality, yet relatively un-noticed release. The band is familiar with independent shows here in Lawrence, as they have played house shows and just recently, the "Finals Week Fest." I wanted to find out what they thought of Lawrence in relation to Kansas City, and how bands seem to have trouble having a real presence in both cities.

You are from KC but come to Lawrence quite a bit to play, how do you think the Lawrence scene differs from its neighbor's?

The Lawrence scene tends to be more pretentious, as in the people are afraid to really have fun rather than just stand with their arms crossed, you know, like there is too much apathy at most local shows. People still get into touring acts and stuff, but local seems to have a different crowd reaction, though its still fun to come here to play. But house shows are really fun to do, it was always fun to come and play at houses, they are really fun for everybody, and we don’t get much in the way of that in KC. More than anything, house shows seem to be the spirit of Lawrence. And we also did a split with a Lawrence band (last summer Pixel Panda released a 7” split with the late Hook and Ladder). Ya, so Lawrence is still a great place to come and play.

So do you feel that you can appeal to more people in KC than Lawrence?

Well, more people are familiar with us in KC , but its easier to promote yourself in KC if you are semi hardcore, I mean, people will go to shows there just because it’s a hardcore show, and for a while we were playing with a lot of hardcore bands, so we gained a lot of recognition then. Pretending to be a hardcore band can be fun at those shows, all you have to do is play a generic “breakdown” before a song and kids will really get into it there. So I wouldn’t go so far as to say that we appeal to more people in KC, but because we are from there we have an easier time promoting ourselves there.

So your new CD has more potential in KC, and not so much in the Lawrence market?

Its kind of difficult to say where would be the better place for that is. As far as CD sales go, our album is doing better nationally than locally. It debuted on the CMJ charts at 199….so that’s a start. But the best place in KC seems to be the kids around the Kansas City Art Institute…the bad part about that is artists don’t really have money…
(Awkward pause…as I am an art student)

So then, how did you get started doing this?

We were friends in high school and started a hardcore band called “Flying Dog,” but then it got a bit too hardcore, so it ended pretty quickly after that. We really felt that hardcore music is limiting in style…like what you can do with writing music. I mean, for something to be “hardcore” it has to have a certain level of familiarity to it, as in heavy riffs with breakdowns, and that is something that we wanted to get away from, you know, to write our own music regardless of style and just see how it fits with what we do.

So how would you describe your sound now?

Our sound is pretty hard to describe, I mean, we have been thinking for quite sometime about what our sound is, and I don’t think it can be pinned down with a single term. I guess we could go out on a limb and invent a new term like “post-screamo” but that would be just to get people off our backs to stop asking that question.

How did the recent lineup changes effect that “un-describable” sound?

Well, picking up keyboards defiantly gave more of a groove to it, and getting away from two guitars was a really good thing. Because of that switch it isn’t as heavy now but it is much more varied. And there is much more chemistry now, it is easier to make songs and they are much more dynamic.

How did those changes relate to your live performances?

Well, our shows used to be really really energetic, but they have seemed to gained some weight. They can still be pretty intense though, we aren’t really afraid to try anything. The first thing to know about our shows is that they should not be taken seriously. They are usually full of energy, with gimmicks, sarcasm, and occasionally deplorable content (laughs), sometimes our shows are just plain adorable (more laughs).

What is in your immediate future as a band then?

In the near future we plan on doing a national tour….but that is kind of a long way off. Its still kind of weird being thought of as a band that could actually tour though. It still feels like we are just a group of kids that hang out and play music sometimes. So its weird when we started getting a bit of publicity with this CD, people sometimes think of us as an image now. We probably don’t get a good reaction from people who take us seriously though, like tonight somebody was calling us ass holes while we were playing. But that goes back to not being taken so seriously. Although, soon we will be on the latest Copper Press CD Compilation….and that is also going to feature a band with ex-members of Joan of Arch, The Cardigans, and Les Savy Fav, so that is exciting. Other than that, the future is way too unpredictable for our band.

for more information www.thepixelpanda.com
mp3s from the band can be found there