Pretty Girls Make Graves Live La Vida Loca

It's a beautiful July day in Seattle, and I'm holding a veggie dog for the lead singer of Pretty Girls Make Graves while she makes a beeline for a bathroom. Andrea Zollo is moving at breakneck speed among the crowd at Seattle's annual Capitol Hill Block Party, which is impressive given that she and her bandmates were moving at breakneck speed on stage just an hour ago.

The outdoor Block Party, a two-day neighborhood festival featuring constant music from local Emerald City bands, provided Seattleites a rare opportunity to catch PGMG on their home turf. Having just returned from the second leg of their U.S. tour with the Blood Brothers, the five-piece band will shortly be off to Europe in support of their Lookout! release Good Health, which was produced by renowned Seattle engineer Phil Ek (764-Hero, Built to Spill, Modest Mouse). Festival attendance quickly and significantly increased in preparation for PGMG's set, even though it was scheduled in the mid-afternoon.

Although their show took place early in the day, PGMG had no trouble moving the crowd with their noisy, sassy, unbelievably catchy punk rock. Although Zollo's vocals are definitely one of the band's standout features, the music is also driven by the tight drumwork of Nick DeWitt, the aggressive bass playing of Derek Fudesco, and the winding guitar play between Jason Clark and Nathan Johnson. All of the members of PGMG have been or still are key players in other Seattle bands including Area 51, the Beehive Vaults, Death Wish Kids, Kill Sadie, Sharks Keep Moving, and the Murder City Devils. Everybody in the group sings, and everybody screams (including the fans).

Andrea returns for her food, and we walk a few blocks away from the festival so she doesn't have to strain her voice over the records a DJ is spinning. She expresses appreciative surprise about the number of people who made it to the band's mid-day set. Black-clad rock-and-rollers play leapfrog in a park across the street as we take a seat on the curb.

Interview conducted in person by Jeff Locher. Photos by Jeff Locher and Anne Anderl

Name: Andrea Zollo (vocals), Derek Fudesco (bass), Nick Dewitt (drums), Nathan Johnson (guitar)
Band: Pretty Girls Make Graves

Bettawreckonize: Everybody in the group is a pretty established musician in one way or another. Everybody's been a few bands, and I was wondering how that helps you work through the creative process. Is there one person that drives the songwriting?

Andrea: Definitely not. Everybody is very involved in the songwriting process, which is awesome. This band definitely pushes me more than any other band that I've been in, and I like that. It's awesome because it's pushing me to try harder to be more innovative. The other side of that is that there are five people coming from different directions, and trying to make it all mesh can be a struggle sometimes.

But overall, it's good. That struggle is a good thing because I like the end result a lot. It's different then anything that I've done before. I think that's - I mean, I can't speak for anybody else - but it's definitely like we get five different points of view in our music, so it's pretty cool. Once we duke it out, it's good; the end result is a good thing. I'm happy with it.

BW: Okay, so, you must have done some duking it out when you were putting together Good Health for Lookout!…

A: Yes.

BW: And I read that it was supposed to originally be an EP, but then it turned into a full length.

A: Yeah.

BW: Do you want to say anything about that? How it turned into a longer recording, I guess, is the question.

A: Well, we had already recorded "If You Hate Your Friends, You're Not Alone" and "More Sweet Soul" for a single for the Sub Pop Singles Club. We decided to re-release that because not everyone can get that single. We can't even get that single! It was really, really difficult to get that one too, because it was such a small press.

Then, I guess, "Bring It On Golden Pond" we ended up writing sort of in the studio. I think that Nathan had that guitar line, and we had just been working on it every so often. But we all got really drunk this night with Phil Ek who recorded us - I don't know if you know Phil. Phil's awesome; he rules! And that was great because we'd been in [the studio]… I don't know how far into it it was, but it was like a really long night. Every day was really long because we were in there at least 12 hours if not 14 hours a day. It was really late at night, and we were just like, fuck, we need to take a break. So we started drinking, went and like got some beer or something, and then Nathan came in and just started jamming on that. And it just turned into this really absurd, awesome thing with alternate lyrics for our drunken night because…

BW: Oh yeah?

A: I wish Phil was here to be able to tell you too, and everybody else could tell you because it was just silly drunken antics. And it was an environmental song! It was… I can't remember, because it was that kind of a night. We just had the most ridiculous lyrics for that song for some reason, but we were just drunk, having fun and dancing. It was like, "I'm the spotted owl, there's only 41 of us. I'm a baby seal, don't hit me with that club." It was so totally ridiculous, but we laughed our asses off for like two hours. And then we were like, "This is awesome! Let's totally keep this but get rid of our stupid lyrics" because they were drunken antics.

BW: Well, it turned out really cool.

A: Yeah, [today was] only the second time we've ever tried to play that song [live] because of how it came about, writing it in the studio. Usually there's a lot more vocals on it, so we have to figure out a way to do that live because we think that song's awesome. I like it because it's all dance-y, but it's different than the other songs too. But we have to figure out a way we can do it live. We wanted people in the audience to sing the other parts, but we didn't work it out before we played.

BW: I liked it anyway. It's one of my favorite tracks on the album.

A: Thank you! A lot of people tell us that, which makes us so happy because..

BW: Well, it's the uniqueness of it.

A: Yeah, that's why, and it's great because it doesn't sound like our other songs, which I love. But that's sick. I'm glad that people like it [enough] to give it a chance instead of being weird about it.

BW: So the album just became longer as you fooled around more and…

A: I'm trying to think… I think that was the only one that we did in the studio, and then we decided to add on. I wish I could give you more details about that process…

BW: I just didn't know if there was some story like Lookout! heard four songs and said, "Oh my god, give us ten…"

A: No. If I remember correctly - and I could be wrong - I think they were down for doing whatever. We just didn't know if we would have enough songs for a full-length, so we just agreed to an EP. That's basically what it was. They just wanted to work with us in some way.

BW: I was going to ask, "Did you have to just write four songs off the cuff?" But it sounds like that's how you were creating most of them.

A: Sort of. Yeah, that song ["Bring It On Golden Pond"] for sure. If we could ever remember all the things that we sang that night it would be awesome. We'll have to do it some time.

BW: Phil wasn't taping?

A: Yeah, Phil was dying, and we really wanted him to… He's got such a deep baritone voice. I don't know if you've ever heard him speak before, but it added a very good element. The original plan was, right before the little breakdown [hums the "…Golden Pond" bridge], we were going to make him say, "Kick it real hard," and he wouldn't do it. We were like, "Come on Phil, you've got to do this! It will be so good because your voice is perfect!" But then when we actually recorded the song, he wasn't down for it… because I think we weren't drunk at that point. So if we had gotten him when he was drunk, then we could have gotten him to do it for sure. But, yeah, that's kind of the story.

BW: Yeah, that would have been something else. What else about Phil?

A: Phil is awesome to work with. We love him, and he rules at what he does. It was extra cool to get in the studio with him and then realize that our personalities totally clicked. And he has the same sense of humor, so it was really fun to record. And he's a hard-ass, so it was good. There were like three days where I was in tears because I was going, "Oh my god, I can't sing at all," because everything I was singing was flat. And he was like, "That's a little flat… a little flat…" I mean, twelve hours of "a little flat…a little flat…"! I was stoked that he was telling me that, but then I was about to have a breakdown. I mean, "Oh my god, I'm the worst singer in the world! I thought I could sing, and I can't!" But yeah, we love Phil; he's awesome. I totally want to work with him again. He recorded our Sub Pop single, and then we were like, "Awesome; we want him to do our record."

BW: The relationship was just good, right from the start?

A: Yeah, and I liked how it sounded right from the start too. Everything he did was really good. As far as producing, his ideas and things were really cool too. It was awesome because I've never experienced that before - someone who, when they record us, produce as well. So I'm not used to someone being like, "This would be better if you did that." I'm like, "Oh, that's great; I like it!" He was going to landscape his garden today. But we made him come [to the Block Party], and he came. We gave him all this shit, but he came and he pulled through. I don't know if he's still here or not…

BW: So the CD's awesome; it's all I've been listening to for like a month. You've been playing it out all over the United States. How's that been going?

A: It's been going really well. We've been on tour for a really long time. We decided to do this two-month tour, but we added on the second month after the first month was already booked. So instead of doing this really extensive [tour] hitting all the nooks and crannies, we went all the way out, came back home, and then went all the way back out again, and came back home. The second time we tried to hit a lot of weird places we hadn't done before, so it was kind of a weird order to do it in. We usually come back up the West Coast, and it's always a blast because our shows are so fun in California always. So we are used to ending with this big bang, and instead we were ending in places we had never been. So people were like, "Who the hell are you?" You know what I mean? There weren't very many people there, so it was good for us to do that. But it was totally different from what we'd done before.

BW: What was the audience response like?

A: I think it was good. It's always hard for me to tell or be objective. I can think the show sucked ass, and someone will be like, "Oh, that was great!" I'm like, "It was? I had no idea." All of us even in the band have a different opinion of when a show's good, so I'm always shocked to hear what everybody else thinks. I don't know what we are always judging it on, but everyone has something different. I think it was good for the most part. I mean, it was fun, and that's what matters.

Usually, it seems like when we play somewhere for the first time, [the audience is] standing there like, "What the hell?" They are just trying to figure it out for some reason. But then in a lot of places where it was like that, when everyone's like, "What the hell," later they'll be like, "I had a lot of fun." I was like, "Cool, I couldn't tell, but that's great that you told me that." So I never know, until people tell me.

BW: Any audiences that you remember as being particularly bad anywhere?

A: Omaha.

BW: Omaha? Really?

A: Omaha has now coined the phrase - it's like a verb now. We were just on tour with the Blood Brothers this last month. They have played Omaha a bunch, and we had never played there before. We didn't want to play after them, but for whatever reason, the promoter had it like that. So we got "Omaha-ed." That's what the phrase has been coined, that we got Omaha-ed. It was a five or six-band bill, which we hate doing anyway, and it was an all-ages show. It was like one in the morning, so after the Blood Brothers played, everybody left. We knew that was going to happen, but there was nothing we could do about it. So now the Blood Brothers call - [guitarist] Cody [Votolato] called us the other day - and said, "Dude, we just totally got Omaha-ed last night," and I was like, "Good." They were awesome, and they were big cheerleaders and tried to get everyone to stay. But you know what I mean, it was Omaha. So, hopefully if we play there again, we'll be able to play earlier on so people will stick around.

BW: How was it touring with the Blood Brothers? That must have been a little bit crazy, I would think.

A: It was awesome; it was really fun. We miss them; they're good kids. I've lived in Seattle longer than anybody else, so I've known them since they were really young, like fifteen or something. I've known them forever, so it was really fun to go and tour with them. Their new album [March on Electric Children (ThreeOneG)] is incredible. So it's so rad to see how they've progressed over the years, and then to tour with them… Their stuff is amazing.

BW: Well, you mention that it's tough to play a couple songs live off the record. Any other challenges that you see playing the record live?

A: No… That song ["Bring It On Golden Pond"] is the only one that we ever have trouble with. Not that we have trouble with it; we never even try to play it because we don't have enough of everybody to sing.

When we were on tour… in the wintertime sometime… near Gary, Indiana somewhere…there was such a terrible snowstorm that we had to pull over on the side of the freeway because the visibility was, like, nothing at all. We were sliding all over the place, and we had to sleep with the van running all night just to keep warm. And a bunch of the equipment froze in our trailer, which we didn't realize was a possibility. We couldn't even get to a motel or anywhere, so we slept at a rest-stop kind of a thing. Jay had just bought a keyboard, and all of the electronics froze. Ruined it. Since then, we haven't been able to play "Ghosts in the Radio" because we don't have the sample that went in between it. I mean, we play it sometimes, but I think we all like to play it a lot more when we have the sampler. And on a lot of the new songs we're writing, Jay's playing a lot of keyboards, which is awesome. So we're going to have to get the shit fixed or get a new keyboard. [Laughs.]

BW: I was going to ask you more about the electronics and the samples that you use a little bit on the album. Do you see incorporating more of that in future songs?

A: Yeah, we're kind of up for anything. Like I said, we have two new songs right now that [guitarist] Jay [Clark] just plays keyboards on. So that I love, because he's an awesome keyboard player too. It's really cool to hear him going in that direction, and it's just something different for our songs too. And on one of our new songs, Nick plays a little xylophone. I'm totally into trying anything that just could potentially make something cooler or more interesting.

BW: I don't want to forget about the lyrics, of course. Do you write those yourself?

A: Most of them, not all of them. Some of them, [bass player] Derek [Fudesco] and I will co-write together. He likes to write a lot of lyrics too, so that's something we duke it out about sometimes. I like to write songs with him; it's fun to do that. But sometimes we butt heads about it. We actually co-write a lot of songs together.

BW: I think that one of the things people enjoy most about the band is the back-and-forth of the vocals and the call and response.

A: I've always liked bands that have both male and female vocals in them - X being one of the first that I can think of off the top of my head. I've always enjoyed that. In another band I was in, there were two singers, and it was the same thing. Derek was in that band too, but he didn't sing at all. It was just me and another guy who were singing. I like a lot of vocals; I always liked gang vocals. I'm always trying to get everyone to like [gestures for an imaginary crowd to participate], "Come on!" Everyone, I think they're sick of me; they like it when I just sing by myself. And I'm always like, "Come on, give me some more stuff! Spice it up!"

BW: So, "Sad Girls por Vida" is dedicated to a Claudia Garcia in the liner notes. Do you want to tell us about the significance of that?

A: Claudia is one of my oldest, closest friends in the world who - out of a weird circumstance where her thumb got shot off and I moved out of this apartment - we lost contact for years and years. And when we were younger, our fake gang was the Sad Girls. [Laughs.] She's from Juarez, Mexico, and trying to find a Claudia Garcia in Mexico for years was unbelievably ridiculous. I only just found her again and made contact with her on that tour that we did in the wintertime… so just this year. It had been like two and a half years probably since we had spoken. There's this really ridiculous, bad, cheesy, movie called "Mi Vida Loca" [1993] about girl gangs, and there's a girl in there called Sad Girl, so that's where it all came from. This is like, mind you, when we're really young.

When we were really young we lived in this big, punk house together. She got caught shoplifting, and since she was under 18, because there were a lot of young kids living in this house, she was considered a runaway. When she got arrested, they sent her away, back to El Paso or Juarez, so we used to write each other. We would write "sad girls" on our knuckles and take pictures. It was this really ridiculous thing. So that's where that comes from. It was for her, because it was partially my fault that we lost contact.

I never thought I would see her again. I didn't know if she was dead or alive because she lives in Juarez, and you know how women are murdered in Juarez, like more than anywhere else in the world almost. They have one of the highest murder rates of women, so it was really scary for a long time. So that's what that song's about. And now it's awesome to see her, and she couldn't believe that I wrote the song about her. She lives in El Paso now, so it's really cool. We've gone through there a couple times now, and she's like, "I can't believe it!"

No one ever gets the "Sad Girl." They're always like, "What the hell is that?" So that's the total ridiculous thing behind where it comes from: It was our faux gang.

BW: Any other themes that you want to share as being prevalent throughout the album? There are a couple more songs that seem to be about the distance between people.

A: I guess there is. A lot of my best friends live in other places, so that could probably be why, if that seems like it's prevalent. I do have a couple of people I'm close to here, for sure. Like I said, I've lived in Seattle for a long time, since I was a kid. We moved here from New Jersey. The rest of my friends have obviously grown up and moved away, so maybe that's why.

You know what else is funny? I'll just mention this too. Going back to the Sad Girl thing, this is almost really stupid about that, but… This eye [points to left eye], I have a problem with this eye. I got this weird eye infection like five years ago that scarred my tear duct shut, and I had to get surgery to re-open it. Because of that whole situation, this eye always cries constantly, so it's always watering. People are always like, "Are you OK?" And there's nothing I can do about it; that's just it.

The rest of the band sits down with us.

Derek Fudesco (bass): Sorry it took so long.

A: Yeah whatever, dude! So because of that, people like to call me Sad Girl. It's like a joke, you know what I mean? Because they're like, "Yeah, Sad Girl for life!" That's my other name. Or "Cry-Baby." You know the movie Cry-Baby [1990] where he's always crying?

BW: So you gave big ups to The Gossip today.

A: Yeah, because I love the Gossip!

BW: Anybody else in Seattle…?

Nick DeWitt (drums): Hint Hint
A: Hint Hint
Nick: 764-HERO
Nathan Johnson (guitar): The fucking Blood Brothers.
A: Yeah, the Blood Bros! Have you heard Hint Hint?
BW: No…
Nick: They're playing tomorrow. They're fucking awesome. They just started; they're maybe like two months old. Great band. Wonderful.
A: They're going to be an excellent band.

BW: I read an interview with you that was by Kathleen Wilson [music writer for local newsweekly The Stranger] I think last year. You mentioned that there were so many good things happening in Seattle, San Francisco had nothing on Seattle…

A: Well, 764-HERO…
Derek: I think Seattle still definitely has most of the best bands in one small area. We're really lucky. Seattle is very lucky to have such good bands.
A: Our booking agent is here from Philly; just yesterday and today she's here. I wentto three different shows last night, and she was like, "Is Seattle always like this? Are there this many shows going on all the time?" And I'm like, "Yeah." It's awesome; we're really fortunate for that, for sure, because we really can go and see a lot of different genres of music at a lot of different clubs.
Nick: It is an extremely rare phenomenon in other cities which have maybe one or two good shows every other day versus here where people are kind of spoiled, I think, by a lot of good stuff.

BW: I definitely feel spoiled. Thanks y'all for joining us. [Andrea laughs.] We're almost done, so I won't keep you more than a couple minutes. The band's name… Are you guys big Smiths fans?
Nathan: I'm learning to like it a little bit…
Nick: Hatful of Hollow is a great record. As far as the rest of it, I'm not crazy about it, but Hatful of Hollow is a wonderful record.

BW: So what else is coming up? The European tour starts…

Nathan: The 31st we leave for that. That's like six weeks long, and then we're going to split up and travel around in Europe for a little bit. We'll come back, and I think we're just going to keep on touring until December.
A: I think were actually going back to the U.K. in October for two weeks because we're playing festivals on this August tour, which is really exciting, but no local shows. So we're going to go right back just to the U.K. and do a show in London, which I'm really excited about because I've never been there before.

BW: And is there a video coming out?

Nick: We don't know when it will be out yet, but it'll be out sometime.
A: We just got the OK from MTV2. They voted on it. It's this big process that I know nothing about.
Nick: But, you know, there's always the possibility that it might not…
A: There is always that possibility, with so many committees of people.

Clark, Fudesco, and Johnson laugh.

Nick: I don't know! I don't know! I don't want to give any false information!
A: Hopefully it will come out. It's for "Speakers Push the Air."
Nick: …You know, just in case!
A: Our friend Mikey who does Sound Virus, which is one of the labels that put out some of our music, he's the one who made the video.

BW: That's it. Awesome job today, guys.