By David Hopper | The Daily Mississippian
Up-and-comers The Soft Pack will rip through catchy alternative rock songs tonight at Proud Larry’s.
Formerly known as The Muslims, a name they changed due to continual racist remarks at shows, the San Diego four-piece released their debut full-length album in February to much critical acclaim.
The Soft Pack will be joined by special guests Nodzzz and The Beaters. The DM’s David Hopper got a chance to speak with The Soft Pack bassist Dave Lantzmann.
What do you like most about performing live?
Probably it’s when you’re feeling good, you’re feeling in the moment and in the pocket and the acceptance from the crowd.
Just kind of getting into that groove I guess, that’s probably my favorite part about playing live.
Feeling like you’re actually listening to the music rather than recording it.
Were you surprised at how fast The Soft Pack has caught on?
Yeah, it’s been kind of surprising.
We’ve been pretty fortunate that a lot of good things have been happening. We’re really working hard. The legwork has been paying off.
It seems as if all music today has to be labeled and plugged into a particular genre. How would you classify your band?
Probably just kind of like alternative-rock-meets post-punk.
We’re a pretty standard rock band, but we have post-punky influences.
Our last record was straightforward in that sense. For the next record we’re starting to experiment with a little more sound, maybe get some keyboard, synth stuff going.
The Soft Pack has drawn a lot of comparisons to The Velvet Underground and The Strokes. How do you feel about those comparisons?
I understand them. We definitely love Velvet Underground.
That’s a huge compliment. I like The Strokes. I don’t really think we sound like them too much. I think that’s just kind of an easy comparison people can throw out a bunch for contemporary bands, but I understand.
You mentioned post-punk influences. To me, it sounds like there’s some Joy Division influence on your new album.
Yeah definitely, I love Joy Division. Peter Hook is one my favorite bass players.
Who are some other bassists who influenced you?
Larry Graham from Sly and the Family Stone, Bootsy Collins.
Andy Rourke from The Smiths is a really great bass player, and Mike Mills from R.E.M.
What was it like performing on the Late Show with David Letterman last month?
It was really exciting. That was one of the craziest things I’ve ever done. I used to watch that show as a kid and you’d never thought you’d do it.
The studio seems a lot smaller than it does on screen. It was really crazy to be on stage next to Paul Shaffer looking over.
The band is so good too. The cool thing about being on the show is that you hear what the band does during the commercials. They’re just totally having fun and doing great covers and getting all wacky.
Most of the time we were up in the green room. It was pretty separated from everything else. We didn’t really get to meet anyone other than the few seconds when we shook David Letterman’s hand at the end, which was totally awesome.
The version of the single “Answer to Yourself” you played on The Late Show was faster than on the album. Do you often change up the songs on the album for the live version?
We didn’t really mean to do it faster. It was a little bit of that tension.
I think sometimes I can bring out kind of an interesting performance, basically a little more fast and frantic. We definitely played it faster on Letterman. It wasn’t intentional. I’m OK with it. It all depends. It’s hard to get some of the timing right when you’re doing it live.
You guys have been touring a lot. Do you feel like the band has improved after playing all these shows?
Oh yeah, definitely. The best practice you can get is playing live every night no matter what. We’ve been on tour for about two months now so we’re feeling pretty good.
Talk some about the band’s songwriting process.
For this record it was mostly a collaborative effort. The songs kind of came from a pretty organic method, just kind of coming together and jamming or someone has an idea first, a chord progression or a bass line. You try to build from something. Usually Matt (Lamkin) will come up with the lyrics and vocals after the music is done.
Do you have a favorite song from the album or one that is most fun to play live?
It changes for me. We actually were playing “Faithman” (from the new 12-inch EP) last night.
That was a lot of fun. We usually don’t play that one live too much.
I really like playing “Pull Out” and “Answer to Yourself.”
The 10-track EP has a more lo-fi sound than the new record.
What do you think you accomplished with the new album that you maybe did not on the EP?
On the EP, no one was really trying to go for a lo-fi sound, it was just using what we had, that being a friend’s home studio in his garage.
On this next one we wanted a real sounding rock record. We wanted it to be clear what we were doing, rather than hidden behind the reverb. We recorded it live too. We wanted to get the live energy feel. I feel like the most exciting stuff comes out of live performance.
I read that you all were able to quit your side jobs. What has it been like being able to pursue music full-time?
It’s been great. It’s been an amazing ride. We all feel really fortunate just to be able to tour and not worry about having to go back and slave at a day job to pay rent. It also gives us more time to cultivate what we’re doing, which is great. We’re just trying to make the most of it and we really just want to be able to make another album and keep developing what we’re doing.
What are some more influences you thought came out on the album?
I don’t know if you could pick any one band, maybe R.E.M. We were listening to a lot of R.E.M. before we recorded, their earlier stuff like “Reckoning” and “Murmur.”
It was never a conscious effort to sound like this or that. It’s a pretty free-flowing process. As far as bands we grew up on, (guitarist) Matty (McLouglin) loves The Replacements; (drummer) Brian (Hill) loves R.E.M. and David Bowie. We listen to a lot of older music and also a lot adult-contemporary like stuff. We like Steely Dan, Hall and Oates and Michael McDonald.
