Bonus Questionable Corner: No Age

On Friday night I will be rocking my ass off at the South Street Seaport like I do most every Friday night during the summer, but this time around things will be a little bit different. That's mostly thanks to No Age, the makers of my favorite album of the year thus far, who will be headlining the show. I don't think I've been this excited for a Seaport lineup every before, which is crazy 'cause I'm usually pretty damn excited for each one! Anyway, I had a chance to chat with Randy Randall about this show, his tour, hanging with Pete Wentz and a couple of other things. Here you go...

PTST: You guys have a huge weekend ahead, playing the South Street Seaport in New York then flying to Washington to be part of Sub Pop's 20th Anniversary spectacular. How does it feel to be part of these huge events in the same weekend?
RR: Oh man, it's so excitign and a little overwhelming too. We were looking at the schedule and we were like, "Oh man that means we're gonna have to fly too!", but it's a really cool honor. We're psyched!

PTST: Is there one you're looking forward to more then the other?
RR: I think the Seaport is gonna be awesome, such a fun, cool outdoor venue and we're psyched to play with our friends in Telepathe and Abe Vigoda. But the Sub Pop thing is really cool too, it's hard to choose between. I think Sub Pop's gonna be cool 'cause we get to see the Vaselines! I'd hate to have to choose between the two, but I guess I don't have to because we'll be at both!

PTST: After these shows you'll be hitting the Pitchfork Music Fest in Chicago. Do you guys realize that you currently have the highest rating of any album that's come out this year?
RR: No way! That's insane! Someone's gonna come out with something I'm sure. There's gonna be some heavy hitters in the fall, maybe Radiohead has something up their sleeve or Battles.

PTST: Does that kind of acknowledgement give you a kind of justification for what you do?
RR: It's realy nothing you can plan for or take really seriously. Ultimately I think we make this music because we want to play it and if no one liked it I still think we'd be doing it anyway.

PTST: You guys have been on tour with Abe Vigoda for about a week now? How's it going so far?
RR: It's going awesome! It's so much fun to be on tour with good friends and see places and travel with people you get along with and have fun and hang oout. They're awesome every night so it really forces up to step up our game!

PTST: Are you guys trying to create the environment of The Smell everywhere you go?
RR: At some point in the planning stages that was gonna be part of it, there was gonna be more of a concept tour, but at some point the limits of technology got the better of us. Now it's really just us and our friends going out there, which I guess is like The Smell. It's what makes The Smell so special is the energy of the people in it, so I guess in a sense we are. In some sense it's there, but there's a lot more light and it's probably cleaner on tour then it is at home.

PTST: Who are some of the up-and-coming bands in The Smell scene?
RR: Protect Me is an awesome duo, The Party Foul are doing great things, E.S.P.S., but there area other people that have come out of The Smell that don't really get the credit they deserve. There's a great musician, Devin Williams, who's on tour now and is kind of like a solo Replacements, Paul Westerberg type thing who is really great, and Jeremy Jay. So there's a lot of great stuff, it's a really diverse music scene.

PTST: What do the folks back home think of your appearance on the Pete Wentz show?
RR: It was a lot of laughing, we brought a lot of our friends out with us for the taping. We felt that if we were gonna be on a show with Rhianna and T.I. we had to role up with our own posse. So we had 17 people come with us so they could witness it and not talk shit later.

PTST: You went on the show to debut the new video for "Eraser", how did the video come about?
RR: It was a collabortive process, Andy Bruntel is awesome and had this idea of morphing effect technology. He showed us what he was doing with so we got together, shot a bunch of stuff, and that made the video.

PTST: The video kicks of with the end of the "Keechie" video and also includes part of "Impossible Boquet" before it kicks into "Eraser", was that an attempt to get as much No Age out into the mainstream as possible?
RR: No it was more Andy's idea. He had this beautiful sort of oil imagery he wanted to use, and I think everyone felt the video could be longer so he played around with some ideas. I like the song "Eraser" as it is, but I guess the idea of playing videos on MTV our attention span is a little shorter.

PTST: That seems kind of amazing considering what MTV has become.
RR: I guess we're just products of MTV so we take it the next step, make things faster and shorter.

PTST: Before the release of Weirdo Rippers and Nouns, did you guys ever picture appearing on MTV and being written up on Pitchfork and all the other attention you've received?
RR: No, never, not at all! It's been a complete surprise. We always wanted to do things like play music, tour, and make videos, but we thought we'd just do it all for ourselves and if our friends liked it then cool. But all this other stuff is way beyond what we could have imagined.

PTST: Are you enjoying it?
RR: Yeah definitely! It keeps us busy and keeps us on the road which is fun.

PTST: So where does No Age go from here? What's next?
RR: We're gonna finish the tour through the fall then sit down and piece together some new ideas. We're always writing and working on song ideas, so hopefully we'll sit down this winter to work on the next record.

PTST: You guys always try to incorporate some sort of cover songs into your set, is that something that you've always made a point of doing or was it just done to fill out the set?
RR: It's just fun. We normally try to do it at the end of the set. It started out playing some shows and people would say "No, play another" and we didn't have any more 'cause we hadn't written any more songs. So we really like this song and we'd kick it around in practice and say "well we can play this one". This tour we've been playing some of the covers off the "Eraser"'s b-side.

PTST: Got anything special planned for New York?
RR: The Seaport's gonna be awesome, we're gonna keep it all a secret for now and let the people see for themselves. We're looking forward to a fun outdoor show on Friday!

No Age - "Eraser"
No Age - "Teen Creeps"

No Age Tour Dates:
07/10 - Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church
07/11 - New York ,NY @ Seaport Music Festival
07/13 - Redmond, WA @ Sub Pop 20th Anniversary Festival
07/14 - Cambridge, MA @ Middle East Downstairs
07/15 - Montreal, PQ La Sala Rossa
07/16 - Toronto, ON @ Legendary Horseshoe Tavern
07/17 - Pontiac, MI @ Eagle Theatre
07/19 - Chicago IL @ Pitchfork Music Festival
07/21 - Minneapolis, MN @ Triple Rock Social Club
07/24 - Vancouver, BC @ Richards On Richards
07/26 - Portland, OR @ Hawthorne Theater
07/28 - San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
09/04 - Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom