| SCARY KIDS SCARING KIDS set sail to NZ for their final shows - ever! |
| Written by Sarah Mudgway |
| Sunday, 15 August 2010 18:55 |
 SCARY KIDS SCARING KIDS [SKSK] are about to blast their way through Australia and New Zealand for what should be their final shows EVER as a band - and Coup De Main was lucky enough to have not one, but two phone conversations (thanks technology!), with SKSK keyboardist extraordinaire POUYAN AFKARY. Describing Scary Kids Scaring Kids as "high energy rock and roll" that "bros in a bar wouldn’t get", Pouyan states that while the band have called it quits, they all still remain friends. "We’re all buddies. I went out for drinks with DJ and Steve the other day, and saw Chad yesterday. It's nice, we all started moving on so it’s like a very pleasant and unexpected reunion, revisiting all our old friends." And while it seems most foreigners seem quick to cite 'Lord Of The Rings' as their go-to film when thinking of New Zealand, Pouyan is not like most. "I hate to say this because I might sound odd, but my biggest impression of NZ is in the film 'Black Sheep'. Oh my god I love it. The B-horror movie, the sheep, the vegan dude who turns into a sheep. It’s genius. Best bad horror movie I’ve ever seen in my life, honestly." Playing Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland in early September, Pouyan is quick to admit his excitement to finally make it to our shores, as well as being able to get a glimpse at the countryside. "We’ve always wanted to come to New Zealand but unfortunately there never was a promoter that had enough faith in us, but for the first time some-one has said let's do it, and we couldn’t be more stoked... we get to actually move around. I think we’re doing some club events or something at a bar as well, so that will be fun, give us time to drink and interact with NZ." COUP DE MAIN: So you had your farewell tour earlier this year across the US, is Australia and New Zealand the last of the farewell tours? POUYAN: <laughs> Yeah, that is what we thought last time. CDM: How did the addition of this tour come about? POUYAN: We had finally finished up with the band, and finished the tour in the States, and thought it was completely over. We had a huge party in a nice hotel room, had a huge pillow fight as those things go, then we all started our lives and we got a phone call from our manager who said: "I have an awesome opportunity, let us know if you’re interested." Eventually everyone came back and said: "If everyone can do it, then I’d love to." And we all seemed to come back with the same answer. So we put together the dates and he did it, and it very naturally came together. Actually, just yesterday I flew back into Arizona, and we’re going to start practising soon. CDM: So once this tour is done, what does the future have in store for you? Will you continue on in music? POUYAN: No, personally I’m not continuing on in music. I started a social networking site, for like canvas and sculpture and street art. We’ve been working on it for months, and it’ll be done by the time this tour is done. And then, Chad is going off with a brand new band with members of Drop Dead Gorgeous and some unknown musicians. That project is un-named as of now. Steve joined an existing band called The Real You, who are a piano-rock band in the vein of Jack’s Mannequin. CDM: Oh nice! POUYAN: Yeah, piano-rock is personally one of my favourite genres. CDM: Same. I love Andrew McMahon. POUYAN: Yeah, me too. One time I was visiting a friend at a festival he was doing and I was fortunate enough to see him. I’ve never met him though. I remember the bassist was wearing a weird arm thing, it threw me off. Jack's Mannequin is such mature music to me and then there was this weird dude who looked like he was covering up wrist wounds. I was like: 'What the hell is this?' Aside from that, it was great.  CDM: Looking back over your time with the band, is there one memory which stands out above the rest? POUYAN: Everything stands out, it’s so tough. Overall, it's like, I jumped out on the road with five of my best friends and we experienced the most crucial stages of personal development, new experiences and culture together, at the same time having every often opportunity to become absolutely immoral and trying to keep each other focused on morality and all the right ideas. And also, we’ve been creating these things we’ve been so passionate about. CDM: Is there one particular song that stands out to you as something you are personally proud of? POUYAN: Actually, I like the way we play the songs live, much more than we do on the album. I think the album's great and it’s an awesome mix, but there are certain things that we have gone back into the songs and pulled out new parts which really make them more energetic or stand out more. One of my favourite songs to play live is ‘Degenerates’ from the self-titled. Pretty much anything on the self-titled is fun for me to play. CDM: So you are a fan of your self-titled more so than ‘The City Sleeps In Flames'? POUYAN: Yeah, absolutely. It’s our most recent album so it is closer to where we are musically and what our personal music preferences [are] today, as opposed to what they once were. CDM: Would you say that the live setting is where SKSK truly come to life? POUYAN: Absolutely. CDM: What is about performing that you enjoy the most? POUYAN: I hate to be cliché, but obviously things I do on stage I wouldn’t do personally in my every day character. The dudes from The Sleeping and MOD SUN coined it as the Pouyan-ster, he’s my alter ego when I have too many drinks in me. It’s like this energy where the music takes control. This transcended energy, it’s awesome. I love it. I am not myself whatsoever on stage and it’s great because it shows it’s not me up there being a robot. It’s still fresh and new every time we play so it’s a lot of fun. CDM: Will you miss that? POUYAN: Of course, but I think... what could compare? SKSK started from scratch and we all started the band together and when we did that it's like, it’s my baby. I can’t imagine any other project that would allow and utilize keyboards the way that we do, and that someone would be on the same democratic vibe that SKSK has. It doesn’t make sense for me to start something new from scratch. I’m 25 this month, so it’s like another three years of the grass roots struggle... so I’d be 28 before a band starts kicking off. No thanks. I don’t think I’d be proud of that. I’m all about new experiences, but I feel like I did music. I tackled it and grabbed it by the horns and lived it to its fullest and I learned a lot. If I was going to start a band today I’d probably do some things different, but it’s like I’ve done it. I want to start something totally new, and meet the new challenges. CDM: What would you say is the one lesson you’ll take away that is applicable to everyday life? POUYAN: You know, I don’t think I have just one. It sounds boring, but SKSK taught me a lot about promotion and how to talk to people, and then socializing every day with different cultures. One thing I always wanted was a world view, so I’m glad this gave me the opportunity to get that. And on top of that I like the business savvy stuff, like how to talk to lawyers when you’re being sued by an old manager that was god awful, how to work with corrupt labels, how to tell if someone is screwing you over, and how to kind of pick apart the good and bad people in the world and find when it's okay to have grey areas. Being in a band it can be really good and bad, as you’re not really held accountable for anything you do. You can smoke a joint on-stage or be drunk in the street and they’ll be like: "oh alright get back to your bus you’re okay". So it’s like, you can either fall apart and become a complete degenerate, or you can actually take these lessons and use the fact that you can create yourself entirely to your own benefit and become a positive person. CDM: Yesterday when we spoke you briefly mentioned your new social networking project - have all of the business aspects you’ve learned helped you out with that? POUYAN: Sure. It was impressive because I jumped in when they were already established and I was just like ‘well okay this is what we need to do’ and they were like ‘how do you know that?’ It was interesting because I didn’t know how I would be applicable, but I felt more involved in more areas than I expected to be. CDM: Does the site have a name? POUYAN: It’s not finished yet, but it is www.obsessedartist.com. I don’t know how much I explained last night, but it’s a social networking site for artists where we will have like tangible art - canvas, sculpting, photos, street art - and people can use our print shop where they give us high-resolution images and we will provide the prints for them and they get 25% of their gross. And we’ve done our research and artists get more money from us than anywhere else, so we are just trying to create a proper online community for up and coming artists. I mean, there is Deviant Art but that’s mostly for anime and it’s kind of weird and you’re part of some community type thing... so we’re taking our thing and trying to create that entity online properly.  CDM: Do you think coming into it as a musician who knows first-hand the struggles of getting your art out there and struggling to find the balance for finances, has helped you with the site? POUYAN: Yeah for sure. Like when SKSK first started out we just posted stuff online for exposure, but I mean it's cool because if you’re a musician you don’t really need a label, so you can sell your songs on millions of little mp3 sites and get some exposure. So we’re trying to create something big and more encompassing for tangible art. I’m stoked about it, obviously. It’s good for me to stay creative: I’d lose my mind if I couldn’t have an original idea everyday. CDM: Now that you have seen how the music industry works from an artist's perspective, would you ever consider a career at a label? POUYAN: Maybe, if they exist in a few years. I really don’t know. I don’t think I would, to be honest. CDM: Where do you think the music industry is headed? POUYAN: I’m not sure, it’s so difficult. I have many theories on different days, so today you’re catching me on this theory, but it feels like, with how transparent we are on social networking sites... if you notice the trend in successful artists like Taylor Swift, and Lady Gaga... the majority, and it has been like this for awhile, like good rock doesn’t really make it to the radio these days as opposed to the 90's where radio rock was pretty solid and had emotion, and it was bands who developed their craft over time. Now you don’t really seem to have musicians who have been around for awhile and mastered their craft - and then they make it on the radio. It seems to me, that’s becoming less and less. There are a few exceptions, but now it’s like you get your first impression and that’s it. So I think that maybe artists who are up and coming, they’ll get their first impression and it's going to be maintaining that thought in people's minds forever so you see success... but it doesn’t really capture it. I think the most successful artists are going to be those who jump on a label, have a marketing plan in tact, have the appropriate writers ready and then make their first impression from that, right off the bat. And unfortunately that might not give much room for development or for someone to really to understand the business and get solid at it. This might be a weird reference but there is artist in a band called Never Shout Never, have you heard of him? CDM: Christopher Drew? POUYAN: Yeah, he is a really nice guy and they get a lot of crap. Keith Buckley from Every Time I Die who is a good friend of ours called him a poor man's Justin Bieber, and I completely disagree with that. Like if he actually took the time to have a conversation with him... I think he is writing awesome stuff right now, taking a hippy eclectic approach. And I know from personal relations that he is working with certain non-profit organizations to develop some really cool programs in the future. So I think some-one like that who already has a cool young image or whatever, but then he is actually developing something. I think I’ve gone off on a tangent, but I am curious to see if he can take that and transfer it... it’s a difficult thing to do. CDM: You really only get one chance to make any impression these days, as there is always something new right behind you. POUYAN: Yeah it’s ridiculous. Like, we did our farewell tour at the end of the year and that was supposed to be it but I mean, by this point who even remembers? And like you know, six years ago we were like ‘yeah lets do that’ but now, who the fuck remembers. It can take eight years to develop something and people forget in a second. CDM: Yeah, it is kind of sad. Anyway, that is all the time I have so I’ll wrap it up here! We are all looking forward to seeing you in a few weeks time. POUYAN: Great, yeah, same here. New Zealand will be our last show ever, it’ll be fun! |
