Danny, Elizabeth, and Pete. Photo by Peter Van Hattem.
By Zac Taylor
Managing Editor
In the wake of Heavy Rotation’s 10th Anniversary, it’s nice to know that indie-pop songsters Elizabeth and the Catapult, whose debut LP Taller Children is now a featured item at Barnes & Noble across the country, first appeared on Dorm Sessions Vol. 3. Elizabeth Ziman (keys and vocals), Pete Lalish (guitars) and Danny Molad (drums), have really been making a name for themselves with fans and critics alike. Not only has the record been getting rave reviews, so have their music videos for the record’s title track and the second single, “Race You.” The Catapult sat down with The Groove before their most recent Red Room appearance to talk shop on their record, creative mindsets, and making the big metropolis of New York feel like a Mr. Roger’s neighborhood.
Zac Taylor: Welcome back to Boston. You guys came from Brooklyn today?
Elizabeth Ziman: Yes. Yesterday we had a really eventful day. We did this really funny late night show for Fox, and then we did NPR, and Iggy Pop was on the same program. Then we had a show for housing work and raised $1,500 for homeless people with HIV. So that was literally a 24-hour period.
ZT: Wow, that’s quite a day in the life. How was Iggy Pop?
EZ: He was so sophisticated and sweet. He was the absolute opposite of how you would expect Iggy Pop to be like. He was like, ‘How are you? I’m so happy that you brought a string section—that’s so lovely!’
Danny Molad: I was like, ‘Hi, I’m Danny,’ and he was like, ‘Hi, I’m Iggy.’ And that was my exchange with him. He’s 62 years old, did you know that?
ZT: He looks good for 62. He must hit the gym. And the hair stylist probably. Did he have highlights?
Pete Lalish: He had beautiful highlights. A beautiful mane.
ZT: So you guys are back at Berklee—your home turf. How long has it been since you were here?
PL: We were here in 2004.
ZT: Is it fun coming back? Do you feel like hometown heroes at the alma mater?
PL: I’ve actually only been back to come here now and it’s a whole new school. It looks great.
DM: We definitely kept in touch with a lot of our classmates, play music with them, and we live in the same apartment complex.
EZ: We live with Via Audio, the Prigs, St. Vincent—everyone is in the same building. It’s like a Berklee dorm in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn.
ZT: How is rent there?
DM: Amazing.
EZ: It’s going to go up once we get it out on the Groove.
DM: The Groove is going to expose us and our secrets!
ZT: If you could go back in time and tell the Elizabeth, Pete and Dan from 2004 who were eating lunch at Crazy Dough’s and cramming for Ear Training tests some advice about the music industry, moving to New York, and some things to watch out for, what would you tell those youngsters?
EZ: In all seriousness, it would be to really trust your instinct as much as possible, because it’s going to be tested a lot. And the more of any kind of success you have, the more people are going to try to tell you what to do—the more you’re going to have to trust yourself. And even though it sounds like a self-help book, I think that’s the biggest thing.
PL: I’ll give advice that someone gave me in regards to New York. When I was a Berklee student, I told a teacher, ‘I think I’m going to leave school early and move to New York.’ He said, ‘Great. So what do you want, my blessing?’ But then he said, ‘So you’re going to move to New York? Well, there’s going to be a bunch of great musicians around. And there’s going to be a bunch of really bad musicians around. There you go.’
ZT: Ha!
PL: When you’re in school, you feel like you’re part of this group of amazing people. At the same time, you don’t have to be technically amazing or be in school forever to go and play music anywhere.
EZ: So Pete, you’re basically telling people to drop out of Berklee?
PL: Well, it really works for some people to stay, and it really works for some people to go. Either way, whether it’s two or four years, it’s a great time. But the best advice I had was that everyone outside of the school is doing it, good or bad, it’s still the same thing.
EZ: Yeah, just set your own rules.
DM: So much has happened in the industry in eight years, it’s insane. Coming to Berklee my freshman year, I would be going through a library of CDs, and then mp3s were sort of happening, but slowly. Then record stores started closing, and all of a sudden playing these summer festivals was like the thing to do. Festivals have become this insane thing, where 40 amazing bands will be in this one city, and then they’ll be in this other city. And all these things adding up, and…I’m not sure where I’m going with this.
EZ: I think what you’re saying is that we started off with music being made for joy, and then it turned into a business, and then the business went out of business, and now we’re making music for joy again. Is that it?
DM: I guess it’s really you have to make your own path. Don’t listen to what anybody tells you. If you think you know what you’re doing, trust yourself, like Elizabeth said.
ZT: When you guys first starting playing together, was it a trio?
DM: Well, this has always been the core. We’ve always had auxiliary members playing bass, trumpet or violin.
EZ: We have one player who’s going to come on tour with us, our friend Ameen, who is from Boston. He plays so many instruments, and we’re going to abuse the hell out of him. He’s going to play trumpet, saxophone, piano, bass, he’s going to sing, and we’re just going to kill him on tour.
ZT: You guys have such a cool production on the record. When you take it live, what kind of freedoms do you enjoy, or what kind of snags do you run into?
EZ: All freedoms. We don’t even try to duplicate the sound of the record because it’s so complicated and complex, and we really go for full out orchestrations on the record, and we wouldn’t have an orchestra touring with us, because we’re never going to have that kind of money. So we just kind of do some samples, and otherwise, just try to make it a different experience.
DM: Yeah, I don’t think anyone wants to go see a live show and have it sound exactly like the record. Then it’s like, what’s the point? I’ll just listen to the record.
EZ: I think some people do.
PL: I think the nice thing about the band, is that people say ‘We like your arrangements,’ and I think we like our arrangements a lot, and that could be a big thing, like with strings and samples, or a really little thing. It takes an equal amount of time to arrange, depending on the room.
EZ: We cater to the room.
ZT: I saw the Killers live, and it sounded like someone had just pressed play on the record. It was so boring. You guys aren’t doing nearly enough Killers covers, by the way. I think you should consider that for the set list.
PL: They actually write good songs. I’m into their songs
Photo by Peter M. Van Hattem
ZT: Let’s go back to New York for a second. Does the in-your-face hipness every turn you off?
EZ: I think the day that I bought Ray Bans was when I knew they had corrupted my soul. I realized I could fit in. I think it’s the same thing we’re talking about: putting blinders on. There’s a lot of amazing, creative people in New York. If you pay attention to them, you’re going to have a lot of fun. If you sit around and complain about it, you’re not going to have as much fun. That’s it.
PL: To complain about stuff being made constantly and creatively is kind of picking on your own kind. So you might as well overlook fashion trends.
DM: It’s the epicenter of cool, but it’s also the epicenter of creativity. There’s so many creative people, not just in music. So it’s a bit overwhelming.
ZT: Well you guys have a cool neighborhood, too. You live with St. Vincent and Via Audio. It must be important to have such a community.
PL: There’s nothing I’d love to see more than all our friends growing together. I think there’s a genuine understanding with all of our friends that if somebody gets there sooner than another person, then we’re going to try to help the other person out.
EZ: This is so name-dropping, but you know what’s a funny, funny fact? Esperanza Spalding was the first bass player in Elizabeth & The Catapult. For two years.
ZT: She’s pretty good.
PL: But because we’re always super inspired by our friends, the only records I listen to now are my friends’ amazing records. We get so inspired and amazed, we want to help other people do those things, too.
ZT: You must have been intimidated about moving to New York from Boston. What are some ways you banded together and took advantage of living there and playing out? Did you have a mailing list you passed around at open mic night or how did you get the buzz going?
PL: Well, the whole part about living in New York is finding a community, because then it makes a big city feel a lot smaller and warmer. And we spent a lot of time kind of finding that home and enjoying it. And right when we moved, we were lucky to have a residency at the Living Room, which is really awesome, and the Rockwood Music Hall.
EZ: The Rockwood Music Hall is literally our family.
ZT: Do you guys go see Michael Daves there on Mondays?
DM: It’s Tuesdays now. At Ten.
EZ: Jeff Taylor, who’s playing with us tonight, stalked him, and now they make music together.
PL: And once you kind of find those places, they’ll invite you back or you’ll be like ‘Hey, can I sneak in there?’ then it’s like a familiar family, and then all of a sudden, the city doesn’t seem so big.
DM: I actually had a friend who was scared to play a show for a while. He’s this really talented songwriter, but he works in finance or something. And I was like, ‘You should play a show!’ And he was like, ‘I don’t know, I got to work on my songs.’ and I said screw this, so I called Tommy, who books Rockwood, and I said ‘Hey, book my friend a show.’ So then I called him and said, ‘You got a show!’
PL: Elizabeth did the same thing to me. We were going to do a show together, and then you said, ‘Oh, sorry—you’re going to it solo!’ My first Woodman show. It was great.
ZT: When you’re playing places at Rockwood or Living Room, is it more important to make friends with the people that manage there, or bring more people, or make sure it’s a great show? Obviously, there all important.
PL: Well, the nice thing about Rockwood is that it’s all tips. It’s a nice balance with the business side. I don’t think we’ve ever encountered too many outlandish business things.
DM: I think the most important thing, is that if you feel strongly about something, just do it over and over again.
EZ: And make sure you take advantage of the free beer tickets. And the reason I say that, to tie it in to make it not sound like I’m an alcoholic, is that you just have to not take yourself too seriously.
ZT: When you guys were here at Berklee, were you very promiscuous with your musical endeavors and play with like nine different bands?
E&TC: Yes.
ZT: Do you all still play with a bunch of different bands, or is it all Catapult?
PL: Danny produces a lot.
EZ: He produced and the Temples’ last record, who is our hero—Luke Temple. They went on tour with Grizzly Bear.
PL: It’s hard to not do that. Elizabeth and Jeff [Taylor] have written a bunch of songs that the Catapult plays, and they play with Jeff. And to stop that would be impossible, unless you’re like a pen writer. But even they would collaborate. Now you see like Dave eggers writing this and that for this movie. It’s also really fun. Music is really cathartic in certain ways. You want it as an outlet so you don’t have to sit behind a desk and freak out if you’re not satisfied. So even in music, you have different situations that you want. I play with really noisy bands that are not very melodic because it’s fun to piss people off. And sometimes you want to just dance, and not even have to think about if the music’s good or bad.
DM: We have other outlets. Like soccer.
ZT: Do you go to Prospect Park and play soccer?
PL: Every Sunday. Health Sunday. 3 o’clock. Get pro. Play some sports.
ZT: Where’d you find that adorable Asian boy for your “Taller Children” music video?
DM: Elizabeth’s best friend has an uncle who has a son and needed babysitting, so I started to baby-sit him. Then I needed subs, so Pete was a sub, then he needed a sub so David from Via Audio was a sub, and he has really open-minded liberal parents, so we asked them if he could star in our video.
EZ: This kid is a genius songwriter. When he was five years old, we had him open for us at the Living Room at this packed show, and he started singing this song about drowning in the chaos of the world or something—really dark lyrics, all improvised. And the audience was like, ‘Aww, this is a song about suicide but it’s really cute!’ and they were uncomfortable but knew he was a genius, and then he was like, ‘Now I’m going to do another song!’ and he just didn’t want to get off the stage. He’s just one of these brilliant, bizarre children. And now he’s grown up like five more years, and is basically smarter than all of us.
DM: He was actually four when he opened for us, and he’s seven now.
PL: There’s a song he wrote about love that’s so heartfelt. He gets into this character that’s not a character, it’s just coming from some place so strong.
DL: He’s all over Youtube. Taiyo De Jong.
PL: I just had an inkling—if we tell Tao the premise of this video and dress him up, he’s going to nail it. At the beginning of the day, we told him the character, and that was no direction—that was all him. He was in it all day from start to finish.
ZT: Did you guys conceive the video?
PL: Yeah, and two friends of ours who directed.
ZT: Naturally you have friends who make videos in New York.
PL: But that video is all Taiyo.
EZ: His father was like, ‘What does it feel like to be having a nervous breakdown as a 45 year old?! Get in the mindset!’
PL: And Taiyo was like ‘Ok. You’re right dad. You’re right.’
For more on E&TC, visit ElizabethandtheCatapult.com.
