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Last weekend I had the opportunity to sit down with Richard and Andy from Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos after their set at Desdemona. Here is the transcript.

ENS - What is your musical background individually and as a band?

Richard - We’ve all played in a bunch of bands growing up, you know little punk bands and stuff. Once we got older, and some of us dropped out of college to pursue music together. We were able to get a lot of friends together to form this band and make this record which was a cool thing to be able to do.

ENS - What is different about being based in Indianapolis rather than a coast?

Richard - Well, two things. Cheaper and more boring.

ENS - Really? Well its been said Cincinnati is pretty boring as well…

Andy - Cincinnati always seemed like the cooler brother of Indianapolis to me. Indy is kind of tough for us because we’ve been there so long and we know everybody there that has things in common with us, so it’s kind of hard to have any friendships in Indy.
Lately it has been really boring, probably because we don’t have any money to go out to bars and have a good time really.

ENS - So does that make you want to get out of a city like Indianapolis, flee to a big metropolitan city?

Richard - Well, not really, I’ve always wanted to be in a big metro city though, I don’t know that the band should move for more exposure or anything like that, but maybe we need to (laughs).

Andy - But id like to live somewhere else, I think within the next year or so, some of us may move to a big city like New York or London or something, but I don’t see any reason why the band wont continue to be based in Indy.

At this point in the interview a middle aged woman approaches us and starts talking, unaware that an interview is going on, she mistakes me for a band member and is actually quite difficult to get rid of. About 10 minutes later we resume.

ENS - So, we just got approached by a fan, what has it been like to become recognizable?

Andy - Its really odd, personally I feel like we can play shows and I can tell the people that come have the album and really like it. That’s always a cool thing to see. On the other hand people will recognize us and be mad sometimes because they say they can’t find our album anywhere. (laughs)

ENS - Well, I really promised to try not to talk about the band name……

Andy - No, its ok, the thing is, Its such a bad question for us, it doesn’t upset me when people ask it because everyone does, but there really isn’t any meaning behind it. I mean, we like Wes Anderson but its not a reference to that.

Richard - Maybe it’s the only reason we have a fan base at all, (laughs).

ENS - So, would it be an insult to say you guys are a poor mans Arcade Fire?

Andy – No, it’s not an insult..—

Richard (to Andy)- Yeah it is!

ENS - The poor man part?

Andy - No, the Arcade Fire part….

Richard - I mean, you know, I just don’t see the fucking connection. I like that band, but there are so many bands in this world that have more than four people, you know. I see these music critics saying stuff like, “it’s the arcade fire because it came out after the arcade fire.” But you know, we were making this record before we even heard the arcade fire.

I like them a lot, don’t get me wrong, but we get this arcade fire bullshit, they’ve been around a year and have one record with ten songs on it. The reason it pisses me off I guess is because I sometimes feel like it just kind of devalues what we are doing.. I mean come on, we sound nothing like them. I didn’t grow up listing to indie rock, I didn’t grow up listening to the talking heads, I like Paul Simon and stuff like that.

ENS - But you guys are just straightforward pop music for the most part right?

Richard - Id like to think we are! I mean, that’s what I like to say we are, pop music with instruments. People come and expect some Interpol like post 90s experience, that’s not who we are, Im not trying to be hip or something either you know.

ENS - If you were trying to be hip you wouldn’t be based in Indianapolis right?

Richard -Exactly. I mean, I don’t want to come off as an asshole because I really like those bands but what we are doing really has nothing to do with them.

ENS - Journalists often do the comparison thing though, to get readers interested, even when it’s inaccurate, you understand that?

Richard - Sure, but I just feel like the musical literacy amongst journalists is really bad, im not talking about you bro, don’t worry. (laughs) I mean id rather hear a comparison to someone like Elliott Smith that would be fair, I listened to a lot of Elliott growing up. But instead we get compared to these bands that really haven’t influenced us at all. I mean, I don’t have anything in common with these bands, I grew up listening to 60s pop music.

Andy - If we get compared too much, it gets really odd; I mean we had our own world in mind when we created this album.

Richard - That’s the kind of people I really like to see in our audiences too, the 50 year olds that loved the pop music I grew up listening to, stuff I love and am influenced by. Not just the people that read Pitchfork. I mean, c’mon man, I went to college, and I know how to write a paragraph. I know how to write biting satire and college boy wit or whatever it is they do.

ENS - Talk about the highs and lows of touring…

Richard - Its fun to see new cities, fun to see the type of people who come to your shows. .

Andy - Its lots of fun on stage, but then its over and you have to load the gear, (laughs)

Richard - It can be depressing though too, because when you are a young band you become kind of like a traveling salesman. You hit three houses that are interested in what you are selling and then 2 that aren’t. Its can be really brutal though on how you feel.

ENS - So, it’s really hard not to take it personal as an artist….

Richard - Yeah, we take everything personally, because we care about it and worked hard on this stuff. I think constantly being evaluated can really wear on you over time. Everyone needs validation though, even if they say they don’t. Whoever they are.

I really stopped reading everything about six months ago, even though most of it has been really good reviews, but its hard to be rational about it and process it all. I don’t want to get depressed when press is bad and get too high when it’s good.

I heard this Paul Schrader quote one time in regards to the critic and the artist.

It is something like, “I used to be a critic and now as an artist I hate critics. Critics are like a mortician. He has to cut open the corpse with no personal attachment at all and pick it apart and decide how it worked, why it worked, and why it died.

The artist job is to raise a child, and if you let the mortician in the room while nursing the child, your whole job is to nurse and raise the baby, which is your art. So there is a function for a critic and an artist, but they should be separate as much as possible.

I promise to steer clear of your nursing Richard. (wink)

Seriously though, my thanks to Richard and Andy on a great conversation. They were funny, and very engaging. And their set at Desdemona was my highlight of the first day. These photos were taken by Jonathon of Willis Photo Art.

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