Brightest Young Things

Pretty and Nice are (still) relatively unknown and thus finding information on them beforehand was near to impossible, but having listened to both their albums (including the most recent, out on Hardly Art, poppy delight that is "Get Young") , I figured I could wing this little chat I had scheduled with Jeremy.
I was wrong.
Very wrong. After an email from their manager asking how it went, I explained, and he said that that sounded about right. So, what I thought was my budding, inexperienced journalism skills turned out to be their very proper

New-England upbringing showing through. No matter how I tried, these boys know how to divert the conversation into a completely new realm. Come see them with Jukebox the Ghost this Friday at the Rock and Roll Hotel, but until then, enjoy!

BYT: Alright, thanks for doing this. Is this Jeremy or the whole band?

J: Just Holden and I.

BYT: Can I hear Holden’s voice? Hi, Holden?

J: We’re huddling over the phone?

BYT: Where did Pretty and Nice come from?

J: The Universe.

BYT: So the Universe is pretty and nice?

J: No. Pretty and Nice comes from the Universe. The universe is Pretty and Nice and Pretty and Nice is the Universe. But the Universe is also a lot of things, like the difference between drugs and medicine. All medicines are drugs but not all drugs are medicines. Like the Universe and Pretty and Nice.

BYT: Jeremy,did you come up with the name?

J: No.

BYT: The Universe did?

J: Well, an item in the Universe. Perhaps a couple of items some synapse fired Pretty and Nice.

BYT: Is there anyone in the band that is the prettiest and the nicest?

J: Yes.

BYT: Who would that be?

J: We can’t reveal that information to you.

H: You can decide for yourself on Friday.

J: And please publish that, so that we can have some sort of definitive word on it.

BYT: I was telling a friend that I was going to be interviewing you and he has seen you in Boston and I asked if you were in fact pretty and nice, he said that you were nice.

J: I know a lot about Emerson, your son is probably bias.

BYT: You guys are from Vermont, right?

J: Holden and I are, but Belle and Bobby are not. Belle is from Boston and Bobby has been from Boston and also Florida. We met them both in Boston, yes.

BYT: At school?

J: No, Holden went to school in Boston, but before I moved down here. And I didn’t go to school, nor did Bobby.

BYT: So how old are you guys?

J: 23 through 26.

BYT: I thought you were younger.

J: Nay. Nay I say to you. We are but old trees in a wood.

BYT: So who’s the youngest then?

J: Everyone except for Jeremy. They’re all 23 I’m 26.

BYT: How can you stand being around all those kids?

J: Well I built this machine that I get inside of before I have any interactions with them. It’s plastic and see-thru and has sensors and feeds me information. And when I speak or give any sort of interpretable information the machine interprets my words and emotions and then improvises them and speaks or does the motion to the rest of the band. So, basically they think I’m a very young, hip version of all of the information that comes from the actual twenty-six year old self.

BYT: Holden, I have to ask and you probably hate this question, but are you named after Holden Caulfield?

H: No. I’m completely sure. If you want to, look up Holden, Maine. I’m more named after that town than the book. I read the book when I was in like the fourth grade because everyone asked me. It gave me a leg-up on everybody because I knew that first dumb thing that was going to come out of their mouth.

J: He says that lovingly and with all due respect.

H: There’s a 50/50 chance that someone will ask me that.

J: when JD Salinger dies, would you be willing to escort me to the volt which we will open before anyone else and take out the three manuscripts and read them post-mortem . This is probably the most exciting thing I can think of, except maybe the idea that David Foster Wallace putting something out post-mortem but I found out that’s not possible.

BYT: Salinger lives in Vermont, have you ever gone and looked for Salinger’s hut?

J/H: NO.

J: He lives in the woods and there are so many houses in the woods that we would be so arrested so many times by county police and you don’t want to get arrested in your home state by county because then you look like the big-city ruffian.

H: well we are. It’s sickening and saddening. We’re sick and sad.

BYT: You aren’t the most popular kids in your hometown?

J: We were alright, we did okay.

H: Oh, yeah, we were. We were so popular we had to get out of there.

J: We couldn’t walk down the street without being mauled by adoring fans.

BYT: You’ve been together four years?

H/J: Around that, yeah.

BYT: But how long have you two have known each other?

H: For four years. You just told us! Why are you asking us?

BYT: No, I mean you two grew up together…

H: No. Absolutely not. I wouldn’t go near this guy.

BYT: Wait, was that Holden speaking?

H: It surely was.

BYT: I’m getting better at this. Maybe on Friday when I come to your merch table, I won’t recognize you by how you look but by your voices.

H: I think it will be impossible for you not to.

J: I think you will be guided by voices.

BYT: So you guys like them (Guided By Voices)?

J: They come from my favorite town in the USA, Dayton, Ohio.

BYT: I have never been there.

J: Go to Dayton, Ohio, it’s such a cool place! Nearly abandoned, closed industrial town, but so many great bands have come from there and all the people that are part of the music scene are just really fucking hip. Not in the way people were hip about music before, you know when they were total-fucking toolbags.

BYT: So what am I?

J: You sound like a really lovely lady. You sound like the kind of person I would really like to eat Sheppard’s pie with.

BYT: Why Sheppard’s pie? I’m not a huge fan, I do like other kinds of pie though.

J: well then maybe we could have some delicious apple-peach pie.

BYT: Ohh, peach pie, I haven’t had that in awhile, though I did make and eat some very delicious pies last week for Thanksgiving.

J: Bring a pie to the show, or we can go find a place to get pie before the show. If you bring a pie, I will buy the drinks.

(This leads to some confusion about my age and them mishearing me earlier and thinking that I have a son at Emerson and not a friend.)

(Jeremy starts singing, “children, who have children, are the luckiest children in the world…”)

BYT: So, Get young, is your new album, I like it. A lot.

J: We wrote it for you.

BYT: You did! Thank you! Did you have a vision that led you to write it specifically for me?

J: I had never had a vision before…

H: I had a vision of youth and beauty…

J: and then we wrote an opera and then we scrapped the opera because no one would understand and then we wrote a bunch of shitty pop songs and put them on a record.

BYT: What was the first song that you wrote for Get Young?

J: The first song was written years ago, it was either ‘Nuts and Bolts’ or ‘Tora Tora Tora.’

H: ‘Grab your nets.’

J: That was on the last EP in it’s rockier form. Right now we’re both lying on my bed and Holden is cuddling a deer and there is a constant silent party going on.

(Holden screams in ecstasy and then makes puking sounds)

H: I just puked all over the place, it was really sexy.

J: I am not drinking and I am not having any fun and I am just trying to get through this interview successfully and professionally.

H: I’m wasted.

J: It’s the dichotomy of Pretty and Nice.

BYT: You guys are making this very difficult…

J: We’re sorry.

BYT: ‘Tora Tora Tora,’ are there any racist undertones in that song?

(laughing from all)

J: No, well there was the one time, but I won’t tell you about that.

H: You know what it means, right?

BYT: It’s the code word the Japanese use before they bomb Pearl Harbor…

H: Right.

J: The word “tora” is tiger in Japanese. If anything we like the Japanese too much.

BYT: And why is that?

H: Have you ever been to Japan?

BYT: Nope.

J: We haven’t either, but have you ever dated or been friends with a Japanese person.

BYT: Friends? Yes.

H: There’s a lot to be interested in. It’s the same but totally different.

J: Their culture is partly from eastern culture and partly from western culture and makes for a hyper-hyper example of both.

H: It’s a hyperbole.

J: It’s probably the most hyperbolistic thing there is. It’s totally fucking insane.

H: Right now, or after this interview, go on Youtube and look up Japanese commercials.

BYT: I’m not at a computer, but when I am I will, so we need to hurry this up, boys.

H: Oh, we need to hurry up?

BYT: No, no, we have all the time in the world.

J: Actually I do need to make breakfast for my loved ones. I’m going to make pancakes and eggs with vegetables, and sausages…

H: with not vegetables…

BYT: Holden, you don’t like vegetables?

J: No, no, we just like them all in one place.

H: If people are to know one thing about pretty and nice, it’s that we’re all for vegetables.

J: So, don’t you call me a vegetable hater.

H: Here’s the headline – “Pretty and Nice: Not Vegetable Haters.” We like to give at least one example headline.

J: “Pretty and Nice: Bacon, Beans and Bizarre”

BYT: What’s your favorite vegetable?

J: That’s really hard.

H: Mine is the artichoke.

(Jeremy mumbles and I ask him to repeat himself)

J: Perhaps the onion.

BYT: I’m sorry, I have t-mobile and everything is really fuzzy.

H: We’re long-time Verizon people because we like wasting money.

BYT: T-mobile is supposed to be really good abroad, but I’ve never been abroad…

J: Yes you have! You’re a broad right now!

H: He could have called you a babe, but then it wouldn’t have worked with the joke.

BYT: You guys haven’t seen me, I could be a really ugly person.

H: You don’t sound very ugly at all.

J: It doesn’t matter! For our purposes, you don’t have a physical being, you’re just a concept and a stimulus.

BYT: Okay, then what does that make you guys to me?

J: We are subject matter and a stimulus.

(I attempt to take us back on topic)

BYT: When did your tour start?

H: We’re not on tour; we’re just doing four days.

J: It’s not a legitimate tour; it’s more a string of shows at the end of a week.

BYT: Your tour came out about two months ago, will you go on tour after the new year then?

H: We’ll be doing a couple of short ones and then a long one.

BYT: Have you started lining it up already?

J: We’ll do three or four little strings like we’re doing next weekend in January and the February, March and April are when you should be looking out for us.

H: we were doing a lot of touring, between now and Pink and Blue, but not specifically for Pink and Blue, before we were touring every few months.

BYT: Have you guys gone abroad?

J: We went to Canada last week.

BYT: But you haven’t gone on a European tour or anything?

H: No, but Get Young was just released in Japan about a week ago so we’re hoping to go there in the next year or so.

BYT: Have you read any reviews from Japan since the release?

H: Nope. We’ve read some stuff from Europe, but mostly it was just little blurbs, and we mostly don’t understand them because they’re in German and the translations aren’t always good.

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want more:
socialize with them online here
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listen here, along with our previous PSA about them
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be at RNR on Friday.