An Interview w/ Christopher Prudhomme of Psych-Pop Duo Painted Palms

By Chris Ryan

Recently our readers asked us to interview the sensational synth psych-pop duo Painted Palms. We jumped at the opportunity to interview this duo that is quickly stepping up in popularity and below is what we got back from, one-half of the cousin duo, Christopher Prudhomme.

Your music and style on ‘Forever’ have a very 60s-psychedelic feel (Syd Barrett meets MGMT) to it. Is that what you guys were feeling when making this totally awesome record?

Christopher Prudhomme: 60s pop was definitely something we were listening to and drawing influence from. I think we’ve learned a lot from that era of music, because it was a time when people were really pushing the limits of what you can do with within the confines of a pop song.

We read that Kevin Barnes from Of Montreal discovered your music after the release of the Canopy EP. How did his discovery lead to where you are today?

Christopher Prudhomme: When Kevin asked us to tour, we had never played a live show or even had a practice. It forced us to learn our songs live, and that process typically causes you to deconstruct the songs and look at them as an audience member as well as a performer. So that teaches you a lot. Also, Kevin and all of this wonderful friends/family gave us our first amazing touring experience. We were lucky to be able to watch such seasoned and talented performers every night.

Can you explain the process of making a record while both of you are in different states?

Christopher Prudhomme: Typically Reese will send over a beat with a chord progression, and we will construct the song section by section until it’s finished. After that, there is a process of fine-tuning and sanding down the rough edges so to speak. Occasionally I’ll send over an acoustic demo of part of a song, and we will decide if it makes sense to build it into a bigger thing. Forever took a while to make because a big part of the process was experimentation. We weren’t sure where we wanted to go for a while. But after all of that was over and we narrowed our focus things started to make a lot more sense.

If you were left on an island for the rest of your life and could only have 3 records with you, what would they be?

Christopher Prudhomme: That situation would probably make me sad, so I’d want stuff that would make me comfortable. Maybe the White Album or Paris 1919 by John Cale. Probably something by Kanye West. Silent Shout by the Knife for hunting.

Often times at AudioFuzz, we give our readers a sense of what the music “feels”, “tastes” and even “looks” like in our reviews. Could you try telling us what your music “feels”, “tastes” and “looks” like?

Christopher Prudhomme: Hopefully all of these senses would blend together and become indistinguishable from one another. Maybe it’d look like a pulsing orb. An orb made from a superfluid.

PURCHASE

Painted Palms debut album Forever 

TOUR DATES

March 4th – Bootleg Bar w/ R.L. Kelly 

Check out the music video for their latest single “Forever” below: