Pera called in from Boston ahead of his stand-up comedy performance which will take place at The Englert Theater on June 14^th. In his quaint and humbled tone, he talked about his favorite bands and music, along with his interactions with music scenes, and the friends he has made from them. He also goes into detail about how both comedy and music performances meld well together, and the aspects of performing.  

Interview has been edited for clarity.

Glab: You’ve expressed before that you have an interest in hardcore music, going to shows, and the energy that it provides. How did you first get into hardcore and punk? 

Joe Pera: I do like it, but it’s not like my number one genre. I’m not going to pretend to be a superfan. Basically though, my friend Dan Licata is a bigger fan of that music and would often take me around to shows. You know, he’d ask if I wanted to go, and I’d go to the shows and enjoy the energy. I don’t know, it feels different than the usual stuff I listen to. Most of the hardcore shows I went to were through Dan Licata.  

Even if you’re not as into hardcore as other people, are there any specific bands that you like. 

Dan featured, they’re not super hardcore, but he had the band, and our friends, Washer score his special. I like their music a lot. 

What kind of music do you listen to most of the time? 

All sorts. I listen to a lot of ambient and instrumental stuff. Somebody recommended the new Elori Saxl album, and I’ve been enjoying the song that’s out from that. The Blue of Distance, with clarinet. I enjoyed that very much as well. But yeah, it’s mostly on the mellower side.  

In Iowa, my friend Dan Wriggins is opening for me. He’s in the band Friendship, whose music I like a lot. One of the guys, Michael Cormier-O’Leary, and his label Dear Life Records has another band called Hour that I performed with recently and will be on tour with soon too. They’re kind of instrumental based. They range anywhere from four members to I think like almost ten or more on certain nights. It’s kind of semi-improvised songs of them playing together. It’s got a pretty gentle and beautiful tone that kind of lets the instruments speak. Those are two that I listen to a lot, but yeah, I’m excited to be on tour with Dan Wriggins as well.  

I knew Dan Wriggins a little because he worked at the university here. I really liked his Friendship stuff, and the solo stuff as well. 

Yeah, I’m not sure what he’ll be playing, but I’m excited to watch him as much as I am to do the shows myself. A lot of the time if you bring someone along that you want to watch as well, then it’s like a free show.  

You mentioned Washer before. How did you come to know Kieran and Quigley? 

Shows in Brooklyn. We kind of met through Dan Licata, and then they would come to me and Dan’s regular show and play sometimes. Just bumping into each other in New York. 

Is there an aspect of their music that you like a lot especially? 

Yeah, I really enjoyed their new album. A lot of the energy, but still very melodic in how they do it, which I appreciate. 

How much have you been within the indie scene in Brooklyn, or the East Coast in general, from like the early 2010’s to now? 

Every now and then. Even when I was at school, I’d occasionally get asked to open for or share a bill with a band a lot of times through Dan Licata. It’s always popped up throughout my time in New York. Bands ask me to open for them, it usually goes pretty well. We’ve done shows with everything from independent venues to larger ones. I’ve also opened for Yo La Tengo at their Hannukah shows in New York. That was pretty special.  

It feels like I’ve been able to continue that type of collaboration or make it more formal with the podcast I do, Drifting Off with Joe Pera. I’ll collaborate with a musician that I admire, and then ask them to score the podcast. But yeah, every now and then I’d be asked to open for a band. A lot of the times the contrast between my quiet style and a louder show can be a lot of fun.  

Do you feel like comedy, or at least your style of comedy mixes well with a live music show? 

It seems to have worked in the past, but I don’t know if it will work everywhere. It’s always a little challenging, especially if people don’t know that comedy is happening. A lot of the times, when I’ll be on the bill, like when I did a show at Baby’s Alright in Brooklyn and opened for a few bands a couple weeks ago, people seem to enjoy it. It’s nice, I think the comedy and the music complement each other well, and kind of keeps the momentum of the show going, like I was going up in between the acts. Generally, I think people who like good music like good comedy as well. They have good tastes across the board. 

Do you yourself have good taste? 

Eh, sometimes.  

I feel like from everything you’ve described, I’m pretty much in agreement. I love Washer, and Yo La Tengo is pretty good.  

Mhm. 

One other band that I love is Parquet Courts, I know you’ve collaborated with them before with their Feel Free album visualizer, and you’re in the “Outside” music video filmed at the Knockdown Center.  

Yeah, they had me open for them at their holiday show the year before the album came out. They had me tell some jokes, and that was pretty intimidating since it was such a large room. But the fans I think are comedy fans too. A lot of the musicians like watching comedy, obviously, I can’t generalize, but like Sean Yeaton, the bassist of Parquet Courts, we have some mutual friends, and he’s also a very funny guy. We both had done voices for our animator friend Kieran O’Hare, who did the original “Joe Pera Talks You to Sleep” animation with me. Sean’s friends with him and has done some really good voices, he’s extremely funny himself. That’s how we connected. I guess I mostly know Sean, but he’s a really funny guy, and that’s probably why he has good taste in comedy. Also, I think that a lot of people who go to shows, if they want to see live entertainment, they’ll check out a share of music and comedy shows if they’re out and about in the city. 

In the “Outside” video you had the Christmas tree, what was that about? 

I knew I had to perform for like a thousand people, ready to see a rock show. So, I did some jokes, but also I had fun. It was a holiday show, so I picked up a small Christmas tree on my way to the venue. I tossed it to the crowd, and they crowd surfed this tree, pretty funny. I guess a music crowd would be open for something unusual like that. It’s also something I couldn’t do at a stand-up club. I was just trying to match the energy of the space and the event, and it led to something cool. 

Was that your first time performing to that many people? 

One of the first big performances I did. I had just made my own Christmas special and was tired out. I hadn’t been doing as much standup in the weeks leading up to it. I just remember that night that I was talking to somebody, and then I went out on stage, and it hit me all of a sudden. I don’t remember the exact number, but it felt like at least 500, maybe a thousand. It’s such a big space that I kind of had to brace myself, because it was a pretty large crowd to ask them to pay attention to jokes about New Balances. 

Now would you say it’s a pretty common occurrence to perform to that many people? 

Yeah, I’ve gotten more used to it. We started the last tour where we set some dates at 150-200 people venues, which is what I was doing before, but I guess a lot of people found the TV show during the pandemic when they wanted something relaxing and nice to watch. I guess I didn’t anticipate the crowd, my audience, would grow that much. Now the shows I’m doing in Boston are for a thousand people, and I think the ones in Iowa are about 600-700. 

Yeah, I think The Englert’s at about that capacity. 

Yeah, pretty good size. I don’t know if I’ll fill it, but I’ll do my best. 

I was looking at the ticketing recently, and it seems pretty much almost full. I think the upper balcony has some open spots, but they sold really quickly. 

That’s awesome. I’m very excited. That’s very cool to know. The only time I performed in Iowa before was at the Hinterland Festival, so I haven’t been through recently. You have to go through a place a few times to get an audience. That was a music festival too. I didn’t know how that was going to go. I performed basically the end of the Billy Strings concert, which was the big event of the night.  

Afterwards, I performed for the people who were staying overnight in the camping section. I was nervous about that because it was both an outdoor stage, and everybody was in an energetic mood. It went really well. There were huge clouds of weed smoke floating my way the entire show. The audience gathered around the stage outside and it was pretty special. Definitely had a sigh of relief when it ended, but it was a really fun night, and the crowd turned out to be really great. Like I said, I think people who go to live music shows are open to new stuff. You know, it won’t necessarily go well all the time, but they’ll give you some smart attention at least for a little while, and give you the chance to win them over. 

Do you think that doing comedy sets is pretty similar to how musicians in their sets match the energy of the audience? 

Yeah, it’s not the same for all musicians. I know some of them are adjusting throughout their set. I think I have a little more flexibility as a solo performer. Like if I feel that something’s not working, or I need to do a quick adjustment during the set, or you know throw in the joke that’d hit harder to up the energy. I’ll be able to make adjustments on the fly and change my set completely, or even just talk with the audience in a way that the musician wouldn’t have the luxury to do. I feel like that’s the advantage of doing comedy live over music. There’s also plenty of musicians who adjust. When they’re having a bad show, they can also get stuck when it’s not going well. There’s pros and cons to each. 

It’s all a very receptive activity. 

Mhm. 

Is there anything else you wanted to say? 

Just I’m really looking forward to performing in Iowa again. This time indoors. Dan Wriggins is going to be there, so I think it’ll be another good show with both comedy and music. You know, it’ll feel like a proper night out on the town. 

Anything that people in Iowa City can come to expect at the show? 

It’s all new material, different from my special. It’s all new jokes. It’s at the point of the tour where all the material is new and fresh for me as well. It’s really exciting to see. I think it’s a good show, but there’s some stuff that I’m still figuring out, and I think that’s the most fun time to see a show, when it’s still forming. When you’re not sure how it’s going to go, that’s more fun. 

Tickets to see Joe Pera at The Englert Theater on June 14th are available here.

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Since my 13-year-old self didn’t keep up with when all the hot new music was releasing, I missed the roll out of the album, which is a shame because it included excellent music videos tied together with a Mardi Gras theme, and the band members of Austin Brown, Sean Yeaton, Andrew and Max Savage all draped in matching purple suits. Instead of on release day, I first listened to the album early on a summer morning, waiting in a gas station with my mother as our car got an oil change. I was watching the animated gifs that went along with each song, a new feature on Spotify at the time. It was in the midst of the 2018 World Cup, which demands my full attention every four years, so the first track on the record caught my eye.  

Image Via Stereogum

The opener “Total Football” begins with punchy guitars backed up by a marching drum beat before suddenly switching to a fast-paced riff with an intricate flying bassline. Andrew Savage sings with a snarky tone before leaving way in the chorus for a calm collective chant among the other members of the band. During the bridge Savage then erupts into a screaming shout as the chaos surrounding builds up to its climax with the repeated cry of “Total Football” among the band members. The song then comes crashing down and recollects itself returning to the same riff as in the intro as Savage continues spewing out his manifesto of collectivism.  

The title comes from the 70’s Dutch football tactic that took over the 1974 World Cup, where every player can play any position on the field, swapping roles with one another. The song uses this as a comparison and call to arms for all the different members of society, like listed in the chorus, to set down their classifications that divide them. It calls upon them to break from individualism and come together to fight back against any oppressive force.  

Afterwards it then rolls into the opening slam of the second track “Violence.” Overtop the cacophony of a funk-punk jam Savage yells out his anger and frustrations, like a raver through a megaphone, about the abundant presence of violence in daily modern life. Through his witty and dark remarks, like with “Savage is my name because Savage is how I feel when the radio wakes me up with the words suspected gunman,” he calls out the institutions that perpetuate the senseless slaughter, and how it can further drive a person mad hearing about tragedy after tragedy. Spliced in between the verses is an ominous, bellowing voice accompanied by the g-funk whistle characteristic of 90’s hip hop. 

The song ends with a bassline that flows perfectly into the one on “Before the Water Gets Too High.” This song mellows out the pace of the record. It has a shuffling beat marked by the clacks of a wood block, and the dissonant drone of an Omnichord, all as the bassline bubbles up and down. The song tells of how at our current pace, we are all marching towards an inevitable doomsday brought on by an impending climate catastrophe. Even with the infinite amounts of warnings, nothing will be done until the oceans rise to the levels of the penthouses that those in power occupy, where the “rich become refugees.” 

“Mardi Gras Beads” then begins with shimmering guitar chords, and spacious arpeggios, creating a soaring sound that ripples waves in time to bring back nostalgic feelings as one slow dances by themselves. It’s a love song that guitarist Austin Brown sings to himself remembering the happy moments with a former lover as he fixates on the Mardi Gras Beads hung around his neck. The nostalgia in the song also reflects a time when things were simpler, and away from all the turmoil that is brought up throughout the album. 

As the last notes ring out, we are hit with the pummeling riff of “Almost Had to Start a Fight” and staggered staccato shouting as all the anger that was pushed down comes erupting up again back to the surface. The song has a sharp animosity towards people that stoke the flames of intolerance and division, as shown with the lines “What do you do when you are provoked?” and “What if I’ve grown tired of being polite?” From this a burning hostility forms which only feeds into that negative energy, and leaves a person frustrated and exhausted.  

The song then shifts into its second part “In and Out of Patience.” It continues the angry emotions and rapid tempo, yet it feels far less serious. This tone is matched by fast paced and bouncy instrumentation. A lot of the grievances here are pretty petty, like dealing with poorly designed public transportation or not having enough time and energy for all the people around you.  

The next one is “Freebird II” which has a very uplifting atmosphere, even with the trapped feelings of the lyrics. It has a strutting bassline paired with the warm sound of an organ, which gives it the feeling of a Vietnam era classic rock song. Savage sings about how when you’re born into poverty, you can never truly escape it, as the structure of the world is always trying to push you back into the thick of it. Despite this, there is a sense of emancipation with every member singing in tandem “Free, I feel free, like you promised I would be,” at the end.

The B-side of the record is characterized by quicker, more succinct songs. It begins with the track “Normalization” and its rapidly strummed, then paused, then strummed again guitar riff. The song is about getting used to all the hard to conceive and often horrible aspects of life as time progresses. It has a psychedelic breakdown in the middle to leave room for a bass solo entrenched in a groove, along with metallic drum and guitar parts, and a faint beeping like that of a distant satellite.  

Even with the perfect record, there has to be a low point. It’s as Jeff Rosenstock said on “Perfect Sound Whatever,” “Perfect always takes so long, because it don’t exist.” Despite being the weakest song on “Wide Awake,” and almost dragging at points, “Back to Earth” is still a great song. It continues that spacious feel of the closing ambient part on “Normalization” and has this odd, alien like instrumentation. It’s a very enveloping song. Along with this, it has a sweet sentimentality to it.  

Then comes the title track, which is overtly fun, and incredibly danceable. It has a bumping bassline, punctuated strutting percussion, shouting in tandem, and bits of flair like the ringing of a whistle or odd off takes of randomly blurted vocals that gives it a wonderful party atmosphere. The phrase “wide awake” is called out repeatedly to mark the common motif of the album of being awake and aware to societies problems and being conscious enough to try to help solve them. The way it’s shouted gives the song a slight punk edge to match the rest of the album. The song is immensely groovy, and insanely funky.  

“NYC Observation” has a simple shredding distorted guitar riff that takes frequent breaks to make room for beeping guitar part present throughout the entire song, that sounds like the ticker to a news broadcast. It’s fitting with Savage furiously reporting about all the scenes of intense poverty that paint the scenes on the streets of New York City. With his descriptions, he builds a sense of reflection for those who glide past and ignore houselessness, so as not to muddy their own consciousness, because it’s inconvenient for them to think about it. For an album with a lot of anger, this song exudes some of its rawest emotion. 

The guitar riffs on “Extinction” radiate out. Even though it matches the pace of the previous song, it has a much more upbeat and peppy feel. The clean tones, and jangly riffs are allowed to reverberate. This accompanies the song’s message about trying to leave behind all our negative thoughts, and try to focus on positive things. The progression arcs from being down on themselves, like with the line “Masochism forming in the reflection,” to thinking more positively on the line “Spring has finally sprung it’s not cold outside, and I’m thinking of all the places that I want to go.” 

“Death Will Bring Change” brings a slower pace and a much more somber tone. The sounds of swelling, crashing pianos faze in and out like violent all-consuming waves. It repeats the theme of spacious distant beeping like on “Back to Earth.” The dreamy echoes of a children’s choir accompany Brown to make this piece sad, but beautiful. Brown sings solemnly about death and how loss can drastically change a person’s life, reflecting on the bitter taste that it leaves. 

The album closes with “Tenderness” which acts a triumphant finale that overcomes all the negativity and hostility within the world and one’s own head. The song has a laid back but sprightly atmosphere with its jangling keys and short twangy guitar hits. Savage sings about rising above all the nihilism and desolation in the world. No matter how horrible it gets, there’s still beauty to be found in it. It gives a means to try to come together to improve it. In the end we can still dance and have a good time. 

Image on the back of the Wide Awake album cover. Via A. Savage

The artwork adorned on the album cover is iconic, with the three headless marching figures dressed in different colors that compliment each other well. This is all with the rest of the packaging that came from the release. All of it was created by Andrew Savage, who has done the artwork for each Parquet Courts release. It’s manifested in his wavy organic style that accentuates movement.

The overall instrumentation on “Wide Awake” is phenomenal. The fast, light ferocious punk rock of their previous albums is mastered and refined perfectly, like on “Total Football,” “Almost Had to Start a Fight/In and Out of Patiences,” and “NYC Observation.” Infused so well into this are elements of danceable funk music that’s heavy on the title track, while “Violence” is an amazing conglomeration of the two. Parquet Courts being masters of the mellow song do that expertly too, like with “Before the Water Gets Too High” and “Mardi Gras Beads.” At the same time there’s roaring ripping moments that you can mosh too, along with captivating party like ones you can dance to. 

This is aided by drummer Max Savage’s consistency and ability to match any tone. His pauses and switches give these songs so much energy and vibrance. This is paired with bassist Sean Yeaton mastering his instrument on this album. Starting out as a guitarist before joining Parquet Courts, he delivers impeccable bassline one after another, and really finds his groove. Those basslines give “Wide Awake” its character. Yeaton lays the groundwork for the record’s combination of punk energy, and funk rhythms.  

Other than the use of the term “woke” for the album’s motif, as conservative pundits have bastardized the term to mean anything not straight, white and christian, “Wide Awake” has aged well. The topics throughout are still ever present today. Even on the other side of a global pandemic, not much has changed systematically. Needless and senseless violence persists, where often a person doesn’t have enough time to grieve before the next tragedy hits. The world is still heading towards an environmental disaster, and no one with the power to has decided to act. Bigots have too much of a say in daily concourse. Extreme poverty runs rampant across all of America, effecting a vast majority of it’s people. Despite all of this, we can hold onto the message of using collectivism to voice our displeasures with society and how it’s run. There is still so much beauty in the world to fight for. We just need to hold onto optimism. 

“Wide Awake” is one of the greatest albums of all time. It’s my favorite ever. It’s as close as you can get to perfect. You can listen to it, along with the rest of their discography, on the Parquet Courts Bandcamp and other streaming services. 

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