When I showed up at the Crescent Ballroom for Foxygen’s set Wednesday, I was already expecting a great show. I’d seen the self-proclaimed “psych ward folk” group earlier this year at the first weekend of Coachella, and it was easily the highlight of my weekend.
One thing I didn’t expect, though, was to get the chance to sit down with core member Jonathan Rado and discuss the new Foxygen album, his thoughts on Phoenix, touring, his favorite albums and more.
Foxygen hit the stage around 10 p.m., starting with groovy new single “How Can You Really?” The band showed an energy that didn’t die at any point throughout the show. It played a handful of older hits: “On Blue Mountain,” “Shuggie,” “We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic” and, as its encore, “Teenage Alien Blues.”
Foxygen also treated the crowd to some new tunes, including three of the four songs it played for radio station KEXP.
Lead singer Sam France did his thing, dancing and jumping all over the stage, walking on the guardrail that separated the underage from the overage. His performance was funky and psychedelic to the max. The backup singers were also dancing up a storm. I can’t imagine putting on a show like that almost every night; my legs would be too dead to stand up.
The rest of the band played wonderfully; Rado slamming on the keys, Jared Walker on lead guitar, and Shaun Fleming holding down on drums.
Eventually, about a half hour after the set ended, Rado came out and walked over to us. I mentioned that I was covering the show for The State Press but was unable to get an interview. He immediately offered to do one on the spot, but asked us to give him 15 minutes to help the band pack all the gear away. When Rado came back, he sat on a milk crate and said he was ready to go. Here’s the scoop:
The State Press: Can you summarize the new album, “…And Star Power,” in a couple of sentences?
Jonathan Rado: Star Power is a loose concept record that starts out with Foxygen opening the album and then this fake punk band that we made up called Star Power, like, slowly takes over the album, and by, like, the third side of it, they’ve completely taken over, and so it's just complete chaos. And it’s kind of like, we just wanted an album to slowly disintegrate as it went on. That’s the rough concept of it.
SP: If you could have had anyone, living or dead, guest star on the record, who would it have been?
JR: I really wanted to get Paul McCartney on the record. I wanted him to play drums though, not even sing on it or be credited, and so that would be cool, to like jam with Paul McCartney on drums.
SP: When the band isn’t touring or in the studio, what do you all do? Do you have time to do anything?
JR: I record like every day. Like, I record something. I’m thinking about writing a novel, a detective novel, but I don’t know. I don’t think I’ll ever do that, but I’d like to say that I would.
SP: How long are you going to be on the road?
JR: We’re touring until Nov. 9. So just about two months, and then we have a couple months off. Then we’re gonna go back out for like three months or something, like Europe and a bunch of s--t.
SP: What did you think of the crowd and your day in Phoenix?
JR: It was insanely hot. My friend Carson, he’s from Phoenix, and I asked him what to do in Phoenix, and he was like, “You should go to this one taco cart, and then like leave Phoenix. And be glad you didn’t spend 22 years growing up there." But he’s a writer, so he always says great things like that. Yeah, then it was really hot, and I sweat a lot just like walking to go get a coffee, and then by the time I went to go get the coffee, I didn’t want the coffee because it was too hot to drink coffee, so I just got an ice water. Then I watched TV 'cause it was too hot to go outside. But the audience was awesome, well the under-21 audience was awesome, then the other side of the audience was … cool.
SP: What are one or two of your favorite albums?
JR: My favorite album ever is “Blonde on Blonde” by Bob Dylan. I’ve just listened to that like every day for a really long time, like a whole year because, I don’t know, I was just, like, an angsty teen, and just like, “Oh yeah, Bob, I know what you're saying. You’re not even saying anything, but I understand it. I understand your gibberish, man.” And I’ve been listening to this Warren Zevon, like the self-titled Warren Zevon album from '76 that has been, like, that’s the only thing I can listen to right now, it’s completely my stress reliever. I don’t even listen to music most of the time, but I just listen to that album over and over again. So right now, I’m obsessed with that.
Foxygen plays the next set of its tour in Dallas on Sept. 27.
Reach the reporter at wruof@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @willruof
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