Pitchfork Festival Interviews: Perfect Pussy

By Jessica Mlinaric in Arts & Entertainment on Jul 18, 2014 3:15PM

(Photo Courtesy of Perfect Pussy, Shaun Sutkus, far right. Photo credit: Drew Reynolds)

Pitchfork Music Festival is this weekend and we'll be speaking to some of the acts taking the stage in Union Park this weekend. First up, we spoke to Shaun Sutkus from Perfect Pussy.

They may have started out as a fake film band, but Perfect Pussy’s sound is too real to ignore. The five-piece formed out of Syracuse’s hardcore scene and quickly attracted attention with the caustic ecstasies of their 2013 EP, I Have Lost All Desire for Feeling. Underneath the whiplash aggression of Perfect Pussy’s “noise punk” cacophony are lyrics so vulnerable and poetic that singer Meredith Graves added a vial of her blood to the mixture of a limited vinyl pressing of this year's full length debut Say Yes to Love.

“That band with the unprintable name,” as dubbed by the New York Times, brings their blitzkrieg-style live show to Chicago twice this weekend. Tonight they open for Deafheaven in a sold-out show at Bottom Lounge and Sunday afternoon they hit the Pitchfork stage. Chicagoist caught up with keyboardist and producer Shaun Sutkus to discuss getting festival-ready and just how they make all that racket.

Chicagoist: Have you guys played many festivals at this point?

Shaun Sutkus: Not as this band, but I’ve worked at a bunch of festivals before so I know some of the things that go along with that.

Chicagoist: How is playing a festival different from playing a venue?

Shaun Sutkus: It’s a lot faster on the production side. You don’t usually soundcheck or anything. You kinda just show up an hour or two before the set of the person who’s playing before you then get out on stage and start playing. You do a live check right before, which we prefer to do anyways. Festivals for us are fun because we don’t normally soundcheck at clubs shows. We kind of treat them like festival shows.

C: How familiar are you with Pitchfork, or as an artist, do all of the festivals start to blend together?

SS: I’ve never been to Pitchfork before but I’ve heard great things. Some of my friends have worked there before and have told me great things about it so I’m looking forward to it.

C: Since you engineered Say Yes to Love, are there any moments on the album that you’re the most proud of?

SS: I guess that the thing as a whole flows together as one piece. That’s what makes me happy with a record. It makes me proud when it sounds like all of it is one thing, not separated at all.

C: Speaking of recording the album, Meredith has said that after a clean track is recorded the two of you go in and “make noise on purpose” over it. How do you approach that process?

SS: It’s not clean tracks, haha. I try and make the bass and drums the focal point of the band, that side of rhythm section. Ray’s guitars are actually really, really noisy as well. Then when I do my stuff some of it is improvised. I just kind of set up all of the tools I’m using, then when Meredith comes in we usually have an amp in the room too. I have it recording her clean vocal and her vocal feeding back and we have effects processors in-between there. That’s kind of the last thing that happens with the whole recording. Then there’s a lot of revision as far as playing the record all the way through and then going back and changing things slightly.

C: Will you guys be able to stick around at all this weekend and catch any of the other Pitchfork acts?

SS: We’re playing with Deafheaven Friday and I’m really looking forward to seeing them again. The last time I saw them was at home in Syracuse and it was awesome. I also wanna see Kendrick Lamar really bad on Sunday.

C: I didn’t get to catch Perfect Pussy last time you were in town, so I’m looking forward to the set Sunday. For audiences who aren’t familiar with your sound, what can they expect from your show?

SS: Thanks so much. I don’t know, they can expect whatever they want!