I got to talk to Matthew Holmen of PHOX this past week, and I have found yet another delightful artist to chat with. You wouldn’t expect a guy who’s played at Lollapalooza to be so friendly, but Holmen has congeniality by the bowlful.
Smile Politely: Start with your origin story. How did you all start making music together?
Holmen: We started playing in my Dad’s basement, while most of us were living in Baraboo, WI (our Alma Mater). Though our first show was held in the community college gym, opening for Tron laser tag and a hog roast, we diligently rehearsed 3 months for our half hour set. It got to be pretty Waiting for Guffman, and I’d like to think of myself as Corky. God, how sad. I’m the guy who takes things too seriously and has no idea what he’s doing. It’s the only good cover for someone like myself.
Anyway, we weren’t so much waiting for the critic to show up at the gym, but to show up in our heads, just to say “Go for it.” It was an audition for ourselves. And funny enough, we ingloriously tanked. The show’s recorded somewhere, but don’t go looking for it. It’s just boring, except we’re all wearing women’s blazers and animal tails.
So, despite the heartbreaking performance, we reasoned [that] being in a band, even a bad one, was superior to living as listless, friendless basement-dwellers in a shit town (a town we now glorify). We moved into the Yellow House that summer and have been here for two years.
SP: I have worshiped Waiting For Guffman for over a decade. I am beaming.
The Yellow House? Tell me about that.
Holmen: The Yellow House is our haven for baking frozen pizzas and occasionally recording albums. Our video EP, Confetti, was recorded here last winter. The home is made to house five or six, but we’ve got nine under one roof. It’s the kind of thing we figured would be hard to emulate after high school and college, but luckily most of us never graduated college and still have co-dependence issues.
SP: Lucky bastards…
Holmen: I do feel pretty lucky to have so many friends. It’s quite ideal.
SP: How did the band get its name?
Holmen: “No funny spellings” was rule #1 in my band-naming rulebook, but the approach of this band was to disobey as many of our own self-imposed rules as feasible. Seemed like a good place to start. Plus, it’s like naming a kid: you have no idea how it’s going to turn out, so the name is rather arbitrary, except to reveal what soap operas you were watching decades ago.
SP: What’s next? Where’s the band going? Or are you just flying by the seat of your pants…
Holmen: We are certainly prone to flying, but, in this case, we actually have somewhat of a plan. We’ll be recording this winter at a really lovely studio in Wisconsin, which will have some of the songs from our iTunes Festival EP, as well as some others that appear in our videos, as well as unreleased (partially unwritten) songs, too. In other words, our first record will be our Greatest Hits.
SP: Sounds ambitious. And good.
Who is PHOX? I mean that literally and metaphorically, I suppose.
Holmen: Literally, PHOX is a second-hand orchestra peddling magic potions and good vibes, but, figuratively, we’re just some friends trying to have a good time and understand each other and ourselves via our patent-pending, immersive, user-friendly method we call “Milieu Therapy.”
For those of you who don’t know what milieu therapy is, think Celebrity Rehab without the commercial breaks and producer-generated fights.
SP: What’s your dream jam session, Matthew? No limits on who or when they lived or what they did, musically…
Holmen: As far as dream jam goes, I’ve gotten to a point where I’m married to the band and can hardly fantasize in the shower anymore. Though, it would be interesting (if humiliating) to jam with Punch Brothers and Amy Winehouse.
PHOX will be at The Highdive tonight. If you haven’t yet heard Kayla Brown’s band, We the Animals, you’ll see them there, too; and my old interview buddies, Mutts, will round out the set, but it will just be frontman Mike Maimone. This is a nice musical midweek treat, friends. PHOX is pretty rad, and so are the other bands playing. Don’t miss it.