As 2013 came to a close, Particle fans were given the bittersweet news that the band they knew and loved would be hitting the road harder than they had in years, albeit with a new lineup. Founding bassist Eric Gould and founding drummer Darren Pujalet would be stepping down as full time members of the livetronica outfit, with Brothers Past’s Clay Parnell taking over bass and Quixotic’s Brandon Draper joining the team on drums. While we already discovered Molitz’s take on the new incarnation of Particle, we recently caught up with Gould, who shared some of his thoughts on the band’s new direction. Gould also spoke with us about his latest project, Pink Talking Fish, a unique tribute act that reinterprets three titans of modern music—Pink Floyd, Talking Heads and Phish.
So what can you say about the reshuffling of the Particle lineup?
What happened was for the past really five years now, we’ve still been a band but we haven’t been doing it on a full time capacity. We’ve just been going through some strong markets and just having some good shows. But we haven’t really been feeding the machine as much as it really needed to be. I love Particle with all my heart. It’s my baby. I formed the thing with these guys but it just came where Steve had a real strong desire not just to do Particle, but to really tour it hard. Going out for month-long tours and things like that. And that happened to coincide with me adopting a little girl from China and becoming a dad. So I was in a position where I wasn’t prepared to necessarily do that kind of touring and be away from my little girl for that long at a time. I had a conversation with Steve about it and basically it was one of those, “If you love something set it free” situations. I said Steve, “Listen man, you’ve got my blessing to go do this. I am happy to stay involved as an advocate, and pop in on shows as many times as I can but I can’t do the full capacity. But if this is what it’s going to take for Particle to resurge and to thrive then I’m not going to get in the way of doing that.”
The whole experience has been very positive. Darren was in the same position as me. He’s got twins on the way, and they’re due any day now. The drummer [Brandon Draper], is actually a great friend of mine that I had been playing music with on other projects over the past five years. I introduced him to Particle, so it’s kind of ironic that he’s now playing in the band while I’ve actually played with him longer than the Particle guys. But he’s perfect for the role in there and then Clay [Parnell] wound up coming in, and they could have not asked for someone better. I answered a some of his questions and helped him as he was getting ready. Once again just full on support, full on advocate.
It’s been really positive though. We did a nice hand off over the new year, during our show at The Cutting Room in New York City. Clay got up for the first time and I passed the bass off to him for a couple tunes. Since that I’ve already been up on stage in Boston for one show. There’s a couple more that we have scheduled, some festivals where I’m going to be hopping in. So even though I’ve technically left the band, with how it has gone I don’t think I’ll ever officially be leaving the band. I think I’m going to always be there in some capacity. Also on that note, just because I’m not doing the heavy touring with Particle anymore does not mean that I have any intentions of not being a heavy part of the music scene.
Was there any kind of hesitation on your part when Steve came to you with this idea? Was there any part of you that either wanted to join him on tour or maybe not let the thing go on without you?
Man I would love nothing more than to be out there and doing it but sometimes you have to zoom out at and look at the whole forest rather than one small piece of it. That just the way life is. You really have to look at all the goals you have. And one of my goals over this past period of time has been to be a dad and be there for my family on that end and that is something that has made the decision clear for me. I won’t say it’s easy, because it definitely isn’t easy. It’s a very heavy decision and a very emotional decision. But being away for weeks at a time from my little girl is just not in the cards. I don’t know if you’re a parent or not, but it’s just something that happens. I know a lot of musicians up there in the circuit that are parents and the majority of them, they do their touring in a shorter capacity. It’s getting in and getting out. Particle is at the point where it needs to road dog it really hard right now in order to resurge in the right way. So practically it was an easy decision, but emotionally it was a very hard decision.
With that in mind, I did this because of my love for Particle. I hope that the music fans out there who have been on the journey with us realize that—that the reason that this happened is so that Particle could be the best that it could be for the country and for the world and get out there and give the fans of the music what they deserve, which is regular stops all around as much as possible. It hasn’t been fair to the fans of Particle who love the music, who love to come out and dance to be doing as little as we’ve been doing it. So that’s really what it’s about. It’s not about the individuals. It’s about Particle as a whole.
You may have, to a degree, left Particle but you definitely have plans to occupy your time with some musical projects. Pink Talking Fish is your new Pink Floyd/Talking Heads/Phish tribute act and it sounds pretty interesting. Obviously those are three bands that have a lot of respect in this scene. What made you choose these bands to sort of combine into a single tribute act?
I lived in Kansas City for five years and, when I was in L.A. and doing Particle full time I was just in Particle, I didn’t really branch out. So when I moved out to Kansas City I got involved with a lot of other bands, some of which played a lot of covers and things like that. And I really enjoyed it. I had this idea probably a year and a half ago, just taking three of my favorite bands which are Pink Floyd, Phish and Talking Heads and taking these three bands and creating what I call hybrid tribute fusion and I didn’t know the phrase at the time but I basically just thought in my head, “What would it be like to really integrate these?” And until now I’ve written 99% of the set lists for Particle, it’s one of my favorite things to do in a band. So the first thing I did was sit down and write a setlist for what this would be and I looked at it and I flipped out. I was like, “Oh my god. This has to happen and I have to create this man.”
I launched the band around when I was moving back to New England, and now it’s currently a revolving cast of characters. Some of the Particle guys pop in every once in a while, but right now they’re busy so I’m utilizing some great players that are on the Northeast scene and just having an amazing time. We’ve done two runs in Colorado. The first run that we did there, I got it right away, the way that we design these combinations. The people just got it and I realized that this was taking three of the scene’s most beloved bands and doing something different and unique with them. It’s not just your average tribute band. This is a band that’s taking a song, taking the catalog and creating certain types of things through different types of combinations that make it fresh and exciting. The first time we played “You Enjoy Myself,” “On The Run” came out of the ambient section before the piano solo, and the Floyd fans really dug it. All of sudden there was this roar in the crowd, just this energy that went up because it seamlessly went in. It was the same hi-hat pattern. It’s very, very similar. So it just came up and then when it came down it was back to getting ready for the little melodies that led to the piano solo. It was just seamless and executed beautifully and the crowd just got it. It was the same with some of these grooves that just work out perfectly together. You know Talking Heads “Slippery People” and the Phish song “Sand,” we just inserted “Sand” right in the middle and the groove just never stopped. When it does that shift within it, the crowd loves it. It’s just so much fun.
I’m scratching the surface on all these ideas of what this band is, and everyone who is a part of it is just having so much fun with it. We’ve done two Colorado runs, a Northeast festival last year and we’re about to really introduce ourselves properly with a Spring tour that starts off at Wanee Festival, which is one of my favorite festivals to play. So I’m really excited about it. Then we’re hitting up the Northeast and just hitting a lot of the cities in that region. We’re really excited to do this and this really is my baby that I’ve been working on for a long time. It’s great to see it come to fruition and to see the positive response we’re getting from the musicians and from the audience who have been there.
What is an average Pink Talking Fish show like? You just said that you’ve got interesting song transitions? Are you going to do the mash up thing or is it going to be straight covers, one after the other? How do you plan on doing things?
It’s a mix. It’s a nice mix. Sometimes there’s mash ups but then, for example, we were just in rehearsal yesterday and going over a mash up that had “Makisupa Policeman” and Pink Floyd’s “Brain Damage” in there. And part of “Brain Damage” is reggae and part of it is the classic style of it. That’s the classic mashup style. Those are rare though. Another thing we did was a “Mike’s Song” into “Pigs (Three Different Ones)” into “Once In A Lifetime” into “Weekapaug Groove.” So it’s just a nice combination there. Then sometimes they’re just inserted well within each other, like the “Slippery People” with “Sand” in it back into “Slippery People.” We did a nice arrangement where we wrote out transitional chords for “Another Brick In The Wall” with “Psycho Killer” in the middle of it and then back into “Another Brick in the Wall.” And then sometimes we’ll do things where just the grooves transition just from one song to another like the end of “Money” has the shuffle that can move right into the Talking Head’s “Swamp” and that’s great. A lot of it will come out of improvisation as well. There’s one track that’s up on our website where it’s “Young Lust,” and we do a jam out of it and a tempo rise into “Tube.” And it’s fantastic.
You can expect at the show a variety of combinations. It’s not just a one trick pony. There’s a lot of different ways to connect these songs and we’re not just doing one style of connection. We’re really digging into set lists, to transitions, to combinations and making this something that’s interesting and exciting for the fans. That’s the whole purpose of this. I’m not interested in just going out there and just playing cover tunes to play cover tunes. This is really something new and something different in the tribute genre of taking a combination of bands and doing something different with them so that the band itself is its own entity.
Are there plans to continue this project beyond the current tour and make this more your central project?
Absolutely. After playing our first show together, I just knew that this was something that the jam scene will love, and I want to get this out there to as many people as possible. This isn’t a substitute for Particle by any means. This is me and the changes of my life and being able to perform this music on a national level, but on my own scheduling terms that are good for my family and its great too. It works out well because a lot of the members of the band are in other groups as well, so we are not going to be going out and doing a four-week plus tour. We are going to be out there and we are going to be touring on a capacity that’s still going to get out there to the country, but it’s going to be doing in just a different sort of way. The whole hybrid tribute fusion—there’s a lot that can be done with this. Already festivals are latching onto this project. You know being able to have these three bands all tied into one with a festival that has primarily original music, this is a perfect tribute group to add to the mix because it covers a lot of ground. So a lot of festivals are really enjoying this and we’re looking forward to creating our own events as well with this and doing some unique things. It’s really an opportunity to do something among the tribute world that is just slightly different. I feel like we’re in the process of paving the way to something that is fresh and new within the jam scene and a genre that has some unique opportunities that haven’t been done before.
Beyond Pink Talking Fish, are there any other post-Particle projects on the horizon?
Yes. There’s a group that I formed that’s actually debuting next month. It’s more of an electro dance type of project that I’m debuting in New England here and it’s called Electric England. It is bass, drums and two keyboards. This is going to be real fun. It is sort of a New England super group. It’s me on bass and Aaron Katz from Percy Hill is on the drums. And I’m really excited to play with Aaron. He’s a fantastic drummer and he’s really ready to get out there and get things going. It’s been a little while since he’s been out in the scene and he’s jazzed up about it. Also, Steve Learson from The Indobox is going to playing and Mike McCarthy from Wobblesauce. Those are the two keyboard players. Those guys are both fantastic electronic keyboard players and this is a concept of bass, drums and two keys that I’ve just been wanting to do for a little while and messed around a little bit with it in Kansas City. I think that this line up is going to do some real nice things, just really getting into the electro dance thing and getting that going. So I think we’re going to be having some fun out here in the New England area and we’ll see where it goes on with that as well. I also have a lot of songs through the years that I’ve written that weren’t necessarily good for Particle and they were more on a vocal-oriented rock capacity that I’m not rushing out, but I’m going to tailor and then wind up recording down the road and playing out. I don’t really know what that’s going to be yet, but I have some real great songs that I’m excited to blossom.
Well that’s all I’ve got for you. Is there anything else you want to talk about?
The last thing I’ll say is it’s really interesting coming from Particle. Once again I can’t stress enough how much love I have for Particle and how much I support what’s happening with it. I’m very, very thankful for all the Particle fans being so supportive and understanding through the journey we’ve had over the years and I think that this is going to be a real good thing. I’m really happy that Steve is getting to go out there and getting to do it and make this happen. Ben Combe is on there too, who has been with the band for a long time. So those guys are really carrying on the torch and I really appreciate that. I’m going to pop in and be involved with it as much as I can. On the other end, Pink Talking Fish is definitely an entity that I have every intention of building properly and making something that the fans of these three groups are truly going to get something unique out of. I’m really excited for the Northeast people, and for the people down at Wanee, to experience this in the next month when we’re hitting all these places. I think there’s going to be some real great excitement happening around it, and I’m just looking forward to the future. I’m very excited.
