I’m not going to lie, When I saw the image above of Pyramiddd I was a little scared about meeting them. They looked like Trouble. Kinda like something from Nickelodeon that had grown up and learnt swear words.
Recently, they were over on a mini European tour, one of these dates was a support slot for The Filthy Dukes at Dingwalls in Camden. For their performance Ryan seemed to be going for a 80s aerobic instructor vibe whilst the rest of the boys sported some blooomin’ beautiful dresses. After watching their vavavibrant show in which Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” got the Pyramidd treatment, I met Josh and Ryan for a chinwag. I wasn’t so scared after Josh told me he liked my dress.
J: We should trade dresses; I like your dress better.
I like your dress, I was thinking, you all have perfect arms for dresses. Like how arms should look in dresses.
R: Like girly arms?
No, Like how arms should look.
J: I have been working out a lot, like everyday. I’ll do 200 push-ups every morning.
R: He will be in the van doing push ups. And then pull ups too. And then bench-press Shawn. He will move up to me pretty soon.
You guys like to keep fit then?
J: We speed walk sometimes, have you ever seen it? It looks really weird but it feels good. It’s like some sort of gay dance.
R: They have to keep both feet on the ground.
J: Ryan has really good form now. It’s really fast; you have to use your hips a lot.
(Ryan at this point shows how it is done. Josh wasn’t lying, He does have good form.)
Its like a fast gay guy walk. Where would you do that?
J: Wherever. We like Basketball, but we can’t bring it with us. No one plays here! Soccer sucks so much. It’s like the most boring sport ever.
R: Plus you get to see a lot more when you speed walk
And you only have to think about your feet, No hand eye co-ordination to think about.
J: Yeah, You don’t need a ball.
R: And actually, flat shoes are the best for speed walking, they form with you feet. You want your feet to be able to move and bend. These are my speed walking shoes. They look cool because they are purple on the bottom
J: And Ryan jump ropes a lot too.
Like for boxing, do you box?
R: I box a little recreationally, mostly just to stay in shape.
J: And because the drives are so fucking long, being in the van for like 8 or 10 hours and we drive ourselves, getting out doing jump rope, its just good to move
R: Even if we are at a gas/petrol station we can get out and just do jump rope. It feels good. It kinda messes with your shins after a while. They will get sore.
Yeah, don’t do it on hard surfaces.
J: Yeah, and you have to stretch a lot.
So, is this your first time in Europe?
Both: As a band, yeah.
You have done London, Paris and Amsterdam, that all for now?
J: Yeah, that’s it, it’s a really short tour, Most dates are in London, 4 shows in London.
That’s a lot!
J: Yeah its a lot…one of them didn’t count though, so…
Why not? Was it shit?
J: Yeah, that’s it exactly … I’d rather not talk about it. We will just let that go!
R: I’m sure even Pearl Jam plays bad shows.
Ok then, how have you found the reception in Europe compared to the US?
J: Its different. Well, we’re brand new here so people don’t know us, but I feel like it has been pretty good. Starting with Amsterdam until now all of our shows have been good!
R: I feel like it’s comparable to our first US tour. Our first us shows people didn’t really know who we were so people just watching checking us out, but then our second time in the US people knew who we were, so they were having more fun and dancing. Here its our first time people are checking us out, they don’t know who we are, but they are still really receptive.
You have plans to come back?
J: Yeah we are talking about Glastonbury. We are going to focus on recording for the next few months and try and build on our new name.
You like the UK so far? Done all the stuff your meant to do, like fish and chips?
J: Yeah but I’m never gonna do that again, that was so gross! I fucking hate British food, everything is just fried or made of potato, like chips. It’s fucking disgusting. I just want a salad! Maybe it’s just where we have been because we don’t really know where to find good food. But I had horrible fish and chips, it made me sick.
It is probably on a par with American food, American foods not that nice.
J: That’s not true, American food is a mixture of all different cuisines. Portland has the best Thai food, I have had better Thai food in Portland than Thailand. The greens are fresher, Portland is right in an area where you can get fresh vegetables easy.
R: Yeah there’s a lot of local farms everywhere, its near the coast too. The cities all have pretty good food. Maybe in the mid west smaller places you get stuff closer to English food, like really bad food, no offence! No, I’m sure there’s really good food here, You have to seek it out and pay more for it.
J: Yeah, Indian food.
You miss Portland since you have been away?
J: I do. I miss the food. The food is better than any other city that I have ever been to. It’s cheaper and it’s a higher quality.
Its quite a small city too isn’t it?
J: 200,000. no 2 million.
R: Met area 2 million, actual city 500,000.
I read today that Portland holds the Worlds Oldest Teenage Drag Queen Pageant, I’m guessing this is why you all have cross dressing tendencies?
J: I didn’t even know about that! I just grew up around it. My Mom was a fag hag. One of her best friends is a Liza Minnelli impersonator at a club and I would go see it. They used to have underage nights that I’d go to with my Mom.
I’m guessing you were going for the Oliva Newton John look tonight, Ryan? You didn’t go the whole way but you had this awesome top, which I want by the way…
R: Josh found that in Reno!
J: That looks really good on you! It’s like Grandmas gambling jacket.
R: It’s amazing, when you see something on someone that looks really bad and cheesy if you put it on someone young it can look really good.
How much you pay for it?
J: A few dollars.
R: Reno has amazing thrift stores! They are all broke so they move into small trailers and give away all their clothes.
You are still based in Portland?
R: They kicked us out of Portland, we changed our name to get back in. Nah, we are still in Portland.
That’s where you record and live, that’s your base?
J: For sure. I hope so forever, I can’t see myself living anywhere else apart from maybe Japan.
You not going to go to LA OR NYC?
J: We talked about moving to LA, just for the weather, but I hate it so much, the culture is so horrible it would just be too much. It’s expensive to live there too. Ryan used to live there.
R: I did used to live there.
J: *Insert A-List Celebz Name* tried to sleep with him! He worked at a studio and you drove her home right? And she invited you in and showed you her bedroom. Before she was married, when he was like 14.
R: I was 20!
J: But you looked 14 when you were 20?
R: That’s true I looked young when I was 20.
J: Girls love young guys, do you like young guys?! Like really young guys?
(At this point, Lloyd from the X-factor comes into my head. I then before I know it find myself giving a slight nod…is this wrong?!)
J: A lot of my girl friends do like really young guys, they like the sensitive feminine thing, like they don’t know what they are doing yet.
How long have you guys been as this foursome?
J: Valentines Day, so less than a year.
You feel set, ready to take on the world?
J: Yeah, we feel confident!
R: Yeah, we are always going to be making adjustments and improvements to everything. Especially as we play more and more we will learn what we need to do to be better, but as far as the members go yeah.
You all seem to have a million interments each, this must be quite hard to juggle?
J: It fucking sucks to load and unload our equipment. Every time we carry our equipment I’m just like, “Why don’t we get rid of some of this shit?! We don’t need all this shit!”. We used to have more, we used to have 2 whole drum kits. It was crazy, its still crazy!
R: We were thinking about getting a pair of decks and start mixing the songs together and just dance all we need then is dresses. It will be like Girl Talk.
J: Yeah, You seen Girl Talk?
No.
R: Laptop. Band. Mashed up. Great.
I’ll google him.
(I did. It’s not the magazine I got when I was 10 that had ponies or puppies on the cover. I believe he is a man and he is responsible for this.)
(I bloody love it)
Keeeeep an eye ooot for episode two when Josh and Ryan talk more about food, video games and Beyonce.
Tags:
Cyndi Lauper, Dingwalls, Girl Talk, glastonbury, live, Liza Minnelli, Lloyd Daniels, music, Nickelodeon, Oliva Newton John, Pearl Jam, Pyramiddd, review
