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Artist Interviews
Q&A: Restless People
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 21 October 2010
Restless People is former Don Caballero and Storm & Stress bassist Eric Emms and Professor Murder members Michael Bell-Smith, Jesse Cohen, and Tony Plunkett. They came together after Emm produced the acclaimed ‘Professor Murder Rides The Subway’ EP back in 2006. They’ve worked on various projects together since, and last month released their first album under the Restless People moniker, on IAMSOUND Records. We caught up with Plunkett to find out more.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
Making music has been a part of all of our lives for as long as we really cared about things. The four of us have known each other for years, and have been collaborating on different projects for as long.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
The internet, jeans, shoes, car repair, jobs, barber shops, sports, relationships, style, seltzer, pretzels, appropriation, beer, positivity and reality. We weren’t following a formula, but we consciously set out to try to make a specific kind of album, something that could incorporate a lot of different strains of pop music from the last 30 years, while sounding new.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
Our studio is like a clubhouse. We get together and hang out, but instead of playing cards or pool, we make records. Live, we have roles and play instruments, but in the studio it’s more organic, everyone taking turns with instruments, electronics and computers. We like to either spend way too much time on a song or hardly any time at all. PRO TIP: Never spend the right amount of time working on a song.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
Misremembered bands from when we were teenagers. Bands from when we were five that we can’t believe no one ever told us about. Bands with only one good song. Bands with only three songs total. Also – General Public, DJ Cleo, The Belle Stars, Phil Collins, Maximum Joy, Gorilla Biscuits, Operation Ivy and Nelly Furtado.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
Enough about us. What do you do?
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
We hope there’s songs on the album that will make people think a little differently about music. We hope people will put songs from the album on playlists in between songs we really like. We hope checking out the album will be a step for someone to get into some really new, interesting stuff. We hope someone puts our music on when they’re about to do something really fun, important or life-altering. Or maybe when they’re getting ready for work.
In the future, we want to keep trying to make good songs and be true to ourselves. If we’re lucky, push things forward an inch or two. Maybe, in 2030, get on a 2010’s power pop compilation (if compilations still exist in 2030). Also, we’d like to coin the term “Seltzer Beat”. You heard it here first.
MORE>> restlesspeople.com
