{"id":500,"date":"2016-05-11T03:22:33","date_gmt":"2016-05-11T07:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/?p=500"},"modified":"2016-11-09T04:52:05","modified_gmt":"2016-11-09T09:52:05","slug":"interview-musician-and-publicist-perry-serpa-of-the-sharp-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/2016\/05\/11\/interview-musician-and-publicist-perry-serpa-of-the-sharp-things\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Musician and Publicist Perry Serpa of The Sharp Things"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I first came to know Perry Serpa as a publicist with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.goodcoppr.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Good Cop PR<\/a>. He regularly sends me music to listen to and pitch to editors for coverage. A few months ago, I got a disc in the mail from a band called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thesharpthings.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Sharp Things<\/a>, and discovered Mr. Serpa was leading a double life. Not only is he the singer\/songwriter behind The Sharp Things, the band just released the final installment, called <em>EverybodyEverybody<\/em>, of a four-album concept piece. I asked him a few questions about all of his jobs.    <\/p>\n<p><strong>How can you be your own publicist? Does it make you cringe to write nice things about yourself? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ha! Yes, sometimes it\u2019s painful to be quite honest, but it\u2019s more painful to pay someone to do it. Dignity or poverty. The latter wins. I work in the music industry. There\u2019s not much money to go around anymore. That said, I\u2019ve never twisted arms on our behalf, and we\u2019ve been lucky enough to have some very cool advocates and friends in the press who\u2019ve covered us almost throughout our entire career- these are people whom i know would pass if they felt to. Folks with integrity, so there\u2019s not much push needed. <\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;\" src=\"http:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=3983570244\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/tracklist=false\/artwork=small\/transparent=true\/\" seamless><a href=\"http:\/\/shop.thesharpthings.com\/album\/everybodyeverybody\">EverybodyEverybody by The Sharp Things<\/a><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>When you started this series, did you know how many albums it would encompass? Did you have a clear arc you wanted to see happen over the span of the different albums? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Kind of. I had about thirty songs written and sketches of about fifteen more, so I knew that the entire schedule would entail about forty tunes, or more. The first inclination was to put it all out in one massive package, but that was quickly put down by all of us and my own trepidation about it. The second idea was to just stretch it all out over a bunch of albums and so, if you do the math, it\u2019s four albums. The original plan was a tighter release schedule which would have had it all out within a year and half, but that just wasn\u2019t realistic in terms of all tasks needed to make this band, in particular, put out quality, so we started with <em>Green Is Good<\/em> in 2012, and commenced this year with <em>EverybodyEverybody<\/em>. There were fortunate and unfortunate events that stood as obstacles along the way, otherwise we would have probably got it all out within two and a half years, but that\u2019s life. <\/p>\n<p><strong>What would you say there is a specific story arc over these four albums? You seem to pop in and out of a larger landscape, kind of how the TV show <em>Little Britain<\/em> did \u2013 a lonely night at the pub, a suburban day at the park, and around the globe. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Very perceptive of you, and I appreciate your seeing that. Yes, there is a loose theme. I have yet to really pull together a tight mission statement on it, but I think it makes sense to say that, since the music\u2019s origin is the life of a melodramatic songwriter with his heart on his sleeve, a lot of the ideas behind the individual songs are about my own experiences before and during the process of making the album \u2013 poverty, love, death, divorce, friendship, hatred, god \u2013 it\u2019s all there. There\u2019s also a fair amount of baloney in there \u2013 shit that just made us laugh. <\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;\" src=\"http:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=3293536860\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/tracklist=false\/artwork=small\/track=1797628561\/transparent=true\/\" seamless><a href=\"http:\/\/shop.thesharpthings.com\/album\/green-is-good-2\">Green Is Good by The Sharp Things<\/a><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>The first album, <em>Green Is Good<\/em>, kicks off with a political statement, \u201cBlame the Bankers,\u201d and then immediately pivots to something more personal in \u201cThe Piper.\u201d Were you looking to establish that particular range of social and personal commentary right off the bat? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yes. Absolutely. The range of commentary throughout the albums are always personal in nature, whether they\u2019re lyrical accounts of things I had experienced or just feelings about things I\u2019d observed over time \u2013 they were feelings that stuck with me. \u201cBlame The Bankers\u201d is most definitely a real display of anger. I am a pretty simple guy who\u2019s lived in New York City all his life. I felt the disparity of the classes hit home as that disparity suddenly made it impossible for me to buy a home in the neighborhood I\u2019d lived in for a decade. I saw the finance guys gloat and complain that they didn\u2019t have enough and I wanted to punch them in the face. I still do. Sorry. I have a problem with it. <\/p>\n<p>The popularity of Bernie Sanders now underscores the feeling, but a few years ago we had Occupy Wall Street, but I wrote the song from the perspective of an everyday, George Bailey character \u2013 closer to me at this point in my life than from the perspective of a protester encamped out there. Hence the line, \u201cwe couldn\u2019t lasso the moon\/that dream was reserved for the chosen few.\u201d \u201cThe Piper\u201d is a song written for a friend who lost his son to cancer. So the clear delineation between the two songs is not obvious, but both are about loss, and about being led away, powerless. \u201cGreen Is Good\u201d comes in and out of that throughout. <\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;\" src=\"http:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=3983570244\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/tracklist=false\/artwork=small\/track=324902926\/transparent=true\/\" seamless><a href=\"http:\/\/shop.thesharpthings.com\/album\/everybodyeverybody\">EverybodyEverybody by The Sharp Things<\/a><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Everybody Everybody<\/em> definitely sounds orchestrated to be one long piece, more so than the previous albums in the series. Is that how you put the individual songs together? Did they come to you in that order?<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>A few of them were never meant to be full songs, like the medley of \u201cSports Drinking Again,\u201d \u201cHail To The Chief,\u201d and \u201cShine Shine Shine,\u201d but I shoved \u201cDaphne\u2019s Coming Over\u201d into the middle of it just \u2018cause I thought it would spike the proceedings, which it does. But, yeah, there was some rhyme and reason. I always meant for \u201cFamily Day At The Lake\u201d to wrap it up as that song feels pivotal to me. Final. There\u2019s not much else to say. But, the album kicks off with a new song called \u201cSomething Big,\u201d which is about my struggling for closure after Steve\u2019s death, which opened up a new chapter in my life after it happened, so I felt that it really needed to start this album. The album\u2019s last song, \u201cThe Libertine, Ciel Rouge,\u201d which is sung by Jim, is kind of its cool down. It\u2019s post-denouement. It\u2019s \u201cHer Majesty.\u201d <\/p>\n<p><strong>McCartney seems like an obvious influence throughout. Would you agree with that, or does that English pop sensibility come from somewhere more unexpected?<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>Yes! McCartney always is, but so are the other Beatles. So is Bowie, Scott Walker (not English, really), the Zombies, Billy Bragg, Neil Hannon, Bill Fey, Bolan, and other guys like Dylan, Bacharach and Leonard Cohen. <\/p>\n<p><strong>There is also a variety of styles, from electro to symphonic to straight up rock and roll. Is there a particular style that feels most like who you are as an artist, or does that change from song to song and album to album?<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>Changes from day to day. I think the whole series is an exercise in massaging all of those styles. the next thing I do may be a bit more focused. The series went a bit over the top, on purpose. <\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;\" src=\"http:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=3293536860\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/tracklist=false\/artwork=small\/track=196673755\/transparent=true\/\" seamless><a href=\"http:\/\/shop.thesharpthings.com\/album\/green-is-good-2\">Green Is Good by The Sharp Things<\/a><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>How autobiographical is some of this material? Hard not to feel like \u201cDogs of Bushwick,\u201d for example, isn\u2019t a snapshot of something you experienced directly. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As I said above, totally! There\u2019s probably not a song on the series that doesn\u2019t apply to me, personally, somehow. \u201cDogs Of Bushwick\u201d particularly. That whole song is true. I did work at gas station and write songs on a Casiotone in the kiosk- it was in the \u201cshadow of a miracle\u201d (the Miracle Mets \u2013 right near Shea Stadium) and I was robbed by gunpoint, et cetera.  <\/p>\n<p><strong>Is there a core of players you consider to be The Sharp Things, or has your supporting cast revolved from project to project? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s always a good question. Really, it would unfair to the folks who\u2019ve played with me for several years to not referred to them as \u201ccore\u201d band. So, I will do that. But yeah, there were some hired hands who I\u2019d definitely hire again and some folks who were just able to stick around for a few years, who we still love, too. All told, we\u2019ve had about forty musicians come go throughout the nearly twenty-year history of the band, but Michelle, Jim, Aisha, Andrea, and James have stuck around for lots of that. Jim and Steve, who passed away in 2014, were there from the beginning. <\/p>\n<p><strong>What happens now that the four-album cycle is over? Is that it for the band? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>No. I don\u2019t know when we\u2019ll actually do another record, and we have no shows scheduled, but the Sharp Things is a door that I\u2019ll probably always leave open. <\/p>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I first came to know Perry Serpa as a publicist with Good Cop PR. He regularly sends me music to listen to and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[224,231,227,234,233,171,236,225,226,235,232,230,222,220,237,238,229,223,221,228],"class_list":["post-500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-bernie-sanders","tag-bill-fey","tag-billy-bragg","tag-bob-dylan","tag-burt-bacharach","tag-david-bowie","tag-electro","tag-everybodyeverybody","tag-green-is-good","tag-leonard-cohen","tag-marc-bolan","tag-neil-hannon","tag-paul-mccartney","tag-perry-serpa","tag-pop","tag-rock","tag-scott-walker","tag-the-beatles","tag-the-sharp-things","tag-the-zombies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/perryserpasharpthings_credit_Melissa_Corrales_Campagna.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7lGwW-84","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1210,"href":"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions\/1210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}