Interview with Palila: ‘It’s about being happy with the noise you have created’

Hamburg-based rock trio Palila brought out their debut album Rock ‘n’ Roll Sadness last week (12 November), giving us oodles of fuzzy guitars nestled against a lightly melancholic backdrop.

Palila comprises Matthias Schwettmann (vocals, guitars), Christoph Kirchner (bass, backing vocals) and Sascha Krüger, their third drummer, who replaced Manuel Tröndle on drums earlier this year. Schwettmann and Kirchner first met in 2019 when they had left or were about to leave their former bands. ‘We were unhappy with those bands and more or less quit them for this one,’ Schwettmann said. ‘Chris had recorded solo stuff, I’d done solo stuff. We met in a bar and talked about our musical tastes and he listened to some of my demos.’ Kirchner nods: ‘It was kind of a perfect match, I didn’t just listen the demos, I’d actually bought the songs. Matthias was amused, he said I shouldn’t have bought them!’ They met Krüger, a music journalist, via Facebook. ‘They asked me if I knew a drummer and I thought I wouldn’t play in a band anymore as I quit playing for 10 years,’ Krüger said. ‘But I listened to their music and it appealed to me very much, so I recommended myself and said would they like to try with me? I think I was the missing link.’

Their name is a reference to an Hawaiian finch, according to Schwettmann: ‘I was looking for a band name to do with birds, like The Eagles, The Byrds etc.,’ he said. ‘Most bird band names are unfortunately taken but I was browsing bird names to see what was available and I found ‘palila’. It’s an endangered species, a bit like indie rock,’ he laughed.

Rock ‘n’ Roll Sadness comprises 12 tracks that are a testament to their 90’s indie influences, three of which – ‘NY Family Plans’, ‘Nemesis’ and ‘Swim or Drown’ – have been released as singles. The album title/title track can be interpreted in many ways, according to Kirchner: ‘For me, it’s about fun and having a good time but there’s also a different side to this micro party thing,’ he said. ‘There are great issues in life, including happiness and depression. I think the lyrics are more a celebration of guitar music and music in general. It’s about being happy with the noise you have created.’

As Rock ‘N’ Roll Sadness’ goes: ‘It is a rock ‘n’ roll sadness that comes to us. Forget national somethings, dive into the gloom.’

‘I think it’s straight out of the Great American Songbook of the 80’s and 90’s as we’re highly influenced by that’

Sonically, Krüger describes their album as having ‘a certain bit of bittersweet melancholy in every song’. Kirchner agrees: ‘I think it’s straight out of the Great American Songbook of the 80’s and 90’s as we’re highly influenced by that,’ he said. The opening track, ‘NY Family Plans’, kicks off with Schwettmann’s vocals before Krüger comes in with some frenetic drumming, making it one of the catchiest songs on the album for me. The ‘NY’ of the title refers to New York. ‘The lyrics are really strange,’ Kirchner joked. ‘Mattze wrote the music but it needed lyrics. There was a mumble track that he presented.’ Schwettmann explains: ‘I try to use ‘mumble’ tracks, just fantasy English,’ he said. ‘I send it to Chris who finds lyrics that fit.’ Kirchner nods: ‘I sometimes hear words in Mattze’s mumble tracks that seem to be in the right place already, so I put the other lyrics around them,’ he said. ‘For example, I remember ‘national somethings‘ – I mean, what’s that?! I thought I heard it in the mumble track and really liked it, because it made me reflect on that chauvinistic rubbish we hear a lot in politics. That’s why I turned it into ‘forget national somethings, dive into the gloom‘, haha!,’ Kirchner said.

Kirchner describes ‘NY Family Plans’ as ‘trying to evoke a certain feeling of big city melancholy in combination with senselessness’: ‘It’s cryptic,’ he said. ‘I have to interpret it myself! The singer’s singing a list he knows by heart. The lyrical “me” knows all the family plans in New York and he wants to show that he knows.’ As the song goes: ‘I know the New York family plans. Just by heart, let me start. Until now, a feather felt heavier than a motor truck.’ 

Sometimes, they have different interpretations of their tracks, such as Krüger’s initial interpretation of ‘Swim or Drown’: ‘I don’t care about lyrics much,’ he confessed. ‘I read the lyrics in the studio and I had a misperception of what they were about but Chris said that there’s not a right or wrong interpretation, each one is valid.’ Schwettman weighs in: ‘Sascha thought it was about refugee dramas in the Mediterranean Sea, but I didn’t have the intention to address this topic. I rather thought of a freedom-seeking middle-aged couple who leave their old lives and don’t know what the future brings. So, it’s not the complete opposite of Sascha’s interpretation, obviously.’  

‘Song titles need to have a certain sound’

Schwettmann is sometimes the solo songwriter, other times it’s more collaborative and Kirchner is often tasked with coming up with song titles and lyrics: ‘He has such a good feeling for names,’ Schwettmann said enthusiastically. Kirchner laughs: ‘Song titles need to have a certain sound,’ he said. ‘That’s more important that a fixed meaning.’ Krüger interjects: ‘You’re such a great songwriter,’ he tells Schwettmann. ‘It can take a while to find the right word, so you like to outsource the lyrical side to Chris sometimes.’

One of the newest songs on the album, ‘Easy on the Drinks’, has a very hooky guitar line and is less grungy than some of the other tracks, albeit still replete with thumping, fuzzy riffs. Interestingly, Schwettmann tried a new songwriting technique on this one: ‘I tried to use a technique I read about in a book called ‘How To Write One Song’ by Jeff Tweedy,’ he said. ‘He said if you’re struggling, try to collect some words, maybe some nouns and then go somewhere else – a different room or place – to collect some verbs about something completely different. Those ended up being the verses and the chorus. I wanted it to be meaningful. We like to go out and there are times when we should go easy on the drinks (laughs). Do you know Kristofer Åström? (a Swedish singer-songwriter and frontman of rock band Fireside.) He has a song ‘Heavy on the Drinks’, so I borrowed it from that.’ Krüger laughs: ‘It’s a reminder that we’re all employed but we do love a party,’ he grinned.

The lyrics sound as if they were written nursing a sore head: ‘I do cling to my goods and personal stuff that I won’t part with easily. I won’t blame you to cling to your madness. Starting tomorrow, we all go easy on the drinks.’

‘I really liked it and Chris fell in love with it’

‘Hitchhiker’, the closing track, actually predates the band’s inception in 2019, and has the feel of an 80’/90’s rock song. It’s a natural closer, taking the tempo down a notch. ‘I wanted to record it like on the demo, really slow,’ Schwettmann said. ‘Our former drummer thought it was really boring (laughs) but I really liked it and Chris fell in love with it. I tend to have doubts about what we do but we recorded it like in the demo and I think it turned out well. Sascha came up with some nice fillers.’

It turns out to have been inspired by David Lynch’s mystery-horror TV show from the 90’s, Twin Peaks: ‘I was watching it A LOT,’ Schwettmann said. ‘Not everything has to make sense. In the show, some scenes are suspenseful and scary but then you have diner scenes with cops drinking coffee, so you have those little joys.’

Hamburg has a very diverse music scene, they say: ‘There’s a huge scene, the Hamburger Schule,’ Krüger said. ‘There’s indie pop/rock with German lyrics, the thinking man’s indie, they have an academic way of saying things. It’s not our way, we’re too influenced by American music.’ Schwettman loves Big Star, Wilco, Elliott Smith, Sparklehorse, Belle Adair, Red House Painters, but also Queens of the Stone Age and Phoebe Bridgers. ‘I really adore Woody Guthrie and his simple, direct way of speaking to people in his songs that kind of fertilised the soil for all ‘conscious music’ that followed – from the folk revival of the 50’s and 60’s, Dylan, Springsteen, Rage Against the Machine, Billy Bragg, Damien Jurado, just to name a few,’  Kirchner said. They’ve also been influenced by Dinosaur Jr’s You’re Living All Over Me, Neil Young’s Ragged Glory, Built To Spill’s Perfect From Now On and Elliott Smith’s Either/Or. Kirchner cited R.E.M. as being a big influence. Krüger is a fan of New York witty rock band Nada Surf’s Let Go album and some of the early Pixies’ stuff.

‘I would love to go on a journey through the past and join the Carter Family on tour’

Schwettman would like to tour with Dinosaur Jr, Teenage Fan Club or Motorpsycho. Kirchner is thinking about it: ‘I would love to go on a journey through the past and join the Carter Family on tour. Palila would be the opening act and then re-enter the stage to sing along in the Carter Family’s encores ‘Bury Me Beneath the Willow’ and ‘Worried Man Blues’. I’m an old soul, haha!’ Krüger has other ideas: ‘My absolute dream come true would be to tour with either Nada Surf or Phoenix, ‘cos these are two of my most beloved bands for decades and I know the guys of both bands in person and, therefore, I am aware of how fucking nice these guys are  – and their audiences as well, so we would fit in quite well, I guess.’

They have an endearingly close bond, something that comes out on their car journeys, where they like to play a game of dilemma decisions and listen to music: ‘It’s basically always funny to drive across the country with these two guys while listening to our favourite music and having silly discussions about whether Tom Morello’s Cover of ‘Highway to hell’ sucks or not… and yeah, of course it sucks!,’ Schwettman laughed. Kirchner doesn’t agree: ‘It doesn’t, it’s great!,’ he protested.

And it’s during the late night car journeys that their musical differences become most apparent, according to Krüger: ‘I agree that those car rides are always big fun for all of us. Except for the night rides – it turned out that I like it the most to drive long distances at night, and then the guys have to suffer from what they call good music, ‘cos I often insist on my love for harsh 90’s techno music, as this is the best music to drive to, in my opinion. The other two are not really into that kind of sound, whereas I love to listen to my own techno mixes – I used to work as a techno DJ in the 90’s – for hours and hours. But they’re brave guys and let me listen to my stuff!’

(Photo above from top to bottom: Chris, Sascha and Mattze.)