2009

As we pop our collective cork on a new (read: better) era, we want to take this opportunity to pound the table a little on behalf of Joe Pug. Make no mistake; Joe has received no shortage of fawning via the media, such as this career grenade from Jason Killingsworth of Paste: “If you want to read the actual endorsement, touch the Braille stretching up my arms. Twenty years from now, lazy journalists will compare every halfway decent songwriter to Joe Pug. Mark my words.”

Still, Joe Pug really emanates the fitting spirit of cautious optimism for the new administration, so we invited Joe for a chat about his incredibly well-received debut EP writing music and the future. Before we dive into the interview, be sure to check out Joe Pug’s new video released in celebration of Inauguration Day directed by Peter James, the winner of Pug’s fan-submitted video contest…

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FoOK3NfgFQ

Ryan Dembinsky: I read somewhere that the seven songs on the Nation of Heat EP were derived from a play you were writing while at the University of North Carolina. Could you give us a little synopsis of what you envisioned for the play? In other words, who would you have cast given the option to choose absolutely anybody and what would the sets look like?

Joe Pug: The play took place in rural North Carolina on the jobsite of an unfinished house. It only had three characters… a surly carpenter, an affluent journalist, and an 18 year-old girl. I never had any actors in mind. To be frank, it really wasn’t a good play. The resulting album is much better. Maybe that’s why the play never saw the light of day.

READ ON for more of Ryan Dembinsky’s interview with Joe Pug…

For Pink Floyd’s last tour in 1994, the band covered Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety. One year later, the group released a concert film entitled Pulse that