A conversation with Penelope Road:
Hey guys! This is Cira Thigpen here from WUOG 90.5fm, with Penelope Road at the Georgia Theatre Rooftop. Thank you guys for meeting with me.
Okay so y’all are all from Atlanta, right? I am as well, so I’m wondering how the band formed and if your name has anything to do with the Penelope Road back home?
Yeah we are. It started a while ago. Probably around sophomore year of college we all kind of came back to Atlanta, we all split ways when we went to college, and came back sophomore year. Us three started the band with two other guys but it didn’t work out great, so we brought these dudes in (——) and that was probably a year and a half ago as well. And yeah, it’s been going great. We all lived on Penelope Road for two years and actually just moved out in June.
Have y’all had the opportunity to collaborate with any other Atlanta based artists?
We haven’t really had a ton, but we’re about to play with Lunar Vacation.
Oh cool, I love them, they just did a Live in the Lobby with us at WUOG.
Okay, and have y’all had a favorite performance so far? One where you were thinking “this is our best yet”?
We really liked our Masquerade performance. We played the night our EP released, and it was just really fun plus we sold out. Also Smith’s Olde Bar was a great one.
Speaking of the EP, do y’all have any personal favorite songs off of it?
2009, Mercy and some other ones that are unreleased. All of the songs off the EP were for the most part written before we formed the band. We don’t love the EP compared to what we are going to release in the future.
So that being said, how do y’all go about writing your songs? Is it the melody first, then lyrics? Or what’s the vibe.
Lyrics always come last, pretty much. Charles wrote the chorus to one of the new songs. I mean, it’s usually just somebody brings something to the table that is just a rough solid idea and then we just build on it. Or-one of the songs we’re working on now we just started jamming at a sound check and it turned into a song.
So are you currently in the process of writing an album?
Trying to, it is just a compilation of songs at this point. We don’t know how we’re going to release them. It is really free flow, like the process you know.
So you just record a bunch of songs, it isn’t like a concept album or anything like that.
I don’t think we’ve gotten there yet.
Yeah, yeah. so just really meshing songs together.
We’re just writing all the time. Whatever works, works. Every song that we write feels like it gets more and more at Penelope Road. Something cool is coming together. It’s just going to take a little time. We feel like the main difference in what we’re doing now compared to the EP, is if you listen to it, every song is completely different. Not many things are connected between each song, but we think the three we are recording this week work better together.
See, I think they sound EXTREMELY different though,
Really? Thank you. We think the style of each song is different, mercy is completely different than 2009. The EP was very much just four songs we wrote, let’s put them all together. Our new stuff is much more focused- these three songs we are recording fit very well together. They fit in with the vibe of our EP enough, but they’re just clearly like another level of creating. We have finally established ourselves now.
Okay, I love that. But you’re excited about what you’re working on?
Really excited. We have had a long week. We’ve been recording since Monday (it was Thursday during this interview) so we’ll have three of our new songs out within the coming weeks.
You’re recording here in Athens, how is your experience? Did you record your last EP here?
Yeah, this has been a better experience. We recorded the EP in a different place.
Now, do you guys all have different music tastes, or have a band where you think “I wanna be like them?”
It is different for all of us. That is kind of the aspect that has been the hardest about Penelope Road, and also the thing we love the most, is we all have such different influences so our sound is very.. unique, I guess? It’s been hard to put those together while we’re playing.
Do you have any examples of some of your favorite bands/ influences?
We grew up on yacht rock,
Okayyyy, who doesn’t love yacht rock.
Also a lot of classic rock stuff, we all kind of grew up on music that is mainly somewhat similar in taste. Rock in general, also I personally adhere to more punk stuff, “Classic Drummer.”
I am personally the least musically talented person ever, so I am always curious how a band finds their sound.
If anything it is just kind of a common ground of what we all like, there are genres we wouldn’t all love that one person puts someone else on to, we wouldn’t like what the other listens to everyday, but there are always some really, really good bands we all love. The five of us kind of mesh- all of our tastes define the product of what we all enjoy playing. That is kind of where our sound comes from, we aren’t really trying to sound like anything, it’s just natural.
Do you guys have a dream place you would want to perform one day? Or what would be your goal as a band?
Locally, the Fox Theatre. But Madison Square Garden, “MSG” man. Red Rocks. The Caverns in Tennessee too.
Wow I didn’t even realize that was a thing.
Yeah, it’s insane. Really anything big is our goal.
Also, I’d say you’ve been blowing up recently, sorry- but you have. How do you feel about this new found audience? I swear when I first started following you, you had around 10,000 followers, and now you’re in the 100,000’s.
We’re all incredibly excited and it came on super fast but we were ready for it. It is nothing any of us didn’t expect. We are really well prepared, the music we had before is just going to be even better now.
Would you say that’s because you’re now experiencing better opportunities?
Yeah, we just got a team together as of last week, a new manager and booking agency. We also have a larger audience now for songs that would have been amazing regardless. That is what we kind of felt was our key, is we have all the music anyone could need, you know, not to be too egotistical. But- we always felt that our music was awesome and that it just needed ears, and so now that we have the ears, we can kind of all take a deep breath and realize now all it is, is just putting the songs we wrote, and that people already love, together. A lot of the unknown has been discovered recently in regard to “is this gonna work?” And “can we do this forever?” ya know. It’s all like, okay. We probably can.
I think it is also cool to see how more frequently bands can use social media like TikTok and instagram as marketing in a way
That’s what we do, yeah. It’s the bread and butter.
I don’t know if you guys know Laundry Day, but they thrive off of using their social media.
Yeah, they are a great example. And, continuing to post on TikTok and instagram gives us this belief that is, okay, we got 100,000 followers within the last two months, let’s get 100,000 in the next you know? Our TikToks were never that different from what we were doing anyway. We just set up a camera and record a practice most of the time and so it isn’t this big production thing really.
Okay, that is all awesome. Are you guys feeling excited for your show tonight?
Hell yeah, we don’t really know either of these bands super well, but it’s exciting.
Do you have any sort of pre-game ritual?
Just chill ya know. Drink.
Lebron Hennessey perhaps?
Yeah, Lebron Hennessey.
Get inspired, whatever that may mean. But just chill to be honest. We’ve been playing a bunch this past week in the studio so I think we’re ready to just play to an audience again.
Okay well that is really everything I have for you guys today, but last question-is there anything you want to plug while we’re here ?
Look forward to new music, and we’re touring next year so be ready. We also have a big show coming up October 25th at Aisle Five with Dog Park.
Ahhh I love them! Cool. Okay, well thank you guys so much for your time and I look forward to the new music.
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