Joe DeNardo / Growing Interview

What’s in a name? Why Growing?
–when we named the band we had sort of a heavier, more vicious sound, and Growing seemed like a nice contrast to the other band names around then. also it seemed pretty abstract as it could mean anything.
Your latest record is “Pumps!” and its the first that you did for Vice Records.
Working with Vice – was it different in any way from working with previous/other labels?
–every label we’ve worked with has had their own brand of enthusiasm and way of helping out. Vice is very organized, but most independent labels work in a fairly similar way. i wouldn’t say its incredibly different, but Vice is very close to home and we can go see them any time we want which is always nice.
In which ways, do you think, “Pumps” is different from your other records?
–it seems pretty fun and free to me at least. having sadie on this record helped open us up a bit. all of our records are nice pictures of what we were interested in at that time, and how our little roles sort of played out in the recording session, but that will hopefully change on the next one because otherwise we’d get bored.
You also create very interesting videos for Growing.
Some people compare style in which they were made to that of Stan Brakhage. Would you say that he was an influence?
— i’ve seen some brakhage here and there, but haven’t watched that many of his films from start to finish. i think he’s such an early pioneer that he sort of influenced everything that came after him, whether the filmmakers are aware or not. his films are very beautiful. the new york group/era that he was a part of is definitely an influence on my desire to always shoot on film rather than video.
After touring/being in a band for so many years, which one seems more exciting to you – touring/playing live or being in a studio/coming up with new sounds?
— touring and recording are so different, its hard to evaluate them as per each other. we’ve had a hard time with some of the touring because we’re so broke all the time. it’s tough to leave home for a long time and not be making any money. we’ve found that we need to sort of change our expectations and maybe set some different guidelines as far as performing just so we can have a good time and not be stressed out about the economics of it all. i think we’d like to try and get back into a studio maybe early 2011 and make some new jams. pretty sure we all have that urge…