PURE X

It wasn’t until the very tail-end of 2011 that we were introduced to the music of Pure X, via their excellent and appropriately-named debut album, “Pleasure.” It would be easy to think of the album name as somewhat tongue-in-cheek, given the album’s sparse art direction focused on an image of romantic masochism, picturing restraints and red roses. 

Yet “Pleasure” in fact delivers just that – guitars overdriven beyond the hope of long-term hearing, their loudness belying the almost lethargic pace. The album drifts, dashes and directs itself toward the pleasure center located right between your ears.

Excited as we were to learn that Pure X would be part of Austin Psych Fest 2012, the band themselves display limited excitement in regard to the chore of answering the following “boring-ass” interview. But that’s OK – the pleasure has been all ours. Enjoy.

What do you find most pleasing – perhaps most ecstatic – about playing live music? Are there any bands or artists that you would credit with really inspiring you to move forward with making music after having seen them live? What do you dislike most about performing? About going to shows not as a performer, but an attendee?

What is “live music”? You mean playing in front of people? I like playing in front of people because it forces me to focus. It forces me to shut off my brain and really concentrate with every part of my mind and body. It forces me to get into a state beyond and outside of myself where I can channel God and the dead and the living and the souls yet to be born. A meditative place where time does not exist. A place where I am able to have contact with the true creative source – the root, the place where this world was first created and where it will go again.

Though we’ve not yet had the pleasure of seeing Pure X perform live yet ourselves, we can’t help but think that your album “Pleasure” has a very live feel. Not necessarily from the perspective of the technical side of the recording (of which we know less than nothing), but from the emotive and expressive point of view – the songs sound very natural to us, full of life and longing, and none too fussed over. Was there any expressed desire for what you wanted this album to sound like, for how you hoped it would be experienced? Or did the album come together in something more of an organic fashion?

We recorded the album live in the studio. We played most of it in a small room, really close to each other. The mics had a lot of bleed. This came about mostly out of necessity. We had no money and had to make the most of the time we had in the studio (this is still true).

The cover of the record is striking – what is the origin of that image? What does it represent to you? Is it too much to relate to the image as a sort of counterpoint to the album’s title? Can pleasure ever exist without pain? Could “Pleasure” have ever existed without pain? How important are the aesthetic decisions that one must make as a part of a band to you and to Pure X?

Death is breathing in you. It’s gnawing at your toenails. The sun keeps screaming: Wake up! Do something decent, for Christ’s sake! Turn off your computer! Go rub your face in a woman’s pussy! Jump off a train! Piss in your landlord’s ear!

How much of a pain in the ass was it to have to rename the band, even if only slightly, before releasing “Pleasure”? Could you ever be turned off to a band solely by virtue of their name? Are you bummed that Pure X are not “managed exclusively by PJT Enterprises Music & Entertainment exclusively”? Before the name change, how many people arrived at your shows hoping that you would be offering pure MDMA? Can you score us any?

Copy-writing band names is absurd and drugs should be legal. By making them illegal their price is driven through the roof and huge profits can be reaped by politicians, corporations, banks, and other scumbags “above the law.” It is also a convenient means of enslaving whole populations and making money off of their enslavement by way of the privately-owned prison system. Please use the internet while it is still “free” and learn up on this shit. Here’s one article to get you started. And here’s another one.

What music have you been listening to lately? Can you think of any bands or artists that you’ve only come to appreciate since playing with Pure X – either something someone else in the band has introduced to you or something that you have only recently grown to appreciate?

All I hear is a chorus of sorrow and absurdity careening through limitless emptiness.

Would you care to comment on the rumor (the rumor that we are attempting to start right now) that your next release will be a single-sided 10” swirled-purple vinyl picture disc, featuring covers of songs by X, King’s X and Exodus?

[Apparently, Pure X would not care to comment. Here’s a picture of our old friends Exodus and King Diamond to fill space.]

How did you first hear of Austin Psych Fest? Have you had the chance to attend previously? Are there any bands playing this year that you are particularly excited to have the chance to see?

I’m naked in my bed jerking off to my tumblr feed.

Is there a piece of artwork or creativity outside of music – a book, a film, a sculpture – that you can point to as a direct influence on the sound of Pure X? What is it about that in particular that makes it so compelling in your view?

Yes. This statue.

Aldous Huxley (who once scored us some pure MDMA – true story) says the following in “After Many A Summer Dies the Swan”:

“Pleasure cannot be shared; like pain, it can only be experienced or inflicted, and when we give pleasure to our lovers or bestow charity upon the needy, we do so not to gratify the object of our benevolence, but only ourselves. For the truth is that we are kind for the same reason as we are cruel: in order that we may enhance the sense of our own power.”

Your thoughts?

I like this interview by Huxley. I never read the book your talking about though.

What’s next for Pure X?

Anything but wasting my energy on boring ass interviews.

Pure X