The Thousands

Heralded as the ‘perfect mix of of everything from the past 40 years of popular music’ the Phenomenal Handclap Band collective started when Daniel Collás and Sean Marquand, two New York underground club DJs, with an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of esoteric music ranging from Brazilian soul to vintage psych-rock got restless with playing other people’s music and decided to produce their own. PHCB is the personification of their holy vision, made true with the throng of their supremely talented friends, who make the octagonal wonder that is PHCB.

Rachel Surgeoner: So it’s about eight o’clock in the evening in New York right now yes? Wait, are you in New York at the moment?
Sean Marquand: Yep, I’m in Brooklyn

RS: That’s where you live?
SM: Yes

RS: And you’ve got a show tomorrow night at The Bowery Ballroom, huh?
SM: Yeah, we’re looking forward to it – just finishing off all the last minute nonsense

RS: So, what did you do today/ tonight?
SM: Well, I just got back from getting a Christmas Tree, I just walked it all the way down to Brooklyn, I’m a little exhausted. That’s what we’re doing this evening – setting up the Xmas tree and keeping warm inside. I always forget the traditions; it’s nice to do it once in a while.
RS: Wow, yeah we don’t really have that strong tradition in Australia – I mean, we have Christmas trees – but it’s not snowing or cold or anything.

RS: There are eight of you in PHCB, how did you all come together?
SM: Well, Daniel my production partner and band leader – he knew a whole bunch of people through, well he was more of a Manhattan DJ and my home base was in Brooklyn (for DJing). So Dan knew a tonne of people in Downtown Manhattan and just through late night conversations and we also have a studio right on 1st Street on First Avenue in the village, which is pretty central to everything that goes on in Manhattan – and we’d be hanging out and playing records with all these musicians and at 4am and we’d all go to the studio and play for a bit and our friend Woody said he’d be our drummer and it all just kind of evolved from there.

RS: And you’ve got two pretty ladies in the band, that’s always a great mix
SM: Yeah, Laura and Bing, they’re great!

RS: Have you been in any other bands or have you just DJ’d in the past?
SM: I played in bands years ago – but the past 10 years I’ve been focusing mostly on production and DJ-ing. So, PHCB is in a way, kind of my first band. I’ve played in some bands, I was a music teacher for a while and I’ve taken piano lessons all my life. But this is first time I’ve turned my love for dance music and rock music into like a real project.

RS: So what’s your DJ name?
SM: Just my name, I went through a couple of really ill-advised names, but I always go back.

RS: Where did the name Phenomenal Handclap Band come from?
SM: We’d been working on producing other peoples’ records and it kinda just seemed like at some point during every session we’d get everyone huddled up in the control room to try and get some handclaps. So jokingly we even thought about starting a band that was just centred mainly around handclaps. So that was sort of where the name of the band came from. As it turns out, we where actually thinking about having handclappers on stage and making it a literal affair, turns out it’s not that much fun to watch people clap hands on stage, you know. We do clap on stage, but turns out it’s not the best visual – so we banned that eventually. (laughs)

RS: We have a band in Australia called the Hot Little Hands – I mean they don’t solely handclap or anything but I think handclapping needs to make a come back
SM: Ahaha – yes.

RS: This record is the debut self-titled album for the PHCB, how long did it take to put together?
SM: The process was long actually. Mainly because we wanted to do it in a really nice studio and we didn’t have consistent access to one. Putting sounds together, especially with all eight of us takes a LONG time – it took us about a year from conception to finishing the record.

RS: Ok, this is a little random, but if the record was an ice-cream flavour, which one would it best fit as? (like what genre would you say your music is?)
SM: Right, right… what time of ice cream flavour are we? You know what, you know when you’re a kid, well, I don’t know about Australia, but in the US – kids love bubblegum ice cream. You put bubble gum in ice cream and it’s the best thing on the planet. We are bubble gum ice cream, but in adulthood joy.
RS: Good answer

RS: There seems to be a bit of an almost 60s/ 70s psych rock revival happening is some pockets in the world at the moment, do you think your band is helping bring back that essence to music? That soul?
SM: We made the record in a way to come up with a certain vocabulary for the certain styles of music we like and gravitate towards, but we made it as a modern record. We tried not to listen to too much other music, we didn’t say ‘let’s make a 60/70s record’ – it’s that we’re so steeped in some music – it’s natural it will come through. Also, to classify it as a ‘modern record’ in a way suggests it sounds like other stuff that’s happening right now and we weren’t super-influenced by a lot of our peers at the time. But now, people see us as part of a group of bands – which is great and I respect those bands so much more. I didn’t realize how much went into what they did as well.

RS: I like the dancey edge to your music too, You’ve been remixed by Horse Meat Disco – that’s pretty cool.
SM: Yes

RS: Have you ever been to Australia?
SM: No, it’s going to be really exciting, we can’t wait.

RS: What was the last live show you went to?
SM: Umm, gosh what was that! I’m drawing a blank, last live show was… I know, there’s this band out of Washington DC, they haven’t been together a long time, they’re called Shudder To Think – I saw them over at the Bowery where we’re playing tomorrow night. They were really cool. To me, they kinda sound like the next version of Roxy Music. The melodies are always kinda really bizarre like Roxy Music. Fantastic vocals. You really don’t hear that sound too often.

RS: Are you guys getting kinda ‘big’ in the US? Like are you getting recognised in the street?
SM: (laughs) A little bit here and there. The other day I read a blog that mentioned us like they expected everyone to know who we are. They used it as an anecdote to sort of brush off ‘not that anyone needs to hear another song by The Phenomenal Handclap Band’ and it was like, people are actually tired of us? Great! If people are tired of you, you’ve made it.

RS: If PHCB were a religion, what would be your ten commandments?
SM: Oh no! I don’t know if I have the imagination for ten full commandments.
RS: Sorry, that was a little over-zealous of me
SM: if we were a religion, we’d be one of those religions were you’d have to do something totally terrible and then, at the very last minute say, oh, you don’t have to do it.

RS: What was your last meal?
SM: I went to Elizabeth Street in Manhattan and we ate at Cafe Habana and I had a salad and Mexican corn.

RS: What are you doing for Xmas?
SM: I’m going to Arizona (where I’m from) to hang out with my Mom, Dad and sisters and listen to my Dad complain about his Christmas gifts. It should be fun.