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New England Music News

Growing pains

On a more positive note, I welcome the challenge. Looking back on all the artists that I love and respect, I think they must have all gone through this. Some of them just hang up their hats and fucking pull a Jeff Magnum and say “this isn’t what I got into this for . . . I’m out of here.” Some of them start writing really arduous hard-to-listen-to songs about loneliness and being on the road constantly and nobody can relate to them anymore. And some of them find a creative balance. But you really have to be willing to sacrifice. Like, if you don’t sacrifice the music then you have to sacrifice a little of your success. And if you’re not willing to sacrifice a little success then you’ve gotta sacrifice some of your relationships at home. You basically look at this entire set of choices laid out in front of you and realize that something has to give. I’ve had to reassess my own expectations of my life and my fantasy of myself as an artist because real life came knocking. What I thought it meant to be a musician and an artist at 15 is bullshit now. I now have to be a human being who sometimes does art. And I have to get over my immature idea that life is going to be this fantastic artistic paradise where I get to traipse around finger-painting all day.

MA: On a more practical note, are you comfortable in Boston or, now that you're an international artist, are you feeling the need to relocate?
AP: We’re so placeless to begin with, you know. I mean, we’re barely ever in Boston. I sort of feel like a fraud telling people we’re from Boston because I’ve seen so little of it in the past two years. But I don’t have much of a decision to make because even if I moved I would never be there. So I can have fantasies about moving to New York or Berlin or Bordeaux or Siberia, but it doesn’t matter. It would be an empty apartment. On the other hand, I treasure my time at home so dearly at this point that I can’t imagine leaving. I don’t know if you know much about my house, but it’s a magic place. It’s filled with really wonderful people. Coming home to that environment is worth more than gold. I guess I could have some gigantic, sprawling loft in New York or something . . . but for me it’s more about the people — people who make it so worth coming back to Boston every time.