– Interview with lead vocalist Matt Popieluch

August 9, 2007

It appears that Dim Mak Records has something special on their hands. Los Angeles natives Foreign Born, who just released their debut album “On the Wing Now,” are a band to be reckoned with.

When approaching Foreign Born, you get a sudden jolt of Tom Petty meets U2, but with lead singer’s Matt Popieluch’s own signature drone. Smashed Chair got a chance to chat with Matt on the phone for a brief interview on how the band traveled in an oil van, their Monkey’s moment and their next album.

Smashed Chair: Where does “On the Wing Now” come from?

Matt Popieluch: It comes from one of the songs on the album called “Keep It All Inside.” We actually rarely play it live. I have a trend of taking lyrics from songs that are not the titles and making them the album title. It’s a secret trend.

SM: Are you guys still going across country in a vegetable oil van? (The guys stop at restaurants and fuel up on fryer grease).
MP: We rented a van from Dios Malos. Dim Mak is going to buy us a van and we’re going to try and convert that to oil too.

SM: Is this a trend or is this more of a personal choice?
MP: It’s definitely a trend. I feel like in a couple of months when we started the tour in September, and we came back – in a month people were going to grease restaurants doing the same thing we were. It’s really taking off, especially in California. There are all these companies springing up and it doesn’t take as long to get your car converted. I think it all depends on the climate and the weather. It’s perfect for L.A. I have yet to be in one in the winter. The car we had could switch to diesel, so if worse came to worse we could switch to diesel.

SM: So from safe for the environment to worse for the environment?
MP: Yeah, something like that.

SM: You guys did this mock concert for a television show. What was it like to have people pretend to be at one of your shows and to lip sync?

MP: We played at the place like for normal shows, before, but now it was for a television pilot. So the creators of the show tried to assemble this fake audience for us to play in front of. It was so funny. It was supposed to be this local, indie show, but when you get inside, you see this huge Coldplay lights. It was like this wall of lights and we were just silhouettes. The extras were just out of control. It was hard not to crack up. We would lip synch for the first take and the people started dancing and it was kind of limp. Then the director comes out and he tells them “Alright guys, this is your favorite band, you gotta go crazy!” And people start going way too crazy. This one guy is looking at me in the eyes, pumping his fist into the air. I think he was just trying to impress the director. The whole thing lasted twice as long. We got drunk the in the middle of it and we totally crashed. And then we were like “What, six more hours of this?” It was like 14 hours in total. We were tired and drunk, but it was a very funny experience.

SM: A little bit of The Monkeys. You guys get to lip sync.

MP: Actually our drummer gets mentioned in the script. I think he was supposed to be in a scene, but right before we went on, the lead actor and some people were supposed to make fun of him.

SM: Was everything from “On the Wing Now” written in Los Angeles?
MP: Some of our first CD was written in Los Angeles. Definitely written at different times. Some of the stuff on there was written before the first EP came out. Yeah, but they were all written in L.A.

SM: I didn’t know what to expect from a Foreign Born live show. When I showed up, I got you channeling Tom Petty.

MP: Yeah, I’ve been getting that a lot lately. Once I was in an airport on layaway, and I was reading a magazine and some duded started singing “Free Falling.”

SM: Are you guys writing new material?

MP: Yeah, we’re always writing. We have enough material for the next album.

SM: Any more lyrical references for the title of the record?

MP: We don’t have any titles yet for this record. So, I’m not entirely sure about them yet.

SM: Are you guys taking different turns for the next record?

MP: Yeah, it’s going to be a lot more rhythmic and a lot more percussion. We recently started a side project called “Fools Gold” and it’s heavily African influenced. It’s really rhythmic. It’s a lot of guitars and our guitar player has been listening to a lot of music from Northern Africa. It’s not really completely different, but it’ll be like a mellow sounding drum beat. That’s one of the new directions. We’re trying to go lighter and darker at the same time.

SM: As far as this being your job, when does it feel like work and when is it a dream?

MP: We’ll still pretty much on the bottom. I don’t know, we still working really shitty jobs and I’m on my way to the Chinese Warehouse sale. Making music is always a dream; I don’t need to be successful to be great. You know, we’re just always going to do it. It would be nice to get paid a bit more, but I don’t know hopefully. I mean it is a lot of work, like everyday we’re working on something. There just so much more than the average person knows.

SM: Matt, would you rather be a cowboy, a pirate or a gypsy?
MP: I guess I would be a gypsy. To live by the river, hang out and play guitar all day.

On August 21, the band will be having a record release party at the Echo. For Free! Just show up. The guys will also be taking part in the Fourth Annual F*ck Yeah Festival in Echo Park.

By Nathan Solis

Listen to the album at Amazon.com