Day Jobs - Oberhofer

L-R: Brad (guitar/vox), Ben (bass), Matt (guitar/glockenspiel), Pete (drums)

Two years ago, when I was 'launching' my 'career' as a 'music writer' (why do I feel so insecure writing that without scare quotes), my very first band interview was with a budding young musician named Brad Oberhofer, who was then just a jumpy teenager attending NYU to study music. It was like one newbie interviewing another newbie, though Brad handled himself much better than I did. Since then, he and his band Oberhofer have blown up (though probably not as much as I have). Take, for instance, the band’s recent appearance on Letterman, even though the talk show host failed to pronounce “Oberhofer” correctly – oopsie David.

I guess I should have figured that musicians who get big at such a young age often skip the day jobs part of life, but I wanted to sit with them anyway. Even though these guys are headed towards serious rockstardom, they’re still boys at heart, as can be evidenced by how quickly this interview turned into a conversation about pissing and shitting. Oh, boys [eyeroll].

P.S. Before the interview, the band made me take off my cardigan and wear this leather jacket instead, which they found at SXSW. But when I asked if I was rocking the jacket, no one said anything… so erm, I guess I should just give it back to its owner (holler at me if this is yours):

VICE: Hey Oberhofer boys!
Ben: Will you record the sound of me pouring whiskey into this cup? Um, sure? Go ahead. Wait, do any of you guys even have day jobs?
Pete: Yeah, I work at a sushi restaurant in Union Square. It’s called 15 East.
Matt: It’s too expensive for any of us to eat there.
Pete: I can’t even eat there.

Really? How many dollar signs would you give it?
Pete: It’s probably four dollar signs. We get celebrities coming in sometimes. I work as a waiter, a busboy, whatever they need. I don’t cut the fish though.
Matt: I mix for a few venues, like Cameo Gallery and Fontana’s.

I mean, Oberhofer is big enough to be its own day job at this point.
Brad: Yeah…
At this point, Brad told me something that I wanted to publish, but he asked me to keep it “off the record.” Damn it.

OFF THE RECORD – my three least favorite words.
Pete: Remember, you got a jacket out of this.

You’re right. Earlier, Brad told me one of you guys worked for Grandmaster Flash!
Matt: That would be me. I was his assistant. He uses the same recording software I do and he’s been using it for like 20 years but he doesn’t know it too well because someone else always operated it for him. He would basically tell me what he wanted to happen and I would make it happen.

Did he ever ask you to do any weird errands?
No, because I had to stay at the computer for hours except to go to the bathroom and eat. He always ordered food for us from this Chinese restaurant, which was the only thing we could get in town. Dry rice and fried chicken and baby shrimp… I always felt like shit afterwards.

What about your worst jobs?
Ben: I was a parking lot attendant.
Brad: I remember that!
Ben: Yeah, it was at a bank in Tacoma. It felt like I was in a fishbowl all day. It’s hard to go to the bathroom when you have to watch cars, you know? Oh God, it was so boring.

So, you and Brad knew each other from Tacoma.
Brad: Yeah. When I lived there, I was the maintenance worker at Tacoma Lawn Tennis Club. It wasn’t too bad, though. I just hung out with my best friend Isaac, who was also a maintenance worker. We would just freestyle rap all day.

Ooh, do some freestylin’ now!
No.

First you tell me off-the-record information and then you deny me the right to hear some freestyle rap? C’mon Brad.
Matt: You have to wait til after midnight.

OK, so it’s an afterparty special?
Brad: Yes. If you come to the afterparty, I will definitely freestyle rap for you. Oh my God remember when you were DJing old school hip-hop at Glasslands? You were wasted.
Brad: I was wasted, wasn’t I? Ha! One of the needles was missing so I just had an apple spinning round and round on the turntable.

Brad’s spinning apple at Glasslands, April 2011

Then you picked up a random iPod that only had like Fiona Apple on it…
Matt: Ooh, spinning apple and spinning Apple?

Oh shit, that’s funny. That was a good night. What other jobs have you guys had?
Pete: I used to be a power washer in Cleveland. I washed people’s houses and gutters and driveways. It was always covered in gutter poop. Gutters do have poop in them.
Matt: Gutters do also poop. Like bird poop?
Pete: Bird poop, raccoon poop, and just like you know… leaves that have turned into poop. It’s all a circle of life.

OK, so not human poop.
Usually not, unless it was a house I really enjoyed and I wanted to turd up there.
Ben: For good luck.
Pete: It was OK but sometimes it was miserable because I would go to sleep covered in poop, then wake up and go to work covered in poop.

That sounds really bad, actually…
There are worse jobs out there.
Matt: Working at a poop factory would be worse.

[Brad starts pouring coconut water into a cup]
Brad: Sorry guys, I’m peeing! Didn’t mean to piss in the interview!
Ben: Wow you really had to go, Brad.
Brad: Aww, this feels soooooooo good. Ohhhhh… Aww… [insert weird moans]

You just couldn’t hold it, could you? If you guys weren’t musicians, what would you be doing?
Pete: I’d start a T-shirt printing company in the Philippines.

Why the Philippines?
It’s warm there.
Matt: Because people there are Filipino. What about the rest of you?
Ben: I would be a park ranger.
Brad: I might do that too! That sounds awesome!
Matt: I want to be a father.
Ben: He would beat or sell his children.
Matt: My favorite kids are the ones that beat themselves so I won’t have to.

Matt, I feel like there’s an issue to uncover here, but I don’t even want to go there. What are some of the oddest gigs you worked when you guys were low on dough?
I posed nude for a photographer once. It was good money – like $500 for an hour-long sitting.
Ben: Are these pictures on the internet?
Matt: I don’t know.

Was this a Craigslist find by any chance?
Yeah…
Ben: Whoa-ho!
Matt: I know.
Ben: Can we see everything?
Matt: Yes. I was posing as a letter of the alphabet.

Were there 25 other nude people with you?
No, it wasn’t all at the same time. I was a capital T.
Brad: Full body or close-up?
Matt: Full body.
Ben: Front or back?
Matt: Front. Guys!

Do you do nudes a lot?
No!

Haha, sorry for putting you on the spot, Matt.
I once told my doctor I did that just cause it’s a funny story and my doctor’s cool. But now every time I go in, he’s like “So, how’s the nude modeling going?” and I tell him, “Doc, I told you, that was only a one-time thing.”

Let’s just get it all out – has anyone else here done nude modeling?
Brad: Naw. The last part-time thing I did was work the door at Todd P shows.
Ben: I guess I just sold a bunch of shit when I needed money.
Matt: I’m not very good at girlfriends, so I sold her.

Matt, stop selling people!
Brad: YOU CANNOT SELL PEOPLE!
Matt: Yeah, you can only sell yourself.

@kristenyoonsoo

Previously - Farming Weed With Brendan From The Pharmacy