This Modern Love: Papa

Papa: Danny and Darren.

Finding people you like enough to hang out with sober can be hard. Finding people you want to swap saliva and other fluids with is really, really tough. These days, dating websites like OkCupid, Match.com, e-Harmony and J-Date are doing big business (roughly 40 million Americans are logging on). Did you hear that EDM-Date just launched? Yeah let’s talk about that. There’s no shame there, people. It’s hard to make a meaningful connection when you’re gurning your face off to some searing strain of progressive house. Even if you can lip read, the chances of you coming away knowing anything more about a person than their beverage preference and their fist-pump angle are slim to none.

So with “This Modern Love” we make musicians and bands fill out a dating profile of their own. The first to sign up was Active Child, this week it’s LA-based band Papa. The duo—made up of Darren Weiss (vocals/drums) and Danny Presant (bass)—first met in back when they were seven years old. In those days, farts, Playboy, and trying to catch the occasional lizard were the pairs primary concerns, but by the time their Bar Mitzvah rolled round, things were getting serious. They were playing covers of RHCP, The Beatles, and Blink-182. Their first ever show was headlining their school’s Latin convention (Danny: “You don’t wanna know, it’s too intense for you.”) Even though Darren spent a good few years keeping time in the band Girls, the duo have never really stopped messing around and their efforts have finally culminated in Papa’s lately released debut album, Tender Madness, an ode to “America, women and insanity.” The record embraces a widescreen romanticism, from the unabashed Springsteen stomp of “Put Me To Work,” to gilded indie anthem “Young Rut.” Also they have a shimmy of a song (not included the album, sadly) called “Let’s Make You Pregnant.” We appreciate their directness. So we had a little Skype date threesome and this is what they said…

Papa - "Young Rut"

PAPA
Danny: 25 / LA / Straight / bass
Darren: 26 / LA / Straight / vocals and drums
Darren: Regarding sexual orientation? Physically Danny is heterosexual; philosophically he’s homosexual.
Danny: That is true. They have more fun.

My self-summary
Darren: Thirsty, delectable, daring.
Danny: Fun and flirty, yet daring with a dash of spice (cayenne). My manager just got embarrassed by that. I wish I could say dead sexy, but it’s just not there yet.

What I’m doing with my life
Danny: Making mad funky beats, sleeping in bed with dudes, I would never kiss.
Darren: And the occasional freestyle.

I’m really good at
Darren: I don’t want to be too arrogant about my sexual potency, here…
Danny: So I’ll start. I’m mad good at sex and being silly.
Darren: I’m really good at jump rope.
Danny: I’ve never had a cavity so I’m really good at oral hygiene, no joke!

The first things people usually notice about me are
Darren: I’m a singing drummer.
Danny: How kind and caring I am/
Darren: That’s bullshit. People notice dumb things. The two things I get asked the most at shows are, “So you sing, but you also drum, how do you do that?” And if I’m just on the street it’s like, “Woah, you have a beard! How long did that take you to grow?”
Danny: Oh no they notice that I’m mad limber when I’m walking. I have the potential to be a very good dancer. The other day someone stopped me and said: “In the club: are you good?” I said yes and they said, “I believe it.” Imooove. You’d be so lucky to see me on the street. Catch me on Lafayette in the dead of winter—fuggedaboutit.

Favorite books
Darren: Plexus by Henry Miller and I just read the autobiography of Malcolm X for the first time and that had a really a really big impact on me. And The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow.
Danny:I’m about to finish The Fountainhead, which was a gift and I’m really sad because I don’t want it to end. The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. I was finishing Just Kids in a coffee shop and I had to leave because I was about to cry and two homeless guys laughed at me. I’m sensitive, you know?

Favorite movies
Darren:The Sand Lot. If you’ve never heard of it I just made your life so much better. And Mahattan. I’m a complex individual.
Danny: Being There with Peter Sellers and I like really bad movies as well.
Darren: Don’t say 27 Dresses.
Danny: I love Katherine Heigel! I’ll go with Crazy Stupid Love. Also Good Will Hunting and Spanglish and Funny People.

Favorite TV shows
Danny:: The Sopranos and Friends. I’m not kidding. I had to clear space on my phone just now to put some more stuff on it and I found that all I was deleting was me filming my favorite clips of the show on the TV. I’ve deleted 10 videos of that.
Darren: Why is the world encapsulated by these six individuals? It’s a beautiful chemistry. Our favorite character is Ross.
Danny: We both love it. It’s one of the few things we actually agree on.
Darren: My favorite shows beyond that are Seinfeld and The Wonder Years. And if you like The Wonder Years, The Sand Lot is gonna fuck your shit up.

Favorite bands
Danny: The Clash, Talking Heads, Bruce Springsteen.
Darren: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Brian Eno, Fugazi.
Danny: Kanye. And a little [Erik] Satie!
Darren: Maurice Ravel, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, D’Angelo, Bud Powell, Tina Turner.

Favorite Food.
Both: Sushi.

Six things I could never do without.
Danny: Laughter, playing music, and sex.
Darren: Sex, my records, and time alone.
Danny: Sex because it’s fun and it feels good and I’m wicked passionate, so I love it: slow, fast, the whole thing. There’s so many different types, it’s fun! How do I deal with being on tour? I don’t know, occasionally I’ll be alone in my room. Sometimes I like to combine the two—alone time and sex—then that’s how you deal with being on tour.
Darren: I’m get the most pleasure from the very, very simple things in my life. The happiest I ever am is when I’m home after tours, by myself, just drinking tea and sitting around all day listening to records and reading. It probably sounds dorky or like an old man, but honestly that the happiest I ever am. Alone time is when I’m creative: that’s when I practice drums, when I write and draw and do all the things I love to do.
Danny:My favorite thing about when I get home is I get to not see the people in my band. I get to go be with my friends and have a good giggle. That’s very important to me.

I spend a lot of time thinking about
Darren: Ambiguous projects I want to work on in the future. Chasing imaginary beats, or a song, or something I want to draw. Or I’ll think of a line or I’ll read something that will make me wanna write a short story or a poem with that thing in it. I feel like most of my time is spent chasing these little fragmented moments of inspiration.
Danny: This is going to sound cheesy, but I too just think about various ideas in my head—whether it’s a freestyle, or a song. I don’t really write poems, but sometimes I like to share my weird poems with Darren. I also think a lot about my feelings. I’m not kidding.

Papa - "I Am The Lion King"

The most private thing I’m willing to admit is
Danny: These days we’re just on the road, so you can frequently find me in a hotel room with Darren hoping to find an episode of Friends on Nick at Nite.
Darren: We’ve got our shit pretty dialed in, so if you’re a girl, you’ll just have to hope on board. Although girls aren’t allowed to watch Friends with us—that’s kind of a me and Danny thing.

On a typical Friday night I am
Darren: On Friday nights we like to go to Skid Row of any town we’re in and find the most talented homeless artist and give him $100.
Danny: And whatever drug he’s doing, I will partake in, and Darren will watch…
Darren: …with no judgment.

You should message me if
Danny: You’re a cheap date. If you like to take things slow and you’re in touch with your feelings.
Darren: You should message me if you like Dean Martin and Bad Brains the same.

P.S. Darren has also just published a book of poetry, The Only Thing Worse Than a Woman is a Man. When asked whether he read his poems aloud to woo women he responded with:
"No, but that’s an interesting question. There’s a lot of very personal things where I’m writing about specific instances or a person, and in some ways they’ve helped me get into relationship and in some ways they’ve ravished and destroyed other relationships. I never go out of my way to show them to people, but they have definitely affected my life in really intense ways since those poems have been written and released.”

P.P.S. Both Darren and Danny have girlfriends.

Papa Tour Dates
11.17 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir
11.18 - Vancouver, BC - Electric Owl
11.19 - Seattle, WA - Barboza
11 21 - Sacramento, CA - Harlow's
11.22 - San Francisco, CA - Bottom of the Hill
11.23 - Santa Barbara, CA - Soho
12.06 - Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Kim pinky swore with Darren over Skype to watch The Sand Lot in the next seven days. She better hurry up. She's on Twitter - theKTB.