Interview with Harry Katz and the Pistachios

        What’s up raDEO fans, today I get to share with you all another interview with our third artist for the blog. Before we get started, I want to give thanks again to Harry Katz for sitting down and talking with me as well as Vince from 4AM Indie Publicity for making this all happen. With that all being said, let’s just get into it!

Finding Your Voice

Getting ready to interview Harry Katz, there were a lot of different factors to take into consideration before hopping on the phone with him. This was my first interview with an artist that was part of the band, and this wasn’t just any band. Harry Katz and the Pistachios is a 10-man band that is composed of brass instrumentalists, piano players, and a whole bunch of amazing singers. Not only that, I had the opportunity to interview Harry after the band dropped their debut project, “Scared of Romance”. This gave me a lot more material to look over and use to create questions that would allow me to get a unique look into what this band’s all about. After a week of listening to their music and getting a sense of their sound, I called Harry and we immediately started chatting like we were longtime friends.

Harry’s introduction into music started young, taking piano lessons as a kid and later learning the saxophone throughout his school years. His father was a huge fan of music, so anytime you walk into the house, you’re likely to hear some of his huge record collection or see the piano that just seemed essential to the Katz household. Later, as Katz entered high school, he decided to try his hand at guitar. After initially realizing how complicated the instrument was, he looked at alternatives which led to Harry’s beginnings as a bass player. The bass only has four strings compared to the six-string guitar, and adding the fact that bass players don't tend to take the spotlight in performing music, Harry felt more comfortable taking this route. Coincidentally, his friends were planning on starting a high school punk band so this cemented Harry’s role as a bass player. While the band didn’t live very long, this introduced Harry to other punk bands that he decided to join and play for on the road. It was between switching who he played for that Harry started dabbling in writing music and even experimenting more with the guitar.

Harry decided to drop out of school to chase his passion for performing on the road with different punk bands, and this led to him hitchhiking around the country for a while. It was during this moment in his life that Harry learned so much about not only himself but how that mixed with his ability to perform. While he was traveling the country, he realized that there were moments that he wanted to perform on the streets for cash, but there were difficulties when it came to performing solo acts as a bass player. This led to Harry picking up a four-string guitar which ended up showing more success in his ability to generate some money while being away from home. Hitchhiking also taught Harry how to deal with people from different locations around the country, and later would use his experiences in musical hotspots such as New Orleans to create inspiration for what and how Harry would perform with his band later on. 

Fast forward to around 2007. It was at this point that “the Pistachios” was a side-project that Harry would work on whenever he had time off. “I wasn’t actively prioritizing music in my life at this point, but when I had time off, I’d just sit at the guitar and make music and see what would come out of it.” He lived in New York at this time and lived near a venue that would constantly need openers for their acts. Having his instruments on hand and his experience performing, Harry would use this as a chance to play his songs he wrote on the road along with his guitar. It was during this time that he met other drummers and trombone players, leading to further inspiration for the sound of the band later. Hanging out one night, Harry and his fellow musicians were talking around a bowl of pistachios on the floor and started throwing shells at each other. As this was happening, the trombone player jokingly brought up “Harry Katz and the Pistachios”. It started off as a play on words, but after a half completed session in 2017 with recording tracks, Harry realized the full potential of this band. He decided to keep the name because changing it would only lead to it hurting the band’s backstory. He wanted to have a name that shared the whole story of how all of this came to be, and that name would later be a symbol to capture the work behind Harry’s journey in music, life, and his relationships with other musicians that would later join the band.

Mixing Theatrics with Rock n’ Roll

Looking at the work “Harry Katz and the Pistachios” have done thus far, there’s a couple things that I noticed that I wanted to clarify with Harry. First of all, the album cover art was amazing to see right off the bat. Caricatures that show a cartoony version of the band members as pistachios created a nostalgic “Looney Tunes” feeling that I gotta say just pushed the immersion factor when clicking on it to see what songs were available. On doing so, I saw the first track being a theme song that introduced the band to their audience. How. Cool. Is. That? I’ve always been a fan of theme songs being used in some of my favorite television shows growing up, but seeing it be utilized in a musical sphere? That to me opened my eyes to the idea that this band isn’t just trying to create music but rather a certain experience that circulated around their sound. 

Upon asking Harry about the reasoning for all of this, he told me that he’s always been a fan of the art and music that came with old school animation cartoons. Scooby Doo and Josie and the Pussy Cats are examples of the shows that Harry adored through hearing their unique theme songs and seeing the art personify the atmosphere the show created for twenty minutes on the screen. This all became inspiration for him wanting to create a universe for his band through the art and theme song we hear in the album. Harry always loved storytelling and the idea of animating something that creates memories for those that support his work. This band isn’t anything different as he plans on using the caricatures from the album cover to star in a plot that takes place through music videos and implement the theme song as the first step in introducing his audience to the universe of “the Pistachios”.

Another aspect of the band that I wanted to clarify with Harry was incorporated in the music itself. Just from listening to the debut album of the band, I immediately noticed theatrical elements embedded in each song that I listened to. The obvious example of this was Harry himself with his voice sounding raspy and pushing this dark tone that is often contrasted by the harmony that comes with the light vocals that occur through the female accompaniment in the songs. The instruments that follow along these vocals push this passion of performance, having it all blend and give me this feeling that I’m listening to the soundtrack of a play rather than an album of a rock n’ roll band. 

Little did I know that this was exactly what Harry was trying to portray. The raspy voice started off as a product of him singing on the streets of New Orleans. When performing on the street, there’s a lot of noise that you need to compete with, having it range from the sounds of cars rolling past you to people talking throughout the city to the other forms of music that echo down the streets and alleyways. You gotta have a distinct sound that cuts through that noise, and for Harry, that raspy voice was his tool in accomplishing that. When he started performing in that venue in New York, that voice stayed with him partially because of habit and partially because he acknowledged the power that voice had in grabbing people’s attention. This voice was very much inspired by the punk and blues music Harry’s well accustomed to, having it replicate the shouting and howling that can appear in both genres. 

When it came to the theatrical aspect of his music, Harry told me that he’s trying to create a hybrid of music that combines the beauty of both theatrical music and modern rock n’ roll. For theater storytelling, the only input the audience gives is sitting down, watching, and clapping at the end. However, for rock n’ roll, this is definitely not the case. We have dancing, clapping, direct input from the crowd through shouting, singing, and making vocal gestures for encores and such. Harry Katz and the Pistachios embody both through their music and live performances. To introduce the band, Harry loves using a puppet to introduce the band, having it encourage the crowd into chanting the band’s slogan “Oh Yes!” before the members appear wearing catered suits and accessories to perform in unison. This gives the audience such a rich experience that I think shows us as music lovers how today offers opportunities to create blends of the music we consumed as we grew up. And clearly it works in this case after having Harry tell me that audience members contact the band before a show so they can also dress up and be a part of the act.

Conclusion

All in all, Harry Katz and the Pistachios is an amazing band that tries to transcend the connotations we carry for both theater and modern rock n’ roll music. After all of this, I asked Harry what he dreams of as an artist and what would his fans want to see through his music. He told me that he wants the listeners to know that this music is a product of hard work between his amazing band members and himself, and the songs that they perform are a product of the communication and compassion each member has for each other. Their first album, “Scared of Romance”, does a great job at showcasing the complexities of romance but it also pays homage to the compromise and hardships that can come out of working in a ten-man band. But, through patience, compassion, and communication, anything’s possible. I thank you all for reading this piece on Harry Katz and the Pistachios, take care.

Socials:

Website: https://harrykatz.bandcamp.com/album/scared-of-romance

Instagram: @harrykatzandthepistachios

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HarryKatzandThePistachios/