The Daniel Pujol Interview

As someone that's a Tennessean, tell me about growing up in Tullahoma, TN. What was your childhood like? When were you first introduced to music and what initially fascinated you about it? Do you have any siblings? 

It was fine. I didn't really understand the mores of the town. It was very status symbol oriented. I pinged around social groups. Each group had their own interests. I had a few close friends in each group. That kept things interesting; I managed to regularly encounter something new. When I started touring, I learned that was rare for a small town. I was fortunate. The radio, my parents' record collection, and video game soundtracks introduced me to music. But I don't know what initially fascinated me about it! Yes.

What would you and your friends do for fun back in the day? Who were among some of your favorite groups that left a heavy impression on you? When did you play your first show? Did you participate in any groups while in school before setting off on your journey as a solo artist? 

We sat in a parking lot. Tullahoma had two aspiring mini-malls. For years, they had crazy sales on dead stock cassettes and CD boxsets. Most of my Tullahoma-encountered favorites were from those bargain bins or recommended by peers: Big Audio Dynamite, Bjork, Three 6 Mafia, The Slackers, Outkast, The Cure, Sublime, The Police, DJ Sasha, The Clean, Converge, and Psychedelic Furs. I remember where, but not when. I played "Hey Sandy" by Polaris in the Catholic school's gymnasium. I did concert band, marching band, and the school newspaper. 

Tell me about your days attending MTSU in the mid 2000’s. What was your major at the time? I understand after MTSU you relocated to Denver in 2012. Can you tell me about that transition and what that experience was like for you?

There was some bizarre military recruitment scheme that partnered with Guitar Hero or something. Maybe it was an energy drink? I don’t know, but it was definitely obnoxious. The recruiters would set up a stage with loudspeakers in the "quad" for students to walk up and play Guitar Hero. I'd sit in a PoliSci class and try to hear the instructor over some dude outside fudging a Black Sabbath riff. There was a lot of bozo bullshit like that masquerading as "the college experience" to conceal some other project. I did have a few great instructors, though. It ended up being Liberal Studies with an emphasis and double minor. I just took every Political Science, International Relations, and Religious Studies course I could. I did not relocate to Denver. I did a grad program at the University of Denver because it was online. I did not want to repeat the aforementioned "college experience" to continue my education. Plus, I could tour because the program was a correspondence. I did my school work on the road and/or at home. It was like trying to find wifi. Places with public wifi, like Carbondale, IL, were gems; they made it easy to upload schoolwork on the sidewalk before a show.

When did you move back to TN and relocate to Nashville? I understand you still currently reside there. How did you initially meet your bandmates Adam Tanaka, Sean Thompson and Joey Scala. Tell me about writing and recording the first Pujol record back in ‘08. How did the dealwith Infinity Cat come about? I understand you’ve become pretty close with those guys over the years?

I've been in the area more, or less since 2005. I just ran into Tanaka at an event in town. He was repping his companies, Life & Limb Printing and Cavehouse Supply. I'm always happy to see him. Tanaka and I are both transplants from smaller towns. We met through the club I worked at and while crashing at the same apartments when trying to move here. I met Joey and subsequently Sean through that same club job. In Nashville, a work tape is a setlist of recordings that backing musicians use to learn your set. Pujol: Ringo Where Art Thou is a work tape. Its tracks are a set's worth of songs I wrote in Richmond, Memphis, and Nashville. At the time, I didn't have a steady live drummer—and I needed one. The most efficient way for me to find a live drummer was to release a compilation that doubled as a work tape. This was possible because Infinity Cat released—my previous band—MEEMAW's music and wanted to release said tape. Again, I was fortunate. I recorded some of it at home with a laptop. Jake from JEFF recorded some of it with a mobile rig. Loney Hutchinson recorded some of it at his studio. After its release, a drummer was found—fortuitous thrice!

You’ve released a prolific amount of singles on labels such as Saddle Creek, Turbo Time Records, Third Man, Jeffery Drag, etc. As much as I’d like to cover every single release, I simply can’t! Tell me about the Nashville music scene during those early days. What was that community like? I grew up around the same time, but wasn't too involved in going to shows that were during that period in time. How have things changed both musically and artistically?

You know, I don't really know. It was similar to Tullahoma. I hopped between different groups. By about 2011, I pretty much only socialized with my obvious cohort when playing Pujol shows. Plus, the club I worked at booked genres outside that cohort: secular hardcore, secular metal, religious acts of all genres, it had a skatepark, etc. So, I'd be around different kinds of music people all the time. I knew musicians ranging from like a techno-revival scene to—maybe you'd call it—alt-country to Christian metal bands. There were pockets of music everywhere—with and without guitars. Nashville's like a jar of marbles. I'd like to cover every facet of its musical multitude, I simply can't! My knowledge of it is so all over the place, my only answer to how it's changed is "makes sense." 

I've heard you mention that it's important to release music on vinyl. Can you expand on that and why this medium is the most important of all formats? 

There's an interview somewhere where I talk about vinyl versus CDs. Maybe it was for a college student's project that then ended up on the free paper's blog here? When I started releasing music, vinyl was the most appealing format. CD packaging was ugly and expensive. And economical CD packaging wasn't acknowledged as legitimate; this might not be the case anymore. Maybe the CD-R has graduated to nostalgic artifact and is allowed on the shelf now too. At the time—2010's, vinyl, in my opinion, was just a better option. You could actually make cover art and liner notes; its packaging was easier and more fun to wrangle. Vinyl covers looked more like a painting than a thumbnail. Overall, the only hard and fast is: I release in the most effective medium that interests me. For example, I just "fluxi disked"—not flexi disc—some Pujol spoken word roughs in a zine: SALT Weekly #33-1/3. To get a mail order copy email [thesaltweekly@gmail.com]. Maybe I'll do an economical CD next.

What have you been up to in more recent years? I understand you're working with zines and comics and as of last year launched THAW. Can you tell me about that? Are you currently working on any new music projects, or gearing up for any releases? Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?

The short answer is "not touring." The long answer is "exactly what I want." Yes. The zine is SALT Weekly. I do it with Jon Sewell. He has a gallery here called The Packing Plant. SALT is if a magazine was a show house. Anyone can submit to it and we'll run almost anything. THAW is hardboiled-cyber comic I do with Frank Hand. THAW is mostly postcards right now, but we are putting a book format together too. You know it. I am Pujoling. 

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