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Raleigh Mag chats with the indie-sleeze era icon.
When Passion Pit’s Michael Angelakos began turning out music for profit, he was barely old enough to buy a pack of American Spirits. The first of the band’s songs were written during the frontman’s time at Emerson College, and almost immediately, “people were wanting me to make music to make them money, and it was working,” he says.
While graduating college in a successful band lives in the dreams of plenty of students-turned-musicians, it’s not always glitz and glamour. Despite immense commercial success in the early 2010s—particularly with the track “Sleepyhead”—the indie-synth band has endured their share of mental health struggles, tour cancellations and hiatuses over the past ~15 years.
Now, Passion Pit is making a highly anticipated return with their Pretty Penny tour—including a Raleigh stop at The Ritz July 31—and Angelakos confirms new music is coming out soon, following almost a decade since their last record.
“The truth of the matter was, I didn’t have any ambitions or ideas,” Angelakos explains of the lull in Passion Pit records. “That’s a really scary thing to suddenly be without a vision when your entire life is basically coming up with [music]. … I hid from things for a while, then I started seeing the world differently.”
A new perspective was exactly the kick-start Passion Pit needed. First, Angelakos had a sense of direction, then he decided he wanted to tour, and, finally, he knew it was time to make another record. Five to six brand-new tracks make an appearance at every tour stop, and the audiences’ reception to the new music is just as enthusiastic as it was in 2009.
Angelakos tells RM he has a gut feeling about Passion Pit’s new music—the same feeling he had while working on the group’s acclaimed track “Sleepyhead.” The Northeast native says the popular song’s success wasn’t entirely a surprise to him, but the cultural impact and endurance was.
The breakout hit sampled “Óró Mó Bháidín” by Mary O’Hara, originally released in 1958. Angelakos already had the makings of the song in his head when he found the Irish folk song in a bargain bin at a record shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “I listened to it, and I lost my mind,” Angelakos reminisces. “It’s a very old song, ancient even, and it’s basically ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’ in Gaelic.”
Widely considered one of the greatest traditional vocalists in Ireland, 91-year-old O’Hara sold Angelakos the rights for just $100. “She was really cool, and I’m happy to share publishing with her—she made my career,” he maintains.
Now entering a new era, Passion Pit’s July 31 Ritz stop allows fans to hear those synthy-indie tunes inspired by centuries past firsthand—and perhaps witness another historical moment in the making. livenation.com
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