‘Finding the magic again’: Noah Gersh on taking LA band PARTYBABY back on the road and to the Troubadour

PARTYBABY is an LA based indie rock band that is making a big splash in the rock music scene. Although the band PARTYBABY itself is relatively young, the members themselves are no strangers to the world of music. Guitarist Noah Gersh is a former member of Portugal. The Man and Jamie Reed is a producer and engineer who has worked with acts such as Thirty Seconds to Mars, while other members of the band include Chelsea Davis and James Hurst. Together the four of them make up the refreshingly authentic rock band PARTYBABY.

With their poetic lyrics juxtaposed against beautifully chaotic sound, it is no surprise that they have grown a fanbase in the rock and punk scenes. PARTYBABY is currently on tour with Pottymouth, with an upcoming show in Los Angeles on March 23rd at the Troubadour. From the road, while driving from Dallas to Houston, PARTYBABY’s Noah Gersh phoned in to talk about finding the magic of music, their newest album The Golden Age of Bullshit, and what life is like on the road.

What inspired the creation of Partybaby?

The main inspiration behind the creation of the band, was a moment in both Jamie and I’s lives where we had been playing music professionally in our own respective way for four years. We had always wanted to tour and we had both been touring the world for about four years. We had both reached a very similar place where it didn’t feel like it was enough, or there was something missing. So we separately kind of came to that conclusion and ended up back home in Los Angeles. And because we just have a history of being friends, we got together and were talking about that.

There weren’t many people in my life who could understand that sentiment and through that we just started spending a lot of time together and the music came, you know, not to quickly after that, even if we didn’t know that we were starting a band. The music did kind of start not too long after we decided that we should start messing around together and making music.

That’s awesome actually. It’s like you guys wanted to find that magic again that you guys had.

Yeah, exactly. And its quite a scary thing when, you know, we both only ever aspired be this, like this was our dream. So when your living the dream, and then it doesn’t feel like it’s enough it’s creates quite an existential crisis, where you don’t really know up and down or left and right. It’s like, you know, well this is supposed to be everything, and if I’m not happy then how am I ever going to be happy. But yeah, it was about trying to get back and find that magic again, and I think we did a lot of stuff that helped us do that.

So you guys write a lot of your songs then?

Yeah, we do.

Do you guys have a songwriting process at all?

Um, no I wouldn’t say that there is a particular process. We both write individually, we both write together. I think the best advice that I have ever accumulated, or the best practice I’ve ever put at work as a songwriter, is to let every song be treated as its own entity. You have to listen and see how they want to come into the world. That really requires being open to however it wants to be processed through you. And, you know, sometimes there are songs that Jamie will get 80% of the way done and then show it to me. And then other times where I will have a crazy good idea and we will work it out together. It has happened in every way you could possibly cut it between the two of us. But then it always get finished through our filter.

I love the entity idea. I myself am a songwriter so I can relate to that idea.

Oh yeah, you know then, not to sound like a hallmark card, that they all are separate. They [songs] are all children also.

So you guys released The Golden Age of Bullshit back in September. I listened to it, I loved it. And speaking of children, I know picking a favorite song is like picking a favorite child, but what are your top three favorite on the album.

Alright that’s easy, top three. I have a special place in my heart for “Your Old Man,” and always will, because it was kind of the first one that we wrote that we decided that we were going to put some time and effort into making it into a real project. And it kind of encapsulates what we are trying to do and say and be honest about the place that we’re at in the world. And I think that in particular, the final version of it on the record that closes the album, where we created a medley where all the songs on the album start reprising, that was also a really interesting moment in our growth.

The band, as you were saying, was about finding the magic again. And then it was just a question of fun, so I think that was the moment that we really understood how to conceptualize the band and the ideas behind the band. And that will always really have a special place in my heart too.

And then “Everything’s All Right” is special to me because it’s indicative, at least from a song writing’s perspective, 0f where we kind of throw out all rules of how songs are supposed to be structured. And it came much more from a feeling and much more from like a position that it needs to be crazy and aggressive and  sound like chaos, because that is what the voice in the song is talking about. And then gets jarringly really sparse and then it needs to end up in a place where everything is right. And I don’t think either of us had really written a song like that, and that part of finding the magic is about throwing out all the rules and then rebuilding your own kind of playbook. And I think for each of those reasons those three are special.

“Your Old Man” was my favorite on the album. And I feel like a lot of your music on this album is punk rock. And it’s kind of what I like to call New-Age Misfit Music. So I feel like a song like “Your Old Man” has provided a voice for the misfits of society who created and relate to this type of music. And I think that is a good song to be an anthem for people. So you said that the song was about what you guys are doing now and where you are, so what was the inspiration for the song?

Well, that’s a funny thing, because I feel like that song … well, there is a couple different things. The verses speak to this idea of just being … there was a lot of self deprecation when we were writing the record. Which was really just giving voice to our anxiety about where we were in our lives, like what we were doing and if it was going to be okay, which is why there are kind of these hallmark card sentiments like “everything’s all right.” Like it’s really just us telling ourselves that kind of stuff. But you know the verse is kind of just this character who is thinking about how he behaves badly and thinking about experiences that he’s having that are really bizarre, like waking up in a car and watching your friend hit a bong that’s broken.

Because you know the song itself came out really quickly, the melody and the verse and the chorus and the bridge came together in as long as the song is. I don’t think either of us had ever had a song come out like that. And I’m happy to have people believe that it’s about their dad not knowing what they get up to on the weekends. It’s not exactly what it means to me. But I think that is what most people have taken from it. I think it’s really just about this idea that we live our lives out on the line, and there are people in the world who don’t really understand that. And I think that everyone has their own version  of who that old man is that they can relate to and it’s this idea that we’re not always seen for everything, who we are, and what we believe in, but we have each other in a sense. And I feel like everyone can relate to that in their own way.

You guys are on tour with Pottymouth right now, and previously you had being touring for about fours years. So what is your favorite thing and least favorite thing about touring?

I would say my favorite thing is—I mean the act of kind of boarding a pirate ship, so to speak, with your best friend and traveling around the country is just fucking fun. There’s no way around it, it’s just a good time. But, I don’t want to sound whiny, it’s hard to eat well. The time kind of gets taken away from you. I think that self care in all respects is really important, especially when the world feels as crazy as it is. You know, we all have our own version of what self care is. For us that’s trying to eat well, and exercise, and go for hikes. Be out in nature, and have some sort of balance. And all of that kind of gets thrown out the window when you go on tour.

When you are just trying to figure out what the healthiest thing you can eat in this gas station is. It’s not really an easy way to get through it. But, I think it is pretty amazing to be afforded the opportunity to meet people, especially in America right now, who don’t think like us. We’re confronted by that kind of stuff everyday when we’re out here on the road, not necessarily shows, because those are gatherings of like minded people. But, you know, at gas stations, and restaurants, and places where we walk in and truly are looked at as aliens. I think that moments when we get to try to make connections with those types of people are really important, and I think that almost everyone could benefit from having a little bit more of that. And being forced to reach across the table and try to find commonality with people that we don’t necessarily see any of ourselves in. That’s my favorite thing about this tour, those kind of moments.

So to end this on a fun note, who are you listening to right now? What’s playing in the car when you guys are driving everywhere?

Well in the car, that was playing two seconds before we started talking, we’ve been listening to this podcast called Crimetown. It’s incredible. This tour has been dominated by podcasts. And I don’t know, the music we listen to in our band is truly all over the place. There’s been some really early reggae stuff we’ve been listening to. Every once in a while someone will put on Michelle Branch. It goes all over the place really. But podcasts are kind of what have saved our lives on the tour, or at least our boredom.