Interview - The Pharmacy

We manged to catch up with Seattle pop-punk rockers The Pharmacy after their set at the EMP Sky Church during Bumbershoot and talk about everything from the Sky Church's Psychedelic backdrop to Rembrandt's b-sides. The band recently got done with a seventy plus date tour and are currently working on finishing their second album while still managing to play a few local dates. This bands love for amusement parks really shines through as they are not only fun and exciting to see live but talk to as well. Check out their video for "Tropical Yeti" below and Gander On for the interview.




GN: How long have you guys been together?

Scottie: Ryan and Stefan have been playing with us for the past year but Brendhan and I have been playing music since we we're like sixteen so about five years now. We started playing shows and touring in 2003.

GN: Is this your first time at Bumbershoot?

Scottie: It's our first time playing.

GN: How was it?

Scottie: It's really Psychedelic. The lights were intense.

GN: What did you think about that giant screen?

Scottie: I couldn't really look at the screen

Stefan: I was trying to match up the keyboard parts with the screen. I tried really hard.

Ryan: I think there were giant anime creatures being projected behind us.

Brendhan: It was like watching a computer screen, like watching Itunes.

GN: It seems that your music covers a wide spectrum, where does that come from?

Brendhan: I think we started out as a Ska band right.

Scottie: No not really, that was like the second wave of The Pharmacy. First we were like a garage rock band. It's kind of hard to keep track of what music style we are. it's hard to think about.

GN: Where do you guys draw most of your influence from?

Brendhan: Nirvana, Electric Light Orchestra, The Beatles.

Scottie: Moldy Peaches

Brendhan: On Tour we always go together to theme parks and we're always at the top of the roller coaster together and we like our music to represent that feeling when we're all going down.

GN: Have you ever been on this ride here?(pointing to The Booster.)

Stefan: Yes I have it's so great!

Scottie: One time Stefan spent Seventy dollars on that ride.

GN: So you guys have an album out right now?

Scottie: Yeah we record an album and it came out about two years ago. We've been in the middle of recording. We've been touring so much this year it's been hard to finish the new one.

GN: Who did you guys tour with this year?

Scottie: This year we pretty much booked our own tour. We toured with Totally Michael for a little while.

Ryan: We toured with different friends we have around the country for little blocks.

GN: So there is a new CD in the works?

Scottie: Yeah, we've been recording it for about eight months or so, off and on.

GN: When can we expect to see that?

Scottie: By the end of year.

GN: You guys are all from the same area?

Scottie: yeah, we're all from Vashon Island but Ryan's from the Tri-Cities.

GN: Are there any bands you guys are excited to see tonight?

All: Tiny Vipers!

Stefan: Scott and I work with Jesy.

GN: We always ask the bands what some of their guilty pleasure songs are?

Scottie: I like eighties Paul McCartney.

Brendhan: I like The Knack. They sing "My Sharona," they have some really cheesy songs.

Ryan: I like The Waitresses actually.

Scottie: The Rembrandts. Every one knows them for the "Friends" song but they've got a lot of really cool b-sides.

Brendhan: I used to really like that Shaggy song "It wasn't me"

Stefan: We actually ripped off a few measures of that on "My Friends."

Brendhan: Yeah the dub breakdown. We recorded it backwards.

You can catch The Pharmacy at the Reverb Festival October 6th and look out for the yet to be titled album coming out later this year.