!earshot Top 200 of 2021

Pretty Girls Means Hard Work

By Bridget Arsenault

The diverse interests of PGMG's
members are reflected in its music.Pretty Girls Make Graves' electric album and rocking live show should be enough to get your attention. If you haven't heard of them already there's no doubt that you soon will. The Seattle five-piece find their star on the rise with a new album coming out soon and upcoming tour dates supporting Franz Ferdinand. With the help of the Sourkeys and the Tangiers as openers Pretty Girls Make Graves stormed the stage at the Mod Club in Toronto a few weeks ago. Bass player Derek Fudesco talked to!earshot before the show.

This was PGMG's second trip to Toronto this summer. After playing a show just a month before opening for The Constantines, they were ready for their headlining gig, and to inject some action into Toronto night life: "we try to bring in a lot more interesting rhythms, but it's really just loud rock." Fudesco's modest demeanor doesn't fully do justice to the band's unique blend of rich lyrics and rocking, complex rifts. Their set-list features a lot of material from the upcoming album. "We're going to play a lot of new stuff, which has been going over really good. The new stuff is more interesting. There's a song with no guitar and saxophone and accordion. It's just more unique, not the traditional guitar-based, keyboard and drums." The reasoning behind the more experimental album came about in an unexpected manor, "The big thing was we lost a guitar player, and once the guitar player was gone it sort of opened up a number of opportunities. Instead of just getting a new guitar player, [we found] someone who could play a lot of instruments."

That 45 minutes or hour on stage makes it worth all the bullshit
- Derek Fudesco As well, each band members' diverse interests and personality helped bring an original flavour to the album, "the one thing about our band is that we all like very different things. I think because of that, everyone sort of brings their own thing. I sort of bring the repetitive bass lines and almost like some old late sixties sort of soul kind of feeling. Where like Nick and Jay both are more into experimental noise and jazz kind of stuff and Andrea's into old punk stuff."

Pretty Girls Make Graves are on the road this fall
(L-R - Nick, Derek, Jay, Andrea, Nathan)With a new album in the works and general desire to have their music heard by as many ears as possible, life is busy for the PGMG crew, but in the end it all seems to pay off, "we sit in the van for six or seven straight hours depending on where we're going. We eat horrible food, like a lot of gas station food. We generally stay in bad motels, and then we have to wake up early. The only fun part of any of this is when you're in the city. I'm not complaining; I love making music. We're getting a lot better about taking time off when we get to good places. We went to Greece and took off four days. We did the tour and then just hung out and actually enjoyed it. It's worth it though when people come and have a good time. That 45 minutes or hour on stage makes it worth all the bullshit, the driving and the bad food. I've wanted since I was a little kid to be in a band and now I'm fortunate enough to be able to do this and to live off of it. It's worth it."

Before shutting down to work on the new album PGMG's have the exciting opportunity to head out on some dates with Franz Ferdinand; "I'm pretty excited. We did a couple shows with this band The Bloc Party from the UK and I guess some of the guys from Franz Ferdinand were at the show and they later asked us to play. It's pretty cool," exclaims Fudesco. Playing with Franz Ferdinand is sure to bring some weighty opportunities for the band, "we'll be playing definitely the biggest shows we've ever played as a band and the fact that they asked is really nice too," says Fudesco. Speaking of nice things Fudesco, like countless others, is feeling pretty inspired by some of the work coming out of Canada these days: "I think The Arcade Fire are a really great band. There's a lot of good stuff coming out of Canada. That band The Stars have some really pretty songs - I do know there's a lot of great music."

However, when it comes to influences, the CD that keeps finding its way into his CD player is the classic Fleetwood Mac that Fudesco can't seem to get enough of; "I listen to Fleetwood Mac almost exclusively, I'm really into Fleetwood Mac."

'The New Romance' LP/CD (Matador, September 2003)
'Good Health' LP/CD ( Lookout , 2001)
'Good Health' limited edition 7" box set ( Dim Mak 2001 )
'More Sweet Soul' 7" ( Sub Pop Single Club)
'Pretty Girls Make Graves ' EP/CDEP ( Dim Mak )