Fur Cups For Teeth

Jeannie Kim, Nicole Whelan, Keach Hagey, and Derek Pippin are Fur Cups For Teeth.  Their first album was heralded as one of the best albums of 2004.  And their second is about to drop.

We ask them what it's like to be a chick band.  And some other questions.


So before Derek joined you were using a drum machine? Were you looking for a drummer? Were you happy with the drum machine?

Nicole: Not actively.

Keach: See that’s just the thing: We weren’t looking for a drummer but we weren’t “happy” with the drum machine. First it was Jeannie’s laptop.

Jeannie: Disaster.

Keach: It lasted a couple shows. But we’d knock it over... beer...

Nicole: You can rip out the sound chord really easily… as we found. And basically destroy your entire laptop. We destroyed Jeannie’s laptop.  And then there were CD players, which we learned were a foolish idea. ‘Cause you’d jump and down and they’d skip, so we’d be like, “Okay, well let’s start that song over.”

Keach: That was an awkward stretch of months switching from the CD to the iPod.

Jeannie: And the iPod. The output is never loud enough. You can never hear it. I guess we could have gotten a splitter. That would be the way to make that technology work, but I guess we could never get to the store.  But Derek’s so much better.

Nicole:  Once we heard ourselves with Derek, we were like, “Whoa!”

Derek: I was at a show and just was like, “If you ever need a drummer, let me know.” And they were just like, “Oh I don’t know, yea maybe.” And then finally I drug them to my bands show and they were like “Oh yeah, ok. We can do it.”

Keach: Oh yes. It’s all coming back to me now. Derek is in the band The Dead Betties, which is another big New York band but it’s all dudes.

And how is that? Is it different playing with all guys vs. all girls?

Derek: Well my other band has been labeled a “queer-core” band. So I’m always the odd man out. So I’m either in a queer band as a straight male, or in a female band as a straight male.  Someday I’ll be in a band with straight males and it probably won’t work out for me. [Laughs]

That’s great. So when you met him and decided to take him on, were you reluctant because he was a guy or was that even taken into account at all?

Keach: Well, it’s a testament that Derek is really cool. Cause we wondered if a guy could wear these outfits that we like to wear and whatever, but Derek is great. He looks great.

Derek: Our first show (together) was in drag.

Keach: We were an all-girl band and all of that so we were just like, “Wear a skirt.”

In 2004, The Village Voice ranked you in their albums of the year. There were some incredible bands on there. Were you surprised? Did you feel like it was really soon or did you feel like finally you were getting noticed?

Nicole: We were surprised.

Jeannie: I mean, I loved that album, we were proud of the album, but we were surprised that we were ranked.

Nicole: I think just the process of making an album, by the time you’re finally finished, you’re like, “I’m gonna bury this album.” I mean we were definitely happy with the songs. I don’t know. Now we’ve been playing together so long it seems crazy to think about.

Jeannie: You know, it was a long time ago. It was our first album. We were definitely really excited. I think we were just surprised that someone had the album. [Laughs] Yeah I remember the girl who nominated us. And we were number one, and Le Tigre’s album was number two. And we were just like, “Oh my god!”

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There’s been a lot of comparison to bands like Le Tigre and also Bikini Kill. I read somewhere that you were likened to Bikini Kill, but smarter. Do you feel like that’s right? Or do you feel like people are maybe forgetting about how current they were then?

Keach: That is a good question. I can say that in the beginning we did start out thinking of those riot grrl bands, in the back of our minds. We definitely listened to them, but not obsessively ‘cause we all listen to lots of different kinds of music. But as time went on, we thought of those bands less and less, to the point where it just doesn’t compare for us anymore.

Jeannie: I think a lot of it is that people don’t have a lot of bands to compare us to. They see three women and a drum machine and think, “Oh that sounds like Le Tigre.”

Nicole: Maybe they won’t make those comparisons when we finally get this other album out. [laughs]. Our album that’s been gestating for [checks watch] 7 years now...

Should be extra strong by now.

Nicole: [Laughs] Yeah it’s getting really ripe. Ripening on the vine and it’s finally ready to burst at the seams.

When I was listening to your music there was so much happening. But yet it all went together really well. It meshes really well  What’s your process like when you record?

Derek: Normally when we write songs someone will bring something. They’ll have a basic idea of what they want. So whoever basically wrote the song, the main bass line or whatever or the riff, we’ll all just play and play it and play it until we eventually get better at it.

Nicole: Yeah and then we can add things to it or make a suggestion. The original architect of the song might say, “I had more of this in mind or something different here,” and we’ll try to figure out something that everyone can be pleased with.

Do you feel like you have grown into a specific sound?

Keach: Yeah definitely. But it’s happened rather recently.

Jeannie: That’s why we talk about the second album and we are really excited to put it out, but even that seems so old to us because I do think we’ve recently really discovered ourselves.

Keach: And a lot of that is because of Derek. I mean now he writes songs with us.

Derek: Yeah, and at that time, we were recording together and hadn’t even played shows together. Now we’ve gone on tour and played a ton of shows. So we’re obviously a different band now.

Keach: I mean it used to be; we’d sit down and write a song with a drum machine. I mean I still do but now I’ll just bring in the skeleton of it and be like, “Here, work your magic.”

Now that you’ve grown into your own, is there a time that someone comes in with an idea and anyone says, “No that’s not really what we’re trying to do. That doesn’t really sound like ‘us’.”

Nicole: Rarely. I’ve started songs even on my own, by myself in my own bedroom, and been like, yeah maybe not. But I don’t know if that’s because I thought it wasn’t “our sound” but because I just can’t imagine it going anywhere.

Jeannie: I think we know now what a “Fur Cups” song is. I mean we all write our own “bedroom songs” but we know those are just better for keeping.

Nicole: But also when we bring things in, we give them a good working over. And sometimes we say they go to this island, like we can not break through some sort of wall with the song, like we’re not getting anywhere or we don’t like it for some reason, it might go to the island for a long time. But then we can resuscitate it. We’ve resuscitated quite a few because of Derek. A lot we wrote quite a long time ago that we didn’t ever think would get there.

Jeannie: I think that’s the benefit, too, of everyone switching instruments. No one gets stuck on one sound. So if one of is playing the bass and it’s just not working out, we can be like, “Okay, here you try this.” Then they can find a really awesome bass line and suddenly the song totally works.

Now, did you all play everything that you play in the band currently, when you started?

Nicole: No. I didn’t play anything. [Laughs] I played kazoo I think. Yeah, I’ve had to learn my instruments as we’ve gone along. So I’m competent, sort of. [Laughs]

And so you were saying that you just sort of started, and you guys would go into the studio and make a song. Was it ever just about fun, like, “We’re just gonna have a band for fun?”

K: Yeah. And it sill really is.

But was there ever a time where you thought, “Okay, now we have songs and let’s put them on an album and let’s get some recognition for what we’re doing,” and sort of more serious about it, I guess?

[Silence]

Or maybe there wasn’t.

Jeannie: Well in the beginning it just came really naturally. It was really fun and it was a great activity to do with my friends and then someone asked us to do a show and we were like, “Ah! We actually have to write the songs.” And then after that, when you’ve written all these out, you’re like, oh this is an album.

Nicole: There always comes a point when you feel ready to record. Because you start writing songs, and as we said, we’ve gone in different directions in the past and you start to think that maybe that body of work that you did in the past that you did for a long time or you took on tour, maybe you want to carve it in to stone.

Keach: So yeah, there wasn’t one moment where we said, okay now. Each step sort of just created the next.

So when you were an all-girl band and people were making all of the all-girl band comparisons, how'd that feel?

Nicole: Jeannie and I were actually talking about this beforehand. And that’s a good question because people have always asked us, “Are you feminists?” or these things. I think it’s weird when people are like, “No.” Like, dude, we’re women. Am I pro-woman? Am I for equality in the work place? Am I supporting a woman’s right to choose? Yes, obviously. But are all our songs going to be about that? Probably not. I think the last one we wrote was about dancing. Maybe that’s not profound. So yeah, I think that kind of question came up a lot and it’s a good question because if I say no then that will be strange, but I don’t know if it always made sense to be compared to all those bands.

Now that you have a male member is that sort of stigma gone?

Jeannie: Actually we haven’t been compared to those kinds of bands in a long time.

Keach: We also haven’t put out anything in a long time. [Laughs]

Jeannie: I’m personally really happy that the second album is coming out because I think people will hear it and think, “Wow they really have their own voice.” It’s not so easy to make those comparisons anymore, regardless of whether there’s a guy or not. The sound at least will not be so easily [categorized].

Keach: But I do think we are still thought of as an all-girl band a little bit, because of the sheer mechanics of a stage. Like, poor Derek. He’s stuck behind these drums. So standing there are still three girls, so people still it treat it as such.

Derek: I think that’s true. People do notice me and say oh great but its still very prominently a girl band.

Keach: And also because of the performative aspect of it. We do dress in silly costumes and play with that thing of being a “girl in front of people.”

Derek: Plus they all sing so they all pretty much lead the band. I think from an outsider’s perspective it’s like I’m backing them up. That’s what I kind of notice.

Jeannie: But I hope that’s not how you feel.

Keach: And when we’re in practice we always think of other bands but we’re never like, “Oh, play that one part like the ‘girl’ band.”

Derek: I try to play with girls as much as I can.

Nicole: I don’t know. Like what’s a girl band? Bands with girls?

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Okay, so then that’s my next question. What’s your interpretation of that? What is “girl rock?” What is that about?

Keach: I think to a lot of people it’s about amateurism.

Getting out there, screaming, getting frustrations out?

Keach: And not worrying about whether you’re an expert before you express yourself in front of people.

Jeannie: I think it’s just such an outdated way of thinking. That’s what I like about the Williamsburg music scene. You don’t have people saying this is a “girl band” and this is a “boy band.” You have bands like The Assault which are all women, but no one would say they’re a “girl band.” They’re a rock band. Or like The Art of Shooting.

Nicole: Yeah it’s so weird, because no one ever talks about if you’re a boy band. ‘Cause then if you do you think of [making N’sync-esque dance moves]... that kind of boy band.

Derek: There’s the big difference between a girl band and a boy band. [Laughs]

Jeannie: I mean I’d rather be in a girl band than a boy band.

Derek: Oh definitely.

So, the Brooklyn music scene. Do you get to choose where and who you play with or is it about people coming to you?

Jeannie: People just ask us to play these great shows.

Derek: Yeah, booking your own shows is just a waste of your time a lot of the time. I mean you can say, “I’m gonna book this show at the Charleston and five people are gonna show up.” You’re gonna bust your ass to play some crappy show. I think we’re way past that. People are gonna ask us to play a show, and they’re like, “Yeah it’ll be fun, it’s for this party, let’s party and that’s awesome.” That’s what we’re there to do. Were a band and we want to play a party. We don’t want to book a show and have our friends come and pay $10 and see us and leave, and pay like $5 for a beer. Booking shows right now is just thumbs down.

So about your shows, from what I’ve heard and just what you guys have been saying, concerning the costumes, dancing, etc... is there something lost when they just listen to the CD and they don’t get to see the performance?

Keach: I think the album stands on its own. It’s great music, but I certainly never think whether things distract from the music while we’re on stage. We think of it as performance art a little bit. It’s a whole package. We always thought they would go together.

Jeannie: I think we all just really enjoy putting on a performance. So many bands avoid it. They will just be looking at their instruments and not talk to the audience. So we try to be more performative, engage the people.

Keach: We try to make little games or use toys.

Derek: Whether they like it or not they’re gonna deal with it we’re gonna confuse them.

Keach: As much as possible. [Laughs]

You confuse them?

Nicole: We’ve succeeded many times.

What are you trying to confuse them about? What you’re about?

Keach: Like, “Are they kidding?” And sometimes we don’t know the answer.

Derek: That’s honestly what I thought the first time I saw you guys. “Do I like it a lot, or do I not like it at all?”

Jeannie: Was that the basketball show? Were we wearing afros?

Derek: No, stewardesses. It was awesome. It made me come back to the next one.

And ultimately be in the band.

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Nicole: Exactly. We won’t rest till every audience member is in the band.

Jeannie: It’s actually something we think about a lot. The reason why we want the audience to participate is because we want them to fell involved too. Everyone’s a Fur Cup.

Keach: Like it’s a big game and everyone can play. We give out tiny instruments, little whistles, kazoos. It’s great.

So you said that you try to confuse your audience.  Do you go back and forth between being “sexy and fun”...?

Nicole: [Laughs] We’re not sexy…We’ve dressed up as mail carriers and they were the most hideous costumes. I mean, you see your regular mail man. We looked like that.

Okay, so then do you juxtapose maybe that idea of being sexy, at least by the fact that you’re all hot women with what you’re saying or are you trying to make people aware that you’re three women [and a man], and they’re watching you, the voyeurism of it...

Keach: That's a really good question. It gets to the heart of what we do. But I guess since we haven’t sat down and really thought about these things, there’s a deliberate vagueness I suppose. Like if we dress up as housewives, are we making fun of housewives? Or do we think we look hot as housewives? I don’t think it’s either of those things exactly. It’s sort of a third thing.

Jeannie: Or like the time we dressed up, but we dressed totally normally, but we stuffed our stomachs.

Nicole: Oh yeah, and the bartenders refused to serve us. [Laughs]

Jeannie: But even that one. We talked about it and wondered what are we trying to say here?

Nicole: What is the message? Pregnant women should be on stage? Pregnant women should be drinking? People should be looking at pregnant women and seeing them as sexually viable people? People who can still perform?

Keach: Or maybe we were just out of costume ideas.

Nicole: And had a lot of laundry that looked like a fetus.

Keach: We’re not really sure there’s a consistent message.

Nicole: And there probably isn’t, ‘cause if there were we would’ve come to the end of it?

Jeannie: Or maybe contradicted so many times over.

Derek: Just craziness.

Jeannie: Yeah maybe it’s just that we like to dress up in costumes.

Derek: There has to be a theme for everything.

Keach: I don’t know. They have some logic to us, but if we attempt to explain what that is, it’s difficult.

Okay.

Derek: The meaning is that it doesn’t have to mean anything.

Nicole: Absurdity, nonsense. Like our name. I don’t know if this is even the creation story, but that piece The Fur Cup by F. Méret Oppenheim, we all really loved that. And then we were all together one day and someone said something and someone thought they said, “fur cups for teeth” and were just like, “Oh, that’s so Dada.” [Laughs]

Nicole: And then we ended up with this name that we’ve had to explain for 5 years now.

Well, apparently it’s a reference to not brushing your teeth. I was talking to a friend of mine and I mentioned this interview and he asked who the band was, and when I told him your name he said, “Like they don’t brush their teeth?”

Nicole: [Laughs] Oh. I thought you were going to say something else. Okay, like moss growing on your teeth.

Derek: See when I tell people they always assume that they’re lesbians. And I’m just like, “No that’s not it.”

Jeannie: My husband actually had only met Keach and so he thought, “Oh Fur Cups For Teeth. The other two must be lesbians.” And she was like, no.

Keach: Your husband thought you were a lesbian.

Jeannie: Well, really early on. [Laughs] I mean it worked out. Don’t worry.

That’s funny. I didn’t think that at all.

Nicole: Well I worked with these British dudes, and I guess its slang for genitalia there…so that was fun. So whenever I worked with them they’d be like, “Fur cup what up!?” [Laughs] So yeah, once again we confuse everyone.

When you dress up now, do you consider everything you do more so because you’re better known and you feel like you should “get it together?”

Keach: I think we should get it together. [Laughs]

But then again, with everything you’ve said to me, with confusion, dada, nonsense, etc. Do you care if you’re not together? Could you change you’re whole sound or what you’re about tomorrow and be ok with that? Would your fans be okay with that?

Keach: Well anything that we would do, that’s what we would do. Maybe if we started playing like the shins…

Nicole: What if we just started playing a capella?

Keach: That would actually be not so bad. That would be not so bad. But whatever we do, that’s what FCFT is about. It’s sort of the name we give whatever we do. I mean if we wanted to start a mutual fund or a international corporation. [Laughs]

Jeannie: Yeah, I mean we actually considered at one point putting up a website where anyone could put up anything and that would be a part of FCFT.

So do you do other things under this umbrella? Is that what you’re saying? That it’s more than music, you are about a lot of different things?

Nicole: We had that store. But that ended quickly.

What store is that?

Nicole: So have you seen Bedford Ave during the summer? People are literally sitting on the ground selling whatever, a ham bone, a frying pan, whatever they have at their house and no one ever gets busted, right? So I went out and I was gonna have a FC table and we’ll have a nice little table cloth on it, we’ll sell some CDs. Anyone’s allowed to bring stuff. Earrings, bracelets, etc. And no one ever gets busted. I mean, please tell me that you don’t believe everyone has a little permit. So this cop was driving by and it’s my first day and I’m standing there. And I guess the cops motioned or waved and my friend who was with me, whispered, “cops,” but I didn’t hear her. And so he got out and was like, “I wouldn’t have busted you if I hadn’t had to get out of my car.” And so because I didn’t see him he decided to punish me. So I had to get all my stuff and he ticketed me. So that ended our little store.

Oh no. Maybe it was a sign.

Nicole: That was a sign. We still have all our wares. So we tried that. And that didn’t work.

That’s terrible. So one thing quickly. How was working with Chris Coady and Hillary Johnson?

Keach: It was great. We recorded our first album with Hillary. And the second we recorded half with Chris Coady and half with Hillary.

Jeannie: No we recorded all with Chris and then mixed half with Chris and half with Hillary.

Keach: It was great though. Cause there was a rock side and there was also that electro side from Chris. It was really fitting.

Did you seek them out?

Jeannie: Chris was a friend of a friend of my coworker.

Keach: And Hillary we found because we belong to the Kathleen Hannah list message board on Yahoo and I think I sent a message out asking if anyone knew anyone that record an album and this band Triple Cream who had worked with her said she was perfect. So they sort of hooked us up. And when we met her she was completely perfect. They’re both cool people. Extremely cool people.

And so with touring, that’s always fun, or at least interesting. Any crazy stories?

Nicole: There was a woman that tried to run us off the road once.

Keach: There was that scary guy.

Nicole: [Laughs]  Oh my god. He was so scary. This was outside of Flywheel.

Jeannie: Near Smith College. And we were checking into a hotel. Keach was inside and Nicole and I were in the car waiting and there was just this really scary guy lurking in the parking lot. Genuinely scary.

Nicole: He was trying all the door handles on the cars.

Jeannie: Just lurking and being generally weird. He looked us straight in the eyes too. And we weren’t the only ones. This other band that was staying there went into the office and told the hotel people that there was a really scary man in the parking lot.

Nicole: But then. Well after they told them about him they said well he’s a guest of the hotel. So we checked in and then when we were loading our stuff into our room, I looked out into the hallway and he was standing there, looking at me! So we jerry-rigged all these booby traps. We put the iron up on this wire and there was a trip wire and so it would hit him in the head if he came in…and it was more like, “Oh, tonight is the night we’ll kill ourselves.” He never came in though.

Derek: [Laughs]  Other than that just general lack of sleep.

Keach: Yeah it’s definitely a blur, lots of driving with no sleep and a lot of Red Bull. That’s pretty dangerous.

Jeannie: Portland was awesome. We played with this punk band.

Nicole: we met them online, on Craigslist, ‘cause we needed to borrow gear everywhere we went because we were flying. So we met this punk band and they were like, “You can totally stay at our place.” We were kind of like’ “Who are these guys?” When we get to their house are they gonna bring out the butcher knives? But we get over there and we meet them and they were so nice. But they were these punk dudes so we assumed the house was probably like gross and they’re probably gonna be smoking cigarettes and there would be beer bottles everywhere. But as soon as we get there, it was the nicest house I think I’ve ever seen in my life.

Keach: Yeah, pristine white carpet. There’s a spare bedroom where there were brand new linens and extra towels.

Nicole: [Laughs]  No kidding there was a miniature Conestoga wagon out in their manicured garden.

Keach: [Laughs]  And he was younger than us, like 23. And it was his house. He bought it.

Derek: He had taken over the family business and so he was doing well.

Nicole: But even then. You’d expect a kid with tons of cash to burn, taken over the family business, in a punk band. Would you expect a miniature Conestoga wagon and white carpets and cats?

Jeannie: [Laughs] I think we’ve had a lot of great experiences.

Keach: It was such a good surprise, totally unexpected wonderful friendship.

Nicole: It was unlike these guys whose place we crashed at in Pittsburgh. It was literally a room with a TV, a couch and a futon on the floor. And I think they thought we were gonna party all night but we had driven all day and we had to get up the next morning and drive to the next show. So we get there, and they’re lighting their next cigarette on the last. Smoking in the room. And two guys had a heart to heart for so long…

Kecah: We came out in our pajamas and just crawled into the bed.

Nicole: Took an Ambien and passed out.

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Downloads

FurCupsForTeeth-Buffalo.mp3
Fur Cups For Teeth - Mystery Train.mp3
Fur Cups For Teeth - Boxed Lunch.mp3

Websites

www.myspace.com/furcups