Interview with Pouffe

I N T E R V I E W
​Pat Kraus & Matt Plunkett of POUFFE
By Pip Six

POUFFE play Nivara Lounge this coming Saturday (Jan 14th) with support from FILE FOLDER and CELEBRTY DEATH HOAX. Pip Six caught up with the free pop electro - noiseniks ahead of the show. 

How did you get together?
Pat: We met in Auckland about ten years ago and then Matt moved to Waiuku and started sending me phone recordings of himself singing about his life. I added some music and we had enough for an album called "Free Pop" but decided it was very strange and it's still mostly unreleased.
Matt: We met up a couple of years later for another go in a small sunroom to make the MALLL album. Knowing we needed to upscale next time we moved into the lounge for We Live In The Mind. This is my favourite album. In terms of promotion we really did almost nothing and we never really considered this as a live project. Our latest release was our first South Island recording and this time we had the use of a whole house. From here it seems like we should maybe go into a large shed or small auditorium.

What is your sound? Or is that weird to ask? Forget that last part, what is your sound?
Pat: The sound is like the sound of a cow making hip-hop but real catchy and emotional. Also I want to make a tasty buffet of musical treats for Matt's voice to chomp on, and to find some way of expressing through pure sound what it's like as a disabled queer working-class weirdo being alive in the world. The genre is Free Pop.
Matt: The sound of two adult humans.​

---

You’ve been on tour! You are on tour! Best story so far? Will also accept worst moment so far but you guys don’t need to talk about that if you don’t want to…
Matt: No bean pies anywhere. What is happening. Six blocks of walking in Taupo. Dannevirke had big yellow plates. There was a gargantuan ship in Napier which made shopping difficult. Inevitably a bad choice was made at a petrol station.
Pat: I have been having amazing dreams like My Little Pony unicorns blazing across a glitter-filled sky, and detailed dreams about eye makeup. Weirdest moment reading that most whales have syphilis. An old man stared at me in Carterton.

And Hamilton - have you played here before? I don’t think you have but maybe in a different band? Were we nice? 
Pat: Yeah real nice! Pouffe hasn't played in Hamilton but I have done a couple of solo shows: one at Ramp and one at Pilot. Both of those nights were real cute with small, shy but engaged audiences. I mean the number of people was small. The people themselves were normal size. Maltese Falcons played at Biddy's a couple of years ago. The staff at Biddy's don't seem to like music, musicians or indeed being alive, and they charge like $11 for soft-drinks but the crowd was lovely.
Matt: I played my first gig ever at Waikato University a long time ago. I was very excited and a man told me off for smashing a microphone into some cymbals.  When I apologised for this he told me off again for my apology because it was not the correct way to behave as a true punk rocker. I learnt a lot that day.

Know any of our local bands here, or not so much?  
Pat: I saw Blue Cross a few months ago supporting Hex,  and I thought they were cool and also impossibly cute. I have an old tape of that band Dean which is real greasy and sick.

Lastly how do I say your name properly and what is the deal with that name?
Pat: It rhymes with "roof". It's French. It means those round padded footstool things. Matt thinks of it as "POOFFF!", like a powdery explosion. I thought of the name. I originally wanted to call it "Pink Powder Pouffe".  It's a reaction against all those band names that are like "Stab Murder Death Skull". I guess that is fine for metal bands, because then it's camp, but otherwise it's just a bit...safe? One of the best bandnames ever is The Homosexuals. That's a real tough name!