Patent Pending
Patent Pending were the second act to be announced on the Soundwave 2015 bill and promise to be an exciting inclusion. The band is super excited about their first trip to Australia as Joe Ragosta reveals to Across The Ocean about the goings on with the crowd funded album and unannounced fake band dedicated to Mario Brothers and Nintendo.
Congratulations on being announced as the second band for Soundwave. That must be a huge buzz for the band?
Dude, you have no idea of the buzz of being announced with Soundwave at all is amazing. It is such a bizarre and surreal honour, it’s something that we’ve dreamt of to be playing this festival and going to. It’s like this urban legend that we’ve heard about in our country so to be announced early is such a weird and cool thing. It has put a spotlight on us in a way that all these people were waiting to hear about all these bands that will headline the festival to hear about us first is kind of funny to me. Also, it is cool to see the reaction and kindness of everyone in Australia who are enjoying our music is great.
A lot of people in Australia are excited that Patent Pending is on the bill and wondering how they get a hold of copies of your music legally. Have you found there has been increased interest now?
Yeah man, it has been really cool for people going from never hearing our band before to knowing more about us. Sometimes we’re really serious then we’ll have full albums about Mario, it is a very bizarre and weird thing. It is very cool for people to be absorbing thirteen years of Patent Pending in one day.
Did you guys get invited or say that you’re free in February? How did you get noticed by AJ?
I guess AJ heard about the band from our friends Zebrahead as he did the booking for their tour. He asked our guitar player Marc if we were down to do this and he said ‘fuck yeah!’ So we were invited and AJ has been treating us so well. It is truly amazing especially coming from where we come from being invited to something of this magnitude. Beyond Australia, dude, it is one of the world’s biggest festivals as far as I’m concerned. It is such a gigantic thing in our country we don’t actually have anything like this.
For those punters who don’t know much about Patent Pending how would you describe the band and how did you get together?
We all love music and something we all wanted to get involved in. I found it too hard to figure out other people’s songs so I wrote my own. I was a little kid at the time! We got together, it was just kids from my town and we evolved in to what we are now and for people who haven’t heard of us we’re a bizarrely eclectic band who plays any style of music we like. The rules are that there are no rules except to stay hydrated. When you come to see us live we’re a bizarrely insane, manic attack of crazy.
So there is no label? Whatever goes?
No, we are a punk band and we operate within a complete set of DIY set of ethics and we have been doing this on our own forever but as far as punk music goes it is very fashionable to sound exactly like every other band. That is bumming me out like you could never believe. You can hear this band and then ten seconds later you could be hearing another band and have no idea because it sounds exactly the same. In my mind that’s not what punk rock is about. Punk rock is doing whatever the fuck you want and not having to say that you’re sorry. For us, I grew up listening to pop music and The Beatles, Beach Boys, Blink 182 and Green Day and when you put all those influences in to one mind and let yourself do whatever the hell you want to do weird shit is going to come out. That’s where we are musically.
Weirder the better hey?
Yeah, it’s a really exciting thing to bring to a festival of hard rock.
When you compare to when you first started out right up to now do you think the band’s sound has changed much?
With our band and I don’t know Australian people know so much about our people, I know you have this thing called the internet but for some reason you use it better than us, people in the US and UK don’t know about all this crazy shit you know about with the history of our band. That’s amazing! We don’t consider any of the music we made before the year 2010 to really represent our band because we were little kids when we made it. We like those songs and we still play them sometimes but for the most part we operate under the 2010 up to now which are the two albums Second Family and Brighter and two EP’s I’m Not Alone and Spring Break ’99. Being in a band you learn to trust yourself and as you’re making music you do not want to do the same thing over and over again because it gets incredibly boring and dishonest. It’s not the music or art you want to make. For us, you’ll see every single song is different just like every single show we play is different. We don’t rehearse jokes or lines or anything like that. I think we like to live in the moment and play music the way we want to play it. So you’ll see a lot of weirdness as far as Patent Pending is concerned.
The crowd funding concept was a good result for Brighter?
It makes the experience that much more intimate and much more important for both sides of the fence. We were sceptical of doing the crowd based funding project for this album but people were asking about it saying when can we contribute to this? It offers fans a bunch of unique items that you wouldn’t get if you were buying the album on iTunes. It is always flattering to see people wanting to donate money for us to make this art in this way. It always means more when it is coming from their heart as well.
Do this change the way that you think about making the next album?
When it comes time to do the next album I think it will be what makes the most sense for both sides which is the band and those who listen to it. Our band is just one big community with the difference of a figure of the band like myself and a fan is an experience because we’re joined together. If they want to do a crowd funding thing let’s fucking do it if not, we’ll pay for the album and see how it goes. We just released an EP without actually announcing it and is a concept EP in support of our single Hey Mario. Hey Mario is about Nintendo, Mario and Luigi. We made up a fake band called Mario and the Brick Breakers even making a freak greatest hits album by that band all about Nintendo and Princess Peach and stuff like that. It went to number seven on the iTunes pop chart in the UK.
So what’s your console of choice?
If I tell you will you believe me? I love all of it and can’t get enough, I love Nintendo and I’m a grown up man! My wife is about to have a baby and I can’t wait for that baby to be five years old so I can start playing Nintendo.
Patent Pending play Soundwave 2015, for tickets and full lineup: http://www.soundwavefestival.com
Whether it is rummaging through vinyl at record stores such as Clarity and Title finding hidden gems to scouring the internet to find that album by the next big thing or chasing bands to get that elusive autograph and photo his passion is music all the way.
- Aversions Crown - January 27, 2017
- Sick Of It All - January 19, 2017
- Refused - January 11, 2017
