It’s often a difficult process to walk the fine line of musical contradictions, yet for P.E. nothing comes more naturally.
The group is comprised of vocalist Veronica Torres, saxophonist Ben Jaffe, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Jonny Campolo of Pill. While joined by Eaters’ synth player and vocalist Jonathan Schenke and Bob Jones creating samples and beats, the members merged to form supergroup P.E.
The synthesis of Pill and Eaters came about as a combined friendship as well as a live collaboration following a request to open for Bodega’s album release.
“The project, from the very beginning, was all about experimenting and responding to one another,” Schenke said in an interview with Ears to Feed. “We were really seeing each other as creative individuals who were going to open these different doorways that we weren’t going to find on our own.”
Including other New York based post-and-art punk acts like Bambara, Palberta and Public Practice, Wharf Cat Records’ staff caught P.E.’s first live show and has been immensely encouraging of the band ever since. “I played them some of the stuff we were working on for P.E.,” Schenke said. “They were just excited from the beginning […] they’ve been fans and supporters from the very first show.”
Playing one of the last gigs at Trans-Pecos for their debut record release before the pandemic halted live performances, Torres recalled the enthusiastic spirit of the crowd despite their spring tour’s inevitable cancellation. “It was still a full on rager,” she said. “We definitely were sad to have to cancel our tour with Parquet Courts and Pottery.”
Torres has since moved to Minneapolis, with her partner while the rest of her bandmates remain east coasters, spread between New York and New Hampshire.
Transferring that energy from their last live show to connecting in a remote manner came naturally to the group.
“I have heard people expressing frustration about having to rely on connecting over Zoom and emailing parts but we made it work,” Torres said. “I feel like it was an opportunity for each of us to zone in on our individual practice. We adapted to using the internet and cross-country collaboration.”
Campolo chimed in regarding the fervent passion his bandmates felt about not giving up on music because of their physical distance. “[A band] is an agreement,” he said. “All of us wanted it so badly that we weren’t going to give it up just because it wasn’t possible at that moment.”
After sending lyrics and instrumental ideas back and forth over email, the band was finally able to meet up in person in February 2021 to practice and record together in Schenke’s Studio Windows. “That last record release show was the last time we had all been in a room together until nearly a year later when we were working on these songs,” said Schenke. “It was crazy. I’m just happy we’re all here and okay.”
Committed to free-form experimentation, P.E. simultaneously sounds frantic yet precise, letting loose in their instrumentation with a palpable sense of structure to their tracks and live performance.
“You should always be playing the other side of whatever you’re doing,” Jaffe said, citing the importance of innovation, or, at least, attempted innovation, when it comes to new developments within genres. “If you’re already in that space of ‘here’s something new, let’s do it’, by the time everyone [else] decides to adapt, I think it’s already too late to be adapting as things change.”
Aiming to seize the liveliness and energetic spirit of a crowded room fueled by unified movement, P.E.’s upcoming EP The Reason for My Love resonates with the joy you feel from noisy and captivating dance riffs.
Visually portrayed through the artwork by Campolo and extended remixes for its titular track, “The Reason for my Love” also features an extended dub version from Xiu Xiu, an act that remains formative for the band members. “I just wrote Jamie [of Xiu Xiu] directly and sent him the new record,” Schenke said. “They were so excited and so complimentary about the music that when the idea of doing these remixes came about, they were the first people we reached out to.”
P.E. played their first live show last weekend with Public Practice and Parquet Courts. The band’s release show is slated for Saturday, August 21 at Trans-Pecos featuring Lily Konigsberg and Decor plus DJ sets from Samantha York of Public Practice and Austin Brown of Parquet Courts, presented by the Ears to Feed booking staff.
You can purchase tickets to the show here.