By Lori Kozlowski

On a Thursday afternoon, Earvolution sat down with The Sharp Things' lead singer/songwriter Perry Serpa. The orchestral New York-based band has been around for years, but has evolved from something once strictly rock-and-roll to a more musically inclusive sound. So inclusive that the band at any given time has 12 or more members, all playing an array of instruments ranging from guitars to violins, cellos, and trumpets.

Beyond the uniqueness of this chamber-pop ensemble, Serpa's songwriting is both thoughtful and though-provoking. Filled with hundreds of colorful images (Ferris wheel lights, flannel pajamas, bottles of bourbon, and silken kimonos), his songs allow you to go to your own places of love or pain and pull out your most memorable moments of both.

Songs like "Silver Anniversary," "Homeless," and "She Left with the Sun," recount personal tokens of Serpa's past.

At a little place called The Talking Stick in Santa Monica, CA, Serpa was true to the coffeehouse's name sake, chatting at length about the band's history and where they are headed. Sitting on a floor of colored pillows and Persian rugs, Serpa had this to say about his band and their new CD Foxes & Hounds:

LK: Tell me about the name of the band and how that came about.

PS: Actually, I think it was a name before it was a band. I had this song, I think it was more like a couplet from a song...something like "and my mother hid the sharp things." A song that I wrote a long time ago - over a decade ago.

LK: What about the band's inception?

PS: [In 1992/1993] the earliest idea for the band was that it would be a pop rock band. But, God, it became a totally different animal.

LK: How many people are in the band now?

PS: Active members. I think it comes to 12. But then we have satellite members and past members, which amounts to about 15 or 16 people.

LK: How does that work? Do satellite members just drop in and play the songs?

PS: Yeah, people just play to the songs. Whatever the songs need. [For instance] we had a keyboard player and she came in so I could make love to the mike. She played at the piano and I just stood at the mike. So I can have that versatility.

LK: How are you able to coordinate with this many band members?

PS: It's really hard. I try not to stress too much about it. I don't rule with an iron fist or anything. And that kind of makes people want to stay. A lot of times for my purposes, I just really need the core band to rehearse and then we get closer to a date, I'll pull everyone into it. A lot of it is just time management and playing with a group of people who are hard workers.

LK: So how would you say your new CD Foxes & Hounds is different from Here Comes the Sharp Things?

PS: It's different. I mean there's still this thread of kind of a grandiose melancholy that runs through both of them. I would say that Foxes & Hounds has a little bit more confidence to it, which makes sense. It's much like having children. With Here Comes the Sharp Things, we were fearful; we didn't know what we were doing. We didn't know how to feed this kid. We didn't know how to take care of this thing, and how it was going to come together.

By the time we recorded a lot of the songs and got to mixing the record, we realized we had kind of a sound and we were going somewhere with this. I wanted to let things evolve very naturally, so by the time we got to this record, it was very clear about four or five songs naturally didn't work with the rest of the others and that was really exciting to just see this all come together.

The songs on Foxes and Hounds are also a lot younger with the exception of "She Left With the Sun," which was written back in 1996.

LK: What about your lyrics, where does some of that songwriting come from?

PS: Several experiences, relationships, several relationships pushed together, or just things that I see.

It's like trying to be an author, rather than being a slave to the music alone. I endeavor to speak to you through it. To say something.

LK: Tell me the story behind the song "There Will Be Violins."

PS: Back in the late 80s I was in this rock band in New York, and I was having a hard time with it. There was a lot of substance abuse, there was a lot of ego troubles and stuff like that. And I really wanted something to come of it because there I was in my early 20s and I wanted to be a rock star. And I was going through a lot of other changes. And my mom had gone to see this fortune teller, like a card reader.

And she said, 'oh you know you should go see Jerry. He told me some things you wouldn't believe.' So I went to go see Jerry and one of the things that he told me during the course of my reading was that. He said: This musical thing you're involved in right now, it is not going to go very far because most of you are your own worst enemies. Those guys you're playing with have a lot of problems. But I see violins in your future. I see something really coming together with the violins. When you have the violins, it's going to be much, much better. It'll be much more complete for you artistically.

And at the time, I was all about the guitars, so I was like "Fuck the violins, man, that's for wimps," you know. People, at the time, were not using violins in their music. It wasn't en vogue to do that, you know.

But then there I was seven years later with violinists, cellists, French horn players and all this stuff. And definitely The Sharp Things has been the most fulfilling musical experience for me ever. And for a lot of the other people involved in the band.

The Sharp Things often play popular New York venues such as the Bowery Ballroom, Tonic, and Joe's Pub.



This Saturday, July 23, the band performs a free show at the prestigious World Cafe Live in Philadelphia. For details about other upcoming shows, visit TheSharpThings.com.