Happy Birthday

Kyle Thomas calls his songs “comic books.” With his out-of-the-box voices and musical inclinations, this man is not afraid to write songs about Maxine, the teenage Eskimo, and pink strawberry shakes. Together with Chris Weisman and Ruth Garbus, Thomas has created Happy Birthday, an indie pop outfit with a delightfully quirky side. Coming from acts like Witch, Feathers, and King Tuff, this group of songwriters brings all kinds of metal/glam/folk edge to their newest band.

Happy Birthday’s self-titled debut album drops this month and Kyle Thomas is already on to the next one. He recently spoke to Stereo Subversion about Happy Birthday’s beginnings in Vermont, signing with Sub Pop, and how he loves to rock out to The Bangles.

SSv: I know that you, Chris, and Ruth are from Brattleboro, Vermont. How did you all first meet?

Kyle Thomas: I met Ruth probably 10 years ago. She moved here and I needed a roommate. Actually, I was friends with her sister, Merrill, who lives here and worked at the coffee shop. She said her sister was looking for a roommate and I was like, ‘Well, she can live with me.’ We just met that way. And then, Chris is the brother of Kurt Weisman who I played in Feathers with, so that’s how I met him.

SSv: You asked Ruth and Chris to play your songs with you because you were a little shy to play them by yourself. More than a year since Happy Birthday formed, do you feel like you’ve grown into your skin?

Thomas: No, I think I’ll always hate playing solo shows. There’s a scale of how much I get freaked out: playing with a band I’m fine, playing a solo show is pretty scary, but I can do it, and then open mic is really scary. The scariest is karaoke.

SSv: [Laughs] I would agree with that. Why did you start writing songs in the first place?

Thomas: It just happened naturally. I always made up songs as a little kid, like really stupid songs. The second I started playing guitar I started writing songs. It was just a natural thing that happened. I was never really interested in learning other people’s songs or covers or anything. You know, the act of actually creating something is the exciting part to me.

SSv: Where do you get your inspiration from?

Thomas: I have loved Green Day since I was in fifth grade, so they were a big inspiration to me. I don’t know, I’ve always just really loved music since I was little. So just any music really.

SSv: Who were some of your other favorite bands when you were younger?

Thomas: I had a few of them. I really like The Bangles. I had this thing called a Pocket Rocker, which was like a mini Walkman that used micro-cassettes that were fluorescent. I had one tape of The Bangles, it was “Walk Like an Egyptian” and “Manic Monday” on each side. I just fucking listened to it over and over and over. And “Manic Monday” is still one of my favorite songs. And then the other one I had was George Harrison’s “I’ve Got My Mind Set on You.” The Beatles, of course, have always been a big thing.

SSv: When the three of you got together, did you have a specific kind of music you wanted to make?

Thomas: We’re all into songwriting. It was a chance for us to work as three songwriters, making something we thought was good. I mean, they’re all my songs, but the other two really have a lot of input. So I think that’s the main idea behind the band, just making good songs.

SSv: How did you decide on the name Happy Birthday?

Thomas: Well of course we went through an insane naming process. I don’t know if you’ve ever had to deal with this, I don’t know if you’re a musician or not… just hours and days of saying band names, whatever popped in your head, and everything started to sound really bad. Like, even if it was a good name, everything just sounds horrible. So we just made lists and lists and that was the one that seemed to suit us best.

SSv: Do you remember any of the really bad ideas?

Thomas: [Laughs] Oh god, I’d rather not say.

SSv: You guys are talented on so many different instruments. How do you use all those different talents when you are collaborating on new songs and lyrics?

Thomas: That has just always been my process. I started off playing drums in the school band. Then I learned guitar and I realized I could do whatever I wanted. I have always made recordings as just me playing all the instruments, since I was a teenager. And Chris has done that too. It makes it easy to make a demo, so other people can kind of hear what you are going for and then you can build off of that.

SSv: Happy Birthday was signed to Sub Pop only a couple of months after your first show outside of your hometown in Vermont. Do you feel like you have had to adapt your music at all in releasing to a national audience?

Thomas: There was definitely an added pressure when we realized it was going to come out on Sub Pop. But we already had all the songs, it just came down to making recording really good. I just really took a long time on it and kind of drove myself crazy with it. It was added pressure but it was just really exciting. I had been dreaming of something like that happening forever. Dreams come true, I guess.

SSv: On the Sub Pop website they call your songs ‘comic book pop gems.’ Do you think that is a good characterization?

Thomas: Well, I kind of came up with that. They were like, ‘How should we describe it?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know, just call it comic book music.’ To me you can really just call it anything. The idea behind that is, I get into these different voices and stuff on the album. Each song is different from the next one. I was kind of imagining them as little comic books.

SSv: Do you feel like your King Tuff music and persona have influenced your music with Happy Birthday?

Thomas: Yes, of course. It has been a natural progression. I have always written songs in different styles. This stuff is the closest to the King Tuff stuff, as opposed to Witch or Feathers. This is the music that is closest to my heart. Catchy pop music is what I try and do.

SSv: You guys are involved in so many different side projects. When you move between styles, how do you retain you own sound and something that defines you?

Thomas: I am really ADD when it comes to writing music. So it’s just natural that I would be in different bands that sound differently. Because not every song I write fits with one band. Happy Birthday… it can be anything. It is the first band I have been in where I can write a song, any song with any kind of sound, and it would be a Happy Birthday song. So that was my aim for this band, it can be whatever and it can change however I want it to.

SSv: What are you most proud of on the new album?

Thomas: There are a lot of songs I am really proud of. I took a long time on them. I think “Eyes Music” is really cool, that one took a really long time for it to come together. It changed a lot, but in the end it was definitely better than any previous version. So it felt really good when I actually finished that one.

SSv: How long does it usually take to finish a song?

Thomas: Sometimes they take an hour, but other times it could be years. Like that song [“Eyes Music”] started off as a completely different song four years ago.

SSv: So where does Happy Birthday go from here? Do you have any collaborations or tours planned in the near future?

Thomas: We are going to try and do as much touring as we can. You know, it’s kind of hard to find a group of people that wants to go on the road constantly, so we are just going to do as much as we can. I think it would be cool to work with other people. I would really love to work with Ruth’s sister [Merrill] as Tune-Yards. You should check her out she’s amazing. Her live show, you really can’t fuck with it. She’s just throwing people everywhere she goes. I’d like to work with her on something. I have a lot of friends that are musicians so it would be cool to do songs with other people. But I’m already writing the new album, so just gotta keep moving forward.

Tagged as: indie pop, Vermont

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