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Papas Fritas was formed in 1992 with the simple mission of
creating catchy, honest pop music that creates a feeling of euphoria in humans.
Although the band formed at Tufts University in Somerville, Massachusetts and
still resides in the Boston area to this day,
Tony Goddess
(guitar, vocals) and Shivika Asthana (drums, vocals) originate from
Delaware, where they played in high-school marching band together, and Keith
Gendel (bass, vocals) immigrated from Houston, Texas.
For the first couple years, the band was a hobby -- we
played in barbarous basement parties and recorded tapes for our friends on
Tony's Tascam 4-Track -- but everything changed when Matt Hanks of
Sunday Driver Records released three of our songs on a seven inch single.
After the single was released, the band became more serious: we booked our first
tours and promoted the 7" to college radio stations around the country. One
spring day in 1994, the Gods smiled upon us --
Minty Fresh Records
heard the song "Smash This World" on a Chicago radio station, and all of a
sudden, music was no longer just a pastime. We signed that summer, and built an
8-track studio (affectionately called Hi-Tech City) in our house on
Electric Avenue. We really wanted the record to have its own sonic identity, so
for nearly 6 months the band holed up in the cramped basement space toiling over
the 13 songs that would comprise the new record.
Papas Fritas
was finally released in October of 1995, and in the next months we rocked for
audiences in
tours of the US, Europe (with
The Flaming Lips),
and Japan.
In September of 1996, we regained control of our
lives and focused on the next record. After relocating the studio to a rustic
old school house in the woods of Gloucester, MA and dubbing it The Columnated
Ruins, we worked the remainder of the year writing and recording music. The
large, oddly-sized rooms, laid back atmosphere, and accessible farm animals of
the Ruins perfectly complemented our desire to make a more organic and natural
sounding record. Many of the songs were inspired by memorable events of the past
year: "Rolling in the Sand" by a fight that broke out at a gig in Cape Cod while
we were playing "TV Movies", our slowest song; "Live by the Water" by our move
to Gloucester, the fish-stick capital of the world and home of "The Perfect
Storm".
On April 22, Minty Fresh released
Helioself,
our second full-length, to the masses, and we toured so much for that record
that we actually bent time and space and played as many as 3.56 shows at once in
at least 7 dimensions.
After
Helioself
was released, we played in the US with
The Cardigans,
Blur,
The Hang Ups,
and The Sugarplastic, and in
Europe with The Eels
and by ourselves.
Our third album,
Buildings and
Grounds was released in the USA, Japan, France, Belgium, Spain,
Australia, the Philippines and Holland early in the year 2000. For us, it is a
conscious departure away from the sounds of our 'youthful' and 'bouncy' past.
There is more sonic space, soloing, Shivika -- more Adult Contemporary (if we
may be so bold).
In addition,
Buildings and
Grounds is our first exploration of the realm of digital technology.
Every song was digitized into our friend Paul Sanni's Pro Tools System and
'perfected' there. Most importantly, we were no longer limited to a measly eight
tracks.
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