Last year was a big one for Athens' own Magnapop. Their major label debut, Hot Boxing, came out on Priority Records (same label as Ice Cube and Ice-T), the video for "Slowly, Slowly" showed up here and there, and, as always, they did some hefty touring (on their own, with Sugar, and with the Lemonheads). It has been a year of nonstop work, and the band shows no signs of slowing down.
It was strange interviewing the band on a conference call to Los Angeles when we could have just as easily met at The Grit over a veggie platter, but that wasn't how things happened. I caught them on their big press day -- they were doing a million interviews; here's a snippet of the conversation.
Flagpole: First of all, what's one question you're really sick of answering?
Magnapop: Any Stipe or Bob Mould question. The "famous producer" question, definitely.
FP: OK, I'll scratch one that off my list.
Magnapop: Thank you.
FP: Spending so much time away from here, do you still feel like Magnapop is a part of the Athens community?
Magnapop: It's really strange, because we've never been like an "Athens band." We moved there because it was really cheap and the people that live there are really great, but I don't know that we've ever felt like a part of the community. We were really from Atlanta, so we've kinda been considered foreigners in Athens. It's a great place to live, but I don't think we really have the perspective you're talking about -- how the scene is and all that. I feel like kind of an outsider, but I know people in bands in Athens, and there seems to be a real sense of community between them, but I don't think we really fit in to that. We can see it because we came from Atlanta where bands are really competitive about everything. It seems like bands in Athens are more open -- people play in several different bands and they share stuff. It doesn't seem like that happens in Atlanta.
FP: How does your success in Europe compare with your strides here in the United States?
Magnapop: There's a lot more success for us over there right now. We've been going back and forth over there for the last two years -- we've never really done that here. We worked really hard in England. We banged our heads up against the British wall for a while and then everything else seemed easy by comparison. It's so cool, though, because we get to fly over, do the whole rock trip -- get a van, and an actual crew. So when we come back here we're like nobodies, lowlifes. It's great over there, like Fantasy Island.
FP: Here's an observation: It seems like people need a shorthand to describe things, and your band, in the grand scheme of things, will probably be lumped in with bands like the Breeders and Belly, even though those bands really aren't all that similar to what Magnapop is all about.
Linda Hopper: I think you're right. It's a real convenient thing to do, but we always approach stuff like that musically, as opposed to what the band looks like. I can understand some elements of the world having to put a handle like that on the band, and I'm proud to be a woman -- being in a band is the best job I've ever had -- but I don't think the fact that I'm a woman is anything we promote, like a selling point, or anything.
Ruthie Morris: It's so silly to even worry about being pigeonholed, because how can you fight something like that? You can just be who you are.
Hopper: You can't make up people's opinions for them.
David McNair: The comparisons they're gonna draw are going to be different after they see us live anyway. I've seen reviews of our record that say we sound like Belly -- we are nothing like them at all, especially live. It's gonna happen, but let the small-minded write like that
Hopper: Maybe it'll change someday where people won't be so concerned whether it's a male or female voice -- it's just music. Maybe it'll get closer to that.
Magnapop plays the 40 Watt Saturday, Jan. 28, with The Rock*A*Teens.