The Pains of Being Pure at Heart @ Metronome

The reformation of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart saw the beloved indie-pop band celebrating their 15th year anniversary of their 2009 self-titled debut album with a grand reunion tour and a new compilation album earlier this year. Following their first show together after 7 years in February, the band have continued into the UK leg of their tour, performing at Nottingham’s Metronome on Tuesday night. The Mic’s Josh Holmes reports, sitting down with the band just before the show commenced.

The pouring rain and freezing late-autumn weather seem miles away as one of the most acclaimed modern indie-pop acts tears through their soundcheck in Metronome's main hall. A blend of noisy, overdriven & jangly guitars alongside some of the catchiest pop songs anyone could hope to write, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart have always been indie darlings, admired by the likes of Pitchfork and amassing a cult following.

Frontman Kip Berman is – quite literally ­– wearing his influences on his sleeve, as he hops down from the stage wearing a Teenage Fanclub tee. The band’s latest tour is their first following their breakup in 2019, with a reunion, rarities compilation record and string of shows playing their 2009 self-titled debut record in full surfacing throughout 2024 and 2025. I was lucky enough to be able to interview Kip and keyboardist Peggy Wang before the show – to ask about returning to songs written over fifteen years ago, throwing a party in an abandoned NYC warehouse, and how it feels to inspire a new generation of indie-pop artists.

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Josh: It’s lovely to meet you guys. I’m a bit starstruck, as I mentioned to Kip earlier. I suppose the best way to kick off is to ask how you guys are enjoying the British weather?

Peggy: Y’know, I think it makes the moments of sunshine worth it! [laughs]

Josh: I saw on your Instagram page – promise I’m not a stalker – that at your gig in Leeds, you got through the cold and caught up with The Manhattan Love Suicides, who you said you opened for at your first ever gig and on your first UK tour. Was it cool to catch up with them again?

Kip: Yeah! Our first ever show was at Peggy’s birthday party, and we’d been in touch with them when they were coming to New York to play their first shows. We got them to, like, cancel one of their first shows to play Peggy’s birthday instead. I think we were kinda full of shit with them at the time. We were like “Nah, don’t play that show, you should cancel that US show you’re playing! We’ll throw you a really cool party and it’ll be so much better!” and they… believed us? [laughs] But then we had to throw them a party.

Peggy: It was a really cool party, actually.

Kip: It was a really cool party, it just seems kinda unbelievable that we convinced them to do that. We bought a PA from someone, and we just happened to know someone who was squatting in a warehouse. We invited [Manhattan Love Suicides] to play, as well as this band we really liked called Titus Andronicus, who were this band from New Jersey that Alex and I were obsessed with. They were super young at the time, and they blew up a bass amp by playing “Bulls on Parade” by Rage Against the Machine. It was really cool at the time, at least until I realised it was my bass amp! It still was cool, though. But yeah, we played our first show with them.

Peggy: We always stayed with them when we came through Leeds. I have really distinct memories of that.

Kip: Yeah! And we did tours with them, and they lent us instruments and everything. They were really great. We – I think separately – all got into them after they put out their first record on a friend of mine’s record label, and I was like “this is really good”.

Peggy: I found them on MySpace! [laughs]

Josh: I think I was about two years old when MySpace was relevant, but I get the gist!

Kip: The Manhattan Love Suicides will forever be in our top eight on MySpace! Probably not a reference anyone will get anymore, but it was a way of ranking your associations, and they were right up there at the top.

Josh: I mean, I guess that shows how long it’s been, really. It’s been over fifteen years since the release of your debut record – how does it feel coming back to the songs from that album? Does it feel a bit weird, or have you been able to slip back into things just as you were in 2009?

Peggy: I don’t think it feels strange, I think it feels pretty cosy!

Kip: It feels pretty normal. People are kinda surprised, but it doesn’t feel like that much time has gone by, even though it has. It’s sort of like a strange collapsing of time where you’re just like “Oh yeah, it’s Alex and Peggy! We’re gonna play some songs!” It feels great, and it’s pretty cheery, despite it being all cold and rainy, so.

Josh: When you started this tour off, you started off only scheduling a few shows in Spain and Portugal, and you weren’t sure about where Pains were gonna go after this. Have you had chance to think about that at any point since you last spoke about it? Your first few records, especially Belong, all have their own cult followings that would make sense for anniversary shows. Not to mention the prospect of new material.

Kip: I’d probably have to have more conversations with the other people in the band!

Peggy: We need a two-year strategy! [laughs]

Kip: I guess, like, not having a plan isn’t a very good answer or reassuring to the people who are making plans around it! [laughs] It seems really chill when you’re all “fuckin’, maybe we’ll do some shows, maybe we’ll do some new music!” I don’t know, I don’t think we’ve really talked about it. We’re good friends, but maybe bad inter-band communicators? Especially with planning.

Peggy: It’s kinda like stuff has just fallen into our laps. We’ve said yes to most things.

Kip: It’s kinda like, if it sounds cool and we can do it, it feels like we should do it. We’re doing some West Coast shows in the US in February with a band we really like called Living Hour. After that, we might do some other stuff if we can – obviously our lives are in really different places now, and we can’t really just pack up everything for three months and get in a van anymore. It’s also not really the right thing to do all the time, either. But I do hope we can play some more shows!

Josh: I know you’ve got some of your own stuff going on with The Natvral, I guess it’s kinda hard to find the time in that sense?

Kip: It’s more just like, there’s five of us and we need to make sure we can all do stuff at the same time.

Peggy: Like, a couple of us live in L.A., it’s different from the way things were before.

Kip: Yeah, yeah, it’s not really a cool rock n’ roll reason, it’s more like “Hey, can you do next Friday? Nah, I’ve got this thing…” [laughs]

Peggy: It was really nice how it was, like, someone you’ve never met before, who reached out and said, like “wanna play this show?” and it all worked out, and we were able to do it in New York.

Kip: Yeah, it’s kinda cool how people are like “oh, they might do stuff”, then they ask us to do stuff, and it works out.

Josh: I mentioned before that it’s been over fifteen years since the debut in particular, and one of the reasons I and a lot of other people fell in love with that record is the songwriting. It’s fantastic pop songwriting, really simple chords and upbeat tracks. Do you think your songwriting philosophy has really changed in the years since the debut was released?

Kip: No! [all laugh]

Josh: I’m really glad to hear that!

Kip: I love simple chords. Sometimes I’ll lift up a finger and be like [lifts finger] what happens if I do this?!

Josh: Very reassuring to hear as someone who is a bit of a guitar noob. It’s also kinda weird how things have come full circle for you guys, since when you started out you were drawing a lot of comparisons to Sarah Records and C86 bands, early MBV stuff – it’s kinda weird that you’ve got a cult following of your own now. There’s a lot of bands citing you as an influence, especially considering you guys have a lot of fondness for the Indonesian indie scene and DIY noise pop acts. Does it feel weird to now be leading a revival of that sort of sound?

Kip: I was thinking about this the other day, actually. It’s weird how the music that formed our band was from a time that wasn’t our time. We found that music really relevant and liked it a lot even though we weren’t around when it was being made. It’s cool to see people discover our older music, and I’m not saying it is relevant to their lives, but when they do say it is relevant it’s cool to be one of those bands that kinda exist outside of time.

Josh: It’s kinda like how the best bands stay relevant forever, right?

Kip: It’s not necessarily the same thing as being a ‘timeless classic’. It’s not like everyone has to like your stuff, it’s more just like being a constant band people can stumble upon and think “this is cool, this really connects with me”.

Josh: I guess, speaking about the state of the music scene right now, you guys have previously been a bit wary of aligning yourselves under the shoegazing label at times. What are your thoughts on the explosion of popularity it’s been going through over the past few years?

Kip: We’re definitely not anti-shoegaze as a whole – it’s super cool that Nothing wanted us to play their festival!

Peggy: I think it’s surreal. The kids are alright. [laughs]

Kip: Yeah, it’s just kinda amazing to see how many young people are into bands that weren’t even big in the time they were first around. Obviously, some of those bands were really well-known, but seeing people freaking out… it feels like there’s justice in the world to see Swervedriver being recognised. There’s nineteen-year-old kids out there being, like, “the shit that I love most was made by some dudes in the Midlands in like 1989”, and it’s a really cool thing. I never think our music is rooted in that as much, we just don’t sing that loud. We like our guitars to be loud, but our songs are more classed under, like, a louder version of indie-pop. It’s just kinda cool to see people liking cool bands.

Peggy: It’s super cool to see bands like Slowdive coming back and making records that so many people are into, and that a lot of young people are into, that’s like the dream trajectory I feel.

Kip: It seems so unlikely, but their new music is like… really good. It’s usually like “oh, those bands are classic, but the music doesn’t mean the same thing anymore”, but with Slowdive? It’s incredible to see them making records and getting huge crowds of young people that weren’t even born when they were first around.

Josh: I guess on the subject of not liking to sing too loud and having your guitars loud, what gear do you usually use to get your sound? I’ve never seen you guys as a band who massively rely on effects, but I could be completely wrong. How do you get your really noisy sound, and has it changed a lot in the years you’ve been around as a band?

Kip: It’s pretty simple. You have a Big Muff, and you step on it, and it sounds cool. But this is a really good question, because we wrote to the Manhattan Love Suicides when they were around, asking “how do you get your music to sound like that” and they came back to us saying “We have a fuzz pedal. We like to step on it, and we don’t like to not step on it because it doesn’t sound as good.” So, we like to leave it on too! I think you can get by with a lot less fancy stuff – it sounds a bit cliche to say the things that matter to us are the songs, but that kinda is true. A good song can sound good no matter what kind of stuff you have.

Josh: It might sound kind of blasphemous to bring up Oasis when talking about shoegaze, but there is a beauty to writing a fantastic song and just cranking your amplifier.

Kip: Oasis are great! [laughs]

The Mic's Josh Holmes with The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

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Not too long after my interview, the doors open and Cassie Ramone takes to the stage as the support act. Originally finding success as part of lo-fi slacker pop groups like Vivian Girls and The Babies, Ramone’s 2024 full-length Sweetheart found her exploring a more varied sound that takes cues from modern dream-pop, indie surf and retro hypnagogic pop.

It’s the variety of that full-length that Ramone’s set is focused around, embracing the stirring hypnosis brought on by the dreamy “Joy to the World”, as well as a more stripped back version of “He’s Still on My Mind”. Despite only performing with a single additional guitarist and backing drum machine / bass tracks, none of the charm of the full-length is lost in translation in the slightest. The songs seem to come alive in a more intimate, magical way with the new setup.

However, Ramone also brings out selections from the rest of her catalogue through the set. The downbeat title track from 2014’s The Time Has Come echoes through the room as Cassie’s acoustic strums and hazy vocals are juxtaposed against looping drones. There’s even some love given to 2015’s Christmas in Reno, a Christmas covers album, as Ramone pulls out a decidedly sombre take on Brenda Lee’s classic “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” - followed by a “Have a Merry Christmas, y’all” for the crowd.

The anticipation builds throughout the set for the main event as Ramone tells stories of visiting the Eiffel Tower with Pains and fellow acclaimed indie outfit Deerhunter, but none of this anticipation takes away from the pure magic she demonstrates in her own right. It’s notable that at the merch stand after the gig, there’s plenty of mentions of “I’d never even heard of you before tonight!”, followed by those same people excitedly picking up copies of Sweetheart.

By 8:45PM, the main hall is brimming with anticipation as Pains take to the stage. Kicking off with the relaxed slice of indie twee that is “Contender”, it really does prove Kip and Peggy right about one thing – the band have clearly picked up just where they left off. There’s hardly even any introduction or time to get sentimental before the full album playthrough gets going, certainly so as the manic energy of “Come Saturday” pierces through the room. There’s plenty of dancing along to Kurt Feldman’s wild drumming, and it establishes the pace of the record’s material perfectly.

It then leads into the band’s signature song, “Young Adult Friction”, which is played through with just as much conviction and dedication as it would have been 15 years ago. The whole album feels like the soundtrack to the greatest coming-of-age movie that was never made, and there’s a new dynamic seeing it play out in front of a crowd who all clearly have such a fond connection with the record.

The simplicity and honesty of the songwriting on display also inherently lends itself to a live setting. There’s hardly any break or respite between songs – no need to switch guitars, go in depth with effects or try out alternate tunings, the band just quickly tune to pitch and launch right into “This Love Is Fucking Right!” with all the efficiency of a Formula 1 pit-crew.

After the last track from the album’s A-Side (“The Tenure Itch”), there’s a natural pause where Kip takes the chance to thank the crowd and Ramone, and briefly express how glad he is to be taking to the stage with the band again. It’s the longest break there is before launching into the utterly magical “Stay Alive”, with the walls of dreamy fuzz found in the chorus serving as maybe the highlight of the whole evening. “Everything With You” really benefits from non-founding member & lead guitarist Christoph Hochheim, as he punches through the track’s beautifully melodic solo.

Once the album tracks wrap up with the booming, ‘Just Like Honey’-esque drums of “Gentle Sons”, the band take a very brief break before returning for their encore. A selection of early B-sides and EP material litters the final six tracks of the show, including fan favourites “Higher than the Stars” and “Ramona”. There are even nods given to the band’s similarly beloved second record Belong, with the Smashing Pumpkins-inspired punch of its title track providing another stand-out moment across the band’s entire performance.

As the group conclude the encore with the eponymous “The Pains of Being Pure at Heart”, a feeling of pure triumph fills the room. I’m left thinking back to what Kip mentioned in the interview earlier – with his hope to be a band people will resonate with and stumble onto throughout time, no matter how many years go by.

Certainly, as he sings the song’s proud refrain in its last moments – “we will never die, we will never die!” –  it feels as if the band have already reached that status.

Josh Holmes

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Edited by Isabelle Tu

Photos courtesy of Josh Holmes & Paige Arnold