Right To Pop: A Q&A With Team Spirit

Sometimes, you just have to get back to basics. That’s what former Passion Pit keyboardist Ayad Al Adhamy did when he started Team Spirit, turning to unabashedly straightforward rock instead. Taking over lead vocal/guitar duties, he recruited Toby Pettigrew (bass), Mike Adesso (drums) and Cosmo DiGiulio (guitar) to join him in making harmony-and-hook-laden tributes to fleeting love.

In February, the Brooklyn quartet released a covers EP, Love Is For Suckers, that applied their sunny sound to Meatloaf’s “I Would Do Anything For Love” and a handful of vintage classics, including “Walk Like A Man” by the Four Seasons and Maurice Williams’ “Stay.” Earlier this month, they officially released their self-titled debut EP on Vice/Warner. It’s a crisp five tracks of exuberant power pop, perfect timing for the rising temperatures. Each song will also be accompanied by a video produced by the Swedish animation team Hannes and Johannes–check out the clip for the infectious opening track “Jesus, He’s Alright!” below.

I caught up with Team Spirit last month at SXSW to talk influences, Nashville, Taylor Swift, and sounding American.

Congratulations on the EP finally getting an official release date. Wasn’t it supposed to come out last fall?

Ayad Al Adhamy:To a certain extent. It’s been done for ages, but signing deals and stuff takes longer. And then we came up with the animated series idea, and had to make that fall in line [with the release]. So really, it’s all out there, but then we have 10″ vinyl and stuff like that. So it’s more like, “It’s released now!,” even though it’s been out for a minute.

And it’s going to sound better in the summer, anyways.

Al Adhamy: It’s a summer EP. It makes sense, you’re not gonna listen to it in wintertime. You wanna be like, “Alright! It’s warm!” It makes a lot of sense. The EP is all summer. It was written in summer, it has a summer vibe, and that’s when it should come out. It’s working out well, I’m stoked.

Yeah, I’m really psyched about being here, where it’s not 40 degrees.

Al Adhamy: Oh my God. We’ve been recording the LP, and we rented a house in the Catskills and [moved all the gear from my studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn] up there, so it’s been pretty cold up there, too.

Is that your wilderness retreat?

Al Adhamy: Yeah. It’s more like The Shining, that’s what we said earlier today. All work and no play makes Team Spirit really energetic boys. It might have a more wintery sound.

Toby Pettigrew (Bass): My friend Tiffany was like, “You have a lot of gun pictures, you guys doing okay up there?” My parents thought those were real firearms.

Al Adhamy: You go to Walmart and you can get BB guns that look like real guns, and we’re just like, shooting coffee cans.

So you did that covers EP for Valentine’s Day. Do you find yourself going back to that 50s and 60s stuff a lot?

Al Adhamy: That’s kind of how Team Spirit started, the last three covers of that five were done before Team Spirit existed and were kind of like the precursor, like “Oh my God, guitar rock is awesome! This is really fun!” So that kind of inspired Team Spirit to form, and then we did “Good Lovin'” and Meatloaf and worked on those. Covers are fun things, and not many people do covers anymore. And it’s fun to reimagine songs as if you’re the writer, people in the 60s did that all of the time. Now it’s about the remix.

Because back then, there would be several different artists for a song.

Al Adhamy: Yeah, and then “Oh, that’s the one that got really famous,” so [people] know that version of it. It’s always happened.

Pettigrew: We should bring that back, I like it.

Al Adhamy: I also feel like I want to cover some of my friends’ bands’ songs as well. There’s like a bit of a stigmat to do that, but there shouldn’t be. It should be like, “Hey, you wrote a good song, I want to play it, too.”

Pettigrew: It’s a sign of respect more than anything.

Mike Adesso (Drums): There’s the whole remix thing. It killed it.

Al Adhamy: And remixes kind of just overcome it. I think we should def do a covers EP of our friends’ songs that we like as well. But Meatloaf! That was the most fun and hard thing, that was the hardest cover by far. Fuckin’ Meatloaf! That guy can rock and play and do crazy things like nine-minute extravaganzas, and to condense that was kind of a challenge.

The 50s/60s stuff is already there.

Al Adhamy: Yeah, you know what to do with it, jangle it up a bit more.

Adesso: It’s got like the same tempos, too. Meatloaf just takes on this rollercoaster of…

Al Adhamy: …of love.

Does that really compact style inspire you?

Al Adhamy: Definitely, I think that’s what power pop is in a way. It’s like pop formats and structures, but with more honesty and more grit to it. I feel like the 50s/60s stuff is very honest and short and quick and sweet and to the point and just awesome. I definitely love that vibe a lot, it comes out in Team Spirit as well. There’s a parallel to it.

That has the beginnings of surf, too.

Al Adhamy: A lot of psych rock, too. The Blues Magoos, the Count Five, all those guys. Really crazy psych surf stuff that’s poppy at the same time, really fun.

So you’re officially releasing the EP now, when are you hoping to get the LP out?

Al Adhamy: We’ll be done with it in a month or two, so then we’ll see when it comes out. Maybe this year, maybe early next year. We’ve still got a few months to ride out, we haven’t really toured on the EP so that’s what summer’s going to be about. We’ll have the video series all done and out by the summer, and we’re working on it from there.

You haven’t toured that much outside of New York, have you?

Al Adhamy: We’ve done a couple of short things, we did a tour with Miniature Tigers, we did a tour with White Denim. But they’ve all been five-ish shows, not a long stint. With the Joy Formidable, we get to go up to Canada, which is awesome. That’s going to be a lot of fun, I love those guys. Apart from right now in Austin, that’s going to be the farthest away from New York that we’ve gone. We’ll make it to the West Coast soon.

That’s where you want to be, right?

Al Adhamy: Yeah, I think Team Spirit has a West Coast vibe to it. Even though we’re all living in Brooklyn, I don’t think it sounds like Brooklyn.

What does sound like Brooklyn, though?

Al Adhamy: There are definitely Brooklyn staple bands that have…maybe more seriousness? Maybe the tones?

Adesso: (detached voice) Nice Brooklyn tones, bro. That tone came straight from Brooklyn.

Al Adhamy: I think Nashville is really fucking kicking ass right now. I feel like right now, the East Coast and rock’n’roll need to catch up with the West Coast and Nashville, really. JEFF the Brotherhood, Diarrhea Planet, all those awesome rock bands are coming from there. [Diarrhea Planet], they’re one of the best bands I’ve ever seen. I saw them in Dallas last year, and I was just like, “I love this shit, it’s so good.” They’re such good players and it’s so fun. They’re just killing it in Nashville. You think that’s where country is, and we all love country. But rock’n’roll, killing it.

Who are some of your favorite country artists?

Cosmo DiGiulio (Guitar): I’m big into the outlaw stuff, like Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings, but we also get a fair dose of the Top 40 contemporary stuff. I’m super into Brad Paisley right now, he’s a great songwriter and a great guitar player, too.

What’s your favorite Taylor Swift song?

Al Adhamy: Oh my God, I had a thing for Taylor Swift for a long time. I have like, calendars. It was kind of a funny thing in my life. But recently she’s creeping me out, personally. I think before I was like, “Oh, I love Taylor Swift!” and now I’m like, “She would be a nightmare to date.”

She’s going to buy a house next to you.

Adesso: Plus she’s too tall.

Al Adhamy: Well, Toby’s 6’6″, so that’s good.

Adesso: No, for me!

Al Adhamy: But Taylor Swift! Youngest songwriter to sign to Sony at like, 14. Crazy stuff.

Remember when Red came out and they had those huge displays of Taylor Swift notebooks and pens at Duane Reade?

Al Adhamy: Yeah, I own some of that stuff. It was a joke Christmas gift from my girlfriend’s sister. She was like, “I know you love Taylor Swift!” and I was like, “Yeah.” (laughs) I love the previous record, I think I prefer that to Red, though there are some good jams on Red, I’m not going to lie.

I feel like you have this distinctly American vibe going on, with the retro-surf influences.

Al Adhamy: I think so. It’s interesting, considering I’m not American, and neither’s Toby [who is English]. [Mike and Cosmo], they’re American. I’ve only been here for eight, nine years now, and Team Spirit does have an American vibe. I like to ask people in England if there are any English aspects to it, and they seem to think there are some, some Gary Glitter, glam rock stuff going on. And if you think about it, the Stones are English, but do they sound English at all? They sound as American as you can get. We watched Stones in Exile the other day. If you haven’t seen it, you should watch it, it’s pretty amazing. They had an American sax player–what’s his name?

Everyone: Bobby Keys!

Al Adhamy: Crazy things. But yeah, I have to become American first. I grew up on an island, on Bahrain, so maybe that’s where I get the beach [influence], even though I feel like Team Spirit is anti-beach rock, even though it sounds beachy at time. It’s like, “Oh, I’m living on an island, goddammit.” Gilligan’s Island.

Adesso: Not like southern California. We’re trapped by the surf and we can’t get out.

Al Adhamy: Like “Fuck The Beach,” it’s a true story. You’ve got sand in your shorts and an uncomfortable feeling.

Your songs seem to tend to be about discomfort.

Al Adhamy: The terror of being unhappy but seeming happy in it? It’s funny, because all of the love songs are anti-love songs. Like “Phenomenon,” which is like, “You were really cool until we dated.” It’s just more truthful about being young, you jump into things too heavily. “Teenage Love” is a good example of that, of being like, “Oh my God, I’m never going to find anyone else! I’m 16!” But it’s also like, “It’s gonna be okay, kid! Don’t worry about it.” I think the EP has a lot of tongue-in-cheek to it. That’s where I was at at the moment, just being, “This is all hilarious.” Does that make sense? I don’t know if that ties into the American thing, maybe just because I’ve been here for such a long time now. I think there’s the transcontinental thing as well, Thin Lizzy is one of my favorite bands, I know these guys like them, too. They’re a really good example of American, Irish, English people coming together. Fleetwood Mac are a great example of that, cross-mix where half the members are English and half American. I think that’s what we’re trying to accomplish as well, the dual feel of not knowing which is where. It could seem like it’s from either place. And that’s where a lot of my favorite bands come from, the crossover.

Do you think a lot about where bands seem like they should be from?

Al Adhamy: Not really, I don’t think so. But when you hear it, sometimes you’ll be like, “Where are they from? Oh, that’s where? Awesome, I didn’t expect that.” It’s more boring when it’s like, “Oh, that sounds like it’s from Brooklyn, that sounds like that’s from there.” I don’t think it’s a winning formula–although it could be.

Yeah, we’re starting to see bands that seem like the result of every big indie cred album from 2008.

Al Adhamy: I think with Team Spirit, I like to wear the older influences rather than the contemporary influences on our sleeves. Even like when Nirvana came out, there was a surf retro rock revival, that’s what the earlier Nirvana stuff is like. And then they were like, “Let’s not do that” and broke out from that. So even that keeps on going, and while that happened 20 years ago, it’s kind of happened a little bit now, and 20 years before that was actually the truth of it, which is kind of interesting, just the whole aspect of when stuff comes and goes.

And now there’s a fixation on how everything is rehashing the past, like what’s going to define the last ten years.

Al Adhamy: And what’s going to define the next ten years.

Adesso: (announcer voice) Team Spirit. Welcome Team Spirit, they’ll be around for another decade. And then Katie Chow will kill them all.

Team Spirit will be bringing their high-octane live show on the road this spring with Peace. Check out the tour dates below:

04/25 – Swat Bar, 59 Canal St – New York, NY (EP release show)
05/30 – Brick & Mortar – San Francisco, CA#
05/31 – Echo – Los Angeles, CA#
06/01 – Constellation Room – Santa Ana, CA#
06/03 – Larimer Lounge – Denver, CO#
06/05 – Turf Club – Minneapolis, MN#
06/06 – Schubas – Chicago, IL#
06/08 – Rock & Roll Hotel – Washington, DC#
06/10 – Johnny Brendas – Philadelphia, PA#
06/11 – Knitting Factory – Brooklyn, NY#
06/12 – Mercury Lounge – New York, NY#
06/13 – Brighton Music Hall – Boston, MA#

# with Peace