An Interview with Neil Fridd of the Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt!

Get excited…The Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt! will be performing at Terrace this Saturday 2/27. The band consists of 21-year-old Neil Fridd and a 10-person collective of his fellow students at SUNY Purchase. The show promises to be insane – Terror Pigeon often brings along costumes for audience members to wear and instruments for them to play.

But if you don’t believe me when I say the show will be awesome, here’s what Fridd had to say:

How would you describe your music? Any influences?

Otis Redding meets Dan Deacon. With 10x more feelings / yelling.

How’d the band get started?

I wrote a rock opera loosely based on Othello. It was mostly me and [my friend] Jesse throwing bowls of cereal at each other over dance beats...

What is your show at Terrace going to be like?

Have you seen the movie “Speed”? It's going to be twice as intense as the movie “Speed.” We're going to deliver a child.

What’s your favorite lyric from one of your songs and why?

Probably the bridge to "My Favorite Hair." It talks about a night that I went a little crazy on account of being rejected by a lady, and how she kept being hurt by this guy she kept going back to. Months later, she remarked that she didn't know what love was, but was sure that it existed and she wanted it in her life.

It clicked in my head: "that's because every boy you love treats you like shit." and later that night when I was writing, the lyric "and you say that you don't know what love is or how it grows but you do believe it's real and it's something you hope to feel. Well if darling that's the case then I'm inclined to say that you don't know love cause you've only had a man take away. So how 'bout you get with someone who can give?" came to me.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?

I feel like I jump off really tall things from time to time without thinking about it. Later I'll go back and be like, "Whoa, that thing is so tall! I can't believe I jumped off that!"

Can you tell me about the stuffed animal jumpsuit, or other sweet costumes you sometimes wear?

Have you ever seen that guy on that TV special or real TV or something who made the bearsuit? The suit that you could like get mauled by a bear or shot in the face in? Picture me watching that three years ago and being like, "Shit, I could make one of those!" Then I made that stuffed animal suit.

How did you come up with the band’s name?

I was thinking about the idea of a really harmless, fragile creature being terrifying as sort of a mockery of myself -- a loud, angry guy yelling about girls, who's actually totally harmless. Terror Pigeon was born.

Which band do you think is the most promising up-and-coming band out there today?

Here are a few: Blastoids, Math the Band, Ghost Mall, the Shakes, the Eskalators, and Jesse Cooper Levy. All of those bands are doing really exciting things, and fucking bring it live.

If you were having a dinner party and could invite three people -- dead or alive, fictional or real -- who would they be and why?

1. Jeff Mangum. I know this is like every college kid's dream ever but, like, come on! It is for a reason. If I heard him sing “Two Headed Boy” my brain would explode...

2. Jesus Christ. I'd like to figure this whole thing out...

3. Sydney Schutte. She's this really cool girl who likes Jeff Mangum a lot. She'd probably be pretty into Jesus too.

-Interview conducted, condensed, and edited by Sara Wallace ’12.