Interview: Pickle Darling

Hi lovers! Here at Fallen Love headquarters we periodically interview people that we adore in order to shine a spotlight on our wonderful pop planet. We post all those interviews right here for your education and enjoyment.

Pickle Darling is the bedroom pop of Lukas Mayo from Christchurch, New Zealand. Fallen Love head Harley interviewed Lukas through a 16-hour time zone warp on a Sunday/Monday. Fallen Love Records: Who is Lukas Mayo? How did Pickle Darling come to be? Lukas: Lukas Mayo is some insecure loser from Christchurch, New Zealand. Pickle Darling is me taking my innermost insecurities and making dumb redemptive pop songs out of them. It feels more "me" than Lukas Mayo does. I'd been in a few bands and collaborations growing up which were all fruitful but ultimately incredibly hard. I think I was way too self-indulgent at those times and I was terrible at compromise. I would rather have had something suck but be true to me than be "good" and not be a great representation of myself. Since then I've grown as a person and I think I'd be a much better collaborator now. FLR: This past April you released your first EP of original songs, Spring Onion Pancakes. How did the track listing come about? L: I've been writing songs for as long as I can remember and those were kind of just the six most recent! I was also in a five-year relationship which had just suddenly ended and the EP kept me out of wallowing in self-pity. It's upbeat and colourful because I wanted to make sure that all my songs were full of love and humour and kindness and friendship. It's still a sad EP to me but I'm super glad that people don't think of my music as sad music. Most of it was written when I was in class though which is probably why all the lyrics are basically "I suck and I'm a loser" 'cause that's how I generally felt at Polytech. lol FLR: What are spring onion pancakes like? My research says it's a traditional Chinese dish. L: Oh yeah, I've only actually had them once. The bus station in town has a place that makes them. I was with my friends Heather, Isaac, and Nico and we had just watched a movie and then got spring onion pancakes together. My hands were all greasy on the bus ride home, though. (Sorry, Christchurch Metro Bus services.) My EP is so hard to search for on Google 'cause you have to wade through three pages of recipes. FLR: Does anyone make spring onion pancakes with pickles? That would be a search engine nightmare. L: There's some weird stuff when you google Pickle Darling. There's another Facebook page which is just a cat called Pickle Darling. I'm hoping if I get a Pitchfork feature one day, they accidentally get in touch with whoever runs that page and they do an interview on my behalf. It would probably be more interesting than me, to be honest. FLR: I'm actually interviewing the other Pickle Darling tomorrow. It's part of a dueling interview series I'm doing. Like when I interviewed Kevin Shields and the director of the slasher movie My Bloody Valentine. L: lmao I avoided My Bloody Valentine for years thinking they were Bullet For My Valentine. FLR: On the topic of your hometown, what is the music scene like in Christchurch? I can't say I really hear any Dunedin sound in your music. L: I don't feel hugely involved in the Christchurch music scene. I haven't done many gigs and kinda bypassed it and went straight to the internet. That sounds kind of douchey of me. I have mad love for a lot of Christchurch artists. There are heaps of super talented people here who make amazing music and people have reached out to me and shown me so much kindness but I spend most nights by myself just going for walks around Opawa or watching films or reading. I'm not a super regular gig attendee. I go to maybe one a month and I'm always the least cool person there. It's cool, though, I enjoy it when I do go. And I'm slowly feeling more and more involved in the Christchurch music scene as people become a bit more aware of what I do. I feel like locals will see me on the internet and be like "Hey, that's that dweeb I see walking around town all the time. Weird." FLR: You only played live for the first time this year, right? How has that side of things been? L: I feel like such a fraud 'cause I've had such great opportunities handed to me right off the bat. My first gig was in a library for NZ Music Month and we were playing with my friend Luke's band EgoValve. That was fun and super low-key and about five people were there and they were all under the age of nine. Richard from Glass Vaults (great guy and great band) heard my Radio NZ interview and got in touch with me and our second gig was opening for Glass Vaults. My third gig was opening for Kane Strang, who I have so much love for. During sound check I was just like "Oh my god, are you Kane Strang? Is your real name actually Kane Strang? I love you, Kane Strang. Your album is great, Kane Strang. Oh my god, you are really Kane Strang. Hi, I'm Lukas. Oh my god, you are Kane Strang." Those two shows were sold out and I had my friends Isaac, Nico, Marcus, and Cameron in my band and they were just fun, positive nights. My fourth gig is going to be at Nostalgia Festival, which also has Connan Mockasin and The Chills. I'm so incredibly blessed with all this stuff.

FLR: For the EP you did a run of cassettes through Slovakian label Z Tapes and a limited run of lathe cut seven-inches on your own. Is having a physical product important to you? Some artists are content to just toss their songs online for streaming and downloading and call it a day. L: I want to be the most working class bedroom pop star out. I love the idea of just sitting in my room making stuff myself and packaging stuff myself and getting my fingerprints on everything and having a merch table with things I've made on it. I just want to make things. Z Tapes did all the tapes, though, which was such a relief and such an honour. Filip is really a hero of Bandcamp. He believed in me from the very start and now they're doing a second run of my EP on tape and it's great. The lathe cuts look cool. I'm super proud of them. My friends Heather Reid Van Gerwen and Noah Mead handled the art side of things, which is why they look so beautiful. I'm always going to want to make a physical thing. I mean all physical media is outdated now so if you're going to do physicals, do something fun and creative with it. Also I'm doing a Christmas tape with Heather and she's painting little pictures to go with them. FLR: What's the most exciting location you've received an order from so far? L: I get a lot of orders from Japan, which is so cool, as well as heaps from the States. It's exciting that the majority of the orders are from outside of New Zealand. It's not just my friends buying my stuff out of pity. There are actual people out there that are listening to my stuff and willing to spend money on it. I'm super grateful for them. I really want to be able to play in those places one day. FLR: I feel you. My label almost never gets any orders from within Canada but I've got a handful of regular customers in Germany and Spain. Each of those orders keeps me going and makes me feel like this is all worth it. L: Definitely! It makes it feel so real, right? FLR: Switching topics: what's your favorite film that hasn't had a Criterion DVD release but totally deserves one? L: Ooh I love this question. Hmm... Oddly enough one of my goals (actually my only goal 'cause I hate goals) is to be successful enough to get invited into the Criterion closet. But hmmm... These are probably pleb picks but I'd love: Happy Together (1997) or just more Wong Kar-Wai in general; Synecdoche, New York (2008); Quiet City (2007); Careful (1992); and Funny Ha Ha (2002) in the collection. Also some Barry Jenkins! These are probably pleb picks, though. Also, shout out to my friends Martin (who directed my video) and Julia who give me good film recommendations. Joe Swanberg is a big influence on my work ethic. He made, like, 30 films in seven years or something. If anyone reads this interview, please send me film recommendations on Twitter! FLR: My top rec is Marty (1955) starring Ernest Borgnine. He's a lonely 34 year-old butcher who lives with his mother and is afraid he'll never fall in love. It's basically the film equivalent of a bedroom pop song. L: Dude, I'm totally going to check that one out! I haven't heard of that one! I reckon my film equivalent of a bedroom pop song is Hannah Takes The Stairs. I sampled that on my EP. My friend Julia recommended that one to me actually. I put that movie on all the time just to listen to. I don't even watch it now. I just put it on while I'm doing housework to listen to Greta Gerwig's dialogue. I love how that film sounds. I love their voices. FLR: What's one question you've never been asked in an interview that you would love to be asked someday? L: An interview question I'd love to be asked is "Hi, I'm Evan from Pinegrove. Do you want to open for my band?" and the answer would be "Yes, Evan from Pinegrove." Actually I'd love to be asked what I'm listening to at the moment. FLR: And finally, what does 2018 look like for Pickle Darling? I hear your first album is nearly finished. L: 2018 will be big for me personally but small for my fans. What I mean by that is I'm going to be working on a lot of stuff but probably not releasing a huge amount until it's all done. I'm doing an album. It's ten tracks and it's going to be awesome. There's a song called "Nicolas Cage" and I think it's my best song. My friend Josiah has a feature on it. Matt Gunn is helping out with the production and I think he is a literal angel from heaven. I'm going to do a bunch of music videos too. I want to tour. I want to do bigger physicals like vinyl and CD's and stuff like that. I just want to make more stuff. Pickle Darling on Facebook Pickle Darling on Twitter