Semi-Charmed Life
March 5th, 2007
by Matt Schild

"I really had no idea what the hell I was doing, to tell you the truth," Pagoda front man Michael Pitt admits as he looks back at the early years of his band.

For stumbling blindly into it, Pitt sure hit the jackpot. Pagoda's self-titled debut, which hit stores earlier this winter from Ecstatic Peace, is the sort of debut that more conceptually minded, analytical rockers would love to have as part of their five-year plan. Pitt, who's the heart, soul and only stable member of the New York rock act, leads Pagoda through a set that channels Nirvana's noisiest moments and the Pixies' flair for imbedding a hook into a tidal wave of chaos without succumbing to the grunge-era nostalgia or alt-rock worship you usually get with bands with such obvious influences.

Even better, Pagoda is largely its own beast: As Pitt crashes through distortion and primal power-chord riffs, a cello adds a touch of distinction to the mix and his half-spoken, half-sang vocals keeps the punk/grunge simplicity of his guitar arrangements from becoming too overbearing. Pagoda probably won't change the world -- at least with its first album -- but it establishes itself as a band the Nirvana generation should be able to embrace without feeling as if someone's shoving the ghosts of grunge down our throat. If Pitt honestly didn't have a clue when he was putting Pagoda together, it's a one-in-a-million lucky shot that it turned out so well.

That sort of dumb luck's probably to be expected from Pitt. Best known as an actor for his roles in Hedwig and the Angry Inch (as Hedwig's prodigal protegee Tommy Gnosis) and Last Days (playing Blake, a Seattle rocker's whose downward spiral mirrors that of Kurt Cobain), or maybe the less rock'n'roll Dawson's Creek, where he lent his boyish looks to the role of Henry Parker. Pitt's acting career, too, was as much of a blunder as a goal: After moving to New York to chase dreams of being a rock'n'roll star, he found himself killing time in an acting class, which led to a few nothing-level roles in commercials. Soon, he was finding his way into the cast of television and film shows. Not bad for a guy with few dreams of going down in celluloid history, is it?

That lucky streak eventually spilled over into Pitt's musical ambitions. While at work with director Gus van Sant on Last Days, Pitt found himself with the director and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore at Moore's apartment. One thing led to another and the indie-rock legend and the rock'n'roll nobody were soon talking music, and, as record-label legends have it, after a little goading, Moore dug up a battered electric guitar for Pitt to belt out a rendition of "Lesson Learned." When Moore was done peeling his jaw off the floor, he immediately began talk of getting Pagoda on his Ecstatic Peace imprint. Talk about fate intervening.

There wasn't much to do after that. Pitt already recorded a mountain of material after heading to Italy to record -- a self-financed session funded by money scraped up through Pitt's acting career -- so all he had to do was cherry-pick the best tracks. And after playing around the Big Apple with a variety of backing musicians, Pitt solidified Pagoda's lineup, and after a lot of dreaming, hoping and even more luck, Pagoda was a bona-fide band.

By now, every aspiring actor and musician reading this is probably green with envy. Understandable. Some guys just have all the luck, don't they? Maybe it's luck, but maybe it's determination. After all, now that Pitt's finally seen his dream take shape he's not sitting back and enjoying it. He's looking to the future. The only problem is that, as far as Pitt's concerned, we're all looking at his past. Pagoda is old news, he says, recorded so long ago it barely meshes with his vision of what Pagoda stands for in 2007. He's more experienced. He's a better songwriter. His guitar skills improved. Pagoda is old news.

"I'm really grateful just to put something out. It's been a dream for a really long time," Pitt gushes. "It's also frustrating that you're being judged on something you wouldn't necessarily put out right now, you know what I mean."

That could mean trouble for Pagoda in the future. Most of its charm comes from the fact that, like generations of guitarists from Mick Jones to Kurt Cobain, Pitt skirts his technical limitations -- which, to be honest are too many to list -- making up for fret-board wizardry with a hungry determination to rock. It's get past the cello and studio sophistication, and Pagoda is the rough-around-the-edges product of a garage-rocking young punker.

Don't think that'll change any time in the near future, either. Citing a background of informally picking up a guitar and learning to play it on his own -- you know, the usual route for most rockers -- that'll always endear him to the down'n'dirty approach that forms Pagoda, Pitt knows his future isn't to be the next world-famous guitar slinger.

"I learned how to write songs from a friend of mine in an old apartment when I moved here. I haven't been in 20 bands. This has just been my project for a really, really, really long time. It's just something I'd be doing anyways. As far as following anybody else's path, I just do what I do and people are like 'Oh, he's trying to be different.' It's not. I'm really just doing what I like.

"I approach it that way basically because I picked it up on my own. I never learned any covers. I never took any lessons. I was basically just living in a squat. There were some musicians there. They were like 'Just watch us.' I just put together what I could, you know. I respect more technical guitar playing, too. I tend to gravitate toward stuff that's put together, like pick up a guitar like an object not this guitar."

Maybe Pitt doesn't know what he's doing. Maybe he's riding out a lucky streak that should see him counting his earnings at a Vegas craps table rather than on stage and on screen. Or maybe, he knows darn well what he's doing and just doesn't want to let the secret out. Either way, Pagoda is the sort of straightforward rock'n'roll that doesn't need a back story.