Catching Up With... Man Man

If Man Man confuses you, you’re not alone. On first glance, the band seems filled with dedicated jokesters, recording with junkyard instruments and performing in odd concert attire (consisting, oftentimes, of white cutoffs and war paint). But if you look a bit deeper you’ll find Bukowskian lyrics about heartbreak and loss that belie the group’s oddball appearance. The songs are candidly honest, like a drunken apology yelled outside an ex’s window at 3 a.m. And the band’s latest, Rabbit Habits, which comes out Tuesday (April 8), is no exception.

A few weeks ago, we got a chance to pick the brain of the mustachioed lead singer and principle songwriter of the band, Honus Honus (born Ryan Kattner). After all, if anyone could make sense of Man Man, it should be him. What we got, however, was a 45-minute conversation about scripts for baseball films, Liza Minnelli and existential crises induced by cutoff shorts. We’re more confused than ever.

Paste: The past few years have been pretty great for Man Man. You guys signed with Anti-, toured with Modest Mouse and got plugged on Weeds. So have you guys quit your day jobs yet?
Kattner: Yeah. You know, I’ve been doing our taxes.

Paste: You’re doing the band’s taxes?
Kattner: Google Spreadsheet and everything. It was pretty funny, actually, because I saw how much we actually made individually. We made more money when we just worked at bars and coffee shops and restaurants.

Paste: At least you have more time to focus on writing music.
Kattner: Well, maybe. Touring as much as we tour can wreak havoc on your personal lives. Mine’s a total mess.

Paste: Are you gearing up for the upcoming tour right now?
Kattner: Yeah, I’m going to go buy some new whites this week.

Paste: Where do you buy those? Are they thrift-store clothing?
Kattner: They’re just white outfits. I just buy white jeans and cut them down. It’s funny, I have those moments before a show when I’m like, “Wow, I’m a late 20-something-year-old man putting on makeup and wearing cutoff shorts.”

Paste: You’re living the dream.
Kattner: I have very odd self-reflective moments. I’m like, “I’m wearing cutoff shorts. What is wrong? I have a moustache. What’s going on?”

Paste: Did you ever imagine you’d be doing something like this?
Kattner: I never thought I’d be wearing shorts. That just actually came out of necessity. You know, we played the Pitchfork festival in the summer and it was so hot that I cut my pants into shorts and I’ve never really been able to turn back.

Paste: I had no idea that was the genesis of the shorts.
Kattner: Yeah, then we went on tour in Europe and I brought pants. I was like, “Ahh, I’m going to go back to pants. It’s going to be cold.” And the first show I didn’t feel comfortable. I felt really strange. I cut them into shorts, but then I realized that I didn’t bring other shoes except for my boots. So then I had to go barefoot, which I hate. You know, we’re not hippies. I don’t want to go barefoot.

Paste: So what was recording Rabbit Habits like?
Kattner: It was kind of hellacious recording this record because it was self-financed because we weren’t on a label. So when it’s self-financed from touring, touring money runs out really fast when you’re recording in studios. We had to constantly tour, and then while we weren’t touring, we were recording. We did a third of it in Chicago, all the basic tracking, in the beginning of last year. And then we finished it up last summer in Philly.

Paste: So you had this record in the can before you brought it to Anti-?
Kattner: Yeah. Most places didn’t want to touch us. I would think that labels would be psyched because we don’t sound like everybody else, but I think a lot of labels want just another rock band that they could just...I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter in the end because we signed with a dream label.

Paste: It’s no secret that you guys didn’t get along too well with Ace Fu. How’s Anti- been treating you?
Kattner: Anti- is awesome. You have to date that first girl to realize what love and heartbreak is about so that you're ready for the girl you’re going to spend your life with.

Paste: On the last season of Weeds, Man Man practically soundtracked an entire episode. What was it like watching that?
Kattner: It was weird, they played a couple of the songs in their entirety. When does that ever happen? It was crazy, and I really like the show, so that’s a bonus. It was a strange episode to watch because it was definitely a very risqué episode. And I’m watching and I’m laughing and I’m like, “Oh yeah, my mother’s watching [Weeds actor Justin Kirk] foot-fuck a porn star. And I talked to her after the episode aired and she was like ‘Ehh…’”

Paste: Mrs. Kattner isn’t a Weeds fan now, huh?
Kattner: That’s the only episode she ever saw and it had full-frontal male and female nudity and foot-fucking.

Paste: How did people react to the ad you did for Nike last year?
Kattner: Interestingly enough, it was very positive. Which was cool, because I feel like only someone who is a Man Man fan would recognize that song. If it was just Joe Schmo they have no idea, they’re just laughing like, [slips into a to Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel accent] “Ha, he’s tied up in the soccer net. Look at the girls with the tattoos.” I’m sure they’re not thinking “What is this weird idiosyncratic music?” It’s one of those things, though. People see that and it’s like, “Oh man, they must have made a fortune.” Well, you know, no.

Paste: Shifting gears, I know you studied screenwriting in college. Do you ever think you’ll get back into that?
Kattner: I hope so. I have to grow up at some point, right? I have to bounce from one impossible occupation to the next even more impossible occupation. I should have had a guidance counselor. I want to write a baseball movie.

Paste: A baseball movie?
Kattner: Yeah, I want to write a high-concept baseball movie. I need to find a person to write it with because I’m a collaborative kind of person. I’m not good with writing by myself.

Paste: What will it be about, aside from baseball?
Kattner: I can't tell you. It’s too perfect.

Paste:The new record is definitely your most ambitious to date. There is a lot of artistic growth.
Kattner: Thanks. I’m totally drained. I have no idea how we’re going to make another record. It’s funny, I get really depressed after every record because I just... I never thought there would be three records. I never thought there would be two records. We just recorded a song... Can I say this already? We just recorded a song yesterday. Me and Billy have been working on it, Russell came in to play guitar. We’re doing an exclusive song for this art magazine Esopus. It’s a bi-annual thing and they work thematically. Every issue has a different unifying theme. So the theme for the one that we’re doing is “Good News in the News.” And I was like, “That sucks. I don’t want to do that.” So I went online and I looked up BBC and the first article I saw was about Liza Minnelli.

Paste: Really, the BBC led off with a piece on Liza Minnelli?
Kattner: Yeah, it was a BBC article about Liza Minnelli and how she was getting back on the stage after she collapsed on the stage three months prior. And so I wanted to write about Liza Minnelli. I figured it was the first thing I saw, but I didn’t want to make it funny or jokey, so I didn’t write it funny or jokey. I kind of connected Liza Minnelli to where I was at for the past couple months.

Paste: What you're saying is that in a few weeks from now we’re going to have a Man Man song about Liza Minnelli?
Kattner: Yeah. It’s one of those things, though, where it’s like, I didn’t want to write about Liza Minnelli, and in many ways it’s not about Liza Minnelli. It’s about you, it’s about me. Not to sound corny.

This interview went on for quite a while. While there’s not enough space here for the entire thing (or, perhaps more accurately, enough manpower to edit it all), it felt wrong to leave out a few particular Honusisms. So, without further adieu…

Ryan Kattner on...

…acting:
I want to get into acting. I just want to be a character in a scene or two. I want to be the guy who works at the counter in the bodega. I don’t even need to have lines. I could be the hostage that gets thrown down the elevator shaft as an example to the other hostages.

…seeing Tom Waits in concert:
He’s great. He’s magical. He can own a room with just him and an upright bass player.

…comparisons to Waits, Nick Cave and Captain Beefheart:
I feel bad that their names get dragged in the mud with ours. Those are extremely talented, brilliant songwriters. We’re just upstarts from Philly.

…Man Man’s music being used in a women’s soccer promotion:
I like soccer. I like girls. It’s a great combination.

…women with facial hair:
I don’t think there’s anything hotter than a girl wearing a fake moustache.