Editor’s Note: “The Pandemic Interviews” were a series of Messenger-based interviews I did with friends and colleagues to pass the time during the lockdown in April, 2020. They were originally published to an old site of mine, Americannon, and are being re-posted here. This interview is with David Broyles, an Oklahoma-based musician who goes by the name Dr. Pants.
LogicalDinosaur: Okay, so let’s start with the basics. You and I met while attending art school in New Mexico in 1993. You were studying music, right?
DoctorPants: I was, indeed.
LD: And you launched your public persona of Dr. Pants in 2000, with the release of Feezle Day, which is currently celebrating its twentieth anniversary?
DP: Yes, sir. Which feels crazy. But at the same time, a lot has happened since then.
LD: So, explain to my audience the concept of Dr. Pants.
DP: Well, it has definitely evolved over time. 20 years ago when I released Feezle Day, several things were happening. I was putting out this record, which was a 38 song, 2 disc set, and was kind of all over the map musically. It had rock, acoustic stuff, weird electronic stuff, quasi-hip hop, and other things in the mix. At the same time, I was playing shows as Dr. Pants as an acoustic duo with my friend Brian, and right after the record came out we managed to expand the lineup to a 4 piece electric band. But as a result of that, the “rock” stuff from the Feezle Day record was getting played live, and none of the other stuff.
DP: From there, I just wrote a lot of songs that were very singer-songwriter-ish, and so the next Dr. Pants release, Gardening In a Tornado, was way more oriented in that direction.
DP: However, I knew that wasn’t the be all, end all of what I wanted to be doing, and I started to push the band in a slightly broader direction from there, integrating some more humorous elements, and some nerdier subject matter. I also started to write some slightly more complex music, because I knew the guys in the band were capable of playing it.
DP: We did something that was pretty consistent musically from about 2008 to 2013, when I kind of put things on hold because we had a 1 year old daughter and I was about to go to graduate school.
DP: Now that my kids are in school, and I’m done with my masters, I’ve thought a lot about what I want to be doing, and I definitely don’t want to limit myself as much as I was doing a decade or so ago. All the music I like and feel led to make is on the table now.
LD: Where did the name come from? You know, when I google “doctor pants”, I get mostly shopping images for scrubs.
DP: The name came from the fact that I just really love the word “pants”, and being that there has always been a tiny bit of a funk element to what I do, the “dr.” part reminded me of George Clinton, P-Funk, Dr. Funkenstein, etc.
LD: Was pants your first word as a baby?
DP: Ha. No.
LD: you know, it’s kind of a strange word to love. The only real plural word describing a singular item.
DP: True. For me it’s something about the phonetics of it…it’s fun to say. Combine that with the fact that it has this connection to, I don’t know, dancing or whatever? I just love it.
LD: Define for me “Nerd Power Groove Rock”. I googled it and it seems to be entirely your creation.
DP: Yes, Nerd Power Groove Rock was the genre name I created for what Dr. Pants was doing during the aforementioned 2008-2013 timeline. Nerdy, funky, kind of power pop sometimes, but all rock. It was a way to try and sum up all the elements that I felt made up substantial portions of what I was doing.
LD: Let’s jump back a moment to Feezle Day. I love the low-fi, haphazard sense of it. It reminds me of Ween’s first album. Were they much of an influence?
DP: Oh for sure, yes. I love their first record (as well as all their other ones). That first record, though…captured something that they never managed to duplicate, I think. I also thought about Feezle Day as sort of being a poor man’s lo-fi version of the Lather album by Frank Zappa.
LD: As a non-musician, my takeaway from that first record is that anybody can be in a band. Being able to play well was secondary to having something interesting to say.
DP: Yes, I’ve always believed that. Rock & roll, punk rock, early hip hop, these are the people’s musics, and anyone should be able to do them if they feel compelled. I’d like to think there were SOME things about Feezle Day that were a little more musically complex, but admittedly there is stuff there that is all about messing around and finding something cool.
LD: Like Ween, your songwriting and instrumental prowess has grown over the years. Your second album, Gardening in a Tornado, came out in 2006? And several songs were licensed by MTV and used on shows?
DP: Yes, in fact MTV licensed the whole album. It was a very lucky break that was sort of a result of the unique environment of the mid-aughts, and it’s a lot less likely that it would happen today, I think.
LD: Why do you say that? How did MTV get exposed to your work?
DP: Well, the only reason it happened was that during that time, MTV music supervisors were going to the internet, to music networking sites, to try and find music to license. The guy who licensed my stuff found it on Unsigned.com (which I don’t think even exists anymore). If you look at the stuff they were licensing then and the stuff that gets used now, now it’s all The Weeknd and stuff like that, people who already have major label deals and whose songs are already recognizable on some level. It just seemed to be a unique moment. Maybe things will swing back around to that. Hard to say.
LD: Still getting royalty checks?
DP: Yes, although the size of them fluctuates greatly. 🙂
LD: I love the song “Donuts”, but I have to ask you: in the 21st century, can a white guy from Oklahoma really say, “Bruthas be sayin'”?
DP: Ha. No one of any color has ever seemed to object…I certainly use language like that with the most pure intentions possible. Anything I ever do that owes any debt to hip hop is intended with the utmost respect, and I can only hope it’s received that way.
LD: Another question: I also love “If I Were John Cusack”, from The Cusack-Loggins EP. Quick question though: no love for Hoops McCann?
DP: Well…I love One Crazy Summer. I really do. I think it had a slightly lesser impact on me than Better Off Dead, though, because Better Off Dead came first and One Crazy Summer sort of suffered in its wake a bit. I had room to mention 4 characters in that chorus; I stand by my choices.
LD: Fair enough. You were 23 when you recorded “Gettin’ A Gut”, a song about growing old. You’re now about twice the age you were then. Any fresh thoughts on the subject?
DP: Oh man, if that kid knew then what I know now…Anything I write now that touches on that subject would definitely be a lot more introspective. The fact that I was 23 when I wrote that song was definitely part of the joke. I think about my age way too much…I think most of my efforts at this point are toward trying to be less self-conscious about it.
LD: How do you balance your art with being a father?
DP: Ha. Precariously and probably not very well.
LD: So, just like the rest of us.
DP: Yes. Exactly.
LD: Okay, let’s talk about this Pandemic period. You’ve been working on something new?
DP: A couple of things, yes. The album I’m releasing in a couple of weeks was actually more or less “finished” before this all started. It’s a collection of short electronic pieces, some more experimental than others, that I started work on last fall. There is also a new short-ish album of full band rock stuff that we tracked most of at the beginning of the year. Funny, though, once the quarantine thing happened, I had this realization that out of all the projects I had in my brain to do, that was the one I was actually least excited about. It will get released, just maybe not in the next few months.
DP: And now, since we’ve been in quarantine, I’ve started to work on a new DIY-ish sort of record at home, that covers a lot of ground musically. Not entirely unlike Feezle Day, but boy howdy do I hope the songwriting/composition is better 20 years later.
LD: What excites you about the electronic album? You’re a singer-songwriter doing a completely instrumental album?
DP: Well, I have never been JUST a singer-songwriter. I have done things that fit more into that mold, but ever since I was in undergrad in the 90s I have thought of myself as a composer and songwriter, and instrumental music is something I feel incredibly comfortable doing. In fact, I think Gardening In A Tornado is the only Dr. Pants project that doesn’t have anything instrumental on it. All the other records have at least something.
LD: Without lyrics, are there still stories there? Characters?
DP: It’s more that, as I get older, I feel less like someone who wants to rigidly define what I do, and I am not interested in limiting myself just to be “marketable” or whatever. I have tried that road…it didn’t necessarily get me where I wanted to go.
LD: Did pursuing your Master’s change the way you look at composing a piece of music?
DP: I definitely learned a lot. I think it just added to the picture. There are things I knew/thought about composing before that, and now there are more things that I know and think about.
LD: I listened to the tracks (thanks for sharing!). None of them had names yet, so I’ll just refer to the track numbers.
DP: Yes, I am not giving the individual tracks names, because I don’t know that there are names that will do them justice. They are just “Objectionable Object #1,” “…#2”, etc.
LD: Can I make a suggestion?
DP: Yes?
LD: Track 7 should be called “Buck Rogers’ Atomic Dance Party”.
DP: That’s an excellent title.
LD: You’re welcome.
LD: Track 1 reminded me of early 90’s industrial, stuff like Front 242. Intentional?
DP: Sort of intentional. I have definitely felt drawn back to some of that music lately, especially because I feel like I never gave a lot of it the attention it deserved at the time. I actually just watched the documentary about the Wax Trax label the other night.
LD: I haven’t seen it yet. There’s still a lot of Wax Trax work that stays in rotation in my car. I love the ambient sounds in track 6. I kept building anticipation while listening to it. Visceral anticipation. Well done.
DP: Thanks! I sometimes I have literally no idea whether what I am trying to get across will get across, or whether listeners will feel or experience anything at all while I am making these pieces. So that’s good news.
LD: How much are you recording versus sampling in this album?
DP: There was a lot of recording, and then manipulating recordings, which in itself is a sort of sampling. I didn’t sample anything directly from another record; there are some drum sounds and some source sounds that came from sample packs I had downloaded and things like that.
LD: What software are you using?
DP: I constructed all these pieces in Garageband. It is a much more versatile piece of software than people give it credit for.
LD: You know, given your musical style, I would bet both Danny Elfman and Mark Mothersbaugh are in your wheelhouse. Both have gone on to compose soundtracks for film and TV. Any interest in something like that?
DP: I have interest in soundtrack work to a degree, but I have friends who are very much making an effort to break into that world, and I am just not that guy. If someone comes to me and asks me to work on music for their project, I am totally down for that. But I am never at a loss for music to make, for the sake of itself.
LD: Speaking of which, would you include either Oingo Boingo or Devo under the tag “Nerd Power Groove Rock”? Who else gets to be in your club?
DP: Oh man…it’s not a “club” really, it’s just how I describe that particular strain of what I do. If other people want to use the term, that’s fine with me. I love Boingo and Devo, and if they want to hang out, I’m down.
LD: Dave, that about wraps us up for today. But I have a final request.
DP: Lol. Okay.
LD: As part of the 20th anniversary celebration of Dr. Pants, what are the chances I’ll get a vinyl compilation that would include “The Gift”? That song needs to be on vinyl.
DP: Hmm. The biggest challenge with vinyl is how expensive it is to press. Depending on how things go financially for the next however long, it could be a possibility. I will keep it in mind, for sure.
LD: Awesome. Stay safe and stay healthy!
DP: Yes! You, too, my friend. Thanks so much!
