The Go! Team are all about the highly intense positivity. so it’s a little strange to find producer-songwriter-mastermind Ian Parton, 33, so somber and sober, speaking from the UK on the brink of their SF show tonight, Oct 19, at Mezzanine. Oh well, the fun is all over the new record, Proof of Youth (Sub Pop) – and that’s what counts. Here’s a bit more from our talk.
Bay Guardian: Did you have anything that you really wanted to accomplish with this new album?
Ian Parton: I wanted it to be noisier, more kind of ballsier, just a bit more wangy, a bit more kick ass, and a bit more live sounding. I always loved weird tunings and white noise and feedback and more aggressiveness. A bit more Public Enemy and more sing-along.
BG: Speaking of Public Enemy, how did you get Chuck D to perform on the album?
IP: Oh yeah, I never really thought it would happen. I still never believed it up till that very moment. It was six months in the making after the first e-mail was shot off – to nowhere, not knowing if we had the right address and wondering if it was really Chuck that replied or someone fucking around with us.