Area 54 Preview: An Interview With Pink Talking Fish's Dave Brunyak November 14, 2017 13:41

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Interview by Jordan Kirkland: Live & Listen
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As we look ahead to the 2nd annual Area 54 at Birmingham's Old Car Heaven on Friday, we wanted to learn just a little bit more about what this party has to offer. While the lineup features a variety of local/regional producers, audio/visual stimulation, and elaborate art installations, the main event is undoubtedly two full sets from Pink Talking Fish. PTF is best described as a hybrid tribute fusion act that takes the music from three of the world's most beloved bands (Pink Floyd, Talking Heads, & Phish) and creates a special treat for fans of the music.
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Earlier this week, we sat down with PTF guitarist Dave Brunyak to get the inside scoop on the band, and what they have in store for Area 54 on Friday night. Make sure to follow Pink Talking Fish on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for all of the latest updates. See below for the full interview. 
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Let's get started by discussing some general history on the band. Pink Talking Fish got it's official start in 2013, right?
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Dave: I think it was 2014, when the band first got together. Eric (Gould) had a rotating lineup of guys coming in and doing some stuff. I first got involved in 2015, and I was still a part of the rotating cast until Eric decided that he wanted to firm up the lineup and chose me to the be guitarist. It's been about two...almost three years now since I joined the band.
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Very cool. How about you and your individual background as a guitarist? What projects had you been involved with prior to Pink Talking Fish, and how did things end up falling into place? 
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Dave: Well...I started playing guitar when I was fourteen. For most of my life, I was writing music for my original bands. I was running the side stage at a festival in Greenfield, Massachusetts in 2010. I had this awesome spot that I was trying to maintain, but my bands were kind of falling apart. We couldn't really find the cast of characters that I needed to put my original music together. So, in order to maintain this festival spot...you know, if you lose those types of things, you get sucked into the vacuum. You have to start all over from the bottom. I decided I was going to hire some guys to play some Phish music for the set. 
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In 2010, there were only a few Phish tribute bands in the country. There weren't nearly as many as there are now. They were still kind of taboo, I think. People take that particular band so seriously. So, for from the very first note of the very first song of that set...man, we had hippies unzipping their tents, coming out to the stage, and doing the bird dance. Everyone was just totally psyched on the music. 
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I spent most of my original career scraping and dragging people to come out to my shows. The success that I got from playing Phish's music really put me on a new career path. So, I started this Phish tribute band called The Phreaks in 2010. We did about 125 shows over four years. I really learned a lot about running a professional outfit and taking the music really seriously. I decided that I was going to show people that I am a really great guitar player by playing Trey (Anastasio) the best that I could.
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It was through this band that Eric found me. He was coming back up north to raise a family and was scouting members for the northeast lineup of Pink Talking Fish. He came to one of The Phreaks' Worcester shows in late 2014. He scouted us, and our drummer, Zack Burwick...we went to high school together. He was the drummer for The Phreaks. Eric asked both of us to come along to do it. At first, I was pretty skeptical. I realized after a short period of time that this was going to be something really special and more than I was going to be able to reach with just running The Phreaks by myself. I jumped on full time after about 6-9 months of jumping back and forth between these two bands. It quickly catapulted to heights that I didn't think we would ever reach.
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Watch Pink Talking Fish perform at AURA Music & Arts Festival in 2016 here:
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I can imagine. I was pretty blown away the first time I saw you guys at AURA Music Festival in 2016. Watching the attention to detail and transitions in and out of each band's catalog was pretty amazing. You obviously have the deep history with Phish. How much work was required to master these three catalogs the way that you have?
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Dave: The Pink Floyd stuff, for me, was very similar to performing Phish's music, because Trey is my hero. He's my favorite guitar player, and David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) is the consummate guitar hero. Picking up his line and trying to figure out precisely how he was doing it all...it was a comparable translation in attention to detail. I've been listening to Dark Side of the Moon since I was in middle school. To get an opportunity to just learn that music, it's like I've been preparing for it since I was a kid. That was really exciting to do. It came pretty easily, for the most part. 
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The most difficult part, for me, was the Talking Heads material. Aside from the dozen or so songs that are on classic rock radio these days, I was not very familiar with it. It's funny, because when you talk to people who don't listen to Phish about Phish, they think the music can be really strange, weird, or even difficult to listen to and process. For me, that's what the Talking Heads was. It's so square in some places, and the rhythms are sometimes so simple that I would find myself overdoing it. It takes an entirely different approach to guitar playing than I was ever familiar with. It was definitely an odd-fitting pair of shoes. I'm happy that I've been in it for a few years now, and I feel like I can interpret the language a little easier. 
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Is there any type of blueprint or consistency for how you guys construct each show? Does it tend to flow within a certain pattern?
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Dave: That's definitely part of it. I guess you could say that the blueprint is that we want to keep it on a steady, three-band rotation. It's a perfect number, too. You're constantly shifting with these three different flavors. They're all cult followings, so people get what they need out of each one of these bands. That helps keep the rotation fresh, as well. Whether we start with Phish, Talking Heads, or Pink Floyd, that doesn't really matter. We do try to keep it to a steady rotation within each set. 
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To give a little bit of a break, we do a lot of the songs that Phish covers. So, we're doing the covers of the covers, which helps. We've also done the concept shows, where we work in Michael Jackson, David Bowie, The Dead, and even Prince. We step outside of the box there too and throw those in every once in a while, just to keep it fresh and interesting. There really aren't any rules for what we're doing here, so we can make it up as we go along. Everyone in the band has something that they want to get out of each show, you know? Me being the Trey guy...I always feel like it's my responsibility to push a certain number of complex, composed Phish tunes into the set. Songs like "David Bowie" or "Stash" ... something like that to really show that we not only have the improvisational section down, but the compositions as well. That's a big part of that section of the catalog. 
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As far as the actual setlists, Eric will usually draft something together. On the way in, we all take a look at it. By the time we get out of the van and start loading in, everyone usually has their 2 cents in, and things have changed a little bit. We feel like if we're happy with what we're playing, than the audience is going to be happy. 
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How has it been with expanding on each of these three catalogs? How much of each catalog has the band tapped into, and how much time is having to be spent on working in new material from each band?
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Dave: The Phish stuff is definitely the deepest catalog for us. When The Phreaks were poppin', we had about 150 songs under our belt. We had a lot to draw from there. With Pink Floyd and the Talking Heads, we started from the top down. There are certain songs that absolutely need to be in the rotation. You could even say it's the top 20 songs for each of those bands. Once you hit that mark, you could start to look into the deeper cuts. I've explored more with Pink Floyd, and especially the Talking Heads, music that I had never, ever, ever heard before. That's really exciting to get out there and perform. With those two bands, it's obviously not happening anymore. The people out there who are more familiar with the music than I am, they are the ones who are really excited when we bring out tunes that aren't being played on the radio. 
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It's kind of cool, because there are these danceable moments in the Talking Heads songs that really fit well with the open jams in the Phish songs. You can blend that stuff together really well. I've been really digging into the later Pink Floyd stuff lately. It's an evolving process. We've got some big stuff coming up next year where we are going to need to learn a lot of the deeper Pink Floyd stuff. That's going to be really exciting. We've just got to keep working through it. The most important part of this group is keeping it fresh and expanding the catalog as we go. So, that's how we do it, I guess.
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It's a pretty genius concept, in my mind. So, let's shift a little towards the upcoming show in Birmingham, AL on Friday night. I've been told that 'Area 54' is an alien disco party, where Area 51 meets Studio 54. This is going to feature some next level production and art installations. It seems like a perfect fit for the PTF vibe. What can people expect from you guys on Friday?
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Dave: (laughs) Well, it sounds like we've gotta drop the super space funk and get that out there. Phish has some of those super strange songs, so we've gotta bring out some of the weird stuff. With Talking Heads, that's all just gonna fit right in the middle. I'm stoked, man. You just got my ears turning just thinking about this. We're gonna bring a super fun party. 
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I can only imagine. We'll have to wait and see what happens. Thanks so much for taking a few minutes to elaborate on the band with me.
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Dave: Of course...my pleasure man. It's gonna be a great night.
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Watch Pink Talking Fish perform "Time" > "Ghost" > "Psycho Killer" at Wanee Music Festival here:
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