Fabulist!

Princeton is made up of Matthew and Jesse Kivel (who are twins!) and Ben Usen. After gaining a substantial following in the UK, they've come back to their roots in Southern California-- their music is good happy-making, bounce-your-head-around stuff. Why aren't they signed yet? (You can pick up their EP at MySpace.)

Princeton - The Red Sweater

Princeton - The Indifference Curve

Princeton - They Sing in Her Heart

We managed to pin down the amazing wonder twins (and Ben!) and wrangle an interview from their lovely musical mouths. Here goes!

FABULIST: Ok, kids: You've been playing instruments since you were in diapers. How did you end up with lives steeped in so much music?

Ben Usen: Well, after a year of listening to my sister's piano lessons, I decided to pick it up two weeks before her recital so I could play in it.
Matthew Kivel: As I recall my mother forced me and Jesse to play the piano when we were about 7. I kind of realized one day when I was 9 that I needed to play the saxophone in order to seduce this girl I had a big crush on. Sadly it didn't work, but i kept playing the saxophone and I learned guitar and bass along the way.
Jesse Kivel: It started out as our parents forcing us to play instruments. I hated piano and my parents forced me into it. Luckily I got to learn the Mission Impossible theme, so that kept me entertained for a while. I then switched to flute but was teased for many years. One day Eli Moralis called me a fruit and I decided it was time to switch instruments. Finally I begged my parents for a guitar, they gave me one, and 5 years later, here we are.

Why did you choose to study in London? Did being in London influence your music in any way?

Matthew: I chose London because I really liked the movie About a Boy and I thought that by moving there for a year my life would somehow become more like Hugh Grant's.
Jesse: Initially I chose London because we were all heavily into the Brit pop of the 90's. Oasis, Blur, The Stone Roses, etc. We wanted to live out our rock and roll fantasies, but when we got there I think, at least musically, we realized we had outgrown that kind of music. But definitly The Kinks, and earlier Beatles, Nick Drake-- all of these artists inspired us.

Was it difficult coming back to the States after building up such a steady UK following?

Jesse: Not really, I feel the ability to play with an 8-piece band made up for the lack of fans or support from the UK. To finally satisfy the ideas we had for the music made this whole summer successful.
Matthew: It was definitely hard coming back to the US. I think that London is an amazing city, and living in the midwest right now sort of makes me miss it a whole lot more.

You mentioned that you are inspired by literature. Are any of your songs related to books you've read?

Jesse: I wrote a song about Ulysses once, it came out pretty well, but offhand that was one of my few direct nods. Now, I love referencing authors and works in my songs, I like to slip in little lines. Like the title of our album, "A Case Of The Emperor's Clothes," was a line from Seize The Day, by Saul Bellow. I like the references to be as esoteric as possible. I find explicit story telling to be often lame and predictable in songs.

What does your song-writing process look like? Could you talk a little bit about what your songs are about?

Matthew:My songs are about a lot of things, they're about stories and characters that all have some sort of true qualities to them.
Jesse: The song writing process as of now is an individual one. Me and Matt write our own songs and our own lyrics. On the albums we sing the ones we've written, and Ben basically sits around and looks pretty. For me, songwriting has always been melody and music first, and then lyrics on top of that. I like to talk about anything out of the ordinary and then sometimes something extremely predictable, like a girl. But for instance, "They Sing In Her Heart" is about a Victorian family who refuses to let their children have fun. The only time the children get to play is on Sunday mornings, on the way to church. The girls would dance and the boys would sing. So there you go. Also I just wrote a song where I am George Washington in the first person. I thought that would be nice.

I love the song The Indifference Curve-- what inspired it?

Jesse: The inspiration came from me sitting down one day and wanting to write a cheerful song. I came up with the melody in my bedroom in London and thought it was too catchy to actually be a good song. But then Ben nearly orgasmed when he heard it so I knew it could be good. The lyrical content and title is a joke on a commonly used curve within economics called "the indifference curve". Now from the title the song is a slight critique on economics majors and kids who are "indifferent" to their life choices, which I find most econ majors to be (my brother not included). They lack passion and would fall right on the indifference curve for almost all things. In another sense it is basically a song against the Jewish parent and grandparent mentality ( i.e. law school, law school, and more law school).

I'm kind of amazed you guys aren't signed-- are there any indie labels you're interested in?

Jesse: A label we all love is Drag City. So if we could have our pick on musical production alone that would be it because there artists are just great. There's also Secretly Canadian. They're pretty cool.

This one's for Matt and Jesse-- do being twins give you supernatural powers?

Jesse: Of course!
Matthew: Hmm, if you consider an inflated sense of paranoia and neurosis supernatural...then yes.