If you watch a lot of indie music videos, chances are likely that you’ve come across the work of South Bend, Indiana based director and animator Joe Baughman. He’s worked on videos for groups such as Wilco, Julien Baker, and The Roots. For example, he directed and animated the music video for The Roots’ 2014 song “Understand” as well as Wilco’s 2016 song “Someone to Lose.”
Baughman is also an equally talented singer-songwriter and musician. On Friday, June 14, his band Pocketboy Solid – which finds him teaming up with Chicago musicians Bridget Stiebris and Haley Blomquist of math-pop duo OK Cool – will release its self-titled debut album. After creating a couple animated music videos for OK Cool, he sent a couple of songs to collaborate and realized they had a special chemistry. A prolific back and forth exchange of ideas led to the recording of their debut. The project has given him a chance to explore different sounds compared to his psychedelic rock band Joe Baughman and The Righteous Few.
In the past year, the band group has enjoyed a growing fanbase that includes many Chicago and regional musicians as wells as legendary character actor Richard Kind, best known for his roles in Argo, Spin City, Mad About You, Big Mouth, Inside Out, and hundreds of other films, TV shows, and cartoons. Kind gave the group a shout out via the band’s Instagram page after he found out about the band’s song “Close Encounters of the Richard Kind.” The song’s video finds the band perform and roam around various Chicago locations including Woodies Supermarket and a grade school play at The Morris Performing Arts Center.
“This song is about accepting my role in life as a sort of transient character actor – never fully committed to one thing for too long and thriving in obscurity,” says Baughman via the album’s press release.
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Scummy Water Tower recently caught up with Baughman to learn about his love for making videos and performing and why this group is special.
Who are some of your biggest influences as a songwriter and a musician?
I have a pretty eclectic music interest background. I really like Talking Heads. It would be a big influence for this project especially. I used to do a lot of stop motion animation. I would listen to Talking Heads while animating. It really fits the vibe. That’s a big one. But I like a lot of things from Bob Dylan and then some older Arcade Fire and The Band and Fiona Apple. The rhythmic piano stuff she does. There’s a lot of influences there across the board. I listen to a lot of hip hop and The Roots are a big musical interest for me. I am interested in lots of music, but it’s hard to pinpoint where certain things come from, but I just listen to a lot of things.
I thought judging by your music that piano based artists would be high on your list.
Yeah. Fiona Apple is a big one. She’s really great. I like some Ben Folds Five stuff. When I was a kid, I would listen to things like Billy Joel or Cat Stevens, especially Cat Stevens with some of his emotive piano playing.
The band formed after you had worked on some music videos for the band Ok Cool. What was that experience like? Why did you feel you were so musically compatible?
When I first met Ok Cool members Bridget [Stiebris] and Haley [Blomquist] were playing drums and bass for another band called Weekend Run Club out of Chicago. And my band, Joe Baughman and The Righteous Few, was playing a set at the skatepark. So, we shared a bill with them. And specifically, watching the two of them play I was just really impressed, and I really liked their style and I thought it’d be interesting to get to work with them.
And then they ended up forming their own band OK Cool. Which I really dig, and we collaborated on two or three music videos. And when the pandemic hit and I had this kind of wealth of music that I wanted to record that my band didn’t have time to get to, I thought it’d be cool to do a couple songs with them. So, I sent them a track and they liked it and we worked on that. And then before I knew it, we had 10 songs that we liked and just kind of workshopped those a little bit and recorded.
Was there a moment where really things really clicked, and you knew you had something special together?
I think it was the first time I shot a music video with OK Cool. Just how much fun we had on set and how down they were to do whatever. I made these mouth formations for [Bridget] to do lip syncing with her song. I’d taken photos of her mouth and blown them up and put them on pacifiers to switch out in stop motion. And she was down to wear those and have fun with it. That’s kind of when I clicked with them.
My brother plays drums in my other band, and we sync really well and it’s super fun to play with him, but it was just playing with someone else for the first time in a very different style than I normally play. And I think I just had a lot of fun exploring a new area. [Bridget’s] great at making interesting beats and Hailey makes really interesting rhythmic bass parts that are kind of melodic too. And just the first time we got a practice together in person, I just had so much fun, gave me fresh ideas, a fresh perspective on music playing with them that I hadn’t experienced for a while
You’re done a bunch of directing and animation work and have worked on videos for some pretty big artists like Wilco and The Roots. What got you into that kind of work?
I went to film school in college and then I’ve always loved music since I was a kid and played a lot, so I thought it’d be really cool to do. It’s a bit of a long story of how I got into making music videos, but I was working on a record recording my fourth-grade elementary school teacher singing some old folk songs. He had a condition called pulmonary fibrosis that was slowly kind of deteriorating his lungs and I wanted to preserve some of those things. My Morning Jacket had a website where they would take people’s questions about recording and production and do their best to answer them. So, I’d emailed some questions to them and then one of their guitarists, [Johnny Quaid], got back to me and saw that I had done videos and I ended up working with him and creating my first real music video for his side project.
And I really loved the experience and wanted to do more of that. And then a couple years later, I was working on another film and in my free time I would animate or just do random shoots after hours in the studio with my own just little projects. And [Stejan] Stevens ended up seeing one of mine on YouTube and reached out to me and I made a video for him. And then from there I did a lot of work with a lot of bigger indie bands and smaller indie bands and just kind of grew through that. Got to do work with The Roots. And then from that I got Wilco. There’s a lot of musical connections.
What’s one or two of your favorite stories of working with artists?
Let’s see. The Roots was an interesting one because I had made a video for their online music mag called Okayplayer. I had done an anniversary video for them for free just because I wanted to get in with them and I animated some cupcakes, and it was a pretty funny little video. But after that, I’d asked if I could work on something for The Roots. I love their music, and their manager got back to me and said, it’s kind of unlikely, but they’ll let me know. But then a few months later I got a call from their manager at the time, Richard [Nichols], and he asked me to do a stop motion video in a week. Which is just an absurd ask, but I was like, “I can’t say no to The Roots. So, I worked 23 hours a day for a week straight, just designing and animating a video.
And it was a pretty brutal time physically, but I loved the song so much. My favorite memory from that is getting to talk to their manager who I didn’t know at the time. But he was dying from Leukemia, and he had helped form the band and was just in his prime. He was like a DJ and just knew so much about music and I was just really honored that he spent so much time just talking to me on the phone. I would just sit there and listen to his stories and hear him theorize about music and about music videos. And I was really honored that he enjoyed my work, and I ended up actually filming his memorial service at his request, which was again, a really big honor and just a really fascinating experience. That’s probably one of my most memorable moments.
It sounds like your work with music videos helped inspire you as a performer and creating your own music.
Getting to work in the same way that The Roots is an interesting comparison. They’re playing on Fallon every night and they’re playing with and witnessing a lot of bands in the same way. Working with so many different indie bands has influenced for sure my music and my taste in music. And it’s kept me kind of fresh on bands that are coming out that as someone in my thirties, it’s hard to stay on top of new projects while still paying attention to your old favorites. I’m really lucky in that way to stay kind of in tune with new and fun music.
What’s the story behind the band’s name?
It’s pretty lame. It. For a long time I didn’t know what to call it. I had a hard drive that was crashing and to save some of the music, I purchased this little solid state hard drive, and I called it Pocketboy Solid. And then when I was trying to think of a band name, I was looking at my computer and I just saw that drive plugged in. I was like, “that’s a really great catchy name.” So, I just went with that.
What were some of the band’s biggest goals writing and recording its debut album?
That’s a good question. Sometimes I have a hard time pinpointing goals for myself, what we want or what I want out of things. And I mean, I’m always just trying to write. I spend a lot of time on my lyrics and revising those until I’m as happy as I can be with them for recording. And then my goal is just to make it really fun. This record in particular, I want to be really fun yet still meaningful to listen to as far as lyrics go, just something that you can enjoy and rock out to, but also dig into debrief if you feel so inclined. As far as beyond that, it’s great to find a wider audience and to enjoy some of the benefits of that, but I just love making music, so any chance I get is good.
You wrote the song “Reprieve” while healing from a neck injury. In the song you take a look at how people focus too much on the negative and overlook the positives. Can you talk about your inspiration for the song and how playing piano helped you recover?
Yeah, actually the injury I sustained was due to just long hours. I was animating this project that actually still hasn’t come out yet. It was a really long video about a really heavy subject, and I was bending over for long hours a day and just kind of over time just strained my neck so much that I couldn’t really walk. I had really severe vertigo, so I would fall over. The room would be spinning, and I couldn’t move very much. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t read, I couldn’t really write. So, it’s just the hardest time in my life. I love writing and I love playing music and being outside and doing things. So, it was just this kind of bizarre form of torture for me.
So, there’s a couple months of just not really being able to do anything. But finally, I started working with physical therapy and one thing that I really wanted to do is be able to play the piano and write again. So, I would work at these different little challenges for myself of things to play and see how long I could go and try to extend the length of my playing each time so that it started out as just less than a minute and then kind of built over time. And the piano part for “Reprieve” was just part of the exercise. It was just this arpeggiating piece that is pretty difficult to play, but really just works both in my hands and works my mind to keep that rhythm going. A bit of the inspiration for that was I listened to a lot of Dan Deacon stuff, and I thought it’d be cool to take some of what he does…So, I built a song kind of around that. And then over time, as I continued to play that piece, I was able to extend it longer and longer and I created a song from it. And it was a great motivation too, because I loved playing piano so much, it was just a good thing that got me up and working at it every day.
It sounds like the plane physically demanding sons was pretty therapeutic. What do you like about physically demanding songs?
I think I have a lot of energy when I perform, so it’s fun to kind of throw that into a song and to be able to play it live is super fun. It’s just exhausting sometimes and difficult, but I like challenging myself in that way.
Looks like you had a really fun time filming the video for the song.
Yeah, it was cool to do a one take shot. I always like long takes, so it was cool to see that come together. And my friend Lindsay, who goes by Scarluxx, it was cool to get to work with her as well. And my brother was doing the puppets, which is great. I’m a huge Jim Henson fan, so any chance I get to throw puppets into something I like to,
You got a shout out from Richard Kind about your song “Close Encounters of the Richard Kind.” What inspired the song? What was it like getting acknowledgement from Richard?
So, writing that song, I was kind of doing layers of different metaphors with what it’s like being a character director in film, but also just kind of comparing that to my career as a music video director and also comparing that to life in general. Just kind of playing a role and fitting in, not necessarily being the star, but trying to enjoy not being the star in a way, if that makes any sense.
It really kind of blew my mind [when he acknowledged it]. His son found the song and sent it to him, and then Richard reached out to us and was just super generous and he said if there’s anything he could do to help us out. So, I was like, “oh yeah, if you could just berate my video, that’d be great.” So, he did that, made up all that stuff, and it was super funny. It was just really cool. I’ve been a fan of his for a long time. I just think he’s one of those characters that when he is on screen, you’re just having a good time. He’s great. And the relationship has gone even further to where I went out and I recorded him singing on another song that’ll come out next month, which is super cool. He’s got such a distinct voice. I think it’ll be fun. People will like it. It’s called “November Nights.” It’ll be out when the full record comes out.
Why did you think he would be a good fit for that one?
I thought it’d be cool to have that particular verse of the song. It’s a longer song and it’s over five minutes, so I thought it’d be cool to right in the middle of the song, just really change up the sound. And he’s got a musical background when it comes to singing, so it just feels kind of like a musical and kind of like a twist in the middle of the song that you wouldn’t really expect. And I think that it helps give it kind of a little extra life, and I just thought it would be great to get to utilize him in any way I could before the record was out. That song also has features from some other bands I’ve worked with Will Sheff from Okkervil River, which is one of my favorite bands of all time, as well as Katie Toupin, who used to be in Houndmouth, and my friend Emre [Türkmen] from Exit Kid and years and years. And then Greg Saunier from Deerhoof sings on it. It’s such a cool song to have some of my influences be singing some of my lyrics with me. And yeah, it’s pretty meaningful to me.
What were your favorite moments working with Will?
Getting to hang out with Will after I finished his music video a couple years ago was just really cool. It was cool to be treated as a peer with him, even though he was such a big deal to me when I was coming out of high school and in college. I really admire his taste in art in general, and he’s a great lyricist and he does similar things where he makes really fun music and interesting music but has really deep lyrics and some that you can just dig into endlessly. But getting to speak with him as a person was really great. It’s not always a great thing to meet your heroes, obviously. But yeah, he was one that I just really enjoyed talking to.
Were there any other big surprises for you making the album?
Another great thing that I enjoyed was working with Calvin Lauber mixed the record. I met him through Julien Baker when I did her music video. He is her bassist when they play live and also does engineering for and mixes her stuff. But I like her music a lot and I just reached out to him to see if he’d be down. He was open to mixing our stuff and he did an incredible job and was really fun to work with. It’s been a great relationship that I think will continue into the future as I’d like to work with them more.
What are you most looking forward to in the months ahead?
I’m excited for the record to come out. We’re playing an album release show at Schubas [Tavern] in Chicago. I’ve never got to play Schubas, so I’m excited about that. That’ll be on the 15th of July, and I think that’ll be really fun. I love getting to play live and playing with Ok Cool. Super fun. And I think it’ll be a fun show. Might bring some of the puppets out for that too…I’m about to dive into making a video for “November 9th,” the song that features all those bands and Richard Kind. And that’ll be a really intense project to make, but I’m looking forward to making it. I think it’ll be fun. It’s got some choreography and some really interesting visuals that I think people will dig, and I’m excited for people to see that.
I imagine it’s nice to be able to wear lots of different hats.
Yeah, it’s hard sometimes because it’s hard being on camera. I’m used to the one running the camera. I love camera operating, steadicam operating, things like that. So, finding other people that I trust to do that is a good challenge to have. I love collaborating, so getting to work with other artists in that way is fun. But I feel lucky to be able to combine both of my passions and loves. I’ve only made one music video for myself out of the 10 years I’ve been seriously making music. And for this project I’ll have made four, which is really cool and has been super fun.
Thanks for taking time to talk to me. It sounds like you have a lot of exciting stuff going on.
Yeah. I’m looking forward to working on all of it later to meeting with my choreographer to go over. We’re going to do this really interesting cocoon painting scene, like a human-sized cocoon. So, figuring out how that’s going to work. There’s seven dancers and a couple painters and yeah, it’s going to be wild.
You can follow Pocketboy Solid at Facebook and Instagram. You can listen to the band’s music at their Bandcamp page.
Joshua is co-founder of Scummy Water Tower. He’s freelanced for a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites, including: Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Guitar World, MTV News, Grammy.com, Chicago Magazine, Milwaukee Magazine, MKE Lifestyle, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, A.V. Club, SPIN, Alternative Press, Under the Radar, Paste, PopMatters, American Songwriter, and Relix. You can email him at josh@scummywatertower.com.
