CONCERT PREVIEW
Gringo Star
7 p.m. Saturday. Free. The Optimist, 914 Howell Mill Road, Atlanta. http://www.gringostar.net/.
Nick Furgiuele and his brother Peter — also known as Atlanta rock band Gringo Star — have three critically successful albums under their belts, but the pair never considered decamping for the potential of higher visibility in a place like New York or Chicago.
“I have a lot of friends who have moved up to New York through the years to pursue music and arts,” said Nick, who lives in Kirkwood while Pete lives in Little Five Points. “I always felt at home in Atlanta. A lot of my friends who moved to New York ended up working 600 hours a week to pay the rent. I’ve always loved Atlanta. You can always drive up to New York.”
The brothers, who moved to North Carolina with their parents when they were kids but returned to Atlanta after high school, are kicking off their Summer USA Tour in their favorite city at 7 p.m. Saturday as part of the Optimist’s second birthday celebration.
In advance of the tour, Nick Furgiuele discussed recording and releasing their latest album on their own, his favorite Atlanta memories, and his celebrated grandfather.
Q: What’s it like playing in a band, day in and day out, with your brother?
A: We've been playing together since elementary school. We're best friends. There's moments when we're not seeing eye to eye and having brotherly arguments, but, in the end, we're pretty much best friends. We're in it together, we've been doing stuff together for so long. Ironically, a lot of bands I've been into over the years have been sibling bands — the Kinks, I liked Spacehog at some point.
Q: What are your favorite venues to play in Atlanta?
A: We got to open up a show at the Tabernacle one time. That's my favorite place, I love seeing shows there. I love the Variety (Playhouse), I like the Earl.
Q: What was it like spending your musical formative years in North Carolina?
A: Up there, it's like overkill with the bluegrass, jam band stuff, the Grateful Dead kind of (stuff). By the time I graduated high school, I never wanted to see a jam band or bluegrass ever again, but I'm coming back around on that.
Q: You guys recorded your latest album, 2013’s “Floating Out to See,” in Peter’s basement and released it on your own label. What was that like?
A: I liked it a lot. We had more time for experimenting and working on stuff and not feeling the pressure of, "We're in here for a week, we need to crank these songs out." I definitely really enjoyed the process of making the new album and spending more time experimenting. It was just the two of us, pretty much. We wanted to do what we wanted to do.
Q: Are you pretty friendly with other local bands?
A: There's a pretty awesome community in Atlanta. We've toured with the Black Lips. We're in a pickup baseball league with a lot of Atlanta music types called the ATL Sandlot Renegades. We've played pickup games for the past four or five years. I got my arm broken last year, so I've only played a couple of games this year so far.
Q: Your family has roots in the Georgia music scene by way of your grandfather (Ed Mendel), who was inducted into the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame.
A: My mom's dad was from Columbus; he had record shops there. He was Dr. Jive, that was his radio personality, and he promoted shows in Columbus and Atlanta in the '50s and '60s, like Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, that circuit. My grandma's scrapbook is pretty awesome, he's like backstage with Jackie Wilson and he's like shirtless after a show, and it's like, "… Grandma!"
One of the stories my aunt mentioned was something about she got a job as a secretary at a ’60s rock label. James Brown was coming into the lobby as she was leaving and he stopped to say hey to my aunt because he remembered her from my granddad putting on his shows in Columbus and pointed out that her dad was the coolest guy below the Mason-Dixon. He died before me and my brother were born, so we never got the chance to meet him. But we look through that scrapbook a lot.
Q: What are some of your favorite Atlanta memories?
A: I definitely remember going to Fulton County Stadium and seeing the Braves. I also have this super vivid memory of the sidewalks — the hexagons. I also definitely remember getting hit in the face with a golf ball while I was waiting for the bus for school.
Q: You guys are both married but don’t have kids. Have you thought about how that would change the way you travel?
A: We're not ready to settle down completely. For now we're just staying on the side of the pool, maybe dangling a foot in. Traveling around, we've made friends in different cities and see them maybe three times a year and get to be good friends with them. Some of the people we've known the longest, we've seen them go from being boyfriend-girlfriend to, they've got a kid and now they've got two kids, and they're 7 or 8 years old, and you're just like, "That happened fast."
