Passion Pit biography
Passion Pit is an American electropop band from Cambridge, Massachusetts, formed in 2007. The band consists of Michael Angelakos (lead vocals, keyboards), Ian Hultquist (keyboards, guitar), Ayad Al Adhamy (synthesizer, samples), Jeff Apruzzese (bass, synth bass), and Nate Donmoyer (drums). All of the band members, with the exception of Angelakos, attended Berklee College of Music in Boston.
History
Name
The band culled their name from the Variety Slanguage Dictionary, a glossary of
Varietys frequently-used slang, which was provided by the Hollywood-insider publication to help not-so-savvy readers decipher its content. The magazine used the term to refer to drive-in theatres, because of their privacy and romantic allure for teenagers. The band shares its name with a pornographic film made in the 1980s, starring Traci Lords. Members of the band say they have been asked repeatedly if that film is what inspired their name but they weren't even aware of its existence until the year after their formation.
Formation
The first Passion Pit songs, which would later become the
Chunk of Change EP, were written by Angelakos as a belated Valentine's Day gift to his then-girlfriend. At first, he wrote and performed all his material alone using a laptop. After one of his solo shows in the Boston area, Ian Hultquist, who was attending Berklee at the time, approached Angelakos and expressed interest in creating and playing music collaboratively.
Chunk of Change (2007-2008)
The band's debut EP,
Chunk of Change, was released on September 16, 2008. The first four tracks were those that Angelakos had written as a gift for his girlfriend, which had already become popular throughout the Emerson College campus, where Angelakos was attending classes at the time, and had been passing out his own, self-produced copies. Two tracks, "Sleepyhead" and "Better Things", were added for the commercial release of the EP. The same year of their debut EP's release, the band was chosen as "Best New Local Act in 2008" in the WFNX/
Boston Phoenix best music poll.
The first and only single to be released from the EP, "Sleepyhead", received a good deal of exposure through its use in numerous media campaigns and advertisements, while the video for the song, directed by The Wilderness, was included on Pitchfork's Top 40 Music Videos of 2008 list. The song contains samples of "Óró Mo Bháidín" by Irish singer and harpist Mary O'Hara.
Other songs from the EP received some exposure as well. "Cuddle Fuddle" was featured in E4's second series of The Inbetweeners and "I've Got Your Number" was used in an advertisement for the cash card from O2, Money in the UK.
Manners (2009-2011)
The band's first full-length studio album,
Manners, was released on May 18, 2009 in the UK and May 19, 2009 in the United States and Canada. In celebration, the band played their record release party on the 18th in New York City on a Rocks Off boat cruise. In a preview article, ClashMusic.com commented that the album "has every chance to rank as one of the year's best" and that "it reveals additional nuances with each visit: a sure-fire sign of an album with true longevity".
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