This interview is from the November 9th, 2024 live studio session with Pullstring, interviewer is KURE’s Live Director Joseph Diehl.
*Due to length, the band’s responses are listed collectively under “Pullstring” unless individual answers are necessary for legibility reasons
Listen to Pullstring’s live-in-studio session on air on 3/11/2025 and 3/13/2025 at 5pm!
Joseph: All right, you’re listening to 88.5 KURE Ames Alternative. Today is November 9th, 2024 and I’m here live in the studio with Pullstring. Can you guys introduce yourselves and what instrument each of you play?
Toke: What’s up KURE? This is Toke (Josh) from Pullstring. I’m a guitarist and manager.
Alex: I’m Alex. I do lead vocals and guitar.
Eric: I’m Eric. I do background vocals and bass.
Will: And I’m Will, and I hit the things with the sticks.
Joseph: If I’m correct, the last time you guys were here was in March?
Pullstring: Yeah, yeah. We did an acoustic session.
Joseph: So, what’s the band been up to? I know you guys got an album out and you guys are in the middle of a tour right now. How’s that been going for you guys?
Pullstring: Yes, it’s been fun. It’s been a strange tour, I’ll say that. Our first night was in Rochester, Minnesota and the venue lost power. Actually, all of downtown Rochester lost power. So we were just hanging out, vibing with people for a while, and then the show was cancelled. It’ll be rescheduled though. Then last night in Omaha, really good vibes. We were just happy to play.
Joseph: You guys are in the middle of it right now, right? So do you have a favorite show that you’ve done so far?
Pullstring: Well, our hometown show is probably our favorite because that was like the big album release party. All our friends and family were there, big crowd. It was a good time, it went nuts. Looking forward to tonight, too. Ames always goes crazy.I don’t know what it is about Iowa. Y’all just go hard down here.
Joseph: It’s because we don’t got much going on. We gotta take what we can get.
Pullstring: We love coming down here. It’s always a blast.
Joseph: You guys have played both the M Shop and the A-Hole. Do you have a preference between the two?
Pullstring: I mean, they both got their vibes. They’re both a little different, but they’re both a blast. A-Hole’s definitely rowdier, it’s always insane. M Shop is really fun though, last time we played there it was for KURE Fest. That’s the only other time we played it. I loved how loud they were running the subwoofers, like the stage rumbled with every kick drum hit, it was beautiful.
Joseph: Yeah, it’ll be interesting tonight because after this interview airs, we’re gonna multi-track record your set tonight and have that aired. Is that something you guys have ever done before?
Pullstring: Not in this format, if I recall. That’ll be cool.
Joseph: We’ll see how that turns out. I think it’s gonna be a really good time. I’m expecting quality out of our production director, and I’m sure she’ll deliver. I gotta ask, so how did each of you guys meet and how did the band get started?
Pullstring: The backrooms of the internet, pretty much. Craigslist is a wild place.
Joseph: Am I looking at a Craigslist band here?
Pullstring: Partially. That’s how we found our drummer Will over there. He responded to our hot ads. He’s like, “This sounds kind of fun. Sounds kind of hot. I think I’ll try out for it. See what happens.” and he’s been with us thus far. Alex and Josh kind of started it, well Josh started it and got Alex involved. They were kind of the foundation of the band.
Toke: I once got him through his girlfriend. I slid into their DMs, they came over at my place, we hung out in my basement. That’s literally how we met.
Alex: I had a clip of a song that I was working on that my girlfriend put on her story and she knew Josh from something else years ago. Then he liked the song a bit and he was like, “Yo, like, who’s this dude? Is he looking for a band?”
Toke: It’s a good song. It’s called “20 Something”, it’s a single that’s out now, it’s a milestone song for sure.
Alex: Anyway, so somehow I ended up here and then we were cooking for a while. We had some other drummers and bass players. Then, Will responded to that Craigslist ad when we were between drummers and he’s been here for a year and a half.
Toke: Will dragged Eric, the bass player, into this, he’s number 7. That’s been the running joke, onto number 8 soon.
Eric: Will and I met in college and have been making music ever since we met and then, we were talking and Will goes, “Hey, I joined this band, and they’re flippin’ awesome.” That’s a direct quote, by the way.
Will: Then, they actually needed a fill in for like a little weekender that we did. So my first ever show with Pullstring was here in Ames at the A-Hole.
Toke: Actually, back it up, it was here in KURE Studios. We had the full band session here. That was October last year.
Will: So that was the first time I ever played in a live setting playing for other people, first time I ever played any Pullstring songs, which is kind of crazy. It just so happened to work out that I could join full time and it was a pretty easy yes for me.
Toke: Yeah, we’ve been stuck with him ever since.
Alex: And he can sing even higher than me, so I get to be lazy with the high parts in songs. It’s great. He plugs his nose and talks like this.
Joseph: Where did you guys come up with the name for the band?
Pullstring: We had a lot of names running and we couldn’t quite find anything we liked. So my girlfriend and I were just chilling in our living room and she looked up at our ceiling fan that had one of those old school, like, pull strings on it to turn the fan on and the light on. So she looked at it and she was like, what about Pullstring? And I was like, you know, not bad.
Joseph: You guys have been running with it well. The new album you got, Pull It, which clearly just uses words from the name. When it comes to that new album and it comes to your songwriting process, would you say it’s kind of a collaborative effort among the band? Or is one person the lead songwriter?
Pullstring: It’s been developing for sure. Historically, it’s mostly been like either I’ll (Alex) write something or Josh will write something, but as we’ve gone forward we’re moving into a more collaborative approach. The songs “Pull It” and “Spring Is Here” are kind of my favorite examples of how they started. I started writing “Spring Is Here”, but then they brought something completely unique to it. “Pull It” was Josh’s riff that we then kind of reworked and added a new bridge to, it became better as a result of all of our input, you know. We’re learning to become much more collaborative as we finally have a, knock on wood, steady core lineup. As we dive into our next project in the near future, I think things will be even more collaborative, keep it cooking.
Joseph: Do you guys have a favorite song to perform live?
Pullstring: I think we each might have one. We’ll just go down the line.
Eric: It’s probably “Bring On Tomorrow” for me right now. It changes, but it’s probably “Bring On Tomorrow”. I just love the baseline that I ended up coming up with.
Alex: Your harmony in that one is awesome too.
Eric: I love that. I love that song, it’s pretty bouncy and it’s fun to play.
Alex: “Pull It” always gets me going. We do that one earlier in the set and that’s the one that just kind of settles me in and gets me pumped for the show.
Toke: It’s a good riff on that one. I don’t know if I had to pick one, a lot of these songs we’ve been playing for a while but I’ve been a fan of “Nowhere’s My Home”. Just a fun all around song. It’s got a great solo on it. I’m a little biased because it has a good lead guitar on it in my opinion.
Will: I would say, those are all good songs. I also really like the song “When It Began”. It’s usually towards the end of our set. That’s a lot of fun because you don’t have to leave anything in the tank. You can just kind of give it everything you got, and we had a sweet guitar solo at the end. It’s always just a really fun way to end a show.
Joseph: You guys are from Minneapolis, right? But, like you’ve mentioned, you have performed a lot down here. Can you give me an example of a favorite memory or show from up north and then your favorite show you’ve done down here?
Pullstring: So, one of our favorites is right after Eric officially joined the band, we did a little weekender where we did May 3rd and 4th. The 3rd was at the A-Hole in Ames, then May 4th was at a house show back home called the Como Backdoor. In the Ames, the A-Hole always goes crazy. So, a really fun show to kick it off. Then back home, it was May 4th, so we all dressed up as Star Wars characters. May the 4th be with you. Eric was a Stormtrooper, Alex was in a Chewbacca suit that he wanted to die in by the end of the set, tore it off after like half, I think. Toke was Princess Leia, of course. Was Will the Live Long and Prosper guy? Oh wait, is that the wrong movie? I don’t know. Will had a Jedi robe that he wore for like a song or two.
Joseph: Do you guys typically like to dress up for your shows? The first time I saw you guys was the Halloween show at the A-Hole when you guys were Scooby Doo.
That was my favorite show, I think to date. That might be one of my favorite Pullstring shows I’ve ever been a part of. That was a fun show.
Joseph: It was, I was right in the front for your guys’ set and that was a good show.
Pullstring: Yeah, we don’t always dress up, it’s not a thing that we normally do, but when we have a good excuse to do it like Halloween or May 4th, we’ll go for it. We like having themes for our shows. ‘Cause it just makes it a little bit more interesting. Tie things together somehow, whether that be like May the 4th for Star Wars or Halloween. You think Halloween is one of our favorite holidays? You know, I know it’s Will’s, this dude builds his own Halloween decorations. He said “No shows on Halloween”. What if we get the biggest show of our life? He’s like “No, can’t do it, I’m scaring the crap out of trick-or-treaters.” He showed us how he builds these crawling robots and stuff, it’s crazy.
Joseph: Alex, you mentioned your favorite show up north, do you guys agree with him on that?
Or do you guys have your own?
Toke: That’s a pretty solid one, I think. I mean, the recent album release show at the Green Room was crazy as well. That one might take the cake for me just because I think it was a huge step for us. It was our biggest headlining show to date. As for down here, I think the first time we played A-Hole was my favorite, just because we didn’t know what to expect. We rolled in on a snowstorm too. I remember the folks who run the A-Hole, they were a little nervous. It’s almost showtime, nobody’s here yet. But then, you know, the fine folk of Ames, Iowa, they packed the place up and absolutely went balls to the wall. I’m pretty sure it paid for our whole weekend that weekend.
Alex: It was the last day of our first Midwest tour so it was a great way to end the whole thing.
Joseph: Then you probably had an awesome drive back after that snowstorm.
Pullstring: Yeah, got Hickory Park barbecue and then drove home. We go there a lot. I swear we’re there every time we’re in town, it’s become a tradition since then. It’s not amazing but it’s just kind of a fun time. It’s pretty good, I love Hickory Park. You got Hickory Park or you got like McDonald’s. Shout out to Mr. Burrito, That’s my favorite spot. I do love the Superdog stand by the bars.
Joseph: Mr. Burrito’s dangerous because I lived in this building last year and it’s literally just across the street and it’s open ‘til two on the weekends. It was evil.
Toke: Will’s going there after our show later too. Many burritos have been consumed after shows here. If it tells you anything about this band, I don’t even remember what the question was and we’re already talking about burritos. So that’s just kind of how this band came to be. Will’s been talking about it for the past two days, “I’m going to Mr. Burrito after our M- Shop show.”, like we were eating a burrito yesterday in Omaha and he was talking about Mr. Burrito here. It’s like his long lost girlfriend.
Joseph: I asked earlier about songwriting, are there any like key artists or other bands that you guys draw inspiration from when it comes to songwriting?
Pullstring: We love the Gin Blossoms. Those guys are so brilliant. It’s almost like we get a lot of comparisons with them. It’s an ongoing joke, the Gin Blossoms were a band we had never heard of, and then people kept saying we sound like them. And then we listened to ’em and we were like, “Oh, holy cow. We do sound like them. Okay.” Check them out. But the common core for the band is Green Day. Green Day and a lot of other 90s and 2000s rock artists. I mean, Nirvana, Foo Fighters. These guys love Blink 182, I just can’t stand them. We also like a lot of the classic Minneapolis bands. Bands like The Replacements and Hoosker Do. Soul Asylum. Those are big, big bands for us, especially coming from Minneapolis. We get a lot of comparisons to them these days, too. Which granted, we play a lot of Replacements and Hoosker Do songs, so it makes sense. I think Eric is probably one of the only emo kids in the band, Eric is our resident emo. He’s just hanging out. He has a little emo kind of easter egg on the record and if you can tell him where it is, he will play it and personally buy you a Pullstring t-shirt. It’s so funny, unless we get sued.
Joseph: Seems like you’d fit very well down here in Ames. It seems like the majority of the scene here in Ames is just emo.
Eric: Yeah, we kind of got that vibe when we came down the first time. I was like, I’m right at home here. This is great.
Toke: It’s called Midwest Emo for a reason.
Joseph: You go to the A-Hole and any other band you’re going to be hearing Midwest Emo. On tour right now, I got to ask, do you guys ever struggle with stage fright? It seems like you guys perform like quite a lot, so is it something that kind of comes natural to you now? Or do you still kind of have to psych yourself up?
Pullstring: We used to struggle with that in the earlier days. We’ve done so many gigs now that the worst part now is just waiting to play. Like yesterday, we loaded into the venue and then we just had two hours of downtime just kind of sitting around, standing around. So it’s like, waiting sucks. But then as soon as we’re ready to go, it’s like, “Let’s go, I’m ready.”, you’re kind of giddy almost. I just hook up my stuff and get ready to roll. I think the worst part about playing shows to me is like, interacting with people. fellow humans afterwards or beforehand. Like, when I can be up on the stage, there’s some sort of separation, between you and the crowd. Nothing against the crowd. I love the crowd. Bring the crowd, baby. But, it’s just, I don’t know. There’s a little bit of separation there, but where, to the point where I can still be myself, but also, you know. I don’t have to interact with anybody, necessarily. Part of it is, before shows, it’s fun to socialize with other bands and stuff, but at least me personally, I like having some time to kind of get in the zone. I heard Iggy Pop describe it one time, where he was like, before the show, he was talking to someone. He was like, “If before a show, if I’m grumpy with you or anything, it’s because I’m getting ready for war. I’m getting ready to go into battle.” I was thinking it’s best to talk to us after the show. Because it’s done, you know, we’re coming off the energy and you know, we want to talk to people. Meet the people. That’s why I almost always say, come talk to us after, we’ll be hanging by the merch booth if there is one.
Joseph: Do you guys have any advice for younger up and coming musicians on getting started or are kind of struggling to get their own act together and come into their own sound?
Pullstring: Just play, practice. The biggest piece of advice though when you’re choosing band members is don’t choose the first people that are available to you. Choose your best friends or people that you think can become your best friends. Take it from me, I have to sit with these guys in a van for hours at a time. Take them to a Mexican restaurant and make sure they don’t blow up first. We’re gonna be sitting burritos, we’re eating and we’re chilling in the van. The big thing that I see in a lot of people is they want to wait until the band is perfect or the song is perfect. Then, just nothing ends up getting released and the project dies. Like the most important bedroom warrior at that point. The most important thing is just to go play a show, go hit up your friend’s band that’s been playing and see if you can play 20 minutes in an open forum. For me, it’s being consistent, you’re not gonna get all in one day. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Then, just trying to be a part of the community too. That’s how you’re gonna meet fellow musicians, fellow people who are passionate about the scene. There are tons of people back in Minneapolis, here in Ames, that are just there for the music, they’re inspired, and they just want to learn and have a good time. That’s what it’s all about at the end, is just having fun. For your first show, you know, hitting up venues is not a great way to go about it. Because they’re gonna see, you’ve never played a show before and you gotta get more experience. But if you find your friends that are playing, or if you befriend people you know like going to shows or whatever, you’re much more likely to get invited or ask for an opening slot rather than you are just cold emailing a venue. Kind of related, we have a photographer with us on tour for the first time ever. You know how we met him? He said hi to us at a basement in Minneapolis. We’ve just become homies since. And now he’s just, you know, along for the ride, badgering the heck out of our bassist, number 7. And, it’s fun, shout out to Big L. If your town has a DIY thing, a DIY scene going on, get involved with that. Go to basement shows, they’re easier to get into if you’re a new band. The people are generally more receptive as well, like people going out to the shows. And they’re there for the music, not for anything else. Like playing bars, it can be a lot of fun, but a lot of people are there just to drink. You go to a basement show or something, people are there for the music and the experience. Even if it’s not their kind of music particularly, if you give them a good experience, they’ll still remember that and they’ll come back. If you want a local example, look at the A-Hole here in town. They’ve built an awesome DIY music community here, and that’s a great way to start if you’re local to Ames.
Joseph: When you talk about collaborators, are there any particular bands, it could be here, it could be up north, that you’d really like to play with?
Pullstring: I was gonna say Display Case, because we’re playing with them tonight, they’re awesome. They’re a lot heavier than us, but the energy is so good. They just played at a show in Minneapolis where we weren’t on the bill, but Eric and I just went to go see ’em ’cause we liked their music, you know what I mean? Another one from the Ames, Des Moines area, Look At Me, we’ve played with them a couple of times now. The singer just got married, congrats if she hears this somehow. Then there’s a million Minneapolis bands we could mention. Oh, and another one from Wisconsin, there’s a band called Mother Wind. We’re really good friends with them. Mom Fart’s pretty cool, call themselves Mom Fart. But they’re really good, kind of like hard rock, but kind of indie still too. They’re very riffy, those guys are awesome. Some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. Also, shout out to Vehicle Dynamics. They played a cover of a Hum song at the A-Hole last time.
