Phat Phunktion is a renowned nine-piece Madison funk band. On the eve of their 10th anniversary they will be heading to Japan, where they have sold over 10,000 copies of their latest release. Phat Phunktion will be playing at the Barrymore Theatre Friday night as part of the annual Madison All-Stars series, which features four other local bands. The Daily Cardinal recently spoke with PP singer and keyboardist Tim Whalen.
Daily Cardinal: What brought about your trip to Japan?
Tim Whalen: Well, our latest is called 'You and Me.' It was signed by a label and came out March 2004 ... the Japanese label that works with this label started selling it kind of unofficially. ... Right away we said if it ever would be possible, we would love to come over there ... and they said, well you would have to be invited by the promoter. They have to see if it would be worth it to bring you over here. In early December we had sold over like 10,000 copies of our CD, which is really good with no promotion, so they were really excited. ... I think the hope on both sides is that this will become something we'll do hopefully semi-regularly. They are really excited to have us, which is really cool, and we're excited to go.
DC Being in Madison for so long, what has surprised you about receiving international attention?
TW: I think for us maybe it's in a way, its been like ten years of work, so I don't know if it's like we're surprised by it, but I think that it feels that it's a payoff, which is a cool kind of a gift, I guess, for a lot of work. We are definitely surprised by the whole Japanese thing. ... Al [lead singer] just got an e-mail from this guy, 'Someone brought in your CD and everyone here thinks your like better than Tower of Power,' so that's kind of weird because they're why we started the band, so we would never consider ourselves better than Tower of Power. But just hearing somebody say that is kind of funny.
DC: Do you hope with a greater international presence, you will have a door-opening effect stateside?
TW: Yep, possibly, though I'm starting to think that the two are totally independent of each other. I'm not really sure how. I don't know, touring in America in this day and age, it's not easy, especially for a nine-piece band. ... I don't know. A lot of times I feel that success is very independent because we could maybe go to Spain and sell out some clubs and come back here and nobody would have any idea.
DC: How would you like to become better known?
TW: I think the best way for us is to play festivals. ... I think we've always been a grassroots kind of band. We're never going to be a band on the radio, I just don't think we will ... as much as I think we should be ... we don't have the money or the posse of lawyers but I don't think we would like that; the more people involved, the less we own. So I would rather do it through college radio and playing shows and distributing live recordings.
DC: You guys played quite a bit at Luther's Blues, and they've recently closed down. What are your thoughts?
TW: That place was a total shame, because we saw it decline ... from the first show, almost every show we did there was sold out. So it was a great energy there. When that place was full, it was such a great place to play. ... Then we played in October [2004], and by that time the new ownership had come in and it was like a disaster. ... He was a total asshole. ... It just turned into this real disorganized-like clusterfuck, basically. All the Luther Allison stuff was gone. All these cheesy liquor ads that like have like slutty women humping a bottle were like all over the walls and stuff.
It was just a real shame, and just to see a place like that that was so great just get run into the ground by some guy that didn't care about anything. He didn't care about the club, about traditions, didn't know anything about Madison and just came in there and ruined a great thing. Thank God the High Noon [Saloon] opened. That's a great place. But Luther's ended up closing five months after we played that gig, so it was a fast decline. And I think a lot of people feel the way I do, that a lot of people got screwed over.
DC: What makes you and your band want to be in Madison?
TW: It's where we started. It's a good place to base out of. It's near a lot of other cities. It's an easy place to live. I just think that the city lends itself to easy living. It's comfortable, you can save money and live cheaply if you have to. We're making enough [out on the road] to pay rent and you can do that in Madison and still maintain a livable life, which is great.
