Matt Mondanile is late and getting later for our 11 a.m. interview.
Three hours pass by and finally he’s on the phone admitting that he
slept until noon. He sounds pleased.
“We’ve been touring Europe and the U.S. for the past couple of
months and we get no sleep at all. Very little sleep,” he says.
So,
his tardiness is forgiven, especially as the band is back on the road to
no sleep this month with some East Coast dates. After reuniting with
erstwhile touring mates Girls in New York, Real Estate embark on a
headlining stint from Boston onward.
“We’re playing bigger halls, I
believe. We don’t pay attention to it much, but it’s nice,” he says. “We
are happy. It’s nice that people come to our shows and stuff.”
The
“and stuff” part includes Real Estate landing on a lot of “best of”
lists from high-profile music mags and websites — “Pitchfork,” “Uncut,”
“Q” — with their shimmering psych pop second album “Days,” released in
October.
“I saw it on NPR’s [site] today too,” adds Mondanile. “We’re
happy about the lists. But I feel that anybody who put out a record in
January or February doesn’t make the lists. No one can remember them.”
Lists,
we conclude, are often spurious. Take Rolling Stone’s recent Top 100
Guitarists Of All Time, which had the late Pantera guitarist Dimebag
Darrell above Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth.
“Yeah, I saw that,” the
26-year-old Mondanile says. “How do they come up with that? I’m sure
their managers argue, ‘No, he’s got to be No. 6!’ It seems a bit
meaningless.”
Nepotism rules
Mondanile tells us his Top 2011 albums: “No. 1 is our friends from New Jersey, Big Trouble. It’s called ‘Romantic Comedy.’ It’s shoegaze-y pop, really good. Also, I really like the Girls album. And this album by Oneohtrix Point Ne-ver, ‘Replica.’ It’s electronic. … Yeah, they’re all friends.”
