The Bay Area may be the hub of technology, but there is something to be said for face-to-face communication over FaceTime sessions. Citing San Francisco’s many opportunities as well as the ability to be closer to musical partner and cousin Reese Donohue, Painted Palms‘ Chris Prudhomme made the drastic jump from Louisiana to San Francisco just a few months ago.
The collaboration started off on the technological side, with Donohue and Prudhomme emailing each other song ideas. The means of collaboration is a familiar one: other artists featured in the Appeal, like PYYRAMIDS and AM & Shawn Lee, have a similar process. Painted Palms, however, decided that they needed to be closer in proximity, to the point that when Prudhomme first moved to the city, he stayed just upstairs of Donohue.
“I was living upstairs from Reese [Donohue] for the first four months that I was here. It was really easy and so immediate to make music. We’d just talk in person and start working on things that day,” Prudhomme tells the Appeal.
“Having to deal with every aspect of each other was a bigger part of why I moved. It allows us to work faster and be more spontaneous with our time together. Over the course of seeing each other, our ideas have become more similar and we’re able to communicate faster.”
That immediacy gave way to a celebratory EP, the newly released Nothing Lasts Long. Opening with the stomping, clap-happy “Hypnotic”, the record is an incredibly polished effort through and through.
Amazingly, Nothing Lasts Long took just one month to make. Prudhomme has dived head-first into the hustle and bustle of a bigger city than what he’s used to. LSU in Baton Rouge or the suburbs of New Orleans are a far cry from our Bay Area chaos.
The faster pace and change of scenery quickly endeared the city to Prudhomme’s creative side. “San Francisco has a totally different vibe,” Prudhomme says. “It’s way more diverse and there’s a totally different landscape. I’m excited to see more of it.”
Painted Palms will be seeing far more of the SF music scene thanks to this weekend’s mega-packed Phono Del Sol Music and Food Festival. The festival, which takes place this Saturday at Potrero del Sol Park, runs all day and features a host of Bay Area favorites like Thee Oh Sees and K. Flay. Painted Palms are looking forward to throwing their musical hat into the ring when they hit the Potrero Stage at 2:35pm.
“We try to make our shows higher energy and really construct our set and build it over time. Our harmonies are slightly stripped down and we’re doing what we can and taking our time,” Prudhomme says.
“The whole band is really still in the spirit of the new EP. It was just so great to get that out there.”
