Your Children is Beautiful (great fuckin’ band name) may look like a scraggly bunch of hipsters that make the dirtiest lo-fi garage rock, but you know what they say about books and covers. Instead, you’ll find the sweetest indie pop tunes that wrap you in a surprisingly delicate blanket of sensitivity and song craftsmanship goodness. But don’t worry – it’s not that bland overly sensitive singer-songwriter crap that makes you want to cut yourself to feel something more than absolute boredom. Simply stated (and grammatically incorrect): Your Children is Beautiful’s songs is beautiful. Check out our interview with them below and discover a band that is a good argument for why Northeast Philly might not be that cultural wasteland that you know and dislike.
The Deli: How did the band start?
Your Children is Beautiful: Well, we have all been playing music together in various bands (i.e. 100 ACRES, Seven Twins, Friends and Family) for about 7 or 8 years.
TD: Where did the band name Your Children is Beautiful come from?
YCiB: It is hard to explain. We couldn’t decide on a name for a while, and we played one show under the name GNARNIA which no one was really into… So, we were driving down to our friends’ warehouse to record the song Lightning Bug, and we saw a seemingly sweet lady walking across the Roosevelt Boulevard with a bunch of kids. We were really hyped in the car, probably listening to today’s hip-hop and R&B, and we yelled out to her…Your Children Is Beautiful! Then we just decided that the whole moment and feeling of what had just happened was a suitable name for our music. We also enjoy grammatical errors.
TD: What are your biggest musical influences?
YCiB: We all listen to a ton of different music. We’ll just name drop a bunch of stuff. Caboder, Space Needle, Blink 182, pretty much any 90s garage rock sounding stuff, Stevie Ray Vaughan, MGMT, Black Flag, Broken Social Scene, The Beach Boys, Ariel Pink, Katy Perry, I don’t know. We listen to Hardcore too… It’s more about the feelings that we get from music than the actual music itself.
TD: What artists (local, national and/or international) are you currently listening to?
YCiB: Caboder, Kanye West, Mew, Agitator, Saves the Day, Buddy Holly, Broken Social Scene, The Cure, Ugh God.
TD: What’s the first concert that you ever attended and first album that you ever bought?
YCiB: Albums: Blink 182 – Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, Outkast – Speakerboxxx/The Love Below; Concerts: Creed (with my Dad *no shame*), One:21
TD: What do you love about Philly?
YCiB: We love Northeast Philly, WAWA, $4.63 PALL MALLS, awesome friends, the fact that we have lived here forever, the Phillies, $5 movies on weekdays at Franklin Mills Mall, Steve’s Prince of Steaks, Five Guys, basement shows are fun, graffiti, the 76ers when they had Iverson and they were good, and bands that are amazing but never get any recognition.
TD: What do you hate about Philly?
YCiB: We hate the accent (even though we kind of have it), aggressive drivers, the 58 and the 22 bus, The Greater Northeast, middle-aged men, Mayfair, getting robbed/mugged, cops, and bands that are amazing but never get any recognition.
TD: What are your plans for 2011?
YCiB: We’re touring East Coast-ish starting january 2nd. Releasing a full-length, hopefully.
TD: What was your most memorable live show?
YCiB: The show was at "Castle Gay" with Mega Bog, Christmas, and one of Hermit Thrushes projects I don’t know what they called it… It was really fun and it was one of our first shows.
TD: What’s your favorite thing to get at the deli?
YCiB: Tuna hoagie with mad stuff on it.
– The Deli Staff