
Brandon Soder
Eagle-eyed (or -eared) readers might recognize Brothers Brothers as the force behind solo act ppoacher ppoacher—a powerful songwriting force conveying emotive lyricism, freak-folk stylings and sick-ass harp. Bad news first? Brothers says they're leaving Santa Fe before too long. The good news? You can still catch a show or two, starting this Saturday June 1 at Second Street Brewery's Rufina Taproom (7:30 pm. Free. 2920 Rufina St., 954-1068) alongside locals Vonnie Kyle and Laughing Branches.
You've gone in some pretty interesting musical directions with numerous projects. Where are you now, musically speaking?
Right now, I'm just focusing on ppoacher ppoacher, but with an openness to put energy in other places. Nothing's popped up yet, and I'm kind of waiting for something that feels like the right fit, but it feels good to be investing 100% of my energy into ppoacher ppoacher after showing up for other people's stuff for a long time. It felt initially strange to just be doing ppoacher ppoacher, but I think I'm settling in.
What is about ppoacher ppoacher that keeps you coming back or that makes it your main focus?
For a long time I've really wanted to cultivate greater skill in songwriting, and I think I have relative skill, but I really want to be better. I want to be on the same level as my heroes. I wanna listen to my own song and feel like … you know when a song breaks your heart then puts you back together? When it takes you so far out of your comfort zone then brings you back home? I want to write songs like that. I think I'm getting closer, but I don't know if I'll be successfully able to do that for a long time, and I'm OK with that. I'm not feeling so attached to the name ppoacher ppoacher or the aesthetic I've presented up to this point. This is where I've focused the solo music for so long, but it's my commitment to myself and my healing, and what I feel like I have to offer the world is all in incredible reflection and analysis. The place it's easiest to do that musically is through ppoacher ppoacher.
You've studied and traveled pretty extensively in the service of music. What's in the future as far as that stuff goes?
I'm going on a tour for three weeks in July, and the main stopping point is a festival called California World Festival. Then I'm going to keep going west, do the coast; Joshua Tree and Arizona. Recording is really weird for me, because I can't ever decide what's worth capturing or preserving and I have this fear of [releasing music] constantly. … I'm trying to be careful about what I put out there, but [local guitarist] Nathan Smerage and I might get together again and do something. And I'm moving away from town this fall. I'm going back to Arkansas to kind of regroup. I'm totally open about that; I don't know what it means to be a musician in the world we live in right now, and I don't know what it means to be me in the world we live in right now. For a long time those things were stuck together for me, and now I'm seeing them as a little more separate. In my entire time in Santa Fe, it feels like I've spent all my time developing myself in support of music, and I'm grateful to that—but I'm wondering who I am outside of a person who plays music for other people and what more I have to offer the world.