...And Then There Was Noise: An Interview With Noise Pop Founder Kevin Arnold

For those of you who aren't caught up on pop and rock music festivals of this year, you should know that one of the best and most expansive is packing the music venues of San Francisco as I write this (Feb. 28). The festival I speak of is Noise Pop, a celebration of the best bands on the periphery of Rolling Stone and MTV today, shining a spotlight on bands that would become household names, such as Death Cab For Cutie, The White Stripes, Jimmy Eat World, and, most recently, Wolfmother.

Today, the festival includes art exhibitions, a film festival, and comedians such as Brian Posehn and Patton Oswalt, and claims 6 days and the stages of 15 venues. When it first started, however, Noise Pop was just a concert put on one night in 1993 at an inconspicuous music joint, due to the enterprising of one Kevin Arnold. Arnold has organized and managed the festival since that first night, and considering what Noise Pop has become, I was eager to hear what he had to say about the fortuitous history of Noise Pop and what he sees for the future:

(Q): Thanks for being able to converse. I'm actually amazed that you could get a chance to talk right now (this interview was conducted 6 hours before the opening night of Noise Pop). How are things going so far?
Kevin Arnold: So far, so good. During the recent days and weeks, things have been getting pretty hectic in terms of organizing, but right now the situation's relaxed itself a little bit. Right now it's sort of the calm before the storm, though, 'cause business is going to get even crazier than it was before really soon.

(Q): Well how about going back in time a bit- what gave you the idea for the first Noise Pop in 1993, and what made you decide to make it an annual festival?
KA: The first show just came about with an opening slot that I had one night at a club in San Francisco. I'd been booking bands and shows around the Bay Area, which I'd started doing for shows at UC Berkeley as a student, and I had that one night booked at the club, so I got some bands together that had established themselves locally and set them up to play that night.
I never really decided on making the festival an annual thing. It just turned out that a lot of people really dug the first show, so I decided to do the next one in 1994, and things just took off from there.

(Q): Have you ever thought about taking Noise Pop outside of San Francisco in the future?
KA: I wouldn't rule it out, but at this point I don't know whether or not that's gonna happen. We had festivals in Chicago in 2000 and 2001, and that was really cool because I have roots there, and I'd be interested in maybe doing a tour...

(Q): Speaking of Chicago, what was it like organizing shows there those two years?
KA: Well, in 2000, we were able to make the move to Chicago with a relative amount of ease because the dot-com boom was happening around that time, so we had loads of sponsorship. Pretty soon, a significant amount of start-ups began to lose interest, though and we were coordinating Noise Pop Chicago in San Francisco, so in 2002 we decided to concentrate all of our efforts in San Francisco again, and that's been working really well for us ever since.

(Q): With the way the festival is set up right now, there are Noise Pop shows and venues spread out all over the SF Bay Area. Have you ever thought about consolidating the shows and having a huge one-day festival in a larger venue, like an amphitheater or arena?
KA: I've considered it before, and I can't rule anything out, but if we did put Noise Pop into a much larger venue we'd do it in some unconventional way- not in an arena.

(Q): Are there any specific goals that you set out to accomplish this year with the 2007 edition?
KA: The fact that it's the 15th anniversary makes it pretty special, and we're trying to celebrate appropriately this year, but there aren't any particulars in terms of goals or themes. We've been trying to expand the film festival though, and I'm happy with how that's turning out.

(Q): Do you have a favorite Noise Pop moment or show?
KA: I've been to tons of shows over the years, so it's hard to really pin down one particular moment. There have been times when I've really been happy about getting a musical hero to play, like Bob Mould or the Flaming Lips, but I can't give you one show in particular that was my favorite.

(Q): One show that stands out this year, in my mind, is the Lyrics Born & Coup show at the Fillmore (the reknowned San Francisco music hall). Does this suggest that Noise Pop is going to have more of a hip-hop element in the future?
KA: We've had hip-hop shows before, with artists like Sage Francis, so it's not like hip-hop is some alien genre to us, but we're not trying to take Noise Pop in a hip-hop direction or anything. We just try to stay open-minded and put bands on the bill that we think people will like, simple as that.

(Q): Take us through the process, that a band has to go through to get a slot on the Noise Pop bill. What's that like?
KA: Well, that varies a lot, as some bands are a lot "bigger" than others. Sometimes more well-known bands will play here as a stop on a tour, sometimes they'll fly out, but then there are also a lot of local bands that play, although I wouldn't suggest trying to make Noise Pop the first show for a brand new local band. In terms of the local artists, though, we pick ones that we like and ones that are locally known, and hopefully they'll benefit from the exposure and work their way up the lineups over the years, like the bands Film School and Rogue Wave did.

(Q): This year's festival is about to start tonight and ends on Sunday- what are the next 6 days going to be like for you?
KA: I'll just sit at home and watch TV (laughs). No, I'm going to be running around like a madman trying to catch as many shows as I can. I might stop and catch a lot of some shows with bands that I really like, but I try to get around to all of the venues and make sure that things are running smoothly with the venue's staff and stuff like that. But yeah, these next 6 days are going to be exhausting.

-- Ross Moody (Photo: Lyrics Born, one of the highlight performers of Noise Pop 2007)