Photo Credit: Mark Dawursk
Do long-time friends and musical collaborators ever really have to explain why they’re getting the band back together? On this past New Year’s Eve, guitarist Chris Rosenau, bassist Matt Tennessen and drummer Jon Mueller took to the stage once again as Pele, supporting the recently reunited American Football at the Bottom Lounge in Chicago. After being contacted by the band and Polyvinyl Records (the label both acts shared) to see if Pele would be interested in playing the one-off show, Rosenau realized that “everything seemed to align—schedule-wise, personally.” After more than 10 years of inactivity, Pele was once again a band—if only for one night.
Yet one-off shows can conjure up some powerful emotions. On Saturday, April 18, the band will play a second reunion show, this time at Milwaukee’s Cactus Club. Even though Rosenau admits that it’s “hard to describe why we decided to revisit this [band] now,” it’s apparent that, despite his recent success in acts like Collections of Colonies of Beesand Volcano Choir, Pele remains a point of both pride and happiness in his life. “We didn’t revisit Pele because of some new surge in popularity,” explains Rosenau. “We revisited it because it seemed like the right time personally to revisit music we really enjoy and value as a great time in our lives.”
Despite such comments, the current musical climate may prove rather hospitable to Pele. The band’s initial run from 1997-2004 coincided with a strange moment in music history. The Internet had yet to fully break down pesky genre boundaries, making for a world where divisions between genres were deep. In many ways, Pele’s brand of genre-defying post-rock— what Rosenau humbly refers to as “fun, instrumental rock ’n’ roll music”—makes more sense in 2015 than it did in 1998. It’s not a coincidence that Justin Vernon turned to both Rosenau and Mueller when he was putting together the lineup for Volcano Choir. Pele’s dizzying mix of indie, electronica and jazz was nothing if not ahead of the curve.
And current music fans will get a chance to revisit one of the band’s seminal albums. Polyvinyl will be reissuing Pele’s third album, Elephant (1999), on the same day as the Cactus Club show, which also happens to be Record Store Day. Usefully, Elephant serves as a strong entry point into the band’s catalog. Tracks such as math-rock inspired “Egg” and the jazz-infused “Pickled Pear” highlight just how far the band could stretch. It will be a treat to hear such songs in a live setting once again.
Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any new Pele material, or even any more shows for the act on the horizon. As Rosenau puts it, “The idea was never to start ‘playing as Pele’ again. The idea was to revisit some of this amazing music from one of the most amazing times in our lives.” From such statements, it becomes quite clear that Pele played a profound role in the musical evolution of all involved. Indeed, Rosenau concludes by stressing that performing with Pele played “a huge role in forming how we are musicians, and humans, today.” Think what you will about reunions, but that seems like a history worth celebrating. Thankfully, we are all invited to watch the celebration.
Pele perform at the Cactus Club on Saturday, April 18 with Golden Donna at 9:30 p.m.
