Before I reviewed Idiot Glee’s album release show for BestNewBands.com a couple weeks ago, I walked and talked with the man behind the glee, James Friley, from Glasslands and down the street on the way to Academy Records, where he was dropping up some copies of his newly pressed LP, Paddywhack. In our roving interview, Friley entertained my questions on his new album, his pop song sensibilities, his contributions to the local music scene in his hometown of Lexington, KY, and more.

Kelly Knapp: Tell me about your new album, Paddywhack.

James Friley: Oh, where to start? It wasn’t really recorded all at once, so it’s almost like a Greatest Hits, because I’ve had all these little things come out in the last year and a half.

KK: You’ve had a few 7”s…

JF: Yeah, 7”s, tapes, and CDRs I’ve made and stuff. There’s a couple of new things on there.

KK: Have you been already touring in support of that?

JF: Pretty much. I wanted to make sure I got in New York and Chicago right around the time it came out, because I’ve played these places a lot.

KK: So you kind of already have a fan base here.

JF: A little bit. It still feels like just a handful of friends in each place, but that’s more than most other cities here in the states.

KK: Yeah, I guess I probably wouldn’t have known about you yet if I lived in FL (ha).

JF: (laughs) Yeah it’s a little easier to find stuff in New York. But…yeah, I’m doing like 10 days right now, and then I’ll do a bunch of touring later in the year. I just finally got a US booking agent, so she’ll take care of that. It’s really hard to do it yourself, which is what I’ve been doing for a while.

KK: Do you have a certain song off the album that’s your favorite to play live, or that you feel like gets the best crowd response?

JF: “Don’t Go Out Tonight.” Right? (he turns to ask one of his friends walking with us) “Don’t Go Out Tonight” is my favorite live. It’s the best one live.

KK: Why is that?

JF: Because it’s the best song on the album.

KK: What makes it the best song?

JF: I don’t know, it’s just my favorite thing I’ve written. It’s like a song. I like “Deep Descent” a lot, but it’s just kind of like this noisy ruckus; not a song, really. It’s not as easy to do live, and sound quite as good. That’s probably my second favorite.

KK: What do you think makes a perfect pop song? What do you strive to do in all your songs?

JF: Basically whatever feels good, and doesn’t sound too boring, and makes me tingle inside. I don’t really know about a certain formula or anything. I guess I just play it by ear. No pun intended.

KK: Haha! And you also own a record company or label, Hop Hop?

JF: Hop Hop is a label, and just kind of got started. We have two 7”s, one LP, one CD. We have like four things right now, but we are a record label, I guess.

KK: What’s that like playing both roles? Being an artist and having a label to run? Do those two things ever interfere with each other?

JF: Well, it’s time consuming, yes. I do really like doing the label because I feel like there’s a lot of good music in Lexington, and most of the people aren’t going to put a lot of effort into putting the music out themselves, because they don’t really care that much, they just like playing music a lot. So I’m gonna take it and show as many people as I can. I like that a lot, but it’s kind of turning into too much to handle by myself.

KK: Are there any bands in particular right now that you feel like really deserve recognition?

JF: In Lexington there’s a couple right now. Probably the most popular dude is Matt Duncan. He’s got a six-piece band. Then there’s this other brand new band called Attempt. He’s been doing it solo for years, but he just got a full band. They just played their first show, and it was amazing. I’m gonna be hyping that or whatever, telling everybody to listen to that. It’s really good pop. And there’s a bunch of really good punk and grunge, and everything in between.

KK: So the scene in Lexington is pretty varied?

JF: Yeah, there’s not a ton of bands…well, maybe there are, I don’t know. There are definitely 10 or 15 that I feel like people should know about. Special, really good. Kind of incestuous too, but I think every city’s like that.

KK: Yeah, everyone always has like four different bands that they’re in.

KK: So where are you headed after this on tour?

JF: I have two days off here, which is cool.

KK: So you can kind of just explore the city.

JF: Yeah, just hang out. I’m going to Toronto on Saturday, then I have six or seven shows, all mid-west – Chicago, Bloomington, Cleveland, Columbus.

KK: What’s your biggest goal right now for Idiot Glee?

JF: It’d be cool if I could finish paying off my credit card debt, and then continue to pay bills and stuff with just music. I’m working part time at a restaurant trying to do all that, and if I could just quit that and only do music, for a while at least, that’d be great.

Here’s a jam I caught on my camera later that night:

As of now, it looks like Idiot Glee has one remaining tour date in Ontario, Canada, but his myriad of releases are available on bandcamp for your listening pleasure