Allston Pudding caught up with Brandon Schwartzel of the nearly-infamous L.A. punk band FIDLAR (Fuck It Dog, tadalafil Life’s A Risk) just days before the biggest leap of their already impressive career– Wednesday marks their first show opening for Pixies in Toronto, viagra order and the act is making its way down to Boston this Saturday at The Orpheum. A former bassist for Rooney and bassist for FIDLAR since their beginnings in 2009, born and bred Californian Schwartzel talks his favorite music, not knowing what to say to Pixies, and his would-be career as a magician.

Allston Pudding: Are you stoked to start touring?

Brandon: We’re actually at home right now– this is our last day in L.A., our first show is Wednesday.

AP: Is it weird to be home and catch your breath?

Brandon: Yeah, we’ve been home since the end of our last tour at the beginning of November. This is the longest we’ve been home in a few years. It’s definitely been nice, but we’re really fucking excited to go on tour with The Pixies. We cut our break short, it’s a dream come true. I’m really nervous, but excited.

AP: Have you guys met Pixies yet?

Brandon: No, not yet! I guess we’re gonna meet them at the first show we play with them, which is kind of weird.

AP: Do you have an opening line planned?

Brandon: I don’t know. “Hello, Pixies, my name is Brandon.” I need to have note cards.

AP: It’s like speed dating. Preparation is key. I first saw you in Boston in 2012 while you were touring with The Hives, so this isn’t the first big band you’ve toured with. After finishing your first big headlining tour with The Orwells, how would you compare being the headliner to being the opener?

Brandon: It’s kind of exciting to open again. We did a lot of opening shows, The Hives show, and two or three other tours where we were opening for bands, and the main difference is it’s not your show. You kind of have to play by the rules of the band that you’re touring with. The nice thing about headlining shows is that you can do whatever you want, everyone’s there to see you.

AP: You’ve already won by them being there!

Brandon: Which is kind of less intimidating in a way. It sounds weird, but you can’t really fuck up because they’re there for you. The thing I like about opening shows and what I’m really excited about for The Pixies is we put more pressure on ourselves, like, we’ve got to convince this crowd to love us. That’s kind of how I felt about The Hives, “oh shit, we’re on tour with another one of our favorite bands”. You have to bring your A game.

AP: What’s some music you’ve been loving lately?

Brandon: It’s nothing new or exciting, but I’ve been revisiting Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. They put out a new album, too, not too long ago. I used to listen to them all the time, but I forgot about them a little bit. I’ve been listening to Beat the Devil’s Tattoo a lot, that’s a great one.

AP: That’s so nice to do after you haven’t listened to a really good band in a while.

Brandon: Yeah, you hear a band and you’ll kind of go off into another world for a little bit, and then you’re like, “Oh man! I haven’t heard this band in forever!” when you used to listen to them every day.

AP: What was your entry point for music, the first band you were really, really obsessed with?

Brandon: I’d have to say, the band that made me want to be a band was Blink 182. I grew up in San Diego, and it’s kind of associated with , “Oh my God, these kids are in a band and doing whatever they want!”, and skateboarding, and all that. It’s definitely not the coolest band to talk about, but it’s just true.

AP: That’s okay, mine is Bright Eyes and I stand by it.

Brandon: I’m totally a huge Bright Eyes fan. I was just listening to “Fevers and Mirrors” the other day, “Lover I Don’t Have To Love” is just awesome.

AP: FIDLAR has been around for nearly five years now, but you’ve only been getting press attention for about two. Are those added stakes exciting? Challenging?

Brandon: It’s kind of weird thinking about that, just because we’ve been at home for a while and we’ve been getting back to normal after being on the road for so long. All the things that are happening with the band, people are like, “Oh my God, you’re headlining shows!” It’s pretty crazy and, I mean, awesome how much people have responded to our band. When we started playing together, we had no plans of even being a band or playing shows, we were sort of just making music for fun. To get to the point where we’re at now, it’s fuckin’ rad.

AP: What was it like transitioning from “Shit We Recorded in Our Bedroom” [2012 EP] to recording with Mom + Pop Records?

Brandon: It wasn’t too weird, the weirdest thing is that more people become involved. Not in your music, but in your band, I guess– the family grows a little bit. Before it was the four of us and our friends fucking around and recording in our house, but now there’s other people who are excited about our music and want to work with us, too, which is awesome. Creatively, it doesn’t feel different at all because we just did the record the way we wanted to do it. Mom + Pop give us 100% creative control over it, our posters, our everything, so we’re still just doing the same thing but with a bigger microphone, a bigger speaker that’s putting it out to more people.

AP: In the music video for “Cocaine”, how did you guys get Nick Offerman [Ron Swanson of Parks and Recreation] involved?

Brandon: It’s kind of crazy. Max and Elvis who are in the band, their dad played music and was in T.S.O.L. and played in L.A. for a long time, and he played with Nick’s wife.

AP: Whoa, Megan Mullally?

Brandon: Yeah, she was just an old family friend. And that was before Nick Offerman was even a big actor or anything. So I guess when FIDLAR started, he kind of liked it, and we came up with that whole idea. We just wanted to do a video that was like, “fuck it, we’ll do that.” Half of it was in Zac [Carper]’s neighborhood and at our house…we did it in one day.

AP: When Nick Offerman pisses in the dog’s mouth, it’s perfect.

Brandon: Yeah.

AP: You’ve also done a lot of work with Rooney as well. What is that like, moving between those two groups?

Brandon: Rooney was kind of something I did. I was not playing music at the time, I had been playing in a local band that broke up, and I knew a couple guys from Rooney. They were going on tour and they needed a bass player and I was like, “yeah, I’ll do it.” I wasn’t involved creatively or really a part of the band, I was kind of just a hired guy to play bass and, you know, get paid to go on tour for a little bit.

AP: Nothin’ wrong with that.

Brandon: FIDLAR is really my band I really feel a part of, and, you know, we work at everything together, and that [Rooney] was sort of just a gig. I like FIDLAR a lot more. It was nice to go on tour, but it just wasn’t my thing– it wasn’t, like, my band and it wasn’t my best friends in the band, it was some friends I knew and I was sort of around and needed something to do for a little while.

AP: In an alternate universe where FIDLAR never happened, what would you be doing?

Brandon: I’ve always been into magic and magicians and illusions and stuff, so maybe I would just do that. I like the idea of being a grand illusionist and set the deck of cards aside for the bass guitar.

AP: Like, David Blaine magic?

Brandon: I like the David Blaine stuff, I think he’s very talented, but I’m more into the theatrics of it, you know, David Copperfield and the smoke and fireballs and stuff like that.

AP: What’s one thing that you’re really into right now that isn’t music?

Brandon: Wolf of Wall Street, that was really good…Michael Showalter, he’s a comedian who has a thing out called Mr. Funny Pants, that was really good, too. And I’m pretty excited for Game of Thrones. 

AP: So we’ll see you in Boston this Saturday?

Brandon: Yeah! It’s my brother’s birthday and he lives in Boston, so we’re gonna be extra partied up.

FIDLAR and Pixies will be at The Orpheum this Saturday — learn more here.