We caught up with PAWS’ frontman Phillip Taylor as he casually drank his pre-flight beer on the cusp of the Scottish trio’s Fall US tour. We talked it up about their new live album, covers, Adventure Time, and Taylor’s love for Allston. Don’t miss out on their show tomorrow night at the Middle East Upstairs with Total Slacker and local duo Rye Pines. Check it out below…

Allston Pudding: Let’s talk about this compilation project you were a part of, you guys contributed a stellar cover of Pavement’s “Stop Breathin’”.

Phillip Taylor: We’re all admirers of Pavement and Steve Malkmus. Art Is Hard Records is a small UK label who got in touch with me asking if I wanted to contribute something. We got to pick a song off of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, and it was really fun to play around with one of my favorite songs.

AP: Do you play around with covers in your live sets?

PT: We do it quite a lot, actually. Usually if we are headlining a show we like to slip a cover into the set. At soundcheck we usually end up between each other riffing back and forth and then end up throwing a cover in to make things a bit more fun.

AP: Any particular artist or song you like to cover the most?

PT: Lately we’ve been doing “Deceptacon” by Le Tigre a lot. In the past we’ve done a lot of Elliot Smith songs and things like that. It just depends on what everyone is jammin to at the moment, we’ll start off as a joke and then throw it in for a laugh.

AP: Very organic. You also just released your first live album that was recorded from a show in Los Angeles?

PT: That was actually from our first show in LA from back in November. When we arrived at that show we didn’t know it was going to be recorded or anything. It was never planned. We got there and the sound guy was like, “Oh, I happen to have a bunch of microphones to hook up to the desk and I could record for you guys to take the files back.” He asked for thirty or forty bucks to record it all so we figured, why not? It’s our first time in LA, we might as well document it. It had been sitting on my harddrive and I hadn’t had time to look through it and edit it all. I just kind of put it together as we were getting ready to come back to America as a nice way to look back on our previous time there. It really wasn’t planned, we just figured we shouldn’t just sit on the recording. People who were at the show might want to hear it again or people who weren’t there would like to hear it.

AP: Having it marked as your first LA show is really special. I was going to ask if you made a specialized setlist for that night or anything but it sounds like you didn’t and it was all spur of the moment!

PT: Oh yeah! That was the same set we were doing every night on that tour. Just before that tour we had just been in New York recording our second record and that was one of our first times being out on the road being able to play those songs live. It was really unique to get to hear those back in the live setting just after we had recorded them. Actually there is a weird and interesting story behind that night.

We played “Needle In the Hay” by Elliot Smith. After the show I was outside having a cigarette and one of the promoters came up to me and said that she was really touched by it because she was a friend of Elliot’s and Elliot used to come and hang out at the Satellite when it used to be called Space Lounge or something like that. He used to drink there and when he died they renamed the venue after the song on his second record…so that was kind of cool. It was a total coincidence and we ended up playing that song. They have these satellite dishes on the roof there and they project conversations all around the room so if you stand under one satellite dish and somebody else stands under another one, it projects the sound. Elliot wrote a song about eavesdropping on celebrities in LA or whatever. And we didn’t have a clue about any of that.

AP: From the recording to the timeliness to the cover, it’s uncanny.

PT: Stuff like that happens all the time. *chuckles*

AP: I also wanted to touch on the album title Youth Culture Forever and how it relates to Adventure Time. Are you big fans of the show?

PT: *laughs* Oh yeah! I absolutely watch it. A year or two ago I was watching it a lot. I just remember one day Josh, our drummer, and I were watching it together. I got into [Adventure Time] at a weird time in my life when we were really poor and our apartment was crummy and we would just stay in and watch cartoons all day. I remember watching that episode and when [Finn says, “Youth culture forever!”] I just remember thinking I had never seen anything like that in a modern day cartoon before. Most TV is boring and dribble…not inspiring or anything. I saw that and thought that was so rad. The songs don’t have a link to the show or anything, it’s more about that statement.

Youth culture is forever. There’s always going to be a youth culture. There’s always going to be a new wave of young people, artists, and people creating.  That’s what pop culture is. It changes so much. There’s always a new wave.

AP: How old is too old to be “youth”?

PT: It’s cliche, I guess you’re only as old as you feel. I can’t really answer that, it’s a tricky one. Well, what do you think?

AP: I think it’s contradictory to what most people associate with the word but there are several definitions around the world that age the bracket from 6 to 25 years old or in some cases even up to 35 years old. When you consider the whole age spectrum, “youth” extends for a while.

PT: People are still considered young even when on paper…it might not seem like a young age. Let’s say when you’re 30, you’re considered an adult. But you’re still young, you know?

AP: Seeing as you’re sitting in an airport, is there anything you always forget to pack before a big trip or are you a seasoned pro?

PT:  I think we’re prepared this time. But my favorite answer to that is that the first time our bass player Ryan came to America with us, we were all sitting on the plane ready to go…it was all quiet on the plane and I turn to him and say, “I really feel like I’ve forgotten something.” And Ryan, really lively, screams “KEVIN!” like in home alone. So that’s what I’m going to say, we’ve forgotten Kevin.

AP: Is there anything that you missed in Boston last time you were here or something you’re looking forward to being back in Boston this week?

PT: I really like Orchard Skateshop in Boston, they’ve got a half-pipe so I like to hang out there. I really just like Allston a lot. There are a lot of cool thrift stores and other things you don’t really get around [Glasgow]. I’m just looking forward to hanging out in Allston again.