Pool Kids on finding a fan in Paramore’s Hayley Williams, the joy of alternate tunings and making math rock accessible

While Florida-born Pool Kids might have started out as a duo of multi-instrumentalist and lead vocalist Christine Goodwyne and drummer Caden Clinton, their size (and notoriety) has only swelled. Completed by guitarist Andy Anaya and bassist Nicolette Alvarez, the foursome fuse together fan-favourite math and art rock familiarities.

From their respective homes on the West Coast, Ernie Ball Music Man-toting guitarists Christine and Andy dial in to talk custom ear rigs, making math-rock accessible and why they won’t be sad to say goodbye to patch cable chaos on their pedalboards.

Your excellently titled debut album, Music to Practice Safe Sex To (2018) picked up a rave review from Paramore’s Hayley Williams who praised your sound to her two-million Instagram followers. What was that moment like given you grew up listening to the band?

Christine Goodwyne: “I was working at a school and I saw a text from Caden our drummer saying, 'No one post anything until Christine sees!' I had to put my phone away and sit through what felt like the longest meeting.

“This was on April Fool's Day, too, so as a little April Fool's bit, we wrote, recorded, and released these two hardcore songs and said, 'We're done with all that math rock emo bullshit. This is our new sound.' [But] people actually really liked it! We're just glad that she shouted out our actual music. Because if not we'd have had to completely change our direction!”

Casting your minds back now to your first encounters with music-making, when did you begin playing or learning guitar and do you remember your first one?

Andy Anaya: “I grew up in a music-loving household. I have young parents so it was a lot of '80s rock, new wave, and then grunge. Even though they weren't musicians, they were very supportive of my interest in making music. I started playing around 12 to 13 years old. I had some friends in the neighbourhood that also played guitar. We’re all self-taught.”

Goodwyne: “My first memory of wanting to play guitar was being in my childhood bedroom when I was 10 years old and there was some Super Bowl beer commercial of some old guy doing a solo. I told my parents, 'I want to play guitar', and the women in my family pushed me towards the piano. Eventually, a friend of mine in fifth grade bought me a First Act acoustic guitar. I started learning on that and never put it down.

“I never got guitar lessons. YouTube can teach you everything you need to know. I also never joined any bands though until college and [when I did] that blew my mind. I was like, 'Oh my god, this is the world that I was supposed to be in this entire time.'”

Pool Kids is often branded with the “math rock” mantle but you’ve spoken about wanting to “make technically challenging music while also trying to strike a nerve with the average listener”. How do you take that brief and make it accessible?

Goodwyne: “It's different for every song. If it's hard to write vocals to, it's usually a flag for me. I've been trying to tone down being so technical. That was coming from a place where I felt I had something to prove as a woman in music like, 'I have to show that I can actually play guitar. I'm not just a chord girl that sings!'

“Now that I've got that out of my system and proven myself, I'm focusing more on chords with a catchy hook. Plus, when I'm beating my head against the wall trying to make something more interesting, I can be like 'Andy, fix this!'”

Anaya: “I say the same thing. I'm like, 'Can you make these 800 notes a song, please?'”

Christine, you also spoke to Prog magazine about the joy of discovering of alternative tunings and open turnings. What is it about those sounds that you’re drawn to?

Anaya: “Those open tunings [help you] find melodies and sounds that aren't as obvious in standard tuning, especially when you're tuning those higher register strings to alternate notes. You’re opening a lot of doors for texture that isn't present with a typical barre chord.”

Goodwyne: “We promised that we're going to start writing in standard tuning so we don’t have to change tunings in every song! We have one song that's in standard except the high E is tuned to a D and that was just me trying to play the riff that I heard in my head and then realising, 'Wait a minute, if this was tuned down a few notes, it would be physically possible for me to do this!'”

As if all these tour dates aren’t keeping you busy enough, I heard that you guys are also working on making a self-contained IEM (in-ear monitoring) system. What sparked this idea and how will it work?

Goodwyne: “It's a touring rig so that we won't have to depend on a different person every night to mix our ears. We're using a brain that you hook up to your phone and you can adjust your in-ear mix.”

Anaya: “We're looking for a way to streamline everything, getting each show a consistent thing every night. So the in-ear rig is a big part of it and Christine and I just recently switched over to [Line 6] Helix LT digital modelling guitar rigs. It seems to be the way of the future. I don't think any of the old tools will truly ever go out of style – I'm sure we'll still use real amps and pedals in the studio, but if neither of us has to look down and see a patch cable ever again, that's a win to me!”

• Pool Kids’ self-titled, sophomore album is out now via Big Scary Monsters. The band tour the UK in May.