Guitarist/vocalist Resa Jonasson and drummer Ellie English make up the Los Angeles sludge/doom project Pagoto. I’m always down for some doom. So, when my friend Ellie whom I’ve known for years now told me she had a new project I was all ears. I’ve seen Ellie drumming in her other project L.A. WITCH countless times and she never disappoints. So, I was very curious to hear her in a more aggressive project. Resa and Ellie deliver on the sludge doom. On Pagoto’s stop in San Francisco I wanted to hear how this all got started. So, I hopped into their car to interview them before the show.
So, what you named your band after the love of ice cream?
Ellie – “Since our project is kind of doomy and every name I could think of had already been taken. I was just trying to think of something that sounded dark and cold. At first, I want to call Iceberg, but Iceberg had already been taken. I really like the concept of an iceberg, like there’s so much more underneath that can’t be seen down deep in the depths. But even if it wasn’t taken, I probably wouldn’t have used the name because it just reminded me of iceberg lettuce honestly. So, I went to the old trustee Google Translate and typed iceberg in Greek and Pagoto popped up. But I guess I typed something wrong in Google Translate because I found out it actually means ice cream. We said fuck it. It sounds sick and dark like we wanted we keep it and who doesn’t like ice cream?! So instead, we just think about it being “I scream” instead of ice cream.”
Resa – “Yeah that was one of the main things that Ellie brought to my attention when we started the band. She didn’t want me to sing. She wanted me to scream. So, in my opinion, I couldn’t work out any better to have it translated the wrong way.”
When I’m listening to your record, it’s giving Hole and Alice In Chains.
Ellie – “Resa and I have been friends for a really long time and when we got together to form this band, we both really loved Power Trip. I say that was definitely our first major influence. I was also very obsessed with Mammoth Grinder.
Resa – “Oh I like that we sound like Alice in Chains. That’s really cute. No one said that before! I have been listening to a lot of Power Trip and I had seen them at The Regent and was stoked on the show. Ellie had gotten me a record for my birthday that I loved. It was Covid and we couldn’t do shit, so we just drove around ripping power trip, screaming out the windows. Wow that’s something. I haven’t really thought about in a while! but when it comes to a band, that’s dark and screams I love Burning Witch.”
Ellie – “I’m glad you said we sound like them also because lot of times people say we sound like bands that we sound nothing alike. I think it’s just because we are a female band, so they lump us with other female fronted bands. I will say that does get pretty annoying when people do that. Don’t get me wrong. We appreciate those bands that they say we sound like and everything, but we don’t think we sound like them. That happens to L.A. Witch too. Like cool but we don’t sound like that.”
Resa – “Yeah I agree I feel like it’s a part of being a female musician. We always get lumped in together somehow or someway.”
Yeah, because I was going to say on the way over here, I was listening to Evanescence, and I thought wow Pagoto sounds a lot like them too.
Ellie – “Wait what really?”
Nah, I’m just playing! Ellie I know you play drums in LA Witch, but Resa what else have you played in?
Resa – “I’ve played in a bunch of punk bands. This is the first band that I’ve tuned down to C and I really like it because I feel like I found my vocal range. I always cringed when I heard self singing in the local punk bands. I feel like Ellie and I sit nicely together.”
So, when did you ladies start forming an album together?
Ellie – “We started jamming and 2019 with one of Resa’s guy friends from work. But he had to quit the band because his band was getting busy. So, we’re just like whatever let’s just keep playing and everything just worked out. I also got my Octapad soon after that and started making spooky sounds in the background! Spooky spooky!”
Resa – “Yeah, we like the uneasiness of the spooky. You know that uneasy feeling. Honestly, it was pretty scary at first with just the two of us. We would always ask ourselves or be ready to start playing shows just two people? Like are we ready?”
Ellie – “We know we didn’t want to play a loop in the background, but we knew we wanted to have some type of bass sound. So that’s what we have the occupied in the background playing spooky bass sounds quietly.”
Stop I’m scared. So, you want to bring the spooky atmosphere huh?
Resa – “Yeah and very restless, sounding too. Kind of reminds me of when I’m driving my car fast down the freeway and starts making all these crazy noises. They fill the rumbling underneath your feet.”
Ellie – “Or when your seatbelt sign keeps going off at you Resa!”
You don’t like wearing your seatbelt dude?!
Resa – “No it’s not that it’s just that I don’t like my car telling me what I need to do. If I need to take my seatbelt off to do something I don’t want the car to start screaming at me. I don’t like to be told what to do. That’s why I love rock ‘n’ roll.”
Photo courtesy of Armando Castillo Toro
I’m just giving you a hard time. So how did you two get hooked up with Licorice Pizza to record this album?
Ellie – “We got hooked up as Licorice Pizza Records through my friend Kerry Brown. He loves women in music and vinyl! He’s been super supportive and so has our sound engineer Jake. We call him our third member.”
Resa – “Yeah it just all fell into place. We linked up with them talked about a record. They heard us play and then we’re down to help us get our record pressed. It’s a blessing too because there’s a pressing plant right behind licorice pizza where they’re pressing vinyl. They also pressing bands who aren’t on the label. Which is great for a lot of bands in Los Angles to have their records pressed there. It’s a dope space with motorcycles and wood pressing also. It was cool when they let us go into the record pressing plant and watch our own record get pressed.”
Ellie – “Did you know before they press the records they start off in a huge blob?! then they just melted out flat! I don’t know. I never really thought about it. It was really cool to see that. To see a big blob get formed into a record and then have your band sticker pressed on it right in front of you is pretty cool. They had a bunch of records that were just in the trash and some of them were ours that had been messed up during pressing, so we took a bunch of them!”
Resa – “They’ve taken such good care of us. All we want was a really good sounding record and they’ve done just that.”
Where in LA is licorice Pizza?
Ellie – “It’s in studio city and it’s been around since the 70s, so it has a great history to it.”
Resa – “Yeah it has a rich history in the valley. The movie Licorice Pizza was named after the studio because the director of the movie I guess like the studio name. They’ve been in the valley for a long time. It was on a few places where people could go sit on a sofa and just listen to music. You know just a comfortable spot to sit and listen to your music. There be a laundromat next-door and I guess people would go and do their laundry and then come back and sit and listen to records. It was also one of those places where everyone wanted to work. And still is actually. Because it’s like a family there. It’s also called Licorice Pizza because of the way a record looks before and after it’s pressed. A licorice pizza.
Damn, you must feel honored to be a part of something like that. Something with incredible history like that. And they treat you good!
Resa – “Yeah, it’s an absolute honor. Those people are so passionate about putting vinyl into someone’s hands. I know the vinyl has never gone away, but people kind of forget about it sometimes. It’s really nice to hold something in your hands. It’s the first time that I’ve had a record pressed. It’s insane to hold my noise in my hands. I’m used to playing it and not holding it. It’s so fucking cool. It’s just a simple thing that just takes you, I don’t know, a place?”
Yes, I love my music takes you to another place. Speaking of places where is it photo shot that’s the cover of the album?
Ellie – “I shot that in Switzerland when I was on tour with LA Witch. Everyone was hung over in the morning, so I just got up and walked out to go explore because I was wideawake. We were staying in a women’s prison that had been converted into a music venue. I was walking around in the snow, and I saw these cows and I thought oh how cute until I realized that it was a slaughterhouse. And there was a little tiny church sitting there by itself and I just took a picture of it. I think it’s the cold like the iceberg you know?! The heavy snow melting! I think the photo really embodies our music. There’s just a little tiny church in the snow. It probably has a basement that goes straight to hell in it. The church doesn’t even look like it can fit two people in there. So, it’s probably just a ladder straight to hell.”
Photo courtesy of Armando Castillo Toro
Cover photo courtesy of Andrea Gonar
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