Our Interview with Josh Kaufman from Rocketship Park

Sky Rockets In Flight!

Tim Baker | July 6, 2011

Everyone has people that roll in the same circle yet they are on the fringes of each other's lives. The friends of friends of friends. You know that they are good people because of who they are down with. For me, Josh Kaufman of Rocketship Park is one of those people. I know Josh, but I don't know him, know him. You know what I mean?

Josh works with a lot of people I am friends with or was friends with but have since lost contact with. I have always known him as a talented workhorse of a musician from the numerous times I have seen him live over the years. Talented and quiet is how I would describe him.

I recently reconnected with Josh because I reconnected with some of those mutual friends. Whether it was Nathanial Martinez and his Thieving Irons project which features Josh prominently or Kevin Fish who plays in Higgins with Josh. Kevin is the one who told me about Josh's Rocketship Park project and thus pretty much responsible for this interview and the man crush I now have on Josh. The fucker is not only adorable but he makes amazing music.

You might not know him yet but you should.

SYFFAL: I have recently taken to books on tape and sworn off reading all together, this being the case I have not even looked at your bio, so either send us one on tape or tell us who you are, who is in your group, what instruments they play and their favorite member of Menudo

Josh Kaufman: Rocketship Park is a moniker for my close friends and I to collaborate and record songs I've written. I'm really lucky to be swimming around in such a densely populated talent pool. We're always cycling through members and moving folks from instrument to instrument but the usual suspects tend to be Eric Jackson, Kevin Fish, Brian Kantor and Travis Harrison. I play with a lot of different musicians so I'm always enlisting other singers and instrumentalists into the fold. Whatever seems appropriate for the particular musical moment. I can speak for most of us when I say that we're big fans of Menudo's earlier work. We affectionately refer to the mid 70s as the golden era of Puerto Rican pop, long live the Meléndez brothers!

SYFFAL: Unfortunately I have spent time in Long Island or as the Europeans call it, America's Turkey, so I know the back story of the name, but please regale our readers with the story behind Rocketship Park.

Josh Kaufman: Simply put, Rocketship Park is a playground regaled with a sweet, multi-layered rocket ship slide. It used to sit in Port Jefferson, a town in Suffolk County Long Island where my band-mates and I all played as kids. Coincidentally a couple of the guys that started the band with us, namely multi-instrumentalist Rob Burger and pedal steel guru Mike Phillips, also grew up in the area and, unbeknown to us when we met, frequented that same park. I guess you could say we were rocket ships in the night.

SYFFAL: Rocket ships in the night? Is that code? If you could cast your band in a 1980s teen sex romp comedy which one would it be and who would play the lovable yet nerdy lead?

Josh Kaufman: Hmmm, good question? Well, Travis Harrison would probably be Booger in Revenge of the Nerds. It's not the sexiest of romps, but I think Brian Kantor would make an excellent Clark (Chevy Chase) in "Vacation".

SYFFAL: So you and your friends seem to have an interesting collective going (Rocketship Park, Thieving Irons, and Higgins) how does this work and are you willing to give up the recipe to your secret sauce?

Josh Kaufman: Fellatio.

SYFFAL: It's all blow jobs these days. Your new album Cakes and Cookies is full of folksy pop goodness and the title makes a fat boy like me hungry, what is the best appetizer, desert and wine to go with your records. We will dock points if you say pot brownies you god damned hippies.

Josh Kaufman: That's sweet of you to say Tim. I think this is a morning/afternoon album, so, breakfast. Specifically Spanish tortilla, and if you really must drink in the morning I suggest sangria.

SYFFAL: I must. Ever give yourself a stranger? Ever give one to Natron?

Josh Kaufman: Only on the really long drives. 15 minutes is a long ride, right?

SYFFAL: I would say a drive to the corner market is a long ride so yes. I saw you guys play as the band Pouja at the Griffon in New Paltz before it became a sushi joint and before you became Rocketshiphigginsirons. How did your time working in bands like Pouja influence the artists you are now?

Josh Kaufman: Ah, the Griffon. Well, those were very formative years. A lot happens between the carefree ages of 18 and 20 and an even stranger world appears between 20 and 33. It's been 15 years that I've been making music with these guys! I guess those early years taught us all a lot about the magnet that art is and how it can be a positive force in bringing people together. That's a pretty hippy-dippy answer but one that I believe in.

SYFFAL: Sounds like you read The Secret or something. Speaking of The Secret, Kevin Fish, flashy geetaring, boyish good looks, how is this guy still a virgin?

Josh Kaufman: Great question, I think the answer's in a song he co-wrote w/ Billy Filo entitled, "I wonder what dudes are doin'?"

SYFFAL: How much did Wes Anderson pay you to license this album for his next movie?

Josh Kaufman: It's a ridiculous industry based on nepotism and a stale repertoire of hits, the whole thing needs to be turned upside down. I think things are growing in the right direction, it's just slow to sprout. For Wes? I'd start with a $500,000.00 licensing fee followed by 80% of whatever I can get on the back-end, what am I a push over?

SYFFAL: I understand you and your wife have started a new group. What's the deal with that and who will drive when you tour?

Josh Kaufman: She's a much better driver than me. Yes, it's an amazing record that we're really excited about. We recorded the tentatively titled Maine album in Parsonsfield, Maine at Sam Kassirer's Great North Sound Society. A wonderful place to be snowed in for the better part of a week with some good friends.

SYFFAL: Snowed in, is that what the hip kids are calling cocaine these days? One time when I was on tour I found myself in the middle of a mushroom trip in a Vancouver dinner that was set in the 1950s. where is the weirdest place the road has ever brought you and if you could write a song about it what would it be called?

Josh Kaufman: The song's called "Holy Crap" and it's about a Jewish kid at a Christian camp. It could be easily re-appropriated to be about a grown Jew sideman finding himself rocking out with a giant cross backdrop at a Christian college in Pennsylvania. Not weird, just funny. A close second would have to be a gig I have no recollection of in Bremen, Germany after which I vomited on my shoes.

SYFFAL: Mmmm, shoe vomit. When we interviewed Devo they told us that someone called them "The thinking man's Kiss" using the formula "The _____ man's ______" what would you call yourselves?

Josh Kaufman: "The hungry man's Big Star"

SYFFAL: I am going to say a bunch of random shit followed by you doing the same.

  • Maury Po-boy
  • Tony Danson
  • Ted Danza
  • How to lose a high in 20 days
  • My fair grady
  • watermelgibson
  • decorative hand soaps
  • scarring
  • Majestic bites

Josh Kaufman:

  • Rocket shit fart
  • Barack Iguana (courtesy of Dawn Landes)
  • Lord and Failure
  • The Gay Team
  • Nordic Crack

SYFFAL: Would you be willing to play my prom? what if I promised that you would get to 3rd base?

Josh Kaufman: We would be honored play your prom!

SYFFAL: Anything you wish to promote? please do so in the form of a haiku.

Josh Kaufman:

  • Cakes & Cookies cooked
  • For pre-order now, woo pee
  • Can't afford? Take free!