Dare To Dream Big

"From the beginning of Phantogram, our goal was always to be the biggest band in the world,” says Sarah Barthel. And Phantogram – the band Barthel splits with Josh Carter – certainly have enough pop chops for a bona fide crossover, their second LP, this year's Voices, debuting in the US charts at #11.

But they come from indie music roots; their first record, 2009's Eyelid Moves, came out on Barsuk, and was big on shoegaze sonics, leading the band to open for acts like The Antlers, Beach House and School Of Seven Bells. Given indie music's tendency towards self-effacement, hearing Barthel confess Coldplay-esque ambition borders on shocking. How does this band, born in a barn in upstate New York, dare to do so?

“I don't know, to be honest,” Barthel considers. “It probably says something about how we are as people. We just really believed in our ideas, and our sound. I guess when you have that kind of self-belief, when it's really unshakeable you can set high goals and allow yourself to dream big.”

It marks an interesting contrast to how Barthel grew up. She “always liked singing”, but never considered it an artistic outlet let alone a possible career. It was only in 2007, when her childhood best friend, Carter, invited her to work with him in the studio following their graduation from college, that the 31-year-old even considered making music.

“I was a visual artist, so I'd never thought of 'sound' as a way of expressing myself, and no idea I had that side of me. At the start, Josh had such clear ideas about what he wanted to do, and the skills to be able to do it. He really invited me into this world and asked me to be a part of it. I was fascinated by his songs and his production, and he taught me how to produce and record my own ideas.”

Their goals, in the beginning, weren't just to be the biggest band in the world, but to make “new, fresh-sounding music”. This meant no homages to old albums, and no attempts to latch onto current trends, be they in pop or on blogs. “We looked to bands like Outkast and The Flaming Lips,” Barthel says, “not for how they sounded, but how they were able to create their own world.”

Initially calling themselves Charlie Everywhere, they settled on a far better name and started playing around New York, obsessing about making flyers and posters (“we always had a visual aesthetic that was just as important as the music”). Since then, they've found themselves playing to escalating audiences – from “five to 50 to 500 to 5000 people” – moving, in their own way, closer to their earliest ambition.

“As artists and musicians, you need to have some sort of motivation to keep going,” Barthel admits. “At the beginning, before anyone had ever heard our music, that's how we knew we wanted to do this. We weren't half-arseing it, this wasn't a hobby. We really wanted to be the biggest band in the world.”