Philly’s favorite party funk band You Do You sat down with us to discuss what happens when you really, really have to pee before the gig but also don’t want to give up that sweet parking spot you got outside of the venue. Having released a handful of singles earlier this year, “The Script” and “The Arrogance of Power,” the band has been using their quarantine time usefully, and they took us through what exactly they’ve been up to lately. Also find out which bands they’d want to be stuck on an island with, and who is friends with a notable band manager.

Give us the elevator pitch for your band by using as few music terms as possible.

Katie: People we trust doing cool stuff.

Gabe: It's in the title. We all just do our thing. Anything. It's how I like to be.

Katie: It's not just a band name, it's a band philosophy.

Gabe: A chemistry.

As a follow up fill in the blank for this sentence, You Do You is the perfect soundtrack for ___?

Aaron: Drinking boxed wine.

Benji: It’s good stuff to drive to. I mean most of us don’t have cars but?

Emily: Music to walk to maybe? Commute to?

Katie: You'll learn really quickly that we are not cool

Bre: That’s okay, we’re not cool either.

If you were stuck on an island with two other Philly bands, who would you choose and why?

Gabe: Stella Ruze, because I play with them and they love us.

Katie: We get along with those guys really good. Plus, there would be enough different instruments to do lots of different songs and stuff we would have all the different pieces. I'm just thinking logistically, who could I spend more than a few minutes less? And who would we have good jams with?

Bre: Who is going to get the food and build the shelter? Who’s going to keep you alive?

Katie: I mean, the Secret American guys would probably be there just because they’re like our best friends. Tony could get us some coconuts. He could scale a tree. I guess if we could just have one member of Secret American, at least it would be Tony. Tony was the first drummer of You Do You before Aaron. And then he moved to Brooklyn and I freaked out and cried and was like, it's over. Life is over. Then we found Aaron on Craigslist and that's been great.

Aaron: I don’t think I ever realized Tony was like a jungle man?

Katie: This is what I do on my dates, I talk about Tony and how much I like him.

What is the most “Philly” thing that's ever happened to you?

Benji: Getting stuck in a makeshift parade in South Philly after the Eagles won.

Bre: Define “getting stuck.”

Benji: I was trapped for like five or six blocks, took fifteen minutes to get through it. I was just a part of it at that point.

Aaron: That actually reminds me of one, I sat on the jury for a trial of a dude who punched a cop at the Mummers Parade. Felt pretty Philly to be there. He got acquitted.

Katie: I couldn’t think of anything more Philly than that, Aaron wins, the jury is out.

What's one of the weirdest experiences you’ve have had at a show?

Vince: I held out a long time getting a smartphone, I've only had one for about three years. so I had a military strength Samsung Convoy that you could basically throw under a tank and it’d be fine. I was just minding my own business at a gig, and a guy came by and just stopped and said “dude, nice flip phone.” And he was dead serious. I held off for so long just because I feel like I have fat thumbs, but this guy was so nice.

Katie: Now we should call this The Date Where Vince Says He Has Fat Thumbs.

Katie: Benji and I probably have the same one, which is when we got attacked by spotted lantern flies playing the Sly Fox Can Jam. Attacked! ATTACKED!

Benji: Just imagine being on stage playing with two hands, so you can't swat any of them away. They land on your face and you just have to keep playing.

Bre: I would not have been able to do that. We were doing an interview and there was a stinkbug flying around and I was like jumping back, but trying to keep my cool at the same time. And it was so awkward, but I couldn't do anything about it in the middle of an interview.

Vince: Ew! Ours was a festival audience that was like so peace + love and everything. Except when a lantern fly comes, then a whole different personality comes out.

Katie: Everyone was in a great mood that day because the whole festival banned together and was like “let’s save the hawks and the grapes and kill these things!” One crawled up my microphone.

Aaron: One was bouncing around on my drums.

Katie: Remember when that was our biggest problem?

Whats a story you guys tell as a flex story?

Gabe: Easy. So Second Street Festival, that was actually where I met the Stella Ruze guys, they played right after us. And I didn't think I was gonna become a full time member of their band until like about a month, two months later. Apparently something happened with their old saxophone player. Completely different story for another day. Then suddenly I just started playing all these gigs with them. And now I'm like best friends with all those people.

Katie: So the same festival where we were being attacked by lantern flies, The Wailers were headlining that show, so we get to say that we opened for The Wailers. I can tell people that they listened at least entirety to one of our songs. I became friends with their manager. There's my flex. I'm friends with the Wailers manager.

Emily: I covered a Lenny Kravitz show at The Met in the fall. And I just went alone because they had given me a press ticket for work. So I walked in and sat down and I thought I was where I was supposed to be, but I thought it was like a little too close to the stage. It just seemed suspicious because it was a free ticket. And security came up to me because I guess I did actually look weird since I was 22 and everyone else there was like 40. He asked me if I was where I was supposed to be, and I was like, I think so? He checked my ticket and said “oh no, follow me.” And then he brought me up to the seats in the very, very front. And I was close enough that Lenny could have spit on me.

Katie The date where Lenny Kravitz spits on Emily.

Bre: So the only one coming to mind for me is we went to see the Tampa Bay Rays play the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, and the Yankees lost. So we were pissed leaving the stadium, and traffic was terrible. And the Tampa Bay Rays were on their bus right across the intersection from us. And my friend turns to me and goes, “I'm gonna do it.” And he just full sent it and cut them off in traffic. It caused a whole big jam, and the Rays were staring at us through their windows.

Vince: Well, what comes to mind for me is I'm on the last Mitski album. I've done some recording at the studio for different projects, and I got a call from Mitski’s producer, so I assembled the horn section. It's tough to hear them in the mix. They're mixed really well in there.

When you get to a venue, what's more important to you? The snacks or the alcohol?

Katie: Oh, God.

Aaron: They have snacks?

Gabe: What kind of snacks are we talking about here? Are we talking like wings?

Bre: I was referencing Johnny Brenda's specifically, I guess I should have prefaced. They usually have a nice hummus spread in the green room.

Katie: When we get in there, all of us go to the bar, except for maybe Benji. Benji likes his alone time.

Aaron: I like to get a beer before I do anything, including setting up.

Vince: We try to get in early enough that we get the happy hour beers, then we can save our drink tickets for later.

Gabe: You gotta feel good before you play.

Have you guys ever had to really pee while on stage and you cant get off?

Gabe: Okay this is bad. It was a show at Bourbon and Branch. It was pretty stressful. I’m not gonna lie, halfway through the set I had to run offstage.

Katie: Right in the middle of a song!

Gabe: I was able to come back and play, and it was great after that.

Vince: That was a combo flex story.

Aaron: I was in a band in New York, and we had been stuck in traffic for hours so we were there at the venue like five minutes before our set. I had to pee so bad, but we were too late. I pulled up, but my blinkers on in a loading zone, played the show, came back out, my car was still there, and I never peed.

Bre: I can’t believe a question about pee prompted all of these flex stories.

How would you describe the Philly music scene in 10 words or less?

Katie: Its kind of like high school? I’m friends with everybody, it’s fun, but I’m still not that cool.

Vince: You have to make it outside of Philly before you make it in Philly.

Gabe: Jazz.

Emily: You can’t stop there.

Gabe: Jazz. Everything feels like jazz. To me.

Aaron: Way better than it used to be.

Benji: Super creative and smart. Pushing different genres, fusing them.

Drew: Creative, fragmented, real.

Katie: So how did we do? Would you date us?

You Do You definitely qualifies as a dateable band. You can check out their latest single, “The Arrogance of Power,” below, keep up with Katie’s weekly livestream series on the band’s Facebook.

The Date Where You Do You Just Really Misses Their Old Drummer