2014 was an awesome year for breakout bands from Wisconsin, from Sylvan Esso hitting it big to Phox exploding into commercials and getting plugged nationally by the likes of NPR and Entertainment Weekly. For the Madison-based Phox, what comes now is the terrifying part: the year after.

Or not. Considering it was recently announced this past week that the band would be bringing their lush, unpredictable sound to Coachella, it seems 2015 is picking up right where the last year left off. Also just like last year, they're dropping by for a show on Friday, Jan. 16 – graduating from the Turner Hall Ballroom (which they sold out last year) into The Pabst Theater. 

Before then, OnMilwaukee.com chatted with guitarist Matt Holmen about their crazy 2014, what's coming up in 2015, surviving most of a year on the road ... and Taylor Swift. Of course.

OnMilwaukee.com: It was recently announced that you guys are performing at Coachella.

Matt Holmen: Yeah, that’s awesome. We’re really excited for that.

OMC: Have any of you been there before, even just as attendees?

MH: No. I don’t think any of us have even been to one of the big American festivals unless we’ve been playing it. They’re so far away and kind of inaccessible. So this is kind of a cool gift.

OMC: Do you have some free time that weekend to check out some of the other acts?

MH: Yeah. It’s three days, and we only play on Saturday for a half an hour, so we’ll be able to hang out and explore a little bit. I really want to see Jack White; we’ve never seen him before. And I think it’s pretty amazing that AC/DC is playing. That’s a part of their booking practice, bringing in one of those legacy bands that you’d really never get to see unless it dropped in your lap.

OMC: That’s obviously an awesome way to start 2015, and your 2014 was obviously massive as well. Looking back, what was your favorite moment of the past year?

MH: You know what popped in my head actually? I think our favorite show we did was when we played at Turner Hall in Milwaukee. I’m not even B.S.-ing you. I think Milwaukee’s the best. I mean obviously Madison is more of our hometown; we play there more than anywhere else. But that Milwaukee show was just incredible. There was such a good energy, and every time we come to Milwaukee, there’s some friendly stranger who wants to get us real drunk after the show. So it’s simple pleasures like that.

OMC: You spend a lot of 2014 – I think it was nine months in total – on the road. How did you handle all of that on the road time?

MH: It’s tough, and it’s not always ideal, but you always put it in perspective. There’s a great list of tour rules you should look up, called "How to Tour in a Band or Whatever" by Thor Harris. They’re really great rules to live by. One of them is, like, everyone is bipolar on tour; just ride the wave and try to keep your head on straight and not make any crazy decisions when you’re drunk or crazy. That’s true of, like, most of the time you’re on the road; you’re probably crazy.

I just think you have to put it into perspective and think, "This is a building block; what we’re doing is an element of being a musician." It’s just a part of the job. I think every once in a while, you get this whiff of gratitude when, like, we’re in Paris and driving past the Eiffel Tower. It’s like, "Oh, OK; this is pretty cool actually. This is something we wouldn’t get to do if we weren’t playing music." Even if it’s just a glance – because it’s always just a glance through a window; we never really get to schedule time off to be tourists – you’ve still got to be grateful for it.

OMC: I imagine that kind of feels like drive-by tourist-ing in these awesome locations, but at the same time, that’s preferable to doing nothing and going nowhere.

MH: And even if you are just going there to do tourist things, you don’t always get the personal experience. Like we know several people who are from Berlin, so we get to see them and hang out with them and see some of these cities like locals, even just for a minute. Maybe not thoroughly, but you do get a cool authentic view of some parts of the culture, which is great. Especially the street food. The late night, bar time street food. America’s gotta get it’s game together because sh*t, Germany has got the best drunk food in the world.

OMC: What’s 2015 look like for you guys? Are you hoping to dial back on the touring and focus on other things?

MH: It’s good timing that we had the album out last year and now we’ll get a chance to play some of these cool festivals. So we do have a bit of touring in the first half of the year, which is great. We’re also working on some other projects, making some other music as well. Keeping ourselves busy. Maybe not dialing it back so much, but we’ll be approaching it in a different way as the year goes on as we go more back to the drawing board.

OMC: I don’t want to put any pressure on you guys, but is that a new album coming together?

MH: We’re starting to write songs. There are some ideas floating around, and we also have some non-Phox material in the group too. We’d like to get back to working on video projects like we did so much of before we started touring. Using that language again and just trying to be creative people.

OMC: I have to ask about something from last year: You performed a cover of "Shake It Off" for a radio station in Amsterdam. It was awesome. Where did that come from?

MH: The hotel room the night before. It was put together by Jason. He started playing the guitar in that pattern, sort of jazzy and taking away from the upbeat. That radio station has bands come in and play a set, and they also ask if they want to do anything off the Top 40. They were like, "Here’s the list of songs; if you guys want to do one of these, that’d be awesome." We saw the Taylor Swift song, and we thought, "That’s actually a pretty good song; let’s play that!" I was surprised; that was the first time I heard it. I loved it. 

OMC: Are you guys Taylor Swift fans?

MH: Well yeah, sure. Of course. Jason bought the last album the day it came out. (inaudible speaking in the background) Well, he bought it a couple weeks later, but he’s a fan. We’re fans.

I’m actually more of a fan of her country stuff, to be honest with you. I was raised on country and reggae music – which makes no sense. But my mom was a huge pop country fan, so I grew up listening to Patsy Cline and Willie Nelson, but then later Shania Twain and Faith Hill. Miranda Lambert is one of my mom’s favorites. That kind of stuff has always been orbiting around my musical tastes. Whether or not I want to accept it or like it or not, it’s there.