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Interview: The Little Ones

 

Interview: The Little Ones

 

LR: Can you tell us how the band initially came about? What kind of aspirations did you guys have, if any?

Little Ones:The band came about through long-time friendship and family. Ed and Ian were in a band together called Sunday's Best and when that ended they began writing music for a new project. At that time, Ian met Lee through his sister (Lee dates Ian's sister) and found out that he was moving to Los Angeles. Lee then started writing songs with Ed and Ian but they were still lacking a drummer. Luckily, Ian found out that his high school friend Greg was moving to Los Angeles and soon the four of them began writing. I was brought in last by Ed when the four of them needed some extra hands to play bass. In terms of aspirations, we just wanted to write music as a family and get it out there so whoever wanted to hear it could enjoy it.

LR: For Ed and Ian: Was there anything in particular that you wanted to achieve with The Little Ones that maybe didn’t happen with your old band Sunday’s Best?

(From Ed and Ian): We would have to say more creative freedom and the ability to tour more extensively. Those are two very amazing blessings.

LR: For the past year or so the band has gained a lot of momentum. Is this something that you could feel happening?

Little Ones: During the past year, things have moved along very quickly. When we started, we really had only three major goals. First, we wanted to finish our recordings with Dave Newton and put out Sing Song so that people could actually hear our music. Second, we wanted to get a show in Los Angeles which at the time, was very difficult since no one knew who we were. Third, we wanted to find a booking agent. When all these goals started being met, I think there was a sense that something special was happening. Honestly, all the good things that have happened the past year really haven't settled in. It's unbelievable.

LR: How do you guys feel about finally being signed to two great labels with such solid rosters? Do you think bands today still need record labels to be successful?

Little Ones: Signing with Astralwerks and Heavenly was a huge surprise. We're very honored to be on two great labels with some of our all-time favorite bands. Both Astralwerks and Heavenly have two very creative people at the helm (Errol Kolosine and Jeff Barrett, respectively) that share the same vision as us musically which makes our arrangement very comfortable.

In terms of bands still needing record labels to be successful, I think that every situation is different. For some bands, working without a label can be very advantageous and vice versa. It's a very new and exciting time in music and I think it's just great for bands to have many options to let people hear their music.

LR: Did you ever feel like everything was moving too fast for the band or were you comfortable with getting on out on the road and playing?

Little Ones: The only way to improve as a band is to get out there and start playing shows. We're always trying to get better and for us, touring was the best way to improve the live performance and become more comfortable on stage. So in that sense, we were very excited to get out on the road.

LR: Are there any bands out there that you really respect or strive to be on par with? Who would you say are your modern day influences?

Little Ones: Right now, we've been listening to a lot of The Bird and The Bee. Inara's amazing voice paired with Greg's production/musical wizardry makes that band very, very special. The French Kicks are another band that we instantly fell in love with both musically and personally during our last tour. They are amazing musicians who have knack for writing songs with great layers.

Little Ones: Finally, Cold War Kids are another band that we have so much respect for. They put on a very spirited live show that you can't help but be moved by and their lead singer has one of the most distinctive voices out there now.

LR: When you’re out touring who’s the prankster in the band?

Little Ones: We really don't have a real prankster. We do know one prankster and his name is Thomas D'Arcy of Small Sins.

LR: What are the band’s favorite activities when you’re not playing music or touring?

Little Ones: We all love to cook and barbeque. Whenever we get together with our family and friends, food always seems to be the focal point. In the words of Emeril Legasse, "It's a food of love thing."

LR: Name three essential CDs that are in the tour van.

Little Ones: 1. French Kicks "Two Thousand" 2. Midlake "The Trials of Van Occupanther" 3. Roger Miller "Greatest Hits"

-Scott McDonald

Thu Dec 7 2006 · Posted in Interviews on littleradio.com

Interview: Mahogany

Interview: Mahogany

 

LR: Hi. How is it being in Mahogany and living in New York at this time? Do you feel like your style of music is overlooked or do you have a niche carved out with steady fans?

Katrina Rudmin (voice, piano, synths): Being in Mahogany and living in NY is the best thing for me at this point in my life.

Ryan Hancock (guitar, voice): Being in Mahogany is excellent and a lot of hard work. However, I do not live in NY. I live in a little place called Philadelphia, PA. Mahogany is not concerned with being “overlooked.”

Roy Styles (bass): I do not believe that we are overlooked, we have new and exciting opportunities opening up for us all the time.

Jason Holmes (percussion): New York is becoming a playground for the rich thanks to Giuliani and Bloomberg. I hope that we have not pigeonholed ourselves, after putting so much time and energy into this project. That would be truly depressing.

LR: Can you tell our readers how Mahogany got started and how things have progressed for the band over the years?

Andrew Prinz (voice, guitar, engineer): I had the same Gibson bass guitar that Gene Simmons used in KISS, it was a factory second. Santana designed the pickups. I traded it for an old synthesizer and started Mahogany.

Katrina: I joined the band around November 2005 in its most recent incarnation and we have progressed as a group in the past year and continue to grow together.

Ryan: I became involved with Mahogany sometime in 2004. Ana Breton: (vox, guitar) Mahogany started about 10 years ago in Lansing, Michigan. It was Andrew and those closest to him like his sister. Mahogany still carries the sense of that familial tradition. Jason: I am new to Mahogany. I joined the band one and half years ago after an invitation from Andrew. I am thankful to have worked on Connectivity!, and I hope to be able to maintain Mahogany’s pulse indefinitely.

LR: Congrats on the new record, it really is different and more modern sounding than I ever expected, although I expected it to be good anyway. With that in mind, what was your initial approach when recording this album? Did you have specific objectives you wanted to achieve that weren’t explored on Dream of a Modern Day?

Andrew: The Connectivity! record started out as an idea for a 7-inch single, with 'Supervitesse' on the A side. Then it just grew from there. With each album, you have a different set of people playing and writing together, so that brings different colors to the instrumentation. But the idea for both records was to put together an album that reflected all of what we were sharing.

LR: Did you consciously abandon any sounds or styles that you would normally rely on with other recordings? What did you specifically want people to get out of this album?

Katrina: Joy and pleasure. Jason: I think this album connects people to modernity on a more accessible scale. Mahogany’s language has developed to incorporate a wider range of voices and textures and at the same time our ideas become more concrete and specific.

Jeremy Scott (bass, engineer): Of course it would be great if people have fun listening to the record, but I also like the idea of people being able to associate aspects of it to parts of their lives and the world around them.

LR: What’s the best part of working with Robin Guthrie? Do you prefer to work with producers that are closer to what you grew up listening to or would you ever consider having a producer come in who isn’t rooted in dreampop/shoegaze?

Roy Styles: The album was mostly self-produced, Robin helped out on three songs.

Jason: I would prefer a producer that did not know what shoegaze was. That way all our preconceived notions are disposed of and we can evaluate our process on its own terms.

Jeremy: I would have to be very comfortable to have someone produce a record I am working on. As I am not rooted in dream pop/shoegaze I would like someone outside that direction to produce on of our records.

Ana: The best part of working with Robin was that he was open to collaboration, and letting our ideas influence him as much as he influenced us.

LR: So you’ve upgraded the band to an octet. How long does it take to set up? What are the advantages and disadvantages (if any) of the bigger lineup?

Katrina: It takes a long time to set up but, I wouldn’t want anything less, in fact I am going to be adding more gear to our live show (piano and synths).

Ryan: Set up time depends on the venue. It seems that were getting more efficient with every show. It is a rush to be present on stage surrounded by people that you respect and admire. It makes for a fun show.

Roy: Set up? Too long! We have a much more dynamic and energetic sound with the new line up….

Jason: There are more people to try to fit into the van. Almost too many but we like it that way. In fact, we even make room for other on occasion. Jeremy: We need an Octet roadie crew. Must of us have complicated personal setups, so it is tough to be fast.

Ana: We are an orchestra. The collective is necessary. LR: How are the fans reacting to your live performances and the new songs? What’s the most common reaction from people during and after the gig?

Katrina: Audiences seem to really enjoy the new songs, there’s more dancing.

Ryan: No pillows necessary.

Roy: Reactions include dancing, clapping and uncontrollable smiling.

Jason: People like the way we fill the space with ourselves and our sound. At the last show people were dancing like mad.

Jeremy: Lots of fainting…not really but people seem to be into it.

LR: What’s in the future for Mahogany? SXSW? US/UK touring? What do you envision the next record to be like?

Katrina: The next record will be awesome.

Ryan: Rumors of mainland Europe, Spain and Portugal in November of '07 and Peru. Of course we will continue to play shows up and down the East Coast and would like to make it out to the West Coast. It is a bit hard putting together travel arrangements for eight people plus equipment.

Jeremy: Writing, more shows and another in ten years.

LR: What kind of music have you been listening to lately? Is there anyone in L.A. that you’d like to say “Hi” to?

Katrina: I have been looking backwards at music my friends made a few years ago, mostly Kepler “Fuck Fight Fail” and “Missionless Days.”

Ryan: Sound Consumers from Sweden, remixes by Dave P., Ulrich Schnauss and the Estonian composer Arve Part. LA friends – Jonathan Krisel, Arthur Magazine, all of the people in California that email and ask if Mahogany would please play their town.

Roy: I have been listening to lots of psyche pop and dancehall…an odd combo I know. Ana: I am really into Freescha and Relay (Bubblecore) right now and I heard Lorelei are back together so I am desperate to see them play live again.

-Scott McDonald

Mon Dec 4 2006 · Posted in Interviews on littleradio.com

SWERVEDRIVER: Raise

 

SWERVEDRIVER: Raise

 

Swervedriver rule. Talk to anyone about their first experience listening to or seeing the band live for the first time and you’re bound to hear adjectives like “rocked”, “amazing” or “fucking awesome”. Their debut album Raise (Creation, 1991) stunned listeners, American audiences, and would soon defy the categorization of “shoegaze”; it’s simply a great rock album. The UK press labeled them as shoegazers right from the get-go because of their washy guitar sound. But the Oxford-based quartet excelled at making super-melodic rock that was both dreamy and technically dynamic. Adam Franklin's soaring vocals and screeching wah-wah leads turned heads in the music world and launched a wave of internet discussions about his tunings and tablature.

"Sci-Flyer" kicks off the album with a barrage of guitar noise and relentless wah-wah thanks to main man Adam Franklin, more reminiscent to J. Mascis and Led Zeppelin than a shoegaze wall-of-sound. “Pile Up” and “Sunset” showcases the band’s relentless rhythm section of bassist Adi Vines and drummer Graham Bonner, who eventually disappeared during their first North American tour only to emerge later in San Francisco with the notorious BJM. Knock-out singles “Son of Mustang Ford”, “Rave Down”, and “Sandblasted” are epic washes of sound with Franklin’s dynamite guitar riffs and melodies propelling the songs into space. The album never lets up, never gets boring, and emanates a freeing, wide-screen spirit unlike any bands coming out of England at that time.

After you buy Raise take a further look into the band’s catalog with Juggernaut Rides ’89-’98 on Sanctuary records. It contains all of their best work and many limited, out-of-print singles that emerged between albums and labels. Buy it here, you won’t be disappointed.

-Scott McDonald

Tue Nov 21 2006 · Posted in Reviews on littleradio.com

Re-High #4: ARCHERS OF LOAF

 

Re-High #4: ARCHERS OF LOAF

 

Remember Archers of Loaf? They got compared to Pavement quite a bit and had that bass player who looked like the WWF’s Hacksaw Jim Duggan. 1993’s Icky Mettle is noisy, angular, and brutal. They raised the bar of “Indie Rock” after the mushy, and well-deserved, accolades of Pavement’s Slanted and Enchanted. But when I listen to this album in particular it represents a specific time, a leap forward, and also brings to mind so many other bands that one can hear in their music (Dinosaur Jr., Superchunk, Mudhoney). This isn’t a nostalgic indie-rock trip down memory lane, this is one of the strongest debuts of that decade. From the cool “All I Ever Wanted…Was To Be Your Spine” convincingly declared on ‘Web in Front’ to the angular punk on “Sick File”, Archers of Loaf rocked and Icky Mettle is a must have.

Tue Nov 14 2006 · Posted in Reviews on littleradio.com

Interview: Britt Daniel of Spoon

LR: Hey Britt how’s it going? Britt: Good. LR: Where are you at the moment?

Britt: I’m at my studio here in Austin, Texas working on songs.

LR: Cool. So what made you decide to take on this project?

Britt: I was invited to do it and I thought that it would be fun.

LR: Were you already aware of Brian Reitzell and his soundtrack work?

Britt: Yeah. I had seen Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation. We also met a couple of years ago and he contacted me when he was in Austin and we went out to dinner, just talked about doing something someday. When this one started getting developed he asked if I wanted to come down and work on scoring it with him. I didn’t really know how to do that at the time but I thought that it would be fun.

LR: When you were working on the movie how did you decide which Spoon would be right for a particular song?

Britt: Brian picked the Spoon songs and decided where those would go. The thing I worked on him with was the scoring of the instrumental music. And I wrote the new Spoon song for the movie, but I wasn’t quite sure initially where that was going to go.

LR: In the bio it says that there are "fuller vocal versions", I had no idea that certain Spoon tracks were longer or had different versions out there. Britt: I think what they mean is “The Way We Get By” is in the movie instrumentally and he’s referring to the fact that these are versions without the vocals.

LR: Ahhh, that makes sense. So when you’re doing the arranging of the instrumental tracks with Brian what was the best part of that?

Britt: Just figuring out that I could do it. I remember when I went to Los Angeles there was some feeling that I didn’t know what I was doing or how it was going to be done. And when we started working it just kind of came naturally and I don’t know if that’s because of Brian or what. And it also was kind of freeing to be able to work on music that wasn’t going to be pop song. It was like…here’s a scene and what kind of mood do you want to bring to this scene? It was such a different experience.

LR: That must have been nice.

Britt: It was, it was a new experience. Pop music is a fairly unrestricted type of format where I can do anything or make any sound and release it as a Spoon record. It was just a little bit more distancing for me, it wasn’t just a reflection of me, it was something I was doing to compliment the movie. With that sort of direction in mind it made it very clear where we should go with that.

LR: So while you’re watching this movie did you get to a point where you started to think about watching other movies in a different way because of this experience?

Britt: It definitely made me look at this movie in a different way because I just saw it for the first time with everything in it last week and it doesn’t seem like a normal movie. When I watch movies, I don’t know if everybody is like this, but I can get really emotionally attached and just kind of lose myself in it. I know my ex-girlfriend couldn’t sit through a whole movie and would get kind of antsy. While I was watching this movie I couldn’t do that because it’s like I know how that happened and I remember seeing this scene a hundred times while we were working on it.

LR: So if you would have gone back and seen this movie for the first time, including you being a part of the soundtrack, would you have thought of this movie in a different way?

Britt: Oh yeah totally. It’s a really good movie and I know that because I really enjoyed when I first saw it before we started to work on it. I’m sure I would have been drawn in just like most movies I like.

LR: Are there any ideas for music or projects that this movie kind of opened the door up to? Would you want to do more scoring like this?

Britt: To me I really just want to do rock and roll. It was a fun thing to do and if something else comes up like this and I want to do it then I’d love to do it, but rock and roll is the main thing for me.

LR: Right. You guys are working on a Spoon album right now, how’s that going?

Britt: Yes. It’s going good. It’s taking a long time, but it usually takes a long time. We don’t know what label it’s going to come out on but I think this record is going to be a good one.

LR: What are your thoughts with your next label? Is there something you have in mind for Spoon or do you want to approach promoting it differently?

Britt: Well, I don’t really have anything new or new ideas for that. It’s just that we don’t actually owe anyone a record. It could still come out on Merge, which would be cool with me, but we haven’t worked on that aspect of the music. We’ll figure all that out later.

-Scott McDonald

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Mon Nov 13 2006 · Posted in Interviews on littleradio.com