Band: Local Natives
From: Silverlake, CA
Sound: vocal-forward songs with tribally influenced beats propelling their melodies forward
Similar Artists: Annuals, Talking Heads, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Plants and Animals
Listen Now: “Airplanes”

Southern California is the entertainment capital of the world. A land where the sun pays a refreshing visit each day, illuminating the freeways that connect city to beach to suburban sprawl with a gentle caress that evokes smiles that stretch for miles and a personality type unlike that which you’ll find anywhere else. Those native to this part of the world tend to be extra friendly, carefree, and full of a joie de vivre you won’t find growing on rusty lampposts in the hard-nosed grind of the East Coast. It should come as no surprise then that the Silverlake by way of Orange County rock collective Local Natives mix the vocal approach of Fleet Foxes with the tribalism of Animal Collective in a way that somehow manages to sound just like a sunset celebration with your closest friends on the beach at Crystal Cove State Park. Local Natives deliver a refreshing kind of sunshiney melancholia, one you’d be happy to have visit each day because it makes you want to sing along, dance, and crack those very same smiles that stretch for miles. Cali is where they put their mack down, give me love!

The band first caught EAR FARM’s attention in October of last year with the standout track “Airplanes” (a song that begins with the band predicting listener response to the opening measures by turning “boos” and hisses into cheers within a few seconds; read smile emoticon) and then again in December with silver-tongued vocal harmonies driving a Talking Heads cover and a singalong inducing Christmas song. As their reputation for putting on vibrant live shows across their home state has grown, so has the opportunity for a national Local Natives tour and debut LP. As it turns out, the Natives are currently on the road expanding their fan base in front of an early 2009 release of their debut album - likely headed to your hometown very soon. We caught up with them for a brief interview via email between stops on this massive cross country tour…

EAR FARM: Tell me how Local Natives got started and who makes up the band… are all of you guys local to/natives of Southern California?

TAYLOR: Ryan, Kelcey and I have played guitar and sung together for over seven years. We grew up in south Orange County and met in junior high. Our rhythm section is a bit more recent; Andy our bass player and Matt our drummer joined the band about two years ago. Matt is also from so-cal, making Andy the only one to immigrate to California from Golden, Colorado.

EF: And are any of you in school or working in addition to being in a band?

TAYLOR: Ryan and I just graduated. I was at UCLA and Ryan at Pepperdine. Everyone has a day job now though. Matt and Ryan are graphic designers, which is really handy because we make all of our posters/merch/artwork ourselves. Kelcey is a server and Andy and I are sales reps. Andy works in the fashion industry and I sell high quality kitchen cutlery to housewives. Its actually a really excellent day job.

EF: What’s the current LA/Orange County music scene like? Is there a sense of rivalry or community? Any other local bands you’re particularly fond of, other than your own?

TAYLOR: The niche we’ve found in LA and Orange County has an incredible sense of community. We wrote our album while living in Orange over the last 10 months, and there we became inseparable with Aushua and The Union Line. Both bands are sincerely as nice as individuals as they are talented. Dusty Rhodes and the River Band, The Living Suns, and My Pet Saddle are also great friends. Los Angeles certainly has a lot more going on in terms of a music scene, so we moved to Silverlake last month. Even though we’ve been driving up to LA to play for a couple years, living there has made an enormous difference. We’ve probably met one talented band for every day we’ve lived there so far. LA bands I love to play with: Voxhaul Broadcast, The Outline, The Deadly Syndrome, Lemon Sun, Saint Motel, and every band on our February Silverlake Lounge Residency.

EF: What are the bands that you guys regularly cite as influences on your sound?

TAYLOR: We’re really a vocal band, and we draw a lot of inspiration from ’60s harmony bands like CSNY, The Beatles, and The Zombies. Animal Collective, Annuals, and Talking Heads have had a big impact on our tribal, percussive sound. Instrumentally, I personally take an inspiration from orchestral sounding indie bands, like Broken Social Scene, The Arcade Fire, Sufjan Stevens, and Beirut.

EF: What brought about the two most recent songs posted here… the Talking Heads cover and the Christmas song?

above: the Local Natives Christmas card

ANDY: We had been wanting to record a cover song a for a while now but being such a dynamic group it was always hard for us to all decide on something that worked. I had been on this Talking Heads trip for the past few months and after reading about their history and really diving into their material, I thought it would be a great band to cover a song from. We all really didn’t want to cover any of their super hits but instead wanted to find a song that we could put our own taste into. “Warning Sign” has such a great rhythm to it and after we nailed down the opening harmony line it was decided that would be the one.

With our holiday song the only catch was that it had to be a “real” holiday song. In other words, if we were going to write and record a song to release during the holidays we wanted it to be something we could be proud of and not just something peppy and quick. The song was recorded at Tony’s house from the band The Union Line in a matter of hours. The song itself is about an experience of only being able to go back home once a year during Christmas to see friends and family. I am from Colorado and most years I only get to visit my family during Christmas.

EF: Have you finished recording your debut album? What’re your plans for releasing it?

ANDY: The debut album is finished being recorded minus a couple of mastering
tweaks. The album will be titled Gorilla Manor after our experience writing the record while living under one roof as a band and the communal “Primate Kingdom” feeling that comes with that. Plans for release are looking like early ‘09. We are in the works of exactly how and with whom it will be released as we speak.

above: wall of gum

EF: Your “coming soon” page on your site is an awesomely disgusting picture of used gum (see above). Did you contribute to the gum wall, or just admire it from afar?

ANDY: I actually took gum from the wall rather than gave. A used and chewed piece of Dentyne Ice warmed up under the sun makes for a great way to ease what ails ya. We all highly endorse gum in general. Nothing wrong with breath that smells like Welch’s Grape Soda!

EF: Without having read your blog and seen that that was indeed a pre-existing gum wall I almost thought it was “artwork” designed for use as your “coming soon” page… largely because your current artwork is all so well put together. Tell me about that, who does the artwork such as the picture of you guys with TV heads and the individual shots and everything?

ANDY: When it comes to the artwork fortunately three of us (myself, Matt, and Ryan) have some graphic design experience so all the artwork is done within the band. I think those pics on our MySpace took us like three damn weeks to finish! It’s sometimes hard because we are such a democratic band when comes to everything. Slowly but surely though I think we are coming up with really good stuff lately. That reminds me, I still have to finish working on a cover for the album.

EF: How did this current tour come about? Who did the routing and booking? What’s your relationship to the other bands you’re traveling with?

ANDY: The tour came about by being friends with like minded bands who also wanted to get on the road and then simply making it happen. It was completely self-booked. In reality there was nothing simple about it but it has been going great thus far. One of the members of the band we are on tour with actually had prior experience with routing/booking and is some kind of “booking blue monster” who had half the dates confirmed within 24hrs of telling him we were in for a US winter tour. I am actually writing this currently on tour at Buccaneers in Memphis, TN right next to a man who just explained to us that “if you don’t think Elvis is a Bitchin God, then you just don’t get it and that’s it”.

Both bands we are on tour with, Voxhaul Broadcast and The Union Line, are bands that we had become friends with from playing shows together in LA. I have to say, honest to god, that every single one of these clowns are some of the best people I could imagine traveling across the US in cramped smelling vans with. Except when Phil from Voxhaul leaves his chicken strip salad under the seat in the van for four days and then says “what the hell smells so bad in here?”… I enjoy the fact that each night I get to watch two very talented bands play and that ain’t no kiss ass. I promise.

above: The Union Line joins Local Natives for an encore in Santa Cruz

EF: You spent New Year’s Eve on the road… what was that like? Do anything special?

ANDY: We all spent New Years in Houston, TX at Walters on Washington, which is a giant hollowed-out barn with the nicest bartender in Texas. Highlights I think would include: puke all over my new luggage, Phil literally falling out the van inflicting (as I currently count) six giant face scabs, a thirty minute 2am jam session, awkward encounters at “Pearls Bar” and weird chicken fried steak at Denny’s. And not going to bed.

EF: What’s been the best show so far? The worst?

TAYLOR: Last night we drove from New Orleans to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. We arrived at 7pm and it was a complete ghost town, making our pre-show coffee shop promotion useless. The upside was that the venue, The Thirsty Hippo, had a huge apartment upstairs with a laundry room, shower, kitchenette, and a dozen beds. I settled into bed to recover from our absurdly long night in New Orleans, resigned to wake up to playing for the bartenders and our tour buddies. When I woke up at 10pm, Voxhaul Broadcast was playing to a full, dancing bar. Both we and The Union Line received the same joyous reception, and when we were all done playing the bar chanted for a 15 person jam from all of us, a demand we were happy to oblige. Between the hospitality of the venue and atmosphere of the audience, The Thirsty Hippo is so far the best show of the tour.

Worst so far? Sorry El Paso, your reputation precedes you. Not only was it freezing (a complaint sure to get worse as soon as we get to Boston and New York), but everyone we met was constantly worried and warning us about the war currently raging five miles south in Juarez. Also, we showed up at the venue and the promoter had forgotten about the concert. Finally, the locals led us to Taco Cabana at 2am. As residents of southern California, we are no aliens to excellent yet cheap Mexican food. The Tex-mex we ate there was so gross that literally everyone that ate felt sick. Oh, and the guy we met at the show who said we could all crash at his place turned out to be super sketchy. Drugs and hatchets is all I will say about that. You know what, the more I think about it, the more I realize that was absolutely the worst night thus far.

EF: How about your favorite city/area you’ve been to? Any shout-outs to great audiences, venues, or people who’ve put you up for the night?

TAYLOR: The culture in New Orleans is unbelievable. The bars close at 6am, a fantastic jazz combo or horn section is playing on every block, and the streets are constantly swarming with this weird mixture of punks, tourists, panhandlers, and jazz guitarists. Load in wasn’t until midnight, so we did our usual promotion walk through the streets. The second group of people we came across was a young engaged couple with two friends who were staying with them in their small flat. Upon telling them we were three touring bands, they invited all fifteen of us to their apartment for beers. They came to the concert and offered to show us around town and to sleep on their floor. There were no less then 24 bodies in sleeping bags scattered around the tiny apartment. The sun was well into the sky before we fell asleep. Infinite thanks to Nicole and Jeremy (who’s apartment we took over). I’d also like to shout out to Brad from Thirsty Hippo for the most hospitable venue of all time, and to the girls who drove 24 hours straight from California to Houston to spend New Year’s with us.

EF: Who decides what you guys listen to in the van, and what’s been getting lots of play so far?

ANDY: Enter the iPod shuffle. Luckily it would seem no one has panned out to be the “Stereohog Elitist” and thus far there has been a lot of The Clash, Jose Gonzalez, Jorge Ben, Plastic Ono Band, and The Moody Blues to name a few.

above: The Moody Blues two Natives gettin’ Smurfy, other Natives in disguise

EF: Which upcoming shows are you most looking forward to?

TAYLOR: We play Pianos in New York on the 9th and Public Assembly in Brooklyn on the following day. We’ve never played New York, I’ve never even been. My expectations for this city are high, probably too high. Other than that I’m looking forward to the Daytrotter presents show on the 18th in Chicago and TT the Bear’s Place in Cambridge.

EF: You’re playing every day, nonstop, for two weeks right now. Are you crazy?

TAYLOR: No. I mean, I don’t think so. Who likes days off? We are trying desperately to plug the last few holes for the month.

EF: Do you have any tour tips or advice from what you’ve learned so far on your cross-country journey?

TAYLOR: Yes. Don’t skimp on books or laptops. I realize how this makes me sound, but invest in silk long underwear. Also, share equipment. Having 15 guys to load one band’s worth of gear makes post show a lot more fun
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Listen:
“Airplanes”
“Warning Sign”
“We Come Back”

See Local Natives LIVE in New York City: Friday January 9th at Pianos; Saturday January 10th at Public Assembly.

Visit Local Natives on MySpace.
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See the list of bands recently featured as EAR FARM’s Band of the Week HERE.