2009’s almost over, so what can a keen and dedicated ear-expect from yet another LA band? More of that No Age/Abe Vigoda/Mika Miko sort of thing? More lo-fi lessons from the DIY gutter? One might think so, but not in this case: Local Natives (that is: Kelcey Ayer, Ryan Hahn, Taylor Rice, Matt Frazier and Andy Hamm) indeed reside in sunny Silverlake nowadays, but they don’t sound anything like the whole The Smell scene at all. Instead, their sonic palette bursts at the seams with multi-hued vocal layers, collectively crafted and heavily cascading pop gestures so vast and instantly gripping you can see them even in the thick of the smog, a classic So-Cal vibe enhanced by Dodos-style percussive mayhem and slow-building and soon-towering harmonies that will lift you up higher and higher, only to drop you right in the middle of some timeless place where The Zombies and other undead 60s bands still cunningly rock out and drink and cook together. And higher yet. It’s an elevated place, that’s for sure. So high up, in fact, we had to get down to the core of their forthcoming “Gorilla Manor” debut release. Here’s what we found out from Kelcey, the keyboard guy.

Dealing with some Local Natives here, I kind of have to ask you this: where are you guys from originally? You probably weren’t born in Silverlake, were you?

We are not from LA originally, no. Everyone is from a part of southern California except Andy, who grew up in Golden, Colorado. LA is definitely one of those cities with the majority of people being from other places, which I like very much.

How did you first meet? And when did you form the band?

Ryan, Taylor and I went to neighbouring high schools, so we’ve been playing music since then. Andy was going to school and had just graduated when he started playing bass with us, and we got Matt on drums about three and a half years ago, so the five of us have been jamming for that long. Local Natives was born a little over a year ago once we had recorded some songs and decided to take things seriously.

You used to call yourselves Cavil At Rest for quite some time… why the name change?

That was more of a band in-training. We were wrestling with each other’s different influences and couldn’t really get a cohesive sound together that we could embrace. Plus everyone had school and jobs, so we couldn’t take the full plunge into being a real band. We finally wrote some songs that sounded like they were from one band and not several, and everyone decided that they could really get behind the sound. It had finally taken the direction that we always wanted, so we thought since it was the beginning of something new, it had to be a different band.

I already know what it sounds like, but what did life in Gorilla Manor look like? What did you do on an average day?

Well, everyone had to do their silly day jobs to help them get by, and in between we all would either jam inside the house on the songs or at our practice space a few blocks away. I had bought this old piano from a thrift store for next to nothing, so we were always around it, working out harmonies or chord progressions or whatever. We were very loud.

Can you describe the “dysfunctional family” that is Local Natives in a few sentences?

I just asked everyone for help on this question, and everyone said, “Kelcey, this is your interview”. I then responded, “You fucking assholes.” I also can’t eat in the dark.

Since you have these huge harmonies in your sound: is life in the band just as harmonious, usually?

We decided early on that the band was a marriage and that we’d be around each other through thick and thin, till death do us part, that sort of thing. And like any marriage, there is some bickering, and some arguing, and some fighting, but I like to think we handle it well. We actually spend a lot of our day joking and laughing about stupid shit we’ve seen or that we’ve made up, so it is pretty harmonious.

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Apart from Talking Heads, what kind of music can you all agree on?

Everyone LOVES Radiohead. Past that, it’s pretty varied. 

What was on your minds, hearts, and shoulders as you recorded “Gorilla Manor”?

We wanted the songs to feel the way that they do live, and not too produced. Aside from that, we just wanted to make something we could be proud of. One of the only things that everyone can agree on is that we made something we are very proud of. 

With everyone in the band contributing as much as everyone else, I imagine the writing process quite arduous in a democratic kind of way – am I right?

You are exactly right. I can imagine that there is a joy in one person having control to write whatever he or she feels and have his or her band mates play it. Where you write something and everyone says, “Cool, that’s awesome”. We will never know that joy. 

How do you usually get started with a new song? Is it all based around a vocal part?

It can start many different ways just because there are many people that can start them. I wrote the chord progression, lyrics, and melody to “Airplanes” and then brought it to the band, with the end product being surprisingly close to what I had originally thought. Then on the other hand, Taylor wrote the basic melodies and parts to “Sun Hands,” and that went a completely different direction than he ever thought it would. You never know what will happen, that’s why we’ve tried to encourage each other not to get too far along in writing a song, because it will probably get completely flipped inside out and upside down. Unfortunately, if you make a song your baby, you can count on your baby dying.

It’s been a year since you recorded the album, right? Have you been working on new stuff since?

Actually, we thought we finished our album a year ago, but since then we’ve rerecorded, remixed, and even wrote new songs during the summer that made it onto the album. We decided not to release it ourselves and to wait to do it properly on a label, and I’m really glad we did. The time it took to find one allowed us to make the record better than it was.

There’s been this whole LA hype/creative movement happening in the past 2-3 years; what bands/artists are you personally linked to? You aren’t really linked to the whole The Smell thing, are you?

We are not linked to any of those Smell bands or have ever played the venue, no. We are fans of No Age and some of those other bands, but it obviously really isn’t our scene. We kind of had to make a place for ourselves in LA, because there really weren’t very many bands doing what we were doing. The East end of LA (Silverlake, Echo Park) has really accepted us into their community, and there are some really great bands in that scene that we are friends with now. I’d check out Voxhaul Broadcast and Rumspringa to name a few.

So, to what degree has the Echo Park/Silverlake area been an influence on your sound?

We actually wrote a lot of our songs outside that area, but I’d definitely agree that some of the new ones had been influenced by our newer surroundings (we moved to Silverlake in December of ’08). It’s interesting when people ask if we were influenced by the beach, or the Californian sunshine, or anything that encompasses southern California-living, because it’s just not something you can put your finger on and explain. Any artist would be lying if they said they weren’t affected by their surroundings, but it’s certainly not something you think about consciously when you’re writing. It just happens. 

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If I said: for my German ear, you kind of sound like you’re from Brooklyn – how would you react?

I would think that that is pretty understandable. A lot of the bands that we’ve gravitated to in recent years have happened to come out of Brooklyn, and then with the Smell scene getting so much notoriety as being synonymous with LA music, I’m not sure how or where we fit in. But given a lot of our influences, I’ll take that as a compliment!

Do you still have day jobs on the side? I heard something about someone selling kitchen cutlery…

No one does anymore, but you definitely heard right. Taylor made a lot of money doing it, and even Ryan and I did it at one point. There is this knife company that works exclusively with a marketing company that hires out people to sell the product. The deal is that you sell these expensive knives to families you know, and then those families get you in touch with their friends and you spread out your customer-base. They are pretty pricey, and at a certain point you can make 50 percent commission, so if you stick with it, you can make really good money, which is what Taylor did. It does help to live in one of the richest parts of the world.
Is your home cooking as much a collaborative effort as your music is?
Taylor and Ryan aren’t the best cooks, but Andy and I love it. I’ll find myself making food for everybody, and I don’t mind because I love to cook. I read somewhere recently that the singer in The Dodos used to be a line cook. Maybe we can cook together one day.

What about drunken nights at home? Who’s doing the “band leader thing” in that respect?

I actually lead that too. Until I pass out. Then someone else takes over.

Who of you is the best wingman for the rest of you?

I would not say Taylor, because he gets too flirty for his own good, but anyone else would be a good bet. Ryan is the only single one right now, so we’ve all tried to help wingman as much as possible. We all try to live out our single fantasies through him. He gets a lot of pressure to score with the ladies.

What can you announce for the future?

Well, the record is coming out in Germany I believe very soon, and past that we hope to play the songs to the best of our ability for as many people as possible. We pretty much will be on tour for the next year and a half if all goes well, so hopefully all will go well and we’ll have a beer together in your hood. Thanks for talking with us!

<sub>Words: an East-Frisian native production by rnk/trifeca.org

Local Natives | “Gorilla Manor” | album | Infectious/PIAS
www.thelocalnatives.com</sub>