Local Natives Interview
Why didnt we ever put this up sooner, they’re not even a buzz band anymore, they’re like blown up buzz! They are playing very soon in Leeds you know…Read the interview from May 2009 here.
Hey, hello, whos this?
This is Andy.
Hey why dont give us all your best english impressions, wait theres only one of you on the phone…this might not work?
Andy: I usually do a lot of sounds and noises with my mouth, all the guys say that if i wasnt a musician id be working for disney or something. Like if i start talking to people and i start becoming comfortable with them then ill start mimiking their accent.
you could be the next Michael Winslow (dude from police academy who makes all the noises)
Andy: yer i loved that guy when i was little
Shut: Ok lets do this..
Kelsey: Hi, i just got here
Shut: Yo, ok so…
Taylor: Hello, im here now…
Shut: Hey taylor, ok im just about…
Matt: Im here as well…
Shut: Hello Matt…Ok, Im gonna just do this. So you guys must be feeling pretty good after playing the shows at SXSW, there seems to be an all round good buzz about Local Natives?
Local Natives: Yer it was really exciting, we had never done SXSW as a band before and we went from having only 2 shows booked to having like 9 shows booked right before we were leaving. It was really cool to see people at our shows, esspecially the later shows, people who had never heard of us before. As a band it was something very brand new.
Shut: And hows does it feel to play shows so early in the day?
LN: I think everyone is adaquatly warned for that, you know, when you go to SXSW, you cant expect the sound to work, you expect anything to work really. We prepared oursleves though, we played this show on 6th street, in the middle of the day and after 2 songs the monitors went out. All these industry types were there and a lot of people from the UK..
I think right now we are actually trying to make this just like an all encompassing blob that will cover us all
Shut: You gotta battle on through though, how does it feel getting back to normal, coming away from playing tours and just going back to everyday life? Do you guys do other stuff besides the band?
LN: I think right now we are actually trying to make this just like an all encompassing blob that will cover us all, its good because this year looks like it could be really busy for us and you never know, maybe the start of an actual career for us.
Shut: it looks like its heading that way, how are you going to cope with being off the road then?
LN: It sucks, you know were still at that level where we have to work jobs, and were un signed, and pretty independant still. So yer, we wanna be out on the road basically. Were looking forward to that.
Shut: so you put a lotta love and sweat into your shows, is this refections of your characters or are you just happy guys?
LN: yer, well were not really mellow guys, were all pretty rambunctious, when were playing music it just really amplifies everything. I dont know, i think were holding back a little bit..
Shut: So the best is yet to come?
LN, yer i mean its so hard for us to just stand their during our shows, its such energetic songs, its just how you feel you know…I think ther are a lot of bands that are studio bands, they love making music but they maybe dont love touring and playing shows but all of us love performing and its a very natual thing. It snot like we have to go put on an enrgetic show, its just something that flows..
Shut: Cool, have you guys got any plans to bring your energy to england?
LN: as soon as humanly possible but nothing is set in stone, we are talking about doing some festival dates out there so keep your fingers crossed for us.
Shut: goody good, so where did your musical stye evolve from?
LN: well weve been a full band for a while now and before that me (taylor) and kelsy and ryan were all playing together for a while. The reason it did take us a while to find our sound is because our band is really collaborative, the song writing process is literally all five of us together going through every aspect of every song, it makes it a choatic writing experience but at the same time , really dymanic. While we were writing the album, we were able to latch on to the harmony, the key, the melody is key and the rhythem and theese are all really strong elements we relay on.
Shut: did you have any other influences, like any other bands thats made you think ‘I wanna make music’?
LN:Well because its so collaborative its hard to define, but i mean, talking heads is probably a big one and you can maybe hear that in our music. Also a lot of harmony bands like the zombies, we also have a very percusive element and we are influenced by bands like animal collective and broken social scene, but i mean we could about this for days…
Shut: your right, and sometimes its so hard to pin point a certain band or style
LN: exactly.
Shut: so where do you see yourselves heading then..?
LN: for this year we hope to release our first full length album here in the states and in europe, and japan, austraila – maybe even see those places.
Kelsey: Short term goals, I just wanna meet you Paul, I wanna play…Pauls my middle names, my girlfriends fathers name..
Shut: I already feel related.
Kelsey: you should…
Shut: that might not lead me into my next and final question but here goes anyway, if you could describe your band as an emotion, any emotion, what would it be?
LN: …..wow, thats hard…I thought of a word but its not an emtion. Gelatinous?
Kelsey: Thats not even an emotion, somehow i don’t think it’s going to fly and it’s kinda gross man…
Andy: Ok Ok, maybe our emotion could be hungry? We’re all really hungry, all the time. Plus we can expand on it, like we’re really hungry to express ourselves musically…you could say that we have many layers to our hunger.
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