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Local Natives - "Sun Hands"
In a YouTube video, Local Natives play an acoustic cover of "Cecilia" by Simon and Garfunkel in the backyard of the house all five share, nicknamed Gorilla Manor. It's a perfect fit for the band, whose own songs show the same affinity for sunny vocal harmonies and jungle rhythms tracked by the originals in 1970. But of course, Local Natives bring "Cecilia" an energy all their own. One drums the whole song on a tree, one might be jamming on a cooler (it's hard to tell), and another finishes his glockenspiel solo with a hurl of the mallets, possibly the most rockstar way to end the least rockstar moment possible.
I expect no less in shenanigans from a place called Gorilla Manor.
The band doesn't keep that energy at home. It seems to seep into everything they do, from a tireless touring schedule to their meticulously democratic approach in crafting songs, to their exuberant live shows and, most tellingly, leaving their jobs to pursue the band full-time.
"It's feelings of abandon and following a pursuit," says Ryan Hahn (vocals/guitar), "with everything, with all your time and efforts and forgoing the normal path."
In between tours of the east coast and the UK, Ryan Hahn and Matt Frazier (drums) spoke with The Overcast.
The Overcast: Did you guys play a show last night?
Matt: Well we had a show yesterday technically, but it was at one o'clock in the afternoon. So, it was a little weird.
Ryan: We played for about, like, ten seven-year-olds is what it was. It was pretty cool.
What was that all about?
Ryan: It was for this group called Kid Rockers. I think it's just to help little kids go see some music and their parents who probably don't get to go out much anymore. It was really fun. Kids got up there and at one point were shaking tambourines and stuff.
You have this UK tour coming up, right?
Matt: Yeah, we leave in less than two weeks.
Ryan: We couldn't be more excited. It's our first time over there, and being a band from the United States you dream about going to the UK. It's gonna be a blast.
Wasn't your first tour as a band just at the beginning of this year?
Matt: I guess you could say, with Local Natives that was our first full U.S. tour. We did a couple west coast runs up to Seattle and back in September, November of last year, but then the first time we hit the east coast was this January. We did four weeks out to New York and back.
Ryan: We kind of booked that one ourselves. Well, the other band we went on tour with, their drummer booked most of it. It was an adventure for sure.
You were called Cavil At Rest for about six years until pretty recently, and since changing the name you've opened for acts like Blind Pilot and Ben Kweller. It seems like since then things have been happening pretty fast.
Ryan: It's totally just because of the name change that things started taking off. No--with the new music, and I think it could mostly be attributed to the fact that a couple of us finished school, a couple of us quit our jobs or got fired... We just kind of figured, if we're going to make it happen, let's everyone work as hard as you possibly can and make that your full-time. That's been cool to be working on band stuff every day and really trying to make this a job, a full-time job, whereas before it was just on the weekends.
All of you guys are pretty much doing the band full-time now?
Matt: Pretty much. A couple of us work here and there, but like he said, everyone finished school, everyone quit their full-time jobs, I used to have a full-time job as a graphic designer, Andy [Hamm, bass] used to work in the fashion industry full-time, but now we're pretty much just doing this band thing every day, because we'd be happier doing it.
And you guys all just moved in together?
Matt: When we were writing and recording the album we were living in Orange last year, and a couple of us lived together. But it was a big move when we moved up to Silverlake in December, all five of us together, plus Andy's girlfriend, so there's six of us living under one roof. It's great. I mean, we have a blast together.
Ryan: We just had a birthday party for Taylor [Rice, vocals/guitar] at our house the other night. One of the benefits of living together is being able to throw a party at any point because there's already six people in the house.
So you recently released the "Sun Hands" single on vinyl, right?
Matt: It's coming out in a couple weeks. It's still up for pre-order right now.
So tell us about that, how that sort of happened out and why that song in particular?
Ryan: Interestingly enough, that's one of our oldest songs. That one traces back to when we were under a different name and it's just been kind of a live staple of our show for a couple of years now. We tend to close with it, and it just gets a great reaction because it's got a lot of drums in it, the whole thing kinda breaks down and gets really loud and, I don't know, it's just kinda been one of our favorite songs for awhile. And when we played South by Southwest this year we met a lot of people from overseas, from the UK, telling us, 'You know, we've heard your music.' We couldn't figure it out, we didn't understand how all these people had heard our music. We ended up getting connected with a label called Chess Club. They came out here, we hung out, we really liked the people at the label, and we just really wanted to put on "Sun Hands" just to see what it could do over in the UK.
Did you figure out in any way how those people from the UK had heard of you in the first place?
Matt: There's still a bit of mystery behind it. We're still kind of amazed that they even know of us, when we've never even been there as a band. South by Southwest was pretty much the biggest gateway to them finding out about us. There was like a handful of people that had kind of heard of us from over there, we played nine shows in four days, and by that eighth or ninth show word had just spread within that little United Kingdom musical community. People just went home and were talking about us and word spread fast.
Ryan: It was really cool to see. We're still baffled by it.
Something that you had mentioned a little bit when you were talking about "Sun Hands" was that it dates back to when you were under a different name and it's pretty old. Are there other songs that are going to be on [your upcoming album] Gorilla Manor that sort of carry from those early days, or have you changed pretty significantly?
Ryan: I'd say for the most part no. Like Matt said, we were all living in the house down in Orange, and that was kind of the first time we'd all been around each other for so many hours in the day, and I think that was just like a really big period of creativity and writing. We could all kind of gather around a piano and just knock out some music for a couple hours with acoustic guitars and stuff. So we wrote a lot. It was just like a new sound for us. That's kind of what brought about the name change and brought a bunch of new songs. For the most part, they're all new products of Local Natives.
Matt: I think one of the big things with that is, the songs on this album that we recorded last year, it was the first time that this lineup had all written together. Like Ryan said, Cavil At Rest was around in some form or another for six years or so, and so a lot of the songs we used to play, I wasn't in the band at the time or Andy wasn't in the band, and it was just a different lineup, different influences. So now we kind of all finally came together as this whole. Our writing process is very democratic and everybody has their take on it and it doesn't just come from one facet. It come from all sides and directions.
Ryan: Sometimes it takes us a really long time to write songs because of that. Because everyone's contributing and everyone's voting, and we're not going to move on with a part until everyone's happy. In some ways it's quality control because you know everyone's going to be happy with the end result, but we're definitely very picky and it takes us a long time.
I haven't had the chance to see you live, but from what I've heard, that process is pretty collaborative, too. You guys rotate instruments, that sort of thing. Do you think that's a reflection of your songwriting process too?
Ryan: Yeah, I definitely think that. Everyone in the band can play a handful of different instruments and I think it's definitely just a result of the way the songs are written. If someone came up and said, 'Oh I've got a piano line,' they're going to play piano on this song. But also as a live aesthetic thing, I think it's really cool to watch a band switch it up and give the audience something new to look at and new to hear. I guess, yeah, you're right, it's just kind of a result of the songwriting process.
What does it look like for you when you're putting together the lyrics? Is it sort of collaborative like that too?
Ryan: Yeah, it is collaborative. Maybe someone comes up with an idea and then you know, comes up to someone else and says, 'Hey this is a concept I was thinking about' so everyone can kind of help with lyrics here and there. As far as the themes on this record, without trying to come up with some sort of concept album, which we definitely weren't, I think a lot of the themes just came out of what we were feeling at the time of ... this point in our lives where we really want to make something happen with the band and make this a longer thing than just some kind of hobby. And so it's feelings of abandon and following a pursuit, like a passion, with everything, with all your time and efforts and forgoing the normal path of going to get a job behind a desk. Most of the lyrics kinda have that theme to it, in some form or another, whether it's traveling and just getting away and .... I think abandon would probably be a good word for it.
Your song "Airplanes" was used in an episode of the TV show Chuck, but from what I recall, the way it was used was completely out of context; that song was written about Kelcey [Ayer, vocals/keys]'s grandfather dying, but it was used in a dating situation. What are your thoughts on that? Soundtracks are increasingly becoming the route for audiences to discover new music but then you've got sort of this bastardization like that.
Ryan: People tend to think that song is about a girl. "I want you back," that whole thing. But, you know, it's about Kelcey's grandpa. So I mean, it's a little less sexy...
Matt: To each his own I guess. Kelcey, it obviously comes from his heart mostly, and he's the one that wrote that song, and I don't think that he was offended by the fact that they used it out of context. The lyrics kind of can go any which way. Like, we've had people write us on MySpace kind of telling how they related the song to them in their own experiences, and I think that's flattering more than anything. I don't think it really has so much a negative thing so much as, each person views the song differently.
Ryan: It's just like a new era in music. You see a lot more bands really lending their songs to licensing opportunities. Some of them may not be the coolest thing in the world, but for a little band like us, that helps us pay some of the payments on our band and pay back some of our debts from recording and whatnot. So I mean, a little 45 seconds buried in the background of some show really, really helps us make more music and keep doing what we want to do.
Matt: As long as we're not selling, like--god, I don't even want to go there--as long as we're not hawking some, like, weird product.
Also about that song, what's with the booing at the beginning of the "Airplanes" recording?
Ryan: That was just some ridiculous thing. I don't know, I think it started off as Taylor and I just giving Kelcey a hard time. It just kinda became this fun, silly thing that caught on. People started to do it at our shows.
Matt: I've never been so excited to hear someone boo at a show.
Ryan: I always used to get a kick out of listening in my headphones when you can hear stuff in the background, like, you know, people talking--back in the old day when they recorded things all in one room. I don't think that was our intention, but it was just some silly thing we tacked on there.
When can we expect to hear the rest of your album finally?
Ryan: Yeah, I'd like to know that too.
Matt: It's honestly still up in the air. We're just trying to figure out which route we're going to go with labels and whatnot. I would say hopefully by the end of the year, but as of right now it's kind of hard to give you a set date.
Ryan: We're still kind of tinkering with some of the mixing and whatnot, but hopefully sooner than later.
Do you have anything else to add or anything you think it would be important for people to know?
Matt: We have a residency at Spaceland in August which we're really excited about. That's something big coming up after we get back from the UK trip, so we'll be kind of centralized back home for at least a month.