Interview with Local Natives
"I do remember that night [at NAC]; I burnt my hand on a flaming sambucca shot and had this ring on my hand for like, two weeks!" - Kelcey reminiscing about his last Norwich jaunt.
How important is context when you’re listening to an album? Does it matter? In the case of Local Natives’ sophomore album, I’d argue it does. After the high impact debut ‘Gorilla Manor’ comes the altogether more subtle ‘Hummingbird’, an album written after a tumultuous couple of years for the band. Simply, I can’t let you listen to ‘Colombia’ once more without understanding the significance that it was written after the passing of lead singer Kelcey’s mother passing; it exudes a wealth of emotion that deserves to be appreciated. You must also know that the album focuses much of its gaze on the space that the departure of bassist Andy Hamm left. It’s an album that deserves your understanding, both your ears and just 44 minutes of your time. In return for that, Kelcey has given us 20 minutes of his, ahead of the band’s return to Latitude Festival.
How are you doing today?Yeah, pretty good; we all got up about 5am today in Barcelona to come to London today, so that was pretty rough, so everyone’s a little weary, or under the weather, but we’ll be good.
You’re playing a secret show tonight, is that right? What did the UK do to deserve that treat?[LAUGHS] I dunno; we thought it’d be a nice idea ‘cause we heard that Field Day was really, really awesome and they were really in to the idea so we made it happen.
Cool! Now I’d just like to say, Kelcey, I feel like I might have got more research done had I not discovered your Vine account – you Vine quite prolifically, don’t you?I do, yeah! [LAUGHS] I really enjoy editing and I’ve edited together some band stuff in the past, so that kinda goes along with that and it’s pretty fun to do.
I need to say thank you really for ‘Gorilla Manor’; back in 2009, it was my Album of the Year in our small magazine – I hope that pleases you a little?Oh yeah, it definitely does. Thank you very much, that’s awesome!
It’s fair to say that the album was very warmly received in the UK, as well as back home for you, wasn’t it?Yeah, yeah; I would definitely say that one of the biggest shows we played from that record cycle was The Forum out here. It was pretty awesome to see the reception, and especially in London, it’s been really cool to see how it’s grown.
We’re doing this interview ahead of your Latitude Festival appearance. On Twitter recently you said that Latitude was one of your earliest festivals and still one of your favourites –- Yeah, I think we have really fond memories of that, just being our first festival that we’d ever been to anywhere and we kind of didn’t know what to expect. It was at the end of a long week of doing shows and promo and the festival grounds were just so beautiful and green out there, and the vibe was great and the show went amazingly well. That always holds a really fond place in our hearts, for sure. But yeah, the line-up for this year is pretty awesome, especially on our stage; it looks like it’s gonna be pretty amazing. I remember seeing Thom Yorke play at noon on the main stage on that Sunday and I remember just being so blown away, so to be playing there is a pretty incredible thing.
I saw you play then, and I was delighted to see you returning, and it’s fair to say your name has moved up a couple of type sizes on the bill. Is that always a good indication to you that you’re going in the right direction - how big the font is?Yeah, yeah! It looks more right than wrong, right?! [LAUGHS] I definitely feel great about it!
There’s a notion of the career ladder when you see bands moving up the bill, but do you think of your band’s progression in those kinda linear terms, or do you have a different set of goals?Erm, I think there are many different indicators as to how things are going and you try not to pay too much attention to that kind of stuff, but you always want to be taking a step in the right direction, to be sure. We’re definitely an ambitious band and we want to be around for a really long, long time like the bands that we look up to and that definitely goes hand in hand with steadily getting more fans and getting bigger and bigger, so you know, it is important for us to see that trajectory, but how quickly it happens, or how slow it happens is not important – that it happens at all is the main thing.
I was thinking that last time you played Latitude, it must have been so different – you were carefree, living the dream off your first album, no pressure – would you trade your current status for that again?I think actually I felt more pressure then than I do now; I think having played so many shows up to this point, everyone feels a lot more comfortable in their own skin, more confident in our live show and I think back then – I mean, we didn’t know it was gonna happen, and it was still really, really early on, so it’d be hard to say we didn’t feel any pressure.
‘Gorilla Manor’ was immediate and explosive live – I remember seeing you at the Norwich Arts Centre – do you remember that at all?I think I do because that night I burnt my hand on a flaming sambucca shot and had this ring on my hand for like, two weeks! That venue was really awesome and I think we took some pictures around there too, because there was some really sweet art around.
I read an old interview with you guys from Clash Magazine from around that time, in 2010 where you said you wanted to write a different album next time. As circumstances between then and now arose though, do you think you could have written the same album again, even if you’d wanted to?Erm… [Kelcey pauses for a while] Er, I think probably not, especially given what happened over the last couple of years; they were big moments that kind of change who you are. It’s just a part of growing up and getting older and getting, I don’t know, accustomed to loss, accustomed to things that make your skin grow a little bit thicker. Even if we had set out to make the same album, it’d still sound different for sure.
As it is, ‘Hummingbird’ is painfully beautiful, and from knowing ‘Gorilla Manor’ so well, there are places where you expect vocals on the new album, and instead you get space, which I always think takes confidence. Do you think you needed the confidence to experiment?Well I think that we were feeling like we needed to create more space on the album. It’s funny that you use the word experiment, because for us it was definitely going outside of our comfort zone to not fill up every space and so that was just something that we wanted to try and do and something that, I don’t know, we were just in to more.
The songs were written in the unique environment of the studio, and are quite introverted, but now you’ve been able to tour them a little, do they take on a life of their own?Yeah, I think some songs find that they exist in a more energetic manor, or are better played a little more subdued. Yeah, they definitely change and I think that’s something that we came to terms with when we were writing the record, ‘cause we were like, ‘let’s not worry about the live show, let’s just worry about the recording of everything’, because the songs end up changing anyway. When you play them live, some things don’t translate anyway, so you have to try and adapt them.
I can’t wait to see you play live, ‘cause as I said, ‘Gorilla Manor’ was explosive live and now you have two albums with varying colour palettes. Are you able to engineer the set-list now to provide different kinds of narratives for the show?Yeah, I mean we can definitely cater something to be energetic throughout the whole set, but it’s nice to have these other songs to have it vary because I really enjoy seeing the peaks and the valleys when you’re seeing a band live, so I think we have more of that now. I think that goes well with where my head’s at, you know, where I’ve grown accustomed to liking music.
It’s been widely spoken of that Aaron Dessner of The National produced the album, but how important do you think it was that his primary job is musician first, like, he’s living it every day.That was definitely one of the reasons that attracted us to him; we didn’t want someone to come in and analyse the songs like they do that every day for their day job. It was so cool for him to come in – and he’s had experience engineering and producing – but he’s experienced in songwriting and just being a musician who cares about songs at the core and the heart of the song. So that’s what I think made it work so well is that we wanted somebody to match our passion, you know, he was a fan beforehand and that was just great because we’re a fan of their band, so that mutual respect, I think, went a long way as well.
I’m sure you don’t pay too much attention to reviews, but a recent credible Guardian review compared it to Radiohead’s recent work – I know you’re a fan, so that must resonate quite nicely with you?Yeah! I did not see that - that’s awesome! Oh yeah, I definitely am; I think they are the best band out right now, maybe ever. I think I really do believe that. That’s just me though! [LAUGHS]
You’ve mentioned a few UK bands over the years and you recently defended Coachella’s line-up choices [which included mostly British headliners] – are you a big fan of music from across the pond?Oh yeah, definitely; I thought the Coachella line-up was great and I just think that everyone just wants something to complain about. I know Ryan is a huge Stone Roses fan, so he was super stoked and we’re all in to pretty much anything Damon Albarn does, so Blur or Gorillaz or The Good, The Bad and the Queen, which is one I’ve been revisiting pretty heavily. So yeah, we have huge respect for music over here, definitely.
Finally, I think one of the most comforting things, as a fan, I read was that you recently bought a five-way headphones splitter so that you could all listen to music together on the bus. I think that speaks volumes about how you’re still wanting to share every bit of the process with these guys…Yeah, totally, I mean I like the idea of us wanting to be inclusive of each other on most of the things that we’re doing and the more outputs we have, the more we can share in something, for sure.
For now, we’ll look forward to seeing you at Latitude, but then we welcome you back to Norwich in October – perhaps we can buy you another flaming sambucca then.Yeah, yeah – you can teach me how to do it right!
Emma R. Garwood
Local Natives play the Obelisk Stage on Sunday at this year’s Latitude Festival in Suffolk. For tickets and more info, go to www.latitudefestival.co.uk. They also come to The Waterfront in Norwich on 16th October this year. Go to www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk
