PAGE 6A
THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
+
Q&A
The members of Local Natives, fom left to right: Nik Ewing, Matt Frazier, Taylor Rice, Kelcey Ayer, Ryan Hahn. Local Natives will perform at the Granada with supporting artist Moses Sumney on Friday.
From California to Kansas, Local Natives set to perform in Lawrence for the first time
LYNDSEY HAVENS
entertain@kansan.com
This Friday, Local Natives will make their first appearance in Lawrence when they play at the Granada. The group hails from California and officially formed in Silver Lake in 2008.
Within just one year, the original members of Local Natives: Taylor Rice (guitar, vocals), Ryan Hahn (guitar, vocals), Kelcey Ayer (keyboard, vocals), Matt Frazier (drums) and Andy Hamm (bass), released their debut album. The album, "Gorilla Manor," showcased the group's layered vocal harmonies, explosive build-ups and heavy drumming.
Hamm left the group in 2011, leaving Rice, Hahn, Ayer and Frazier to work on the next album. The group's second album, "Hummingbird," was released in 2013 and was produced by Aaron Dessner, member of the group The National. The loss of Hamm didn't impact the group's signature collaboration on all aspects of artistry; however, the theme of loss echoes throughout the album. In 2013, the group announced that touring bassist Nik Ewing would officially join
as a full member.
I had the pleasure of chatting with Taylor Rice over the phone to discuss the importance of telling a story, both in a song and in life, among other things:
Q: Where did the idea for the name "Hummingbird" come from?
A: Hummingbird came from the lyrics of a song "Columbia" kind of directly. For us it's kind of homage to Kelcey's mom, she passed away right as we were writing the record, which obviously you know we're like a family, which is a pretty crazy thing to go through, and I think it definitely shaped a lot of that period for us and there's a story in the song. She had loved hummingbirds in her life, and there's kind of a story in the song about it and so it's kind of a dedication to Patricia.
Q: Do you think that Aaron Dessner influenced the overall tone of the album at all? Because it definitely sounds a little more somber than the first album.
A: Yeah, I think Aaron absolutely had an impact working
with us. Though I think the somberness, a lot of the songs were written before we started working with Aaron, so I think that happened to go hand in hand or perhaps that's how we found each other, you know? Things aligning. But his largest impact really had to do with in the studio, how he works, it was a very different way of working for us. Where before, we would just jam everything out live in a room and it would all pretty much be done then we would just record it and lay it down, that's how we worked for "Gorilla Manor." With Aaron in the studio it was a lot more kind of record as you go, spontaneous, layering and building a song, and kind of major things in a song can happen late in the game. I think he had an impact on how we recorded.
Q: So it's been said that a lot of albums fall into a sophomore slump with a second album but this was definitely not the case for "Hummingbird." How do you think that as a group you managed to avoid this?
A: Well, you know, I think it's funny because everybody's perspective is different and when
you're inside something it's kind of more difficult to see it than from the outside, so it's awesome to hear you say that. I think that one thing that we were really careful about, you know there was three years between the first two records, and we toured just so hard, we toured for two years pretty much non-stop. And then we made the record the next year, but that was one thing and I think a lot of bands probably get pressured from labels or people they work with that they have some momentum you need to get another good one out now, and we very early on set a rule for ourselves that no matter how long it took we weren't going to put out another album until we were really ready for it. I think sticking with that was really good and something that probably is really hard for a lot of bands to be able to do that for a second album, so we were really lucky to be able to do that.
Q: Do you guys have any plans as of now for a third album?
A: Yeah, yeah we do. We've been writing back home in L.A. in our studio kind of non-stop
for the last couple of months, and it's been really really great. And we're on this tour right now with Kings of Leon, which has been super fun, but there was this part of us that was sad to leave home and the writing process cause we've really been enjoying working on the record. So we're still kind of in early stages of it, but we'll be mostly home this year working on our third record.
Q: What was the best piece of advice that you've ever been given?
A: As a musician or as a human?
Q: How about both?
A: Okay. As a musician, the best advice that we got, well this is actually kind of just from learning too, going through it the hard way, but this is kind of always the advice you get as a band asking for advice. The thing is just to never expect that somebody else is going to make it happen for you. Or that if you that if you just get signed, or if you just get this one break then you're going to move forward ... that's just a lesson we
learned from kind of doing it ourselves forever since we were kids. But if you take everything into your own hands and really care about every part of what it is to be in a band and share music, I think that's the best advice that I would give to new bands.
Q: And the best advice you've ever been given as a human being?
A: Oh god, that's a lot of pressure. Let's think here. Okay, this is probably not the best advice ever given, but this is most recent awesome advice that I've gotten. Being on tour with the guys from Kings of Leon, and they're basically saying that they want their life to be a story and that they want it to be a really good story, to not be boring. So they're down to basically have crazy things happen to them. I thought that that was really good, really good advice.
Doors open at 7 p.m. and the show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets can be purchased in advance for $23 or at the door for $25.
Edited by Brook Barnes
Presented by: Jayhawk Buddy System
1
+