Photo by Sandy Kim
“We haven’t had a full rehearsal, we’re still teaching [new band members] songs—we have a week to teach 15 to 20 songs,” explained JR White who writes music and plays bass for the band. “The last tour we were playing new songs and not playing some songs from the album. We haven’t been playing ‘Lauren Marie’ because it hasn’t been working live.”
But on Monday night in Hoboken they did play the song, and it worked perfectly. And despite the cramped feeling and so-so sound in the sold-out venue—the touring foursome’s songs should sound much better at Bowery Ballroom on Friday—the band, which up until now has been best known for singer Chris Owens’ wacky childhood (he grew up in a cult), public drug use (taking pills in front of reporters, being unusually candid about things that most people in rock bands do but don’t talk about) and a handful of local shows at venues like Monster Island Basement and Cake Shop, made a case for its popularity.
While I wasn’t convinced that all of my favorite tracks from the band’s record Album were done justice, some tracks—the lovely live version of “Lauren Marie” that I’m glad was performed and a short, sweet and not-at-all-grandstanding version of surf-pop standout “Lust for Life”—were played well enough to make me smile, bob my head and forget about having to take the PATH train home. For a band that’s not crazy about playing live, it was a feat.
“Live shows are great, but the record is the kind of thing that I’m more interested in,” White had told me. “We always want to be recording—if we weren’t playing so much, we would just be recording whenever inspiration hits us, which has been a lot lately.”
Part of this, of course, is the band getting used to its notoriety. Already, the oversized white pins featuring the group’s name have become de rigueur for a certain brand of music lover, and it’s not something, said White, that is easy to get used to.
“It’s strange when there’s this momentum that you can’t control. There’s no attempt to get people to like us, but it’s just natural. It’s great, obviously, and you feel pretty lucky when that kind of thing happens, but I kind of ignore it.”
After all, both White and Owens have ended up coming across in print in ways they didn’t always appreciate. “I remember before everything got put in the machine, before our words were clustered everywhere, we did a couple of interviews,” said White. “I remember talking one day, it was an off the cuff conversation, about Oasis, and I said that I can appreciate bands that are honest about what’s going on. There’s honesty with the fans when it comes to drugs or inner workings of the band. We always thought it would be cool to be a band that doesn’t hide anything. Everyone I know in a band has had some drug use. The American press finds it a lot more interesting—it’s not even a very exciting topic. It’s just sensationalism.”
And anyway, between this tour, which runs though December and includes a date in Tokyo, and the professed love of recording, there might not be a whole lot of time for illicit activities, public or otherwise.
“Chris is writing all the time,” White said. “The songs are written [for another album], but we haven’t started working. We’ll go through each song and talk, but we haven’t started that process. Hopefully when we have a month off, we might do some recording and put out an EP.”
In the meantime, playing shows might not be so bad. After hitting D.C. and Philly, the band will be back in New York (playing with Real Estate), and that’s just fine. “It’s kind of the only place you really care about,” White said. “We always have great shows there and it’s always really good.”
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