At the end of 2009, the debut album from Los Angeles five piece Local Natives, “Gorilla Manor”, took everyone by surprise. Combining the playfulness of Vampire Weekend, the intensity and sweet melancholy of Grizzly Bear and the subtle folk approach of Fleet Foxes, it was an upbeat and welcome word of mouth success. Embraced first in Uk and Europe, where their heavily rhythmical compositions and three voice harmonies sounded like a neverending summer, they seemed to be forever on tour. But (their) life went on, losing a member and having to cope with death, insecurities and end of relationships. It’s called growing up, and it is never an easy ride.
Taylor Rice, Kelcey Ayer, Ryan Hahn and Matt Frazier regrouped and with the help of The National’s Aaron Dessner, a fan and a friend of the band, have returned with “Hummingbird”, a deeper and more introverted record, which six months from its release, keeps rewarding its listener. While not sounding completely unlike the debut, the songs have become more complex and the emotional impact of the lyrics is unprecedented. Not many albums keep revealing their beauty, but, as Kelcey sings on You & I, “The closer I get / the farther I have to go / to places we don’t know.” It’s called living, and it can be an extraordinary ride.
Ryan kindly sat with us to talk at length about “Hummingbird”.
It’s been over 3 years since you released “Gorilla Manor” to great acclaim. What took you so long to give it a follow-up?
We toured just as much as we possibly could. We sincerely didn’t expect for things to go as well as they did, so it was a big opportunity to keep touring around and to get offered to support respected bands. Everytime we tried and sat down to focus on writing, something new and exciting happened. Life got in the way as well, 2011 was for everyone a crazy year on a personal level. But when we finally could get back together, the whole process of writing and recording took a bit less than a year.
Listening to the “Gorilla Manor” and “Hummingbird” back to back, one can’t help thinking there’s been a process of growing up, as men as well as songwriters, but also that you consciously decided to take things more seriously.
I wouldn’t agree, we have always taken this band very seriously and you could actually say we have always been a very ambitious band, compared to others which are more or less our same age. With “Hummingbird” we wanted to challenge ourselves to try new things and not write the same record again. That doesn’t mean that we have changed the way we write songs, both albums went under the same process of overthinking, but this time I feel more of a cohesion that makes the album come as more direct and personal.
The first album was recorded in Los Angeles with the band living in the same house. For “Hummingbird”, you decided to work with The National’s Aaron Dessner. How did it come about?
We tried to recreate the same circumstances of the first album. We have a little rehearsing space; it should be a small house really, but it’s kinda dilapidated so we asked the landlord to use it as a rehearsing room. We spent there about 9 months, working every single day for hours and hours, experimenting and demoing. When it came to recording, we just wanted to get away from LA, away from distractions that were going on in our lives; we moved in together again, first in Montreal and then in Brooklyn with Aaron. We had toured with The National, he liked our music, we got to know and like each other as people, so it was great to be able to work with him. Again, that meant spending every single minute of the day together. We are like brothers, and I know I can make the guys go mad with just one word, but at the same time there’s a closeness that you can rarely find within a band.
Is Aaron part of the family then?
Aaron is the 5th brother, possibly our older brother. We feed on a mutual respect built on touring and then working together. And the whole recording time was lots of fun.
How did the songwriting develop for this album?
The first song was probably Bowery, which closes “Hummingbird”. A difficult song really, it was the first one to be written, but the last one to be completed. It started as a little tune around the time of recording “Gorilla Manor” but we could not complete it then. Black Balloons was another early one. Things started to get together with You & I; Kelcey came up with it, sounding almost like a R&B song, so one night the two of us stayed up all night in the studio, me on the drums and him on the synthesizers and gave it the shape you can listen to now. When we listened it back in the morning with Matt and Taylor, we knew we were onto something, the excitement was clear. Most of the other songs came really quickly from the impetus of it.
You have often been compared to bands like Vampire Weekend and Grizzly Bear, so it’s inevitable to ask what you think and whether their music plays an influence on yours.
It’s difficult to say. When we are writing and recording we try to unplug and not listen to any contemporary music. I like to step into the classica. During the writing and recording of “Hummingbird”, I listened only to Bowie’s “Low” and “Heroes”, Leonard Cohen, New Order and Elvis Costello. I know that Kelcey was listening to Portishead and I think that probably mellowed our songs a lot. Of course, we love many contemporary bands, we have all known each other since we were really young and we bonded over the same music.
They are all cool reference points. Don’t tell me you don’t have one single guilty pleasure…
Oh man! Ok, every time a Phil Collins song comes on the radio I have to listen till its end! There I said it, I love Phil Collins (laughs).
If the music is so collaborative, are the lyrics a collective process as well? “Hummingbird” is lyrically a leap forward in terms of depth and style.
We bounce ideas off each other. Usually whi comes up with the body of the song has a few lyrics to go with it, but we have a veto policy. Personally, I like songs that give little clues that the listener can relate to, like personal touches or images that reveal the story.
Gorilla Manor, Hummingbird, songs like Wooly Mammoth, a shark and a koala as main characters in the video for Wide Eyes, a dog for the video of You & I….you are clearly obsessed with animals, aren’t you?
(laughing) I don’t know! We never really thought about it, but it’s true, they just keep coming up!
Let’s talk about the videos then: they tend to go from the unsettling to the just plain weird. In the clip for Breakers, we can see Taylor rolling down the stairs. And I have noticed that it was codirected by the band. Can you tell us more about that?
We’ve always wanted to make things for ourselves; if there’s one thing that you never know how to tackle or how to keep control of is the videoclip. We still don’t, but we had a friend, Jaffe Zinn, who we think has a few more clues than us. We were working with other directors on ideas but nothing seemed to work or was too convincing. As the deadline for Breakers was getting very close we were like “screw it, we’ll do it ourselves”. It was fun to put together. The song is about a friend who is struggling with anxiety, the lyrics are his internal monologue. The term ‘breakers’ is used as in ‘resetting the breakers’, restoring the power in your home. The video tried to capture that internal struggle. As for Taylor, we tried to persuade him in using a stunt but he really wanted to roll down the stairs!
If you could pick just one song to represent the album, which one would it be?
That’s impossible! I’ll give you three. Black Spot, because it has a dark subject but with a cathartic message, You & I because it was pivotal to the album and very important to the band, Bowery because it has my first guitar solo.
I have to say my favourite is Columbia.
That is where the title of the album comes from. The song is about Kelsey’s mum who passed away last year, a heavy moment for him which really affected all of us. It is a sad and joyful song. It is the song that seem to connect most with people at our gigs.
What’s next for you?
Touring for the rest of the year. Touring forever!
You don’t want to become the Rolling Stones…
They’re not doing too bad, are they?
“Hummingbird” is out now on Frenchkiss/Infectious
www.thelocalnatives.com
