1) You are from Brooklyn, which is widely
considered to be the birthplace of shoegaze. How does it feel being from the
epicenter of something that is much bigger than just a music scene that has
spread literally across the world?
[ Eric ] It's incredibly inspiring and
overwhelming at the same time.
[Abby] Brooklyn feels like the major leagues.
Everyone here is in a band. Their mailman, their mom, their cat is in a band.
The saturation of musicians here makes you want to work twice as hard, but can
also make you feel very small, not special.
2) When I first found your self-titled EP on
Band Camp, it was only available as a stream. Then, more recently, it became
$3.99 to download. I think that was a very smart move, to give it away as a
stream for free at first, get people hooked on it, and then they'll pay to
download it now. (A dollar a song is a good deal, right?) Was it planned out
that way? I always feel like music should be free (at least to stream) because
then if music is good enough, people will buy it in some way (or a t-shirt,
etc.) and people argue that keeps bands from getting paid, but really it just
means you won't get paid if no one likes your music and if no one likes your
music you shouldn't possibly consider a day job. So what I'm saying is, I think
people should be made to pay for music but not blindly and it seems like you
really plotted that well with your EP.
[ Eric ] We didn't know how the world
was going react to it before we released it. If it was crap, we wouldn't have
felt comfortable charging people. But, luckily everyone loved it and wanted to
get it into their iPhones, iTunes, and iPods. Thats when we knew we had to
start strategizing our moves. It seems people want something even more when
they can't have it too. So yes, I guess it was a slight manipulation. In
regards to free music: I think bands should just focus more on their craft of
producing good music. It's as simple as that. Social networking, and promoting
is really important, but good music will always stand out on it's own. There's
so much noise on the internet our brains can't register what is good and bad
sometimes from the over-saturation. When we hear something amazing, we'll react
to it. Anybody can create an MP3 now with garageband and sell it for $.99. With
this over-saturation, true music listeners listen closer to find those gems. I
am a vinyl geek, so when I do find a good record streaming on bandcamp or
spotify I'll try to buy a hard copy of it. If an artist is creating something beautiful,
I will absolutely support them.
3) Do you have plans from here to release a
full length eventually? Is that being discussed or are there songs ready or
anything like that?
[Eric] Well, we don't have solid plans for a
full length yet. We'd love to record a masterful debut, but it doesn't seem
practical at this moment since we don't know what the demand is yet for our
music. Label support would probably make an LP happen sooner, but we don't have
anyone in mind yet. So right now, singles and EPs seem to be working for us. As
for new music: We are songwriters, so we are always trying to create music
regardless of whether there is money in the band account or not. It's just what
we do. To be more specific, we are demoing about 4 songs now that hint at psych
rock, fuzz pop, and some really heavy shoegaze. The songs are awesome and we
can't wait to get back into a real studio again. We are aiming to record by the
Fall after all our summer shows are fulfilled. We'll probably have a few
singles and another EP by end of year.
4) Have you considered physical releases? I'd
really like to buy your music on vinyl. Also, I'd buy it on a cassette and it
always seems like I'm the last to know about tapes so if you do release a
cassette you better save me one!
[Eric] Yes, of course. We just got our CDs
this week. It's a small run of 100. Limited edition Purple Cassettes will also
be coming soon. Both will be available on our bandcamp site this summer. A
7" would be awesome, but it's a little pricey for us since we are doing it
ourselves. We'll see how things go over the summer, and maybe we'll have one by
the fall... hopefully.
[Abby] The return of cassettes in Brooklyn is
baffling to me, but I like it. I sure wish I had kept my Walkman Sport so I
could listen to our own release.
5) You have a female vocalist (Abby Camaya,
who also plays keyboards) and maybe it's just because I grew up with grunge and
the only really rock band with a front woman was Hole, but do you feel like
more and more female vocals are almost becoming as common as male vocals in
bands? I think it's partially because of the times (The internet exposes you to
so much more music), but it especially does seem like shoegaze attracts the
female vocals as well. But also just on a radio scale, or something along those
lines, there seem to be more female singers that I like, that are under the
rock genre, like Florence + the Machine, Dead Sara, Polly Scattergood,
Highasakite, Sleigh Bells, Metric and I could go on...
[Abby] Females have always been around in rock
music, but I do suppose many good ones float under the radar or end up with
solo careers. I don't think gender is too relevant, it will always just come
down to good songwriting, arranging, and singing. I don't listen to a band
simply because it has a girl singer in it, I listen because the music kicks
ass. I've always loved the mixing of boy and girl harmonies together, it works
really well with indie pop and shoegaze.
6) I enjoy the fact that your name is kind of
declaration, like you just decided to do it one day. Do you feel like you are
loveless, because I really do feel like love is something that you need an
extreme amount of faith to believe in?
[Abby] All of us have gone through highs and
lows in our personal love lives. What else could be more inspiring as
songwriters? Love is everything. Our band name actually took a while to come up
with, we had quite the long list until we settled on the "Let's Be"
part. I believe another contenders were Let's Be Liars, Let's Be Lions, Let's
Be Lonely... All interesting in their own right, but I think our name fits us
well.
7) Final thoughts, plugs, etc...??
[Abby] Eric and I both want, and need, to get
a dog soon. Then we won't be so loveless.
[ Eric ] Our Official EP release party will be
at Muchmores in Williamsburg on 7/10 with this amazing Shoegaze band Sua. We'll
have those juicy limited edition purple Cassettes I know you are just dieing to
get your hands on. Yes, we'll save you one.
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