Not many current Pepperdine students would remember Ryan Hahn. The Orange County-born curly-haired guitarist for the up-and-coming band Local Natives graduated in the fall of 2008— the odd time due to semesters taken off to tour with the band.
Now Hahn and the rest of the Silverlake-based band have fashioned one of the year’s most critically acclaimed records “Gorilla Manor out of stunning vocal and musical harmonies. Having performed last week on one of Los Angeles’ most popular radio shows, Morning Becomes Eclectic Local Natives is riding a tsunami of buzz heading into the summer music festival season, with Coachella being the first of many things to come.
The Graphic sat down to talk with Hahn on Monday before a recording session in Los Angeles.
Graphic: What are you guys recording right now?
Ryan Hahn: We are doing a cover song in the studio right now. A music blog is putting together a compilation of Los Angeles-based bands that are covering an album by a band called Television. We chose a song and we tried to record it Thursday, but it didn’t happen, so we booked this studio time last-minute to try and get it done today.
G: Is it kind of like what Beck has going on with Record Club?
RH: Yeah, which, by the way, I’m very stoked about what Beck is doing with that. Beck is awesome. It’s just a bunch of different artists doing their own take on a song within the album.
G: So how did the band meet and deal with everyone going away to college and whatnot?
RH: A couple of us (guitarist Taylor Rice, Hahn and keyboardist Kelcey Ayer) knew each other in junior high. It was a typical high school band thing in that we were obsessed with it and with being in a band. When we all left for college we kept close (a few members went to UCLA) so we could keep things going. We started to get more and more serious about it. In 2008, we all moved in together and it became more serious. I took a semester off on two separate occasions so we could do our music and have jobs and go to school, but finally we decided to record in 2008, and here we are.
G: You used to be known as Cavil at Rest. Why the name change?
RH: We started in high school, and with the band— and ourselves— we went through a lot of growing pains. I think we outgrew the name. When we were recording the album, it seemed like a natural move to me. It felt like turning over a new leaf.
G: On Wednesday, you performed on Morning Becomes Eclectic a show, the band has said in recent interviews, that has been a big influence. How did it go, and how was the experience?
RH: This whole year it seems we keep saying, I can’t believe we are doing this doing that etc.” We have hit a lot of milestones as a band and “Morning Becomes Eclectic” was certainly one of those. Being in that studio and being able to walk through there was amazing. We have been on tour for a while now and it felt like it was all leading up to playing on that show. We felt prepared to do it; we performed three acoustic songs. It was a really cool experience.
G: You’re playing the last day at Coachella coming up in a few weeks. Excited? How did the booking for Coachella come about?
RH: We’re from Southern California so we’ve always wanted to play Coachella. The festival promoters I guess wanted us to play; they had been to a few of our shows. It is kind of a stepping stone for our band. We’ll probably play pretty early on Sunday (the last day of the festival). I’m really looking forward to Gorillaz Spoon Julian Casablancas Sly & the Family Stone Yeasayer… gosh [Laughs]… if I had the festival lineup in front of me I could name some more.
G: Will you be out there with the common folk or watching all these bands from the “other side the band side?
RH: [Laughs] We’ll be getting sunburned with everyone else.
G: What is the SXSW (Music Festival) experience like the second time around?
RH: We did not learn our lesson from last year and still played nine shows in three days. This year the venues were a little better, and there were so many people. Last year we were playing in tiny spaces with horrible sound systems. This year the stages were actual venues.
G: Your album came out in the United States in February, after being released in November 2009 in the United Kingdom, and being recorded in 2008. Is it almost a relief that it was finally released stateside and with such positive feedback?
RH: It has been a long time coming. It was a relief just to have it released in the U.K. People seem to be quicker to jump on new things over there. We never planned it that way. Back in 2009 we said, We don’t want to sign with a record label there is no point but as things progressed we realized we needed a label. But having it out now, it finally feels official.
G: Describe the process of being signed by your labels, Frenchkiss and Infectious.
RH: The whole process is just word of mouth.” You’ll just play one show and someone will shake your hand afterwards you’ll go grab food and talk. We had been doing so much ourselves we became very skeptical of the whole process. When we met with Frenchkiss (their U.S. label) it was just two guys who understood what it was like to be in a band— their intentions were aligned with ours. They didn’t change a thing; the record was our baby from the music to the artwork. The labels just wanted to help out and get it out there.
G: How did touring in Europe go? Was it strange to tour Europe where only one country speaks the language you’re singing in?
RH: When we were playing in Holland we were playing in these cities none of us had never heard of and 300 to 400 people were showing up and singing every word. It didn’t make any sense. Add in the fact it was completely cold and a different climate than any of us were used to… it was an amazing experience.
G: Speaking of new experiences who had to drive the van from country to country across Europe?
RH: Our manager had the foresight to hire a tour manager and a sound guy both British guys and they ended up doing the driving. It would have been suicide for us to do it. We’re all best friends with those two now.
G: A session for influential music blog Daytrotter based in Illinois led to some shows you guys called “Barnstormings.”
RH: The owner of Daytrotter is an amazing guy that loves music and supports bands. We’ve had Thanksgiving dinner at his house before… he is just that type of guy. He had this great idea of bands playing in barns out in the Midwest for people that don’t really get to see shows. Not too many bands go through Iowa or places like that. We would show up to this 100-year-old barn in the middle of Iowa and within an hour of setting up all these people were piling in and barbecuing and whatnot. Most of the people didn’t know our music but it was a chance for those people and the media out there to see other kinds of music.
G: What has been the most difficult part of transferring the songs you master in the studio to the live show?
RH: For us it has always been the other way around. We have trouble being happy with our recordings because our band is best in the live setting. Something we record should be something we are able to play live. There are no added harmonies or effects on our songs. We want everything to be as real as possible. Performing live is natural for us— recording is the foreign element.
G: How does the band decide on the little nuances in the recording process… say the intro to “Airplanes” or how you covered the Talking Heads song “Warning Sign”?
RH: A lot of the stuff on our record just came from ideas at shows. We didn’t plan out a p
erfect 10-to-12 track list that went perfectly together. We did the Talking Heads songs at a show in L.A. and a lot of people responded positively to it so a few months later we decided it was a good fit on the album as a last-minute addition.
The boos and hisses at the beginning of “Airplanes” probably just came from going crazy from working so many hours in the studio [Laughs]. It was on the demo for the song and we just put it in there as a joke but it fit and kind took on a life of its own.
G: What led to the band being more of a blend of harmonies and music textures than having one specific voice or music style stand out?
RH: It has to do with the fact that our band is so collaborative. Our band is weird in that aspect. It’s not just one or two songwriters; we’ll sit in a room and work sections of a song out until everyone is happy with it. I think it helps because things don’t get to stagnant: more people get involved different voices get involved more ideas get thrown around. At the end of the day we are a better band because of it.
G: L.A. Times and Pitchfork among others have claimed you as a possible bridge between the folk-indie scenes of the West and East Coasts— “The West Coast Grizzly Bear etc. Are you OK with these comparisons, and are they accurate?
RH: Putting formulas on music or bands, it is not really something we think about because you hear other people constantly talking about it. It’s great when people say great things about your band, but sometimes when you get labeled one thing or another, it can tear you down.
G: Now that Gorilla Manor” is out well-received and getting attention and things are seemingly progressing nicely along what do you see as the future of this band? What are your plans say one or two then 10 years down the road?
RH: It sounds really simple but the future I hope is a lot more of the same— making music and touring. Those are the reasons we work hard as a band. We all share the same goals. No one is in it to make a lot of money; we just want to play music full-time as long as we can. The fact that we get to play music and call it a job is insane.
For a couple years down the road we would love to play some bigger venues and some of the famous ones that we have seen bands play in.
Long term [goals] would be to just keep making records that progress experiment and take some risk. Being relevant in 10 years would be nice too.
