Interview

LUMERIANS

Samedi 11 mai 2013

How are you ?

- Okay.
- All right, yeah.
- Great ! We just came from a really cool festival in France. What was it called ?
- Rock'n'... Rizzle. (Rock'n'Risle)
- It was in the country, it was beautiful.
- It was outside of... Ouen (Rouen).
- Wan ! Is that right ?
- We keep confusing Ouen and Ouen. (laughs)

© ChamO

How long have you been touring Europe ?

- Not that long. About a week now.
- This is our second tour here.
- We were here in November as well.

What made you want to come back here so quickly ?

- Well our booking agent already had some dates for now. It's more of a strategy.
- We also have a new album out soon so we're here to give people a chance to check out the new album.
- It's called The High Frontier.

What else can you tell us about that new album ? Why should we buy it ?

- 'Cause it's really good ! (laughs)
- It's the best thing you'll ever ever hear. Ever. Ever.

I listened to it today actually and noticed there are more vocals on this one.

- Yeah. More than usual, definitely. Because our hearts were so full. (laughs)

Is this your third album ?

- It's the second full-length.
- Second full-length studio album. Transmissions from Telos Vol. IV was a lot of sort of spontaneous music that we happened to record. I would say it was studio outtakes and B-sides. It was recorded between 2008 and 2012 or 2011.
- We would just record something and "That's really good" but we don't know what to do with it so we just saved up a number of these takes.
- Some things were first takes as well, literally.
- The Transmissions is more like instantaneous music. We would just sort of gather and wouldn't preconceive the music would be like and just start playing. That's how the music came for Transmissions from Telos. It was very improvisational.
But the new album is a little bit more focused. We sort of took time to develop the song structures a little bit more. We worked with orchestrations and sounds a little bit longer. It's a more developed album.

Do you plan on doing more spontaneous records like Transmissions from Telos in the future ?

- We go back and forth. I think the Transmissions is more experimental and we learn a lot from working like that in how to develop new sounds and sort of channel what's happening around us into music.
- We record most of the time that we're rehearsing or anything like it. We've got hours and hours and hours of stuff that will probably never see the light of the day but eventually, we'll go back to it and listen to stuff and "This is really good. What didn't we do anything with this ?"
- We'll definitely do another volume.
- I think the other thing that's unique about our songwriting process is that none of us come with these preconceived notions of what the song is. We don't write the songs ahead of time. Everything we write, we write together.
- There's not like a songwriter in the band.
- Even The High Frontier was all written from improvisations but we spent more time sort of like developing and carving it down.
- Nobody comes in like "Check out my killer riff !"
- It's more like bouncing off each other.
- There's a certain required intoxication for what we do. It's kind of strange because a lot of us come in off a very hectic day.
- Lots of stress from the workday.
- Yeah, and we'll have a couple of shots, maybe a smoke or two, and then go do our thing and something will just come out of it. It could be a guitar line, it could be a vocal line...
- Usually whatever the first thing is, we play it together.
- And then we send it to everybody afterwards and figure what's good about it and what's bad. We listen back to it and when we come back again, everybody knows how they could improve it, and we play it again and it becomes a song.
- I definitely find with improvisation that sometimes it works out really well and sometimes it doesn't. You sit down and you jam together and the whole night could just be crap and you don't want to use any of it. But every once in a while, you sit down and you start jamming together and something happens, a song is born out of it.
- At the same time though, we've been playing together for what ? Seven or eight years now ? And we rehearse two or three times a week. So you kind of get an idea of what the other person might do or will do. You and I have playing together for twelve years, more than that. We've known each other since we're sixteen. We finish each other's sentences.
- I think the other thing for us is that we really try to capture the songs at this magical moment when they actually start to come together and have a lot of energy because we record everything ourselves in our home studio. I think you can over-rehearse songs or like over-think them and they begin to lose energy.
- We have to find this perfect point when they're still a little bit clumsy but good enough to make a good recording.
- And with improvisation with these guys, I always come up with stuff I would never have done if I just tried to sit down and write a song. When you just play together and do it, you come up with these parts that you never in a million years would have though of.
- It's kind of funny. Sometimes I wonder if I actually made those lines. And when I go back I'm like "I'm played that ? All right !, I was a little drunk but that's me".
The funny thing with Tony is that he came in after Luis departed (Note : He left them to focus on his new project, The Soft Moon

The Soft Moon

Clique pour voir la fiche du groupe

) but he dropped right in perfectly. It was amazing, no interruption really.

© ChamO

Are you active in other bands ?

- (pointing Tony) He is.
- The rest of us aren't.

What have you done before Lumerians

Lumerians

Clique pour voir la fiche du groupe

?

- Various things.
- Christopher : I went to art school in Antwerp and after I was done with that, I just wanted to go back to the States as soon as possible and play music and Marc and I had been talking about playing music for quite some time, even before that.
- Tony : When I met these guys, I was doing an underground venue in Los Angeles. That was sort of my main thing before I met them.
- He invited us down. He went up to San Francisco and saw us and invited us down to his venue and it's still one of my favourite shows we've ever played. There was this crazy energy.
- Tony : It was called The Cozy Castle and at the time I was playing in two different bands : one called Insects vs. Robots, the other was the Chuck Dukowski Sextet. It was with the bassplayer of Black Flag

Black Flag

Clique pour voir la fiche du groupe

, one of the founding members, and he's my best friend's stepdad and he had like a family band. I was really lucky to play with him.
- All of us have been playing music for a long time.
- Tyler : Yeah, since I can remember. Jason and I have been playing music in various forms for a while, since we were both teenagers.
- Tony : I think Lumerians

Lumerians

Clique pour voir la fiche du groupe

is the first instance of me joining a band that I didn't start from the beginning which is kind of a strange thing because all of these guys have been doing it together for like eight-ten years. I've been in the band the past two. I just kind of joined in which is a unique situation for me. I don't usually just hop on board.
- We scouted him. (laughs)
- When we started playing with Tony actually, at the time we weren't sure if we would finish Transmalinnia, we weren't sure if we'd keep going as a band. It was an awkward period. And then we played that show and it kind of changed everything in a weird way. It got a lot better after that. It was nuts. It wasn't just a gig in a bar.
- The kids there went apeshit.
- Crowd surfing, the whole floor was moving, everybody was dancing.
- There were kids literally hanging off upside down. It was nuts. There were kids all over, even on the street.

© ChamO

What's next for the band after this tour ?

- Erm... well, probably another tour ! (laughs) The album comes out tomorrow officially, and then in the States it comes out in August.
- I thought it was June.
- It's June.
- It's coming out soon. We'll probably see what else happens with touring. I would imagine, as it works with us, be inspired to start developing new stuff.
- We're also working on the videos for the album right now too.
- And another volume of Transmissions from Telos.
- Tony : I'm gonna quit to work on my acting career. (laughs)
- If you're in Los Angeles, you gotta take advantage of it.
- I know, right ?
- You could end up like Johnny Depp.
- I just need a little plastic surgery and I'll be all right.
- I will do it in the room. (laughs)
- You're too pretty for rock'n'roll.
- Yeah I know.
- We might have to beat you up.