“LA all-female shoegaze. New band in 2022, but this is our fourth 5-song EP this year. Still building listeners, but lots of great press. Trying to add something new to the sub-genre.”
For those that haven’t heard of you yet, how would you best describe your sound and who have been your biggest influences so far?
What! Everyone’s heard of us! But for those in Antarctica or in prison, we can tell you that our sound is based on the music and influences of Alice Street (guitar, vocals). She likes heavy guitars, melodies, and psychedelia. Along with her damage, the rest of the band is always on everything we do. For example, with our song ‘New Flavors’ – the guitars are MY BLOODY VALENTINE, the vocal is COCTEAU TWINS, the bass is
TALKING HEADS, and the drums are CHIC. It’s the explosion that makes it THE LOUD
BANGS.
Mostly, we’re a Shoegaze band. Crowded tracks. Phased Guitars. Blurry vocals. Pop sensibility. We’re not purely Shoegaze, though, so we’re either moving the sub-genre in a new direction or just fucking ruining it. We add-in lots of 90s music from when we were kids, plus dance grooves ‘cos we do love all that Euro-club bullshit.
We should mention our songs are about mental health. We’ve been dubbed (not by us) as ‘the Pink Floyd of Shoegaze,’ since our music has a lot of floating about in a hotel swimming pool with a cut-up hand.
Where are you based and can you tell us how the music scene there has inspired your sound?
Los Angeles, California, USA! We grew up on the Sunset Strip. That scene’s not built for Shoegaze, though – we love the clothes, the personalities, the volume, the rock club vibe, but we find our noisiness elsewhere.
Do you remember what the first song was that made you want to start a career in music?
For Alice, it was ‘Connection’ by ELASTICA. For Daisy Gutierrez (vocals, guitar,synths), it was ‘The Future’ by PARAMORE. For Hannah Remley (bass), it was ‘Burning Down the House’ by TALKING HEADS. For Marcus Nemuro (drums), it was ‘Piggy’ by NINE INCH NAILS.
You have just released your new EP ‘The Alice Experience.’ Can you tell us how that came about? Is there a story behind it?
People think we’re prolific and, I guess if you didn’t know us, you would think that was true. We’re actually lazy. Yet somehow, we released 21 songs in 6 months. We started in the summer of 2021 and the first EP was done by October. Then we were going to do a 10-song album, but the label split it into two five-song EPs (which were all
reconfigured a bit).
‘The Alice Experience’ is a B-sides EP (though it’s not being marketed that way). Three leftovers from the ‘Introducing The Loud Bangs’ sessions, one from the ‘Zaera’ sessions, plus a duet with rapper K C Q. Nothing wrong with these songs, they just didn’t fit with the prior releases. For example, ‘The Gloria Films’ got cut because it was similar to ‘New Flavors.’ Both songs are good, but they checked the same boxes, so we decided to spread them out on different releases.
And was there a particular style you were looking for when you wrote it?
As a B-sides EP, that’s hard to answer. I can tell you that our first EP ‘Zaera’ was intended to be pure analog – like a Steve Albini recording from the 90s, which our producer Darren Callahan nailed.
For the LP version of ‘Introducing The Loud Bangs,’ the idea was to sound like a record on the 4AD label circa 1989. Lots of high end, chorused instruments, and compression, a ton of ooohs and ahhhs in the vocals. Brittle but brutal.
As that LP became two EPs (‘Introducing The Loud Bangs’ and ‘Highway Safety Films’) that 4AD sound spilled over. To make it make sense, we grouped the songs on those EPs to be, like, one dreampop/shoegaze and one that was a lot grungier. The newer tracks we’re doing sound more ambient or ethereal dreampop, but we’re not
done with them yet, so who knows what they’ll be like after 1,000 remixes (sorry,
Darren).
You have recently released an EP, but can we expect another or even an album from you in the near future?
We have about 15 other songs in various states. We’d like to do a full 10-song LP before the end of the year under the title ‘Future Plaza.’ But, again, this might break into two EPs. The EP strategy is from the label, but it has been fun, as artists, to create these contained 25-minute ‘experiences.’ Stay tuned, as we’re not done yet and, like before, we might throw half the songs out. We have one song from long ago called ‘Playboy Tattoo’ that hasn’t fit on anything so far, so that might creep in. Oh, and ‘Electroprize’ is older.
What is the biggest challenge of being a band?
None so far! Check back in a year when we’re all famous and at each other’s throats!
How do you structure your day?
We all work – bartenders, baristas, etc. – typical LA hassles. But, when we’re creating, it’s quick and usually at night or off hours. Darren likes to go fast, to not over-analyze things, try the first or second idea and see what sticks. This has helped us not be afraid. ‘Flaws intact,’ as we say. So, to have that happen, we basically work on one song at a
time, build it from the ground up, leave Darren to do his own improvements. When we finally hear it, it was made so quickly and so one-take that we often can’t believe we did that! This helps us get over our self-consciousness. When we debate the near-final mixes, it usually isn’t about things like: ‘Should the bass be louder?’ It’s more, ‘Is this too emotionally raw?’ Alice wants to be transparent, but not ridiculed for it, and that’s hard. With early songs like ‘Are You Happy?’ we were very worried to put the music out there, particularly when some critic or listener might make fun of it. I mean, we have a song about oranges and it triggered an hour-long debate about whether it was stupid to draw a comparison between loving the smell of oranges and dying in a car crash. Is that too obscure? Is it just fucking crazy!?
Do you have any hobbies or interests outside of music?
Daisy’s an avid reader. Hannah plays video games. Alice exercises. Marcus smokes
pot. Do those count?
And finally, what is the one thing you hope to achieve as a band?
Catharsis.