Hey guys! Sum up your music for us in three words please?
Intricate, Lush, Passionate!
How did you guys form? There’s a lot of you!
We first began playing music together in 2016. It was myself (Duane) and our drummer Matthieu. I had been working at a hostel, The India House Hostel, here in New Orleans. It was a work/share situation. The second largest here in the US. Did that for about a year and a half upon moving here from California. I met Matthieu through my manager there. He was a repairman for the hostel and had previously been working there in same capacity that I was. We hit it off and started jamming.
At that point he was in a band called Kuwaisiana. Arab/Louisiana World Rock is the best way to describe them. Two members of our horn section, Nick (Sax) and Jonathan (Trumpet), were playing with them and joined our band. Thats back when we were called Baby Boy Bartels and The Boys. Our old bass player John McCloskey was also in both bands at the time.
By 2018 our Trombonist David Ginger hopped on. I had met him playing with another local band called The Clark Gang. 2019 Saw our current bass player/keyboardist Colin Provensal hop on. He and Dave had played together in his old band Elephant’s Gerald along with The Andre Lovett band. It’s a bit of an incestuous love story really. We’ve been going strong ever since. Sadly Jonathan is leaving to become a doctor in Los Angeles. Going to miss him dearly. But thats how these things go.
What’s the music scene like in New Orleans?
Vast and wide. Lots of different scenes, different kinds of music. It can be overwhelming and oversaturated but we are living in the birth place of all American music after all. There is music every night of the week in over 20 to 30 different places. Its a beautiful and amazing thing. People share with each other, although it can get a little competitive. The practice of sitting in, joining another group for a song or two, is commonly practiced. Then there is the money making aspect of it. It is one of the few places in the United States you can make a decent living playing music, at least in one place. We play 3-5 times a week, some do more. In multiple bands with multiple gigs a day. Tourists come in from all over the world and are eager to hear music. Of course that varies with the season, it becomes very slow during the summer time. And there is a large scene not revolving around tourists. We kind of dip our toes into both.
A whole lot of great bands. Some of my favorites, and friends of ours, are Shark Attack!!, Whisper Party, Juno Dunes, and Beach Angel.
Your sophomore album “Electric Baby Carriage” is out now! What have you learnt in comparison to your debut record?
Learned a lot about being patient. It took three years to get from point A to point B. The first record took about two years, so it was a similar process, but this one saw more hardships than I’ve ever experienced making a record. Hurricane Ida greatly delayed our progress. It destroyed our engineer’s, Justin Armstrong, house. We had been recording there for about a year and were just about to get to mixing when it hit. Covid was the culprit before this. We started in May of 2020 and had to take a lot of time to work within the pandemic. Justin his beautiful baby daughter halfway through 2022. Some members had health issues they had to take care of.
By November 2022 we had finally gotten everything mixed and mastered. I am a firm believer in the term patience is a virtue however. We have a great record at the end of the day and we all couldn’t be more proud. It is a much more detailed piece of art than the last record. We are a more finally tuned band than we were in 2018. We know who we are now.
Favourite track off the album (each member please!)?
Duane-“Wildfires”
Colin- “Nothing Left”
Matthieu- “Every Song”
Nick- “Every Song”
Jonathan- “Passion Project”
David- “Paper Mache”
John Marcey- “Waiting”
What was the recording and writing process like for this record?
As I kind of explained in the previous question, it was a long and hard road. Yet, an extremely fun and fulfilling one. Some of these songs, “Every Song,” “Wildfires,” “Always Got You On My Mind” were written during and even before the release of our first record. Very few in fact were written during or after 2019/20.
The general process is that I write the skeleton (lyrics/chord structures) of the tunes and bring them to the band. A good majority of the songs I will write out horns lines to as well. We then expand on my ideas. One of favorite examples of this is with “Every Song.” We combined two songs into one. Colin had a horn line from his old band and it fit perfectly over the chord progression I had written. Sometimes the horn guys will chime in with ideas. Often Matthieu will expand on structures and timing. It’s a group effort really. I just lay the foundation then we will build up from there.
The recording process, despite all its setbacks, was a blast. We started at Marigny Studios. A great studio owned by Rick Nelson. (Afghan Wings, Polyphonic Spree) Justin works there and got set up with us. We tracked “Wildfires” and “Messin” with him and he enjoyed it so much he invited us to his home studio. He had been working on creating a rentable studio/living space for artists and engineers and wanted to use us as a guinea pig band of sorts. He gave us a good deal that we couldn’t refuse. In addition he has worked with a lot of talented people. Death Cab For Cutie, Dave Matthews Band, The Deftones, Peter Frampton, Ziggy Marley. The list goes on and on. He’s won 13 Grammys! We were star struck. Super humble guy and easy to work with. He has since become a good friend of ours and another member of the band in a big way. We went out to Slidell, about 30 minutes away from here, kind of out in the country. A nice relaxing place to lay down some tracks. We would BBQ, have bon fires, drink, smoke and just have a good time out there. I’d say for about a year we would go out there every few weeks and slowly chip away at it. He has a really laid back approach to everything. You relax first, then track. Instead of rushing to get everything done within a certain time limit. Really helped the feel of the record I think.
And finally, what do you want this album to represent to your listeners?
I’d like to help mend a broken heart. It helped us get through a dark time and hope it does the same for our listeners!
