Do you want me to hold it and then you want to be in there?
No, no.
Nobody wants to hear me.
They want to hear the band.
I mean, they're going to hear me, obviously, but, you know, they want to hear the band.
So this is Jeff from the culture of me.
I'm here standing in front of a brick wall with Vega.
Why don't we just go one by one, introduce yourselves, what you do in the band and say hello.
My name is Alan and I play the keys in production.
Okay, excellent.
Oh, and in vocals.
Oh, don't forget vocals.
Somebody has to sing.
So tell me about well-known pleasures.
The EP.
Yeah.
Well, it's a collection of five songs and some remixes.
It's just kind of been the culmination of the last six months of work.
Got a little bit of help from Ben from Miami Horror.
And, you know, I guess we've just kind of been in exchange.
I'm going to be, you know, doing a couple of cameos on his album.
So, so yeah, it's just five songs.
We got a remix from Treasure Fingers.
We actually got one that my cousin did.
Frederick Boyk, a lot of people don't know him yet, but really solid kind of dubstep.
It's about take on all TV.
Awesome.
So tell me about how sort of Vega came to be.
Well, I guess it was sometime around last May.
I was looking to leave Ghost Hustler and I think everyone was kind of sort of taking their own direction in that project.
So I kind of wanted to just sort of do more of a continuation of what I was originally doing with that project.
But start incorporating, you know, more spacey elements.
And at the time, I think I was listening to a lot of, it's like Tentsy City and Todd Rungren and a lot of those 70s.
Like even like Super Tramp or something that's just kind of those really woozy sounding roads and synths.
And I kind of wanted to, you know, contextualize that into dance music.
So I just started working on All Too Vivid.
And I actually spent the last summer here in Brooklyn just kind of sort of mapping out the details of that.
And then after a while, you know, when I started thinking about how to, you know, sort of interpret that live,
I thought of these guys and I've been DJing with Jason for already like a year and a half by then.
They were in a band that I really liked called The Zells.
And, you know, it just kind of made sense.
It fit pretty well.
Great.
And so that's just, I was going to ask how that came to be with the three of you, but you just answered that.
So tell me sort of about the scene in Texas and how that sort of, how that has been to Vega.
How's that sort of?
Well, I think it's been a, it's been really good in the sense that there's definitely, it's much more of a close-knit community.
So I kind of feel like whenever we play like in Dallas or in Austin, you know, we get to try out a lot of new things
and just sort of experiment with it, you know, like as we're still kind of polishing it up,
I feel like, you know, we have more of an opportunity to acquire this feedback.
And of course, it's like when it's your friends and it's, you know, when it's like the kind of more, I don't want to say like folksy,
but you know, just more kind of local Texas vibe.
Right.
You know, you just tend to get into it a lot more.
It's just, you know, the crowd's just far more receptive.
And it was really, I mean, it's been really good for us considering that South by Southwest is here.
So like, you know, it's awesome.
And I guess, you know, we were able to start kind of planning out like where we were going to play and what we were going to do.
And, you know, we started doing that, I guess, like sometime in January.
And yes, it's really good for that.
I don't know if there's a lot of dance music in Texas.
In fact, I would even argue that, you know, there's, I mean, there's a lot of really great DJs,
like especially in Dallas, you know, there's a band like Sydney Confirm and really good DJs like Keith Pee and Chua.
And I mean, just, oh, I'm worried you get the bib.
I haven't heard that name in a very long time.
Yeah, no, they're badass.
And yeah, in Austin, there's a lot of really awesome stuff as well.
But yeah, I mean, it's been kind of a good, it's been good for us in the sense that there's not too much of that going on.
So, you know, we kind of provide sort of an alternative to, you know, just kind of more drunk in the rock shows.
You get it, you know, like really awesome, kind of more dive bar places in Austin.
Right.
And do you find that the scene is really good at feeding itself as far as like bands being able to feed off each other and give feedback and then also for fans?
Um, it's, no, it's a little, it's a little bit isolated.
I mean, there's a lot of collaboration that goes on in Austin, but I think it generally tends to be a little bit more rock-centric, you know.
And I think that people kind of, once they find their niche, I mean, one of the things I've noticed in Brooklyn is that everyone's kind of working with everyone
and you get like a lot of side projects for me.
Right.
And in Austin, I think once, you know, like a band is formed, they kind of just tend to stick to that and just like see it, you know, see it through till the end, you know.
Right.
I mean, it's just kind of their style, just because it is a much more limited community.
And is that one of the reasons why you guys are thinking about moving to Brooklyn and or are already going to be moving to Brooklyn?
Well, yeah, I mean, on top of that, most of the people that we work with, you know, like our booking agency and, you know, management and all that, I mean, like it's just...
The guy is behind me.
Yeah.
Yeah, those guys.
You want to get him sitting on the curb?
Doing nothing.
Doing nothing.
Taking a breather.
They're doing work.
Yeah.
They're doing work.
Cultivating DCR.
I'm on my way.
I'm on my way.
Yeah.
I mean, I just, you know, I kind of feel like this is just much more of a melting pot for electronics stuff.
And, you know, right now we're still kind of putting things together, I mean, not only for Vega, but for, you know, Neon Indian, which is another project I'm involved in.
And this just seems like kind of a better place to, you know, sort of cultivate that.
Right.
Okay.
And we were talking earlier, I want to just make this shift into the genre of what you guys are being classified as.
You know, there's a big to-do lately about sort of the aspect of what's being called Dreamwave and how it's sort of...
I don't know, for me it's more, I like that it's really promising in the sense that it's not electro and it's not bangers and it's not like awful club shit that like you can sometimes get the general sense of that dozens and dozens of bands are doing.
And so now, you know, there's a genre that's being called Dreamwave and you're sort of at the forefront of it.
There's not a lot of bands that are sort of being called that.
But, you know, what does it feel like to sort of be, I guess, when people are trying to classify a band?
You know, they search for sort of what they can equate them to and sort of who they can say they're like and sort of having to deal with people coming up with their own labels for what you guys do.
Totally.
Anybody want to answer that?
One, two, three.
Yes.
I don't know what to think about this much.
Well, I mean, I guess considering that it's like a genre that we didn't necessarily point.
I mean, like literally the way it came about was, in fact, we were doing an interview much like this one, you know, in South by Southwest and there were these guys from binary in LA and they were shooting a documentary about Dreamwave
and the way that they kind of, I guess, formulated the phrase for it was like sort of kind of a happy medium between like Dreampop and UA.
So it's like incorporating, you know, those elements and they were saying that like the Twelves, Treasure Fingers, you know, a lot of the Valerie crowd, Miami Horror, Future Cop, like they all kind of have that same sort of reoccurring element.
Right.
Kind of the more whimsical, you know, dreamy, like pop music, I guess, or interpretation of like just, you know, what's already been going on with the Bangor stuff.
Right.
And they kind of just coupled us into that genre as well, but then, you know, we mentioned it in this ABC interview later in the week and for some reason it just kind of stuck.
I mean, I guess Dreamwave, you know.
I mean, is it something that you guys are okay with or is it something that you're just sort of like, it just, you know, sort of passes by like you don't really care too much about?
We don't really, yeah.
Yeah, we reacted to it pretty passively.
Okay.
That's not something that we, you know, we have any intention of like championing, you know, something like that.
Okay, but if you had to do it for yourselves, like if you had to give, I mean, I know that people and bands were, you know, like, hating Pigeon Hold, but if you could Pigeon Hold yourselves, like what would that be called?
What would you guys say?
Fun.
I know it's a very challenging, well, yeah, it's a challenging question, but I wonder.
Shit, disco, no.
No, that's actually already a band.
Yeah.
Um, I don't know.
I mean, I feel like, you know, it's really murky waters when you do that.
You know, I feel like we'd be, we would create some obligations to adhere to like some, some idea or genre, you know.
Right.
I guess it's kind of, you know, I personally like Dreamwave because it's pretty ambiguous at this point as to what it necessarily entails.
Right.
You know, we don't necessarily feel obligated.
I mean, like, you know, what can we say?
Like, oh, we need to try to be more dreamy.
You know, it's more, you know, it's.
No, let me do that.
Don't worry.
You guys don't have to worry about that.
Um, okay.
Well, you know, that's, that's fine.
Um, so you guys have been in New York for the last couple of days.
Um, you know, what's it like and how has the response been so far?
I know that, I mean, tonight's your first live show in New York.
Um, but I mean, what's been the sort of reception for you guys from the community and from other people and from all the other artists that have been around?
Um, well, I mean, in terms of like a community with like other artists, really cool.
You know, like kind of finally just getting to hang out like tomorrow, you know, working with treasure fingers on a track and it's like the only opportunity in which I can do that is, you know, coming up to New York.
Uh, the reception's been, you know, really awesome.
I feel like, um, you know, we've met a lot of interesting characters in the past couple of days that, you know, seem especially on this first tour that, you know, we had no idea.
We're, you know, just excited about what we were doing and it was really unexpected.
Like there was some guy that drove out like five hours, like go to, um, our show in Missouri and was just like, man, I've been following you since Go Susser.
Oh my God.
I was really, I mean, I was really flattered, but, you know, it definitely is pretty surprising, you know, when you actually drive all the way out here and you see that there's definitely people that are interested in seeing what you've got.
Right.
And so how do you, how do you factor that into sort of, um, I mean, is that something that's played in part by, um, you know, just fans themselves, like catching things on online?
The blogs and MySpace or, I mean, you know, it seems like for me, uh, you know, fans are doing a lot more digging, you know, for good things rather than just like, oh, it's a single.
I'll listen to it like whatever, you know, then throw it away on the iPod or something like that.
Um, do you think that the reception has been sort of more on the lines of like people are really amped for what's coming next for you guys?
Um, yeah, I mean, I definitely like to think so.
You know, one of the main things that we've tried to, you know, really stress and especially why we kind of decided to sort of take the slow road to write, you know, well-developed EP and, you know, put it out under, like, the proper mediums is just like, I feel like people get a little too caught up in just remixes and just individual singles and it's kind of hard to really build, you know, any sort of, uh, I guess, like a fan base or a consistent, you know, like a repertoire of music.
You know, like, I feel that bands that have longevity are the ones that take the extra effort to put out, you know, an album or a series of EPs, which is kind of, you know, showing that you've got, uh, I guess, range, you know.
So is that what you're hoping for with the EP, that it'll be taken sort of much more wholesale rather than just like, hey, here's a single, here's a single, like, and then throw it away.
You want sort of it to be the experience of the EP and sort of what you guys are going through.
I mean, we definitely want to think about it in terms of more of a concept and it's like, well, today I feel like writing this kind of song.
Right.
And so, I mean, are you looking to do more, like, a series of EPs or is the next step sort of a full length? Like, what?
Well, I think, uh, you know, we're going to see how this EP does and I'm definitely already kind of trying to figure out the framework for an album.
Um, and I mean, now I guess, you know, juggling two different projects, you know, it's definitely, you know, creating quite a bit of ample space to work with, but it's definitely going to be a Vega album and I'd like that to be the next step.
Okay.
You know, I guess I would have to think about, you know, like, we could have a few cameos in terms of production.
Right.
So now, okay, so take me through that, how, as far as the process of recording, like, how, how does that, how does that work? What's the sort of step-by-step of how you guys go into it?
Uh, well, it's, I mean, it's generally just like, um, I'll start, uh, I'll start with something on my laptop, you know, just kind of messing around with soft synths and then I'll, you know, go to the home studio and start, you know, playing that on actual synths and recording it and, you know, tracking it.
And I'll get this guy to record some awesome guitar shredding and, you know, incorporate some percussion stuff as well.
And more so now, I think the next step is we're going to start kind of trying to record it more as like a bit of a band.
More live, sort of.
Okay.
I mean, something to reflect a little bit more, um, I guess, traditionally to what our, I guess, sorry, let me rephrase that, um, I guess something that reflects much better or more authentically on the live show.
Right.
Because it sort of seems like that's where we'd like to go anyways is kind of the more, you know, disco, uh, you know, percussion driven.
Right.
So it's more, it's the three of you playing at the same time, rather than just sort of recording bits and pieces and sort of backing them all together and putting them in.
Um, so, so what's next?
What's on the plate for once you guys are done with New York?
Well, we're going to go play a couple of runoff shows in the West Coast and then, um, I leave for the rest of June to go work with Miami Horror.
And then after that, I guess we'll just start arranging some Vega tours and some Neon Indian tours as well.
Right.
I mean, obviously you'd want to do Neon Indian and Vega at the same time.
Like, just do a whole double bill.
Um, so, and you're working with Miami Horror in Australia?
Yeah.
Wow.
How long are you guys going to be there?
Um.
Or it's just you?
Yeah.
You're just going, okay.
Um, I guess until we finish this album.
Okay.
I mean, I'm assuming we have like a timeline of two to three weeks to finish it all up, so.
Right.
All right, cool.
I mean, I think I've got no other questions.
So I mean, I'm good to go.
You guys good to go?
Is that cool?
I mean, 14 and a half minutes.
So I ran four and a half minutes over.
I apologize.
So, um, yeah, I mean, you guys are the silent types.
This guy's very stoic.
Excellent.
Well, thanks so much, guys.
I appreciate it.
Thank you, man.
