Indie Pop has always been a British dominated music genre. From as early as The Housemartins to as recent as Los Campesinos!, British musicians have been the ones to pave the road for new talent in Independent Popular. Now, multi-genre musicians from San Francisco are creating a new reputation for American Indie Pop. Hey Young Believer is one of the most talented Independent bands to come from the United States. They play a fast paced, melodic sound, with complementing ethereal vocal talent and incredible piano.
Hey Young Believer composes in the contemporary Pop fashion, consisting of several concurrently resounding notes from guitar, bass, percussion, and synthesizer, each of highly varying tones. These tones are stitched together to create a musical texture with multiple flowing layers that give their music it’s youthful, yet sophisticated sound. The band takes artistic influence from unique sources Radio Head, The Flaming Lips, and Dr. Dre, and infuses their own artistic style to create the colorful tunes they work for.
Hey Young Believer consists of Lilly, Nick, Richard, and Alex. The band has just released it’s new album “Invisible By Day”. Invisible by day is an amazing album and a great display of the young band’s talent. The album is a great token of all the musical promise the band has for the future. Listen to Hey Young Believer and download for free at http://www.heyyoungbeliever.
The Exclusive Hey Young Believer Interview
MCMB: How long have you been playing music?
I've been playing piano and singing since I was 6. In high school I released an album and played on "A Prairie Home Companion," on NPR. Nick was a marching band drummer in high school and an elite drum corps member in college, which is impressive only if you were also in drum corps. Alex has been playing guitar since middle school and went the more typical route of punk and rock garage bands.
MCMB: If you could describe your music in any way, how would you?
I don't particularly like putting us into a genre because we write in a wide array of styles. When pressed, we call ourselves indie rock-pop and have previously said "Sounds like Metric meets Cat Power with some early No Doubt thrown in." In Waking Up on the Floor, Tidal Waves and 10, 9 8 we use programmed beats and loops with synths to make dance-pop a la Metric, we have some sparser soulful piano songs like Walking Over You and Don't Look Down, and other tunes have a pop-punk influence like More Pandas and The Grand Design.
MCMB: Which earlier musicians have influenced you the most?
Most of my influences sound nothing like us. I like a lot of hip hop, especially stuff with beats by Dr. Dre and The Roots. I like good pop music, particularly things produced by Max Martin (Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Katy Perry). The indie-style music I do like has to do rather interesting things and really make me feel something. I like the interesting chord movements and arrangements that you'll find in Radiohead, The Flaming Lips and The Arcade Fire.
MCMB: You have a new album this year, "Invisible By Day". Describe the music making process you used in the production of Invisible By Day.
Some of the songs on this album are 3 years old, but most were written in the past year. Alex, my guitarist, and I do most of the songwriting, although we work in very different ways. For me, a song has to appear complete, ready to go in my head and I know if I love it or not right away. For Alex it's a much more gradual process, making little tweaks, rewriting lyrics and riffs over and over as the song gradually takes shape.
It's a unique album in that Alex produced 14 out of the 16 songs. 3 of the songs have programmed drum tracks, but on the rest the drums were recorded live at Atomic Garden studios in Palo Alto. Everything else we did in Alex's bedroom. Nick, our drummer, used to work for DigiDesign so he's got some very nice Pro Tools gear which he loaned to Alex for the past year. A lot of the bass is midi programmed using Trilogy bass sounds, the guitars are direct input to Pro Tools using Eleven guitar sounds, and the synth and percussion tracks were all written in Abelton. Alex coated his room in sound foam and then would just be very quiet as he sat at the computer and I sang. It was a lot of work to get to this point, but it was definitely worth it because we can now record whenever we want. It also made a big difference in the sound of the album because we weren't rushed and we could experiment. For example, I would have 3 or 4 ideas for backing vocals, we'd record them all and then listen and figure out which we liked the best. Then we'd retrack them a few times to get a great take.
How has your music evolved since you began playing?
We've headed in a more pop/dance/upbeat direction. Compare City Lights with Waking Up on the Floor. I've stopped writing only on piano, using synths in Reason and Ableton. Alex has moved from being a guitarist with lots of suggestions to being a full-on producer, writing drum, bass and synth tracks as well.
MCMB: What's your ultimate direction for you and your music?
We want to play music for a living. I have a day job as a facebook app designer and my own programming projects on the side, and Alex is getting a PhD in electrical engineering, but we would rather play music than do anything else, so that's what we're working towards. Nick is happy just sitting in on drums, but he's a bit older than us and married and owns a house. He's not willing to quit his job and sleep in a van when we start touring around for months at a time.
MCMB: Is there anyone you'd like to acknowledge who's helped you get to where you are today?
Our families. Our friends and long-term fans who've come to so many shows. Tin Fan, the booker of the Ant Show. About half the bookers in SF are cool, especially Matt from the Elbo Room and the bartenders and security at the Hotel Utah.
MCMB: Any last words?
We just recorded a music video for "More Pandas." We filmed for a few hours on location at Chuck E. Cheese and no one really bothered us even when we got in a cake fight. We've got a big link on our website or search for it on youtube. If anything you've read here makes you curious about our music, go listen to it at heyyoungbeliever.com. It's free, and if you like it you can just pay us later.
http://www.heyyoungbeliever.
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1 crazy comments:
i love this band. u guys are doing great
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