A Q&A With: The Local Natives’ Andy Hamm

2010 has been a good year for the Los Angeles-based Local Natives. The haunting but groovy melodies that fill their debut, Gorilla Manor, earned them Pitchfork’s coveted ‘€œBest New Music’€ label in February, and their driving rhythms and four part harmonies blew away the crowd at SXSW. Taking a break from preparing for a three-week tour in Europe, bassist Andy Hamm spoke with Tastemakers about what Local Natives are up to now and what 2011 will bring.

Tastemakers Magazine (TMM): Did you guys dress up for Halloween?

Andy Hamm (AH): We did. This tour was our last US tour before we start working on our next album, and we wrapped it up with two shows at Webster Hall in New York. On our second night  (the 30^th) we did. We didn’t dress up until right before the encore, so we ran back in a panic and changed into our costumes as quickly as we could [laughs]. It was completely ridiculous.

TMM: And what were your costumes?

AH: Matt was Wile E. Coyote, Ryan was Mr. Potato Head, Kelcey was Paul Bunyon, Taylor was Mario and I was a troll doll from the eighties. The costumes were all just pretty much made up that morning.

TMM: Gorilla Manor is the title of your debut album, but I’ve read that it’s also the name of your house. How did that name come about?

AH: Well that was actually something that got turned into something else, but it wasn’t totally true… I guess it’s mostly true. Gorilla Manor was more of a play on words that Ryan came up with when we were about to finish the album. I think originally he brought it up as a new name for the band, and we voted it down. We had a house in Orange County and then all of us moved in together in L.A. – we really liked the idea of Gorilla Manor being inspired by five friends living together and doing what five friends do. And then also, we were trying to be really serious and passionate about getting this music out, so we thought the title Gorilla Manor showed that we were already living in the album.

TMM: So five guys were living in one house – did you all get along?

AH: I think it went really well. If we hadn’t lived together the album definitely wouldn’t have turned out how it did. I think with our writing process, and just how we are as people, it helped us a lot to always be around each other.

TMM: You guys have a stem project on your website where people can download parts of your songs for free and remix them – who came up with that?

AH: That was my idea actually, but I know a lot of bands have done something similar. We’re into a lot of music other than just straightforward rock music, or indie music, however you want to categorize it. We listen to a bunch of different styles, and we were always into listening to remixes of bands that we liked. We wanted to make this available to anybody and everybody, not try to make it into a contest or anything cheesy, some sort of shameless self-promotion. We have a lot of friends who love to do remixes,  and so we were like, ‘€œLet’s just throw them all up for free.’€ We’ll post any remix if anyone takes the time to do it. It’s just a cool way for fans of ours to be able to do it without any pressure of, you know, ‘€œOh no! Am I going to win the contest? Is it cool enough to get posted?’€ So far we’ve been really amazed with what we’ve gotten.

TMM: Your video for ‘€œWide Eyes,’€ is pretty interesting, do you guys have some intense fear of or animosity towards sharks?

AH: [Laughs] I don’t know. Videos in general have been really hard for us to do. It’s been tough to find people we want to work with or get a product that everybody likes, and so with ‘€œWide Eyes’€ we took more of a relaxed approach. Ryan sort of came up with it last minute, and he really is afraid of sharks. We thought it would be funny to do sort of an SNL-style bit where this land shark is taunting and following this guy all over the place, and it just keeps getting more and more absurd. We didn’t know if it fit the vibe of the song itself, but everybody liked the idea so we went with it. From there it was just brainstorming and trying to outdo each other with more and more absurd situations. We worked with the director and picked through the ones we could afford to do on our budget and then just made the video from there.

TMM: You guys have one cover on your album; the Talking Heads’ ‘€œWarning Sign.’€ Has David Byrne had a big influence on you?

AH: Yeah, I think it’s more Talking Heads than his solo stuff. Although I know he wrote most of the Talking Heads’ stuff as well. I think Talking Heads is one of those bands that you can’t help but come across at some point, especially if you’re a musician. We needed songs to fit in our set before we could fill a 45-minute set, and so we wanted to do a cover. I was really getting into Talking Heads at that moment, and the more I read about them the more I was like, ‘€œWe’ve gotta do a song by them.’€ But we didn’t want to do ‘€œOnce in a Lifetime’€ or one of their hugely popular songs. I heard that song and brought it to the guys, and we decided to give it a whirl and see if we could make it our own. So we went with it and it ended up working out really well.

TMM: Gorilla Manor has been a big hit in the U.K., have you had a similar reception in the U.S.?

AH: The reception has actually been great both here in the States and overseas. I think the biggest difference is that we released the album earlier in the U.K. We just seemed to get a bit more attention from people that we wanted to work with overseas, as far as a record label and the business side of things, before we found those people in the states. We released the album last year in November in the U.K., and then we didn’t release it in the states until February of this year. So overseas we just had more of a jump on it, and we started to get more love and attention over there first. Since then, the U.S. has caught up. It seems like the reception has even been a bit better here than it was overseas. But it’s been amazing just to be where we’re at after our first album, anywhere.

TMM: What’s next for Local Natives?

AH: We leave [November 3] for Europe, and then we do another three weeks over there. We’re taking December off for the holidays, and we’re supposed to be working on a new album starting in January.

TMM: Any idea what this next album is going to sound like?

AH: Everything’s pretty up in the air. We just started writing songs and messing around with stuff. I think the only rule we have is that there can’t be any rules. [Laughs] We just really want to experiment and push ourselves and come up with something totally different than Gorilla Manor.

The Local Natives recently embarked on their three-week European tour at the start of November to promote their debut album Gorilla Manor.