There was a time when The Stone Roses and Primal Scream were seen as the
coolest bands around. They were stoned and sexy and had cool songs that went on to
the infinite. Those bands both inspired and fostered the shoegazer movement.
West Indian Girl are a duo that are a lot like the shoegazer bands of old. But
this new album is totally modern and thoroughly unique. They are akin to some
LA bands of today that are spiking their drinks with something: like The
Shore and Run Run Run. When I heard this record I thought at first they were an
English band. It was a shock to find that they had a studio around the corner
from me in Downtown LA. West Indian Girl started out as a studio project with
Francis Ten and Robert James, both LA transplants from the east coast. They
released their first album in September 2004. Now they have a complete five-member
band and have played two-dozen shows.
Apparently the guys in West Indian Girl were inspired by rave culture too.
They take the knowledge learned from psychedelic dance music and bring that into
a rock format. Songs like "What Are You Afraid Of?" and "Hollywood" are
totally memorable and epic. It's as if the whole grunge, neo-punk, and
alternative generation never happened. They make music that sonically advanced and that
is introspective. Their music re-imagines a space where music conjures up
imagination and mystery. It's very blessed out music that is summery and groovy.
It's a new exotic flavor in the music world.
I spoke to the original members Francis Ten and Robert James in their studio
in Downtown LA right before they started their tour with Fischerspooner. They
will be playing at the Henry Fonda Theater on June 1st. They will be at the
Fillmore on June 4th. They will be back in San Francisco with The Coral at
Slim's on June 15th
AL: How did you start doing music?
Robert James: It's the only thing that we are capable of doing. I have played
music since high school.
Francis Ten: I like the hours and the dress code. I have had every sort of
job you could possibly have. Making music is the best one. I really hate having
a boss telling me what to do. There is an article by Steve Albini where he
says that you can make more money being a cashier at a 7-11 than you can in a
signed band.
AL: Robert is from Detroit. Were you part of the music scene there?
Robert James: I wasn't aware of any music scene there. There have always been
bands there. It's very incestuous. Eminem and Kid Rock came out of there.
They were never part of any scene down there.
AL: You grew up around here?
Francis Ten: I am back east. I grew up in New Jersey and Connecticut. I just
ended up in Los Angeles. It's the nicest place. It has the best weather. I
went to Mexico and loved the weather.
AL: How did you meet each other?
Francis Ten: I went to school in Michigan. I was there for a few years. That
is when we met. I moved to Los Angeles and we stayed in contact. We put the
band together and started recording. After we had some songs we started thinking
of getting a real band together.
AL: It seemed like it was a studio project at first. Now you actually have
five members in the band?
Robert James: It started out as a studio thing, with me and Fran. We would
invite people to play. We had the drummer play on the record. We didn't think of
putting the band together at first. We thought of putting the songs together.
We did everything backwards. We invited a bunch of people to audition to be
in the band. The original female singer had a psychotic episode.
Francis Ten: The irony of it is that we never intended to play live. Now that
we have a really good band, we are really excited to perform these songs in
front of a live audience. The girl who is the new singer is great. All the guys
in the band now are great people.
AL: In Los Angeles, there are all these bands like Moving Units and Autolux
who have played for four or five years before they came out with an album. Your
band isn't really known here as a live act. How did that happen?
Francis Ten: We didn't even play live until five months after the record came
out! They are doing it all wrong. The imagination is more powerful than
reality. We would tell people how great the band is going to be. They believed us.
We have high standards. We like the way things sound now, but we still have so
much work to do. We are still a baby as a live band.
AL: "Dreams" is one of your first songs. How do songs get written in this
band?
Francis Ten: Everything takes so long in this band. It takes so long just to
make a t-shirt.
Robert James: Nothing happens that fast. We have a musical idea and we work
with it for a while. We are always working on songs because we know it takes a
long time. We are already have songs for the next record.
AL: You started this band about three years ago?
Francis Ten: We worked on the first album and then waited a year for it to
come out.
AL: Do you write lyrics or music first?
Robert James: It's always music first, and then the lyrics come out of the
sounds. The song dictates what style the lyrics are going to be. There is an
emotion that you get sonically. The lyrics follow that emotion.
AL: How did you come to the idea that maybe you would have a female singer on
some of the tracks?
Robert James: In the studio we were experimenting. We thought "Hey, what if
we had a girl sing this part." We invited a friend to do something. We said,
"That's not bad." Then we invited someone else to see what see could do. We
experimented with a lot of people.
AL: Where did you record?
Francis Ten: We recorded it in the basement of a studio where I used to live.
It was really nice. Then we moved to a garage at someone's house in the
Hollywood Hills. We recorded some stuff in Nickel Canyon. We rented a house and
lived there for eight months. We moved the studio to Downtown LA in May 2004. We
are getting by. Being in a band is like funding your own independent movie.
AL: How many shows have you played?
Francis Ten: Seventeen. We have played the Troubadour three times. We have
been to San Francisco a few times. We have been to Seattle. We have done the
whole West Coast. We have been really lucky. We have had a good turnout for every
show. The last show at the Troubadour sold out. I think that some bands play
in Los Angeles too much. You can't expect your fans and friends to show up to
shows every week.
Robert James: Some bands are playing the same exact set every night. We try
to spice it up.
AL: Have you played the East Coast?
Francis Ten: No. This tour with Fischerspooner will be our first shows over
there. The furthest East we have played was in Texas at some SXSW shows.
AL: How many shows can you play in LA during a month?
Robert James: It's unsure how many shows you can get away with here. People
who go to shows at the Troubadour are not the same people who show up at
Spaceland. There are different scenes. There is an underground dance scene in
Downtown LA that we are starting to get into. Those shows are very different from
ones at a rock venue. Some people only go to clubs in Silverlake.
Francis Ten: Our next show in LA is going to be at Cine-space. We are playing
as a support act to Fischerspooner and The Coral. The Cine-space show is
going to be great. It is a great place for visuals. We have a whole visual side to
our shows. We aren't going to have a visual show with Fischerspooner. But the
Cine-space show we will.
Robert James: There are bands that play the Echo, and then two weeks later,
play Spaceland.
AL: I think that Mitchell Frank started having residencies at Spaceland two
years ago. He has the same band play every Monday night. A few venues there do
that.
Robert James: That's cool.
AL: How did you get to open for the Fischerspooner tour?
Francis Ten: We were submitted for the tour. They had to choose a band. They
heard our CD and they were cool with it.
AL: It's funny because your song "Hollywood" sounds a lot like the new
Fischerspooner album.
Francis Ten: I don't think they heard till they started arranging this tour.
It's going to be interesting. They have never played as a live band. They have
a six-piece band.
AL: What is your set like now?
Francis Ten: We are playing seven songs from the new album. We throw in new
songs here and there. We change the songs every night.
Robert James: The songs have evolved from since we did the record. They were
studio pieces. When we started playing them with a live band they grew into
grander pieces.
Francis Ten: "Hollywood" has a whole new middle section. "Trip" has a whole
new end section. We just jam on the end. We have new beginnings of songs.
People are surprised because we cut loose and reinvent the songs. "What Are You
Afraid Of?" is a very heavy song when we play it live. The songs have gotten
better.
AL: What do you think about musical influences?
Robert James: Everyone in a band has influences. I think a real band somehow
hides them. You can hide them by having members coming from different places
and having different influences, and by doing that you can create something
original. You have a chemistry in bands that allows that to happen.
AL: A lot of retro 1980s bands use sounds that are already familiar and are
sort of musical clichŽs. You can hear a synth sound and go "That was already
used on all the records."
Francis Ten: Whenever we recognize anything like that, it's time to stop.
Some bands get a sound that sounds cool, like some other record, and they just
stick with it.
Robert James: We have a lot more people in the band now. We have to make
everyone happy. To get people involved in the song, you have to take the song to a
whole new place. We all have our own ideas about music and how it should be.
If one person created all the sounds it might seem more derivative, and the
influences would seem more obvious. Since we are bouncing ideas off one another,
it forces us to come up with something more unique.
AL: "West Indian Girl" was named after a type of LSD. Did people think that
you were this drug band?
Robert James: Yeah. Early on people made the assumption that we were a drug
band. But every band could be a drug band. What band doesn't use drugs at some
point, except those straight edge punk bands.
Francis Ten: It was a cop out. It was an easy category for journalists to put
us into. If you see our live show we can fit in with a lot of different
bands. Just look who we have played with: all sorts of bands like Gomez,
Fischerspooner, and Phoenix.
AL: You are playing some shows with The Coral.
Francis Ten: We might be playing some shows with Turin Brakes. It didn't sit
well with me that we were written off as some drug band. It's not like any of
us are taking AcidÉ now!
Robert James: Maybe we should have never told anyone that the name had to do
with Acid?
AL: Did Jimi Hendrix really play guitar on Acid?
Francis Ten: Apparently. They said that the baseball pitcher Bill Lee pitched
a no-hitter on LSD. Who knows?
AL: People do use drugs at live shows. Half the shows I go to now someone
lights up a joint next to me.
Francis Ten: I am all for it. I would like to pass out joints at the door.
Our music is adaptable to every drug.
Robert James: If you don't harm anybody, why not?
AL: This record could be for many moods and experiences?
Robert James: Some guy told me that it was the ultimate record him and his
girlfriend to make love to. That was the ultimate compliment.
AL: Have you read any good books lately?
Francis Ten: I just read your site, The Portable Infinite. That was cool.
Robert James: I read 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke. I read The
Art of Happiness by The Dalai Lama.
AL: Do you have any other hobbies?
Francis Ten: I spend a lot of time on our blog.
AL: I was just looking at that today. I saw the pictures of the new video.
Francis Ten: I just posted those last night. It took me three hours. The
director was this guy called Eastern Bloc. I was driving from there to meet you. I
was stuck in traffic. The video looks amazing. It looks like a real expensive
video. For the budget they had it was really great. The location was amazing
itself. All those huge mustard fields. They filmed it with these huge cranes.
They filmed us a football field away.
Robert James: Astralwerks is going to freak out. They didn't spend a lot of
money on the video. The team pulled it together to make it seem like a huge
budget. We had a bunch of friends and fans in the video too.
AL: Was anyone from this FHM magazine in the video? Are any of these hot 100
girls a fan of the band?
Robert James: I gave Eva Longonria a CD. This was before Desperate
Housewives. Later she became huge.
AL: She is number 38. Mischa Barton goes to a lot of shows in LA. Are you on
any of those compilations?
Francis Ten: We are on the show Tree Hill. It is right before The OC. It was
a surprise. We are a new band on Astralwerks. How many people have heard the
other American bands on Astralwerks? It's good to get people to hear your
music.
AL: What do you think of the band, My Bloody Valentine?
Francis Ten: I am into the album Loveless. They have some hypnotic elements.
We share a similar spice rack.
Robert James: West Indian Girl is a big stew. There is some My Bloody
Valentine swimming around for sure.
Los Angeles, CA - Henry Fonda - w/Fischerspooner
6/02 San Diego, CA - House Of Blues - w/Fischerspooner
6/03 Anaheim, CA - House Of Blues - w/Fischerspooner
6/04 San Francisco - Fillmore - w/Fischerspooner
6/04 Sacramento, CA - Sacramento Heritage Festival
6/14 Los Angeles - Troubadour - w/The Coral
6/15 San Francisco - Slims - w/The Coral
6/17 Seattle - Crocodile - w/The Coral
An interview with West Indian Girl
By alexander laurence
