I ran across Night Manager over at No Fear of Pop a few weeks back, and it was love at first listen! Caitlin, Ezana, Tim, and Tassy play melodic, noisy pop tunes that seem to be custom built for yours truly. The band is two 7'' singles into their young career, and have another coming down the pike soon (see below). Please be sure and stop by the band's Band Camp page, and toss a few dollars their way! It is money you will not miss for songs you will not stop listening to. I caught up with these New York noiseniks via email and they were gracious and funny....
PoP- So where are you all located, and who are the current members of the band? Did you know each other before you started playing music together?
Tassy- Tim and I live in Brooklyn while Caitlin and Ezana live in the lower eastside. Caitlin is from France, Ezana is from San Fran, Tim is from Upstate New York, and Tassy is from Connecticut. Tim and Ezana were in the music program at school. Through our discomfort and dissatisfaction in the program we started Night Manager. We met Caitlin through the program, and I met Ezana in acting class.
Ezana- FYI: we're prolly gonna tackle this thing individually, each of taking about 2 questions. That was Tassy, our bass player. He likes to take acid and pretend he's writing for federal grants with a Remington noiseless. He used to a court stenographer, he once transcribed the case of peanut butter vs. jelly and I’m sure he was on acid when he wrote this
PoP- Do you guys find that your musical tastes outside the band converge? Are you influenced by bands you listened to growing up or music that’s more contemporary?
Ezana-I grew up listing to a lot of my schoolmates call me a faggot, that and Nirvana are big youth influences. i also like a lot of 60s pop...girl groups and shit. bands like Sweet Bulbs, Reading Rainbow, Tonstartssbandht, Total Slacker etc. are current (semi) local faves.
Tim- Convergence is a good way of putting it. We all have different tastes, or different levels of enthusiasm for any given artist or song, but there is obviously a lot of places where we all agree, and these inevitably influence our sound the most. As far as contemporary versus old stuff is concerned, the sound and effect of the music have more contemporary influences but most music I write, regardless of genre, has a lot of common structural themes, so it probably has more to do with preferences I've formed a long time ago. And the songs Ezana writes are so structurally unique, I can only guess as to where they're coming from.
PoP- On that same kinda note- are there any bands people might be surprised to hear you are fans of or that your bandmates might look at you weird for liking? I hate to call them 'guilty pleasure', because that's so, well, lame. But youknowhatimean?
Tim (via Ezana)- I'm really into this dude:
Ezana-Oh man! You can’t fuckin’ rickroll on gmail!
PoP-Nice. My favorite thing about Rick Astley, is he looks like a butch lesbian. With a deep voice. So, is having a female singer in the band a happy accident, or a little more based on your love of 60's girl bands? Was there a plan?
Ezana- Yeah, that and I don’t like it when there's too many dudes on stage. You know?
PoP- Dang. That was a weird left turn right there. Fart juice. I feel like I know what that is, kind of instinctually, but do please elaborate.
Ezana- Fart juice is kind of a curveball tassy throws out from time to time, it's un-hittable so we should move onto something new.
PoP- If you insist! So, I live down the road from Portland, which, like NY, is one of those places you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a band. Is it a struggle to carve out your own niche when there are so many other bands trying to be successful?
Ezana- New York is kind of a struggle in general; it's competitive on all fronts. I think if you're smart about where you play and who you play with you can carve a niche and find the right audience. Still the hardest and most important struggle is actually being good.
New York is unique because a bigger band is usually playing the same night you are, but honestly our biggest obstacle has been the weather. We played 7 consecutive rainy gigs last fall. Once it hailed, and once there was a fuckin’ tornado in Brooklyn. So if we had to blame anyone for fucking up our shit it would have to be God. (PS I rickrolled you)
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| (Left to Right) Tim, Ezana, Caitlin, and Tassy |
PoP- You SO rickrolled me! One thing that seems to get overlooked a lot is dumb luck, too. There are bands that seem to have the right sound or even the right "look" at the right time. It almost seems a lot of the time talent falls down to somewhere around 32 on the list of important things a band need to be successful. And god forbid a band be consistent. That seems like the kiss of death, right there. I guess that's not really a question...
Tassy- It took awhile for me to learn personally that sometimes talent isn't all you need. All you need is a pretty face and the right people backing you. The only artist I can think of who has the full package and could enviably succeed in music regardless is Hoku. Shit is pretty rad.
PoP- Hoku? Like ‘Don Ho’ Hoku? So is there an album in the works? Going by the bands you mentioned, I would assume you would want to keep a think layer of noise and scuzz on the songs, or would you guys be more likely to spit shine stuff a little, once it's time to records an LP?
Ezana- Pretty sure Tassy was talking about this:
(Ezana cont.)- Anyway, as of now there is no full length in the works, we're recording single for Big Love Records in Japan and we're going into an actual studio for the first time. The sound will definitely be less dirty--our previous stuff was recorded in the most budget, DIY fashion--this time we'll have more options as to how we want to sound. A lot of bands make the jump to the more polished sound and end up sounding corny, like something gets lost in the transition. We want to make sure that doesn’t happen to us.
Caitlin- Yes, it will be on bandcamp and itunes along with the label's web site. As for the fans, anyone who digs our music, thanks for appreciating us, we love you!
Great stuff as always, Gabe! You're a damn good interviewer. Props!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Nick! I interview people for a living, so I am happy to just get 'passable' results.
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