Fresh out of their home studio, L.A.’s own Luna is Honey debuts their spankin’ new EP, Coolbreeze, on cassette at Home Room 101 tonight (update: you can now stream the entire album on their BandCamp!).
You might remember Luna from DUM DUM’s Issue No. 1 launch party, DEAD SUMMER, and of course Home Room is a place we found our first Free/Write/Shop home.We couldn’t be more excited for our friends so for this special occasion, we’ve brought you a hybrid review-interview wherein DUM DUM hangs out with Luna and breaks down last year’s Gish and Siamese Dream reissues. Mostly because 1) we were going to get drunk together and do that anyway, and 2) Luna finds the Pumpkins as one of their chief influences, alongside Prince and a recent foray into Tropicália. What follows is, if you can believe it, the edited-down transcript of everything from Billy C. gossip to the band discussing their new material.
Illustrations by Joshua Crampton
Taleen Kalenderian (DUM DUM Zine): So, the only complaint that I have with these box sets is if you’re in your car and you’re driving on the freeway and you’re trying to open them…
Joshua Crampton (guitar, vocals): Oh yeah, I’ve been doing that, too, on the bus. I’ll be trying to open it and then… God I can’t even get it open.
TK: Right. So first of all you can’t get it open, and then when you do, all the shit spills out of it. And it’s beautiful shit but when you’re driving and you’re trying to get disc one in…
Amorn Bholsangngam (drums): So I guess we’ll have to make a complaint.
Adrian Acosta (guitar): Which one do you like better–Gish or Siamese?
JC: I bought the Gish one first, ‘cause I wanted to hear what it sounded like…I hadn’t listened to Gish in a long time. And that’s the one I can notice the remastering on most. The other one sounds really good, but that album already sounded good. On Gish I can really tell the difference.
TK: I can really hear the Gish remastering on “Crush.”
JC: Totally, on the whole little section on the two softer songs “Crush” and “Suffer,” they sound really good. I realized that on a lot of songs they make the quiet parts super quiet, and you can hear everything really delicate.
TK: Yeah, especially songs where they pack it way in, like on those softer songs, it gets really expansive.
JC: Yeah that’s where you get those quiet parts and then it blasts in really loud.
AA: I haven’t actually listened to the remasters yet. I’ve only listened to the bonus disc.
AB: Really? I listened to the Siamese Dream reissue, and it ends with an instrumental version of “Soma.” I thought that was going to be an indication of how the remastering sounded–because on the instrumental of “Soma,” it sounds like all of the guitars are direct. It sounds grainy and bit-chopped. It’s weird. So I thought, is this going to be any good?
JC: Yeah. It’s funny because when it came out back in the day you had to read the lyrics in the album artwork. I remember the first copy I bought. It was a used copy, and whoever had owned the CD before was trying to figure that out themselves. There were these notes written on the back with arrows and underlined things to say “this is this song” and “this is that song.” I thought that was really funny.
TK: That’s really cool. That’s like buying a book someone’s read before.
JC: I bought it years after it came out, but with the original sheet where you could send them a self-addressed, stamped envelope that they could mail back to you. I was like, “I’ll see what happens” and I did it and–I don’t remember what the fuck happened to it now–it was this cool parchment paper, and it had this thing that Billy Corgan drew himself that was all hand-written and these pictures with all the lyrics.
TK: I wonder what would happen if we sent that now?
JC: I know!
TK: Can we please do that?
JC: I don’t think that address exists anymore.
AB: It was a P.O. Box.
JC: The funny thing was that there was a P.O. Box address with an old Smashing Pumpkins fan club. I wish I still had that cause it was pretty cool, it just looked special, you know?
TK: The Smashing Pumpkins Record Club.
AB: Back in those days that was the only way to get in contact with a band–a CD that had an address to somewhere.
AA: Yeah, now they have that stuff on the Internet.
AB: They put up an alternate take of “Rhinoceros” with like a keyboard solo instead of the guitar solo.
AA: It’s cute [laughing]. It’s cute.
AB: They accidentally made it twice as long and twice as slow, cause I guess they converted it wrong. So at first I was like, “what the fuck is this version?” ‘Cause it’s just like PHBOO, PHBOO [laughing] CHEEEE, VIEEE VIEEE [laughing]. And then a few hours later they put up the real one, but I thought it was kinda cool.
AA: Was it super slow?
TK: That was a meme for a while–they would take a Sabbath song but slow it down by like a thousand. And so you just hear one note…
AA: …for a really long time?
TK: Yeah.
JC: One thing, as far as the reissues go–the extras are really great. You can tell it’s made for people who liked them before and for people just getting into them ’cause you can hear their process. Some of them it’s funny just to see how far they’ve come.
[Adrian plays guitar melody]
JC: Haha, there you go, “Spaced.” Some demos are minimal and that’s cool to hear, but you can tell some demos are just meant for the band to learn songs.
AB: It’s not for other people to hear.
AA: Just to get the idea.
JC: Right. So they can get the riff and melody and they can come up with something. They put some of those on there but they’re full-band tracked songs. Especially the one for “Today.”
AA: Dude, how did they come up with that song out of it, it sucks!
AB: It’s interesting, cause Billy Corgan always references “Today” as where he broke his writer’s block and said “I’m gonna live” or whatever, and then you hear that first demo and you’re like, “Man, that’s all it took?” It’s such a shitty version of the song. The elements that make that song good are completely absent. Basically, it’s straight up just the power chords, without any of the nuances, without any dynamics.
TK: That’s really hardcore because that makes me wonder how soon after he decided not to commit suicide he laid down that track.
AB: Honestly, if I was about to commit suicide and that was the best thing that I could come up with, I’m gonna kill myself.
JC: It’s a lot more simple and lackluster, but I’m sure that in his head he saw more potential in it.
TK: He just had to get it down.
JC: Yeah, he just got it down to show everybody, this is a lot simpler. But it’s funny compared to all the songs that they made at the same time that were so much better, that come out of the pipes and didn’t change at all.
AB: But one of the things that’s in the liner notes and one of the interviews I listened to was basically in Siamese Dream he tried to write pop-ier songs.
TK: Yeah.
AB: It almost seems to me he had to prove to himself that he could write a good pop song. “Drown” is actually a really good pop melody.
TK: Yeah, that one never made the cut, right? That’s the one on Singles, the movie.
JC: And it’s the best song on the soundtrack because the rest of it really sucks.
AB: Citizen Dick.
JC: Right? It’s just a romantic comedy, and there are annoying characters.
AA: Weren’t most of the bands on that soundtrack from Seattle?
JC: Yeah. It was something just set in that era and capitalizing on the grunge movement. So it has cameos, you go to a club and Soundgarden is playing.
AB: Matt Dillon’s supposed to be this lead singer, this douche in this band that’s up-and-coming. He’s the singer, but all the band mates are played by members of Pearl Jam.
JC: Yeah, Fleas in that movie, too.
TK: Flea would be in another movie. That’s interesting because of the Pumpkins’ aversion to being associated with the Seattle scene. It’s so strange that he would have done that when he was basically saying fuck you to that whole group.
JC: They probably just approached him and the record companies had that song and said you have a good chance to do it and so they just did it.
TK: It was a good move for them.
JC: It shows how different they are from the rest of the bands in the movie. Most of it fucking sucks.
AB: If you’ve read the liner notes to the Siamese Dream reissue, there was a certain sense of desperation for them at the point because he knew it was going to be a make or break record.
AA: Can you imagine the pressure?
AB: Exactly, at that point he probably had a lower of standard of what he was willing to do to get it to the next level, you know?
TK: He had people to convince. According to the liner notes, didn’t they initially approach him to redo all of Gish?
JC: Yeah and he said I don’t want to do it, I just want to make a better thing because Gish doesn’t have any pits.
TK: He talked about how “Rhinoceros” is such a pop song.
JC: They always talk about it, but I don’t think it is.
AB: It’s too spacey for that.
JC: It’s sort of a dream-pop feel. It’s one of the gothier songs that they have.
AB: But think about being introduced to the Pumpkins via “Rhinoceros.” It breaks out with pretty much a ballad. It rocks out at the end, but at its core it’s a ballad.
JC: It’s interesting seeing that transition. We can watch the Siamese Dream DVD in a little while. It’s totally put on there for them to say, “Look how far we’ve come.” If we saw them at that time I would just be like, fuck this band. You could tell that they had their shit down, but at the same time it’s really not very stellar, and there are under-developed versions of the Gish songs. Plus they end with three classic rock covers like a Steppenwolf song and “Godzilla” by Blue Oyster Cult, which they did for a long time. It makes sense. But it’s funny the way they look, too. Billy at the time would hardly talk. He would maybe say into the mic “rock is dead” and then that was it. And James has his guitar way up here.
AB: …And his shirt’s way too big.
JC: …It’s like rocking from side to side. They all look so funny. I like they way you’d mentioned it. You look at James, Darcy and Billy and you’re like, these guys like to do some acid and get stoned but then you see Jimmy and you’re like, this guy is totally into harder party drugs. He’s shirtless with a mullet and a leather vest– fucking all buff and stuff. But then you see the other performances and it’s completely different.
JC: Have you guys seen that review by that guy Everett True?
AB: That’s who it’s by? I was looking for it this morning.
JC: Yeah yeah yeah. I found it on Twitter, it’s for the reissues. And I guess he famously has this feud with Billy because he always used to say he never liked the Pumpkins and he thought they were really fake.– which I don’t know why anyone would think that, cause they’re kind of their own thing–
TK: They’re so earnest, if anything.
JC: You can’t see the seams in their music, if anything. I could see other bands at the time sounding really fake cause they were trying t sound like Nirvana. But they were their own thing and just got grouped in with that because of all the loud guitars.
AB: I feel like, from a technical standpoint, if they had been trying to bank off of garage than they would have played a lot more sloppily. The fact that they’re trying to make a pristine record is completely counter to the whole grunge aesthetic.
TK: Plus all of the prog shit that they throw in.
JC: This is funny, I’ll read you the review cause it’s not that long. Oh this is Collapse Board. “We criticize because we care.” And this is his review, I’ll read it cause it’s not that long. It ends really funny cause it’s kinda true. Alright so here it is.
Someone’s fucking with me. I’ve just been sent the download codes for the deluxe editions of the first two Smashing Pumpkins albums, Gish (1991) and the Grammy Award-nominated Siamese Dream (1993), for review.I am not going to play into this game. I never willingly listened to them at the time, and I see no reason to start now. Pitchfork reckons Gish is worth a solid motherfucker of 8.3. That sounds about right. For a website of taste-maker critics completely bereft of any credibility or taste.
TK: Well fuck this guy, apparently he introduced Courtney Love to Kurt Cobain at a Butthole Surfers show.
JC: Really? That’s funny.
TK: What the shit?!
AB: On a side-note, in the liner notes, Corgan insinuates that “Luna” was written about Courtney Love. Actually during that show where Courtney Love got pissed off and left the stage because someone flashed a wiener, the guitar player came out and said, “All right, we need to get here back onstage, I need everyone to say Foo Fighters are gay.”
TK: Didn’t this happen recently?
AB: Yeah. She also claimed that all of Siamese Dream is about her.
TK: She would.
AB: But in the liner notes, he pretty much says that “Luna” is about her.
TK: I’m in love with someone that doesn’t love me, My songs are better than hers. This is my way to prove a point not worth making. I lean back up against the wall, pushing my back up straight, my guitar has been painted day-glo at the hands of a sweet madman. I sing a love song in an empty room, it is for the moon. It can never be for the one you love. What is up with these liner notes?
JC: Oh those are funny. I thought it was going to be all this stuff about how they recorded the tracks, but it’s abstract shit.
AB: Like some poetic mystery.
JC: Yeah totally. Which, speaking of, it goes into in this later post. He says I’m gonna post this review instead–I guess he reviewed Machina back in the day. And so he links to the review.
AA: I kinda like this guy.
JC: It’s funny, it’s totally funny.
TK: I think it’s funny but it gives music journalism a bad name.
JC: Totally.
TK: My problem with him is that he’s fucking self-indulgent.
JC: And people probably really respect him for that, like aw man, you even criticize Pitchfork, you must be cool.
TK: Look, the thing is that you can right a negative review, and you can still come from a good place and a fair place.
AB: He’s reviewing the artist and not the art. That’s what it come down to. He not actually looking at the fucking album, it’s all context. When you say that something’s “fake,” you’re not even listening to the damn song. You’re listening for something. Cause– really?– in 1993 the most commercial music was classic rock with shoegaze guitars, as if that makes any sense.
JC: All right, all right. Here we go. Now here’s the second part, he writes–
TK: Speaking of which, “Hummer” sounds so fucking good.
AA: I love that song.
JC: I feel that The Smashing Pumpkins are a massive pose, a boring petty lie, and one that far too many children enjoy. I do not understand how anyone over the age of five can enjoy this shit. I hate songs with titles like ‘The Crying Tree Of Mercury’. I do not even have to hear them to know that … but I listened anyway. I hate songs with titles like ‘The Crying Tree Of Mercury’. Smashing Pumpkins probably think I’m disrespectful. I am not a lapsed Catholic, nor do I have any pretensions to be one.
AB: What does this have to do with the fucking album? It’s always me, me.
TK: [mimicking] I don’t like the song titles
JC: I do not like wallowing in my own guilt and sorrow.
AB: But you listen to fucking Nirvana?
JC: *Me and Bill did meet once, actually – in Philadelphia 1994. We didn’t like each other.
That’s the only negative review I’ve seen of the whole thing, which is why I’m sure he made it. He can revisit it.
TK: But did he talk about the reissues once?
JC: No, but that’s the funny thing about people who review like that, is they don’t actually talk about the music. They talk about stuff they hear or what people are saying or the image of the band, which has noting to do with the music.
AB: Did you guys see that last time that they toured? It’s funny because the new incarnation of the band brought a lot of goodwill back to them. But last year he did a couple of dates, and I’m pretty sure he played alone, it like a backing track of the rest of the parts, like a karaoke band.
Everyone: No! Oh my God!
AA: So weird!
TK: That’s disappointing.
AA: That is really weird.
AB: I feel that anytime he’s getting a lot of goodwill he’ll do something contentious because it’s almost his comfort zone, you know what I mean? Because the entire time that he’s been in the Pumpkins, people always second guess what he does. In the first incarnation of the group he was motivated by an actual artistic purpose, whereas now he’s just like, “Oh no, I’m giving in too much to the fans, I gotta do something weird.”
JC: Before when he would do that it would work because it was something different. But now it’s just something that nobody want to hear or see.
TK: It’s really funny he would do that based on everything he’s been saying lately, since the reason Gish happened was they shut themselves up and didn’t know what was going on in the L.A. and New York scenes. Siamese came from trying not to take into account what was going on around him.
AB: Whereas, the reason I got into the Pumpkins in the first place was because of how versatile they were. At the same time, though, they maintain this really high level of songwriting.
TK: I’m just glad he never named the new songs after Jessica Simpson, because he loves the female song names.
AB: Although the whole new album is called That Girl From The Veronicas.
TK: I’m glad he’s not living in Gold Coast with Jessica Simpson anymore.
AA: I think when he did that rolling turn, that’s when he just ended up incriminating himself and realizing he’s got to chill out for a while.
TK: Well at least he didn’t get arrested for mismanaging a horse-stable.
AB: Billy Corgan was like, Dave Grohl’s great, but the Foo Fighters are gay. That was the argument he had.
JC: Now he just talks about the music, and that’s what he should do–personal life and stuff aside.
AB: I feel like the interviews that he’s been getting lately are the fairest he’s had in a long time. It’s very straightforward. A lot of the times before, he got a weird pleasure out of being really cryptic with the press. That’s probably why a lot of press people hate him.
AB: Foo Fighters are gay!
All: Foo Fighters are gay!
JC: It’s funny for how much shit people give him people always react, “Wow I met Billy Corgan.”
AB: I met Billy Corgan. I had a really bizarre half-hour conversation with him at the…
TK: Shut the fuck up!
AB: I was at a show and he was sitting behind the merch booth. Everybody was too afraid to approach him and I was like, this will probably be my only opportunity. It was back in 2005, I think it was right before he announced the reunion. We talked a lot about music, but I really can’t remember the specifics of what I was talking about. But I do remember the vibe he gave off, like he was not accustomed to talking to fans. Pumpkins fans are super-fans, you know what I mean? They always come in with this shit that’s really heavy, that changed their life in some way. It seemed like he wasn’t accustomed to carrying that burden. Either that, or he wasn’t accustomed to male fans coming up and telling him that shit. It’s almost as gay as the Foo Fighters.
JC: I know, right? It was a half hour conversation, so he was willing to talk.
AB: I felt he was really trying his best to be nice, but he’s just inclined to be an asshole. But part of that is just because of all the heavy stuff that people are always bringing to him.
TK: He was an asshole or he wasn’t?
AB: He was trying his best not to be an asshole. He had some very asshole-ish tendencies, but he was trying to be very frank. Like I said, a big part of his asshole nature is the heavy stuff that people bring to him. I told him, “I’m sure you get this all the time, but you’re kinda the reason that I listen to music.”
TK: Shut up.
AB: Yeah, I told him that. And he was like, “Wow, I really appreciate that.” He was trying to be modest but at the same time, how are you gonna be yourself after someone tells you something like that?
TK: I found that he really endeared himself to me in that interview that you sent me where he talks about how strange it is to be this person who still has these creative tendencies and as he walks around people will treat him as if he’s invisible. He’s an artist that is still having the same thoughts as when he was making this shit and then people are like, “Hey, that’s Billy Corgan!” and he’s still standing right there. What do you do?
AB: Well that’s the thing with Billy Corgan and the press. He knows that they’re the press and he takes joy in manipulating them. He’s trying to be nice but he just can’t resist that burden of living up to the expectations. If you know tat you’ve meant that much to a fan, how can you possibly live up to what they’ve already made you up to be in their heads.
TK: Yeah and I’m sure it must be a strange thing to be that person. You’re like, “Yeah, that’s me.” And these other strangers are just worshipping you. I would never want to be in that position.
AB: I found that I got more and more comfortable. It’s just that once you shift the focus away from his music…
TK: … you have a conversation.
AB: Right, you have a conversation. We started talking about, you know, Linda Strawberry, who played keyboards on the Future Embrace tour and is one of his enablers these days. She came by ad sat next to him and obviously wanted to talk to him. So I said, “Yo, I really appreciate your time.” So I told him, “You should work with John Brion.” And he said that he tried to get him to work on Adore and it didn’t work out. And then he switched to this other mode, like, “He does all those retro sounds, and I was doing that shit way before he was.” And then I was like, “Alright, thanks, Billy.” And I started walking away, and I was like ten feet away and he was like, “Woah, woah, woah. This is just between you and me.” And I was like, “OK, Billy.”
AB: I seriously think that he doesn’t like me because of that conversation. Cause every time that I’ve seen him and they’re like a hoard of people around him…
TK: He remembers you?
AB: The moment that I start walking toward that hoard is when it breaks up and he leaves.
TK: He remembers you!
AB: He probably does.
AA: Yeah I’m sure he does. He probably thought that you were purposely trying to be a dick to him about that.
AB: He probably thinks that I’m one of John Brion’s family members or something.
TK: I wouldn’t even want to know what Adore sounded like if John Brion had worked on it.
AB: I do like it the way it is, but it probably would have had less electronic influence. It would probably just be a lot of Chamberlain over it all.
TK: I only saw Billy Corgan once, and it was at a Zwan show at KROQ’s Almost Acoustic Christmas.
JC: Oh yeah, wasn’t that when he got into some fight with like My Chemical Romance or…
TK: It was The Used.
AA: Didn’t he punch him or something like that?
JC: He kicked him or punched him before he went onstage.
AB: Because Zwan was managed by Sharon Osborne until they broke up over medical reasons or because she couldn’t handle Billy Corgan anymore. But it was at the same time that the guy from The Used was going out with Kelly Osborne.
AA: That’s right.
JC: Didn’t he have some kind of altercation with Bradford Cox as well?
TK: He was talking some shit about Deerhunter.
JC: Deerhunter opened for the Pumpkins.
AA: They had some kind of problem, but I don’t know the details, although they later resolved it.
TK: That makes me sad for Bradford because he probably worships the guy.
AA: I think so. I could definitely see a Pumpkins influence.
TK: Let’s talk a bit about your band. I was listening to Sex Museum today and I noticed, because I’ve been listening to Smashing Pumpkins all day and I’ve been listening to Luna all day, I got rewired. I get to the last track on Sex Museum and I was like, hello, Pumpkins guitar all over that thing. I hear a lot of an ’80s sound coming from you guys as well as a lot of Pumpkins, so I was curious what your Pumpkins influence is.
JC: With the line-up that we have in the band right know, the way that we met was actually at a Pumpkins show. We decided we were just going to stand outside the Viper Room because we couldn’t get in. It was one of those little secret shows to start their tour with the new line-up of the band. We went there and we couldn’t get in, and we saw Adrian waiting outside with his girlfriend and some friends. I was like, “I’ve seen that guy before at shows. That’s crazy that someone else we know is at this show.” It was much more of a Hollywood crowd going into that show. So we realized that we were in the same space and we started talking. None of us wanted to admit that we just wanted to stand there and listen to it because we were that into it.
TK: So you finally realized that you were, each of you, totally gay for the Pumpkins?
JC: Yeah!
AA: We were having Corgasms.
AB: I realized you were for real when you said you like Zwan.
JC: We say that because we like them, too, and most people haven’t even heard them or just dismiss them. But after that, because Adrian plays in another band called Tremellow, he gave us his CD and we gave him our CD– it was last year– and we had just put out our EP, Copy Cats. We ended up doing a battle show against him at The Smell. After that everyone was like, “Man, you guys should play together. I see similarities.” I think part of it is because of our Pumpkins influence in both of our bands.
AB: We used to get together and drunkenly play Pumpkins covers.
JC: We would go in their at night drunk as fuck…
AB: Drunk as fuuuuuck…
JC: And our girlfriends would have to sit in here for hours while we were just thrashing and have to be like, “Oh that sounds pretty cool.” And then two hours later be like, “They are fucked up.” So we asked him to come in just to get another vibe and it worked out really well. The first time he played with us for a show was the DUM DUM launch party.
TK: The first time you played with your current line-up?
All: Yeah.
TK: Aww that’s so cute, dudes! And you played the Pumpkins! “Cherub Rock.”
JC: That was fun.
TK: Back to the influences.
JC: I think that always, subconsciously I have that Pumpkins influence. It went away for a little while in our music, especially when we started using a lot of samples. But once we started doing Copy Cats and Sex Museum live, we were sounding on record more like what we sound like live. Especially on Sex Museum, that Pumpkins influence came out much more and so we let it out and let it be natural because that’s just in our blood as a band. Nick Harcourt did a write-up for us in L.A. Times Magazine, where he says, “For fans of the Smashing Pumpkins and Prince.” He didn’t get that from the record, he came and saw us live at the Bordello once, and that came out more in that live performance.
TK: Dude, I totally hear Prince on your record.
JC: Totally. He was always a really big influence, but on Sex Museum I wasn’t afraid to wear that on my sleeve–they’re kinda like rock R&B covers. My brother always put it really well. He said, “It’s got a Smashing Pumpkins presence in terms of all the guitar and drums, but it sounds like those instruments covering R&B songs.”
AB: I think that the general way in which we are influenced by the Pumpkins is the aesthetic of simultaneously having really pretty things and heavy, dirty things in the music. In terms of my playing, people say I sound like Jimmy Chamberlin WITHOUT the chops.
AA: That’s a pretty nice assessment.
AB: Adrian, I’d like to hear you talk a little about the Pumpkins and how you’ve perfected their music.
AA: A lot of it has to do with my brother. He had this karaoke machine that was two tape decks so you could record and put in another tape to overdub it. So I would always overdub Pumpkins songs. I got into it because of him. They became very important to me at a young age. I would say I was 9 years old when I discovered them. And I started playing guitar at that time. For a little while they became distant, but they always come back… and then I found these guys. I found some Pumpkin nerds.
AB: That will get just as trashed as you do.
AA: They’ve always been a part of me, especially because of my brother. He actually has the “SP” tattoo. I think when I started playing guitar that wall of sound did it for me.
AB: Adrian has an encyclopedic knowledge of how to play every Pumpkins songs up until Machina.
AA: I kind of forget them sometimes. The chords all mash in my head but then I start playing and I’ll be like, “Oh I remember that part.”
TK: Have you guys ever thought about recording one of your Pumpkins covers?
JC: I thought about it, and maybe just putting it online. I wouldn’t even mind putting it on a record if it fit. It might even introduce some people to that song.
TK: We’re coming to that point now, too, where people need to be re-introduced to them.
AB: I think the biggest problem with doing a Pumpkins cover, though, is matching Billy and Jimmy, who are such idiosyncratic players. Jimmy has such a distinct sound, and if you depart from that sound, it might not even sound like that song anymore. Whereas with Billy, the singing is so ingrained in those parts.
TK: It’s so difficult to emulate his vocal style. because he sounds like an angel sometimes, and when he transitions, there’s no seam between him sounding like an angel and sounding like angry, distressed demon.
JC: Banshee?
TK: Banshee!
AA: It’s just his voice, that’s how it works. You have to sound like him in order to sing the songs. They sound like that because he’s not a perfect singer.
TK: He’s an asshole, that’s what it is.
AB: There’s three singers that you can’t help but embarrass yourself trying to sing in their style. That’s Billy Corgan, Bjork, and Thom Yorke. If you try to sing like them, you’re gonna sound like an asshole.
JC: And so many people do the Bjork and Thom Yorke thing all the time.
AA: Muse does it.
JC: It’s funny because Thom Yorke has a range, from soft to over-the-top. But that Muse guy is just Thom Yorke over-the-top all the time.
AA: I have a hatred for a lot of music and bands, but Muse is one of the worst.
AB: It’s like Thom Yorke goes to the opera… although I’m sure he does.
TK: P.S. is there a chance that the name of your band is a reference to “Luna?”
All: Not at all.
TK: No? Or Honey as a reference to “Cherub Rock?”
JC: No, both the parts of our names are in Siamese Dream, but that’s no intention. It’s still cool, though. The imagery that I tell most people is that it’s complimenting someone–like a woman named Luna.
TK: That’s sweet.
JC: Like “she’s honey.” The cool thing about working with Luna is Honey has been that it’s very loose. Jay has been really involved in writing songs and playing bass instead of just adding the samples, so we’ve had a more live and organic process rather than Amorn and I recording up with it and then figuring out how to play it live. It’s more fun that way. And the way it’s worked we’ve had more solid and more visceral songs that we’ve made with Adrian. They’re heavy pop songs. And the other side has been more jammy and noisy. Also Bossa Nova has been a weird influence in our music that creeps in sometimes– it’s kinda tropical.
TK: Like Tropicália?
JC: Yeah, a bit. I went to Brazil this summer and bought a guitar there, so that has been really influencing my song writing. Coolbreeze was heavily inspired by that trip. I wrote half of the tracks on this EP there. The other half of the tracks are songs I wrote during Prince’s 21 night stand at The Forum last year. I kept them on the shelf while we were promoting Sex Museum and then humbly pulled them out when we started working on new material.
One thing you’ll definitely hear an improvement on in this release are the sonics. Part of that is due to the lush analog production (courtesy of our homie/San Diegan/’Beaters’ drummer/’Ale Mania’ mastermind, Andrew Montoya who taped the songs for us at San Diego’s ‘Electric Orange Studio’) and the other is due to our good friend Adrian (who also fronts his own killer band called ‘Tremellow’). He decided to get down with us in the studio this past January for this one and decided to keep tearing it up with the band onstage.
TK: What will the rest of the setup sound like?
JC: Amorn is still crushin’ it on the drums as usual and Jay has moved over to playing bass. He still does his sampling thing too, which he is definitely an understated genius at. That being said, Coolbreeze is definitely a record to bump while you’re cruising down PCH, rollin’ thru hoods, beach partyin’, or watching the city from Angeles Crest. Or maybe you’ll wanna play some of the “Skyline” shit to get your lady in the mood? There’s a lot of love in this one.
The EP is being released on cassette, and comes with a digital download that includes four bonus tracks.
Friday, June 1 2012