EastScene

EastScene Recently had the opportunity to sit down with Neil Popkin front man for L.A’s rising act War Tapes during a stop on their supporting act tour for VNV Nation. Fresh off the heals of the release of their debut album The Continental Divide and an appearance on the ABC/Much Music show Greek, this is one band who’s vocals and hypnotic sound transport you to any underground club  in London and call to mind the time of  The Smiths and Morrissey’s hay days.

ES: You guys are a band form L.A. who signed with a Seattle based indie label Sarathan Records, can you tell me how this came about and what lead to the decision to ultimately sign with them?

Neil: They had been pursuing us for a while and they came out to a show case we did out in New York about a year and a half ago. They were just the ones that cared the most and kept on pursuing us and not just leading us on so much.  At that point we had done ten showcases and meet and greats and so on in New York, L.A. and in England, but they were the ones who really wanted to wok with us and didn’t want to wait on anything. They’re great because they give us 100% creative control over everything and they are just behind us with everything all of the time to just go ahead. To be involved with a more family run organization is just great. I can call up the CEO of the company any time I want and its just very hands on and it gives us a lot of freedom. We love it!

ES: Was that something that was key for you guys when first looking for a label? A more familiar and family oriented team?

Neil: Yeah we just wanted pretty much everything they had to offer. It wasn’t like the crazy major label deal which is what people told us we wanted. Leading up to it everyone kept saying “hold out for so and so” but we weren’t ready to wait any longer and just wanted to go with something that seemed fair. We had all this material that was ready to go and be released and we didn’t want to wait to release a record. We just really wanted to go with it; we didnít really play the label game.

Es: Can you tell me a little about the writing process for the Continental Divide

Neil:  I think it was a longer process than most records take and are recorded in, just because we didn’t have a label at the time and we would go in to record 3 or 4 songs at a time when we had the chance at friends studios, we did it all our selves. We produced and funded it ourselves, so going into a studio for a month just to record wasn’t really an option. We wrote a lot in our rehearsal studios and just hammered it out on garage band and recorded them then had to wait one or two months then go back to it and decide which songs we wanted to keep and scrap and redo. It was a long process. It took us a good solid year to get it all done,  but with doing that it gave us time to really not settle or anything less than what we wanted the final cd to sound like. We kind of got that opportunity. At first we didn’t really plan or know how to get what we wanted on the record because we didn’t have the right mixer or gear but now by taking a long process we totally figured out our recording formula. So I feel like the next record is going to be a lot easier and a faster process.

ES: You guys have been self described as “Heart Quaking Doom Pop”, can you tell me how that description came about?

Neil: That actually came up when we were shopping for a label.  We had sent our stuff to an English Label that actually ended up passing on us. I forget the name of the label, but the guy sent us back an email saying “I really like you sound its really heart quaking doom pop but we’re not currently signing new artists” but after we read that it was like ok Heart quaking doom pop sounds good to me! and I think after that we just kept it going cuz  it was funny. Its always fun to make your own genres, I’ve always done that with friends where we’ve been like let’s make a new  genre digital hardcore grind pop, or metal shoelace metal core. We thought it was funny and fit our sound so we just kind of stuck with it.

ES: Was the War Tapes sound ever a conscious decision on your part or was it through transitions and just something that came out?

Neil: No. I think that definitely in the early stages we were more geared towards a more subtle indie rock pop type of band a little less aggressive and later on as we progressed the band just got a lot harder and darker. I think once we toured with Smashing Pumpkins we wanted to pursue heavier sounding guitars and bigger drums and just go bigger.

ES: So aside form Smashing pumpkins what are your influences?

Neil: Smashing pumpkins were an influence of mine growing up but I think having played with them their work ethic influenced us but as far as sound I think we pull from a lot of different places. Brit punk, post pop, 80ís new wave. I know I grew up listening to punk rock and hard core and I used to go to hard core shows all the time when I was a kid and I thinks that where a lot of the live show comes from like when I get into the audiences face it comes from  that hardcore background. But I think we all have our own specific influences but we all find a happy medium.

ES: As a front man then who is one other front man that you can look at and say that is what I want to be like I want that energy?

Neil: Dave Gahan.

ES: You guys were featured on the ABC Family channel show GREEK in May performing Always falling and Dreaming of You, how did that come to be?

Neil: The musical director for the show just contacted us one day. It was between us and a couple of other bands like Arctic Monkeys and The Bravery but for whatever reason one of our songs just fit the story line for the show and so they approached us. We didn’t really know what to think at first but we went and it was a lot of fun and that actually helped us out a lot. The day it aired we had like and 2000 plays on our Myspace .It was a really great boost for us especially airing like a week after the record came out it was a good little boost. Perfect timing but I honestly don’t know how it all came about it was really all by luck

ES: Your video for Mind is Ugly and Dreaming of  You were directed by Jon Danovic who is relatively unknown and new was there any reason is particular that he was chosen?

Neil: Yeah! He’s been a friend of ours for years. When I had my first demo, it was just a solo demo that I had made in my house and had literally finished like an hour before. I had my friend at a club who was a DJ at the time spin it and we were just hanging out it was playing he came up to the DJ booth and asked who it was cuz he really liked it and she said “this is Neil he’s sitting by the bar” and he came up shook my hand and we just talked that night. It was so long ago but we just kept in touch. He’s been a huge supporter and friend of the band for so long that he directed our first music video. He’s a really cool guy and I really believe in him and his direction and artistic input.

ES: It seems as though you surround yourselves with family and friend oriented team. Does this impact the way your guys govern yourselves or as musicians in any way?

Neil: Its all friend/family based. I definitely think we only like working with people who we can truly trust and people who are our true friends. We don’t like to share what we have cuz I feel like what we have is really scared. Where I think a lot of things in the music industry is just thrown around and producers may get their hands on things and everything just goes out the window. We produce things ourselves. My sisters in the band she’s married to the drummer, my best friend in the whole world plays guitar and we’ve lived together. One of the people who works at the label has been a family friend for years. So its definitely really important to us.

ES: Just to touch upon how the industry works these days there’s a huge shift towards the digital was there any thought placed upon this when releasing your album r your music and how has it impacted you?

Neil: I mean we went down that road a bunch of times before we even had a record deal. We had this idea to release a song a week on iTunes instead of releasing an album because album sales are so low that we would just play the digital game and get in touch with the whole “new world” and just do it that way. But at the end of the day I like albums I like a collection of artwork that I can listen to  and I think that actually now everyone is going that way  and it just seems to be the industry standard. I think we’re just gonna go the complete opposite and release a double disk next album. We like to go against the grain and we don’t really give a fuck if people listen to the first track the first three tracks cuz they don’t have the attention span for the whole thing. We don’t really care cuz we do have a hundred kids who will listen to the whole thing and understand our motives as artists to do that. So that and like I feel like we’re the most prolific band, not to toot my own horn or anything but in the last 2 weeks that we’ve been on tour we’ve written like 20 songs that’s just what we’re working with. I’m not gonna just release one song because that’s what people can listen to. Like all the radio stations that I grew up listening to are obsolete now. I would rather release an album cuz once it’s released its out there and it’s a collection of work . Given time it could become the next Dark Side of The Moon. Once it’s out there its on iTunes so if you want to just buy that one song then go ahead if you want the whole thing get the whole thing.

ES: Do you think this digital age and Myspace has an effect on artists and the ways in which they grow and happen?

Neil: Yeah I definitely think it has its effect on bands growing faster than they normally would have back in the day, but they also have a tendency to grow faster than they are ready for. I feel like the bands that you’ll hear about in the next five years are the bands like Kings of Leon who are actually a substantial band rather than some of the bands who have had a substantial hit on Myspace or whatever it is that might grow into something big, even too big right away and then may not have what it takes to back it up once everyone’s eyes are not on them. So I feel like as a new band it’s important to do your homework and leg work and actually put in the time to have some good music to back it up. Everything is so buzz driven these days in England and L.A. that bands will blow up over night. I just want to lay down the foundation to build up on something that becomes bigger than all off that.

ES: You said that you are a very prolific band. After having listened to your stuff I noted a lot of literary influences and in particular Charles Bukowski, Is this something that’s conscious/ what is the writing process for you like?

Neil: Really? I actually like Charles Bukowski a lot. I’m not an avid reader like some of the others in the band are but I have actually read a couple books by him and like them, but my lyrics pretty much just come from an unsophisticated place. I try to be as honest as possible. I try not to use too many wordy metaphors. I used to feel like I tried to make everything sound  poetic but now I’m kinda like just give me a microphone and press record  and I’m just gonna say. Like Robert Smith can say love me and you’ll actually believe it rather than just a bunch of words thrown together for the sake of it. I try to find a happy medium between trying to be poetic and just real.

ES:  So to finish things off I took a look at your YouTube Chanel and noticed you guys play a lot of top 5. So I have come up with my own top 5 question for you! This year there seems to be a lot of comeback tours like with Blink and No Doubt who would be your top 5 comeback tour?

Neil: That’s a good one! Let’s see The Smiths reunion but I don’t think that’ll every happen, I would like to see the original  members of Smashing Pumpkin do something but that’s not gonna happen, I’d love to see Joy division is concert but he’s not coming back from the grave anytime soon, I’d like to see a Minor Threat concert that would be really cool and I’d also really like to see the Who back in the day with Keith Moon on the drums, but I don’t know if Keith moon being dead  would effect that hahaha.

You can check out War Tapes at:

www.myspace.com/wartapes

www.wartapesband.com

www.youtube.com/wartapeschannel

www.tinyurl.com/WarTapesAmazon