Q&A: Local Natives

The band was originally called – and please correct me if I mispronounce this – "Cavil at Rest"?

Ryan Hahn: (laughs) That’s exactly why we changed it; no one could pronounce it. When you’re just starting a band in high school and you want to name it, archaic words seem cool. All you really want to do is play guitar with your friends and have a show at the punk rock venue down the street. That’s the sum total of your aspirations. We held on to that name as we matured musically and got more serious about it. But when we decided to make an album, we realized that we had to ditch that baggage. 

 

 

Local Natives is a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek name. Where did it come from?

Coming up with a band name is such a strange process. Some are so pretentious, but we didn’t want to go that route. We liked Local Natives because it was so playfully redundant. We felt like it had a communal and collective feel to it, which fit us.

 

 

One of the standout tracks on Gorilla Manor is “Cubism Dream,” which seems to be about a guy video chatting with his girlfriend. What’s the story behind that song?

 [Keyboardist/vocalist] Kelcey [Ayer] wrote the lyrics for that when he was breaking up with a long-time girlfriend. She wanted to be an actress and Kelcey was doing Local Natives. They were both pursuing their dreams, which took them in different directions around the world. The lyrics chronicle a simple exchange over the Internet, but it’s a conversation that a lot of people can relate to.

 

 

Gorilla Manor isn’t just the name of your album, it’s the actual place where you wrote most of your songs. How did you end up there?

We had all made the conscious decision to make the band a full-time pursuit, so everyone put everything else on the back burner and we moved in together. Doing that really helped us coalesce and bring the music into focus. The name Gorilla Manor comes from not getting enough sleep and us sitting around being ridiculous. We just liked the juxtaposition of images: us trying to be adults and really pursue this career, but we’re sitting in the middle of this messy house while we do it. The actual house is in Orange at the end of the quiet cul-de-sac. We had a couple of parties there that got out of control, but for the most part we were dedicated to making music. 

 

 

Gorilla Manor includes a cover of Talking Heads’ “Warning Sign.” What does that choice of covers say about the band?

We wanted to cover a song for show we did a year ago and it was just supposed to be a one-off thing. Then it took on a life of its own, because we were getting such a great reaction from it. It’s weird, because we didn’t think we were going to put it on the album; that was a last minute decision. For me, it’s tough to hear a cover song when the band takes the song and doesn’t do anything new with it. We wanted to pay homage to the Talking Heads, but we made “Warning Sign” our own so that it warranted being on the record. And we just found out that David Byrne gave our version his stamp of approval, so we’ve been jumping up and down. 

 

 

It seems like no one can review your album without comparing you to Vampire Weekend. How do you feel about that?

 

We’re all fans of Vampire Weekend, so that’s a great band to be compared with. After a certain point though, you wonder if it’s just a lazy reference and a surface level comparison. As an artist, that’s frustrating, but those shorthand comparisons are one of the necessary evils of journalism. F