INTERVIEWS:
An interview with LP:
Interview with LP
By Sarah Burkard
In June, before it became completely unbearable to
sit outside in the shade and relax, I met up with the
three members of LP. Though I've known these
guys longer than S.L.A.M. has existed, I bet they
didn't think I was serious when the previous week-
end I drunkenly proposed that I interview them for
this 'zine. We met up at Mill's End Coffee Shop and,
after looking at me like I was crazy for showing up with only a pen and paper to record the interview, I could not get the information to stop pouring out. For your reading pleasure, I bring you LP:
Alright boys, what are those full names and what exactly do each of you do in the group?
Steve: Steve Schroeder. I play guitars. I cover the rhythms.
Jeremy: Jeremy Zunk. Korg Triton. Synths, basically.
Taylor: Taylor Pakula. I usually do the effects and sing, but none of us really have any set instruments. We just play what we want.
How did you guys get together?
Taylor: It's all Andrew's fault.
Who's Andrew?
Taylor: He's a mutual friend that lived in the same apartment complex as I did, and these two were visiting him one night when I went over to his place.
Jeremy: I've known Steve since junior high, but we didn't start to hang out until freshman year of high school.
Did you two go to school together in Arizona?
Jeremy: No, this was in Cincinnati. We had met in class and we started playing with music with some synthesizers together.
Electronica music?
Jeremy: No, all types of music.
Where does the name LP come from?
Jeremy: Well, Steve and I had decided to join a Battle of the Bands contest and when we entered it the form asked for the 'band name' and we had nothing picked out, so we just wrote down LP. You know, as in records.
Taylor: You gave away our secret!
Jeremy: We had an awesome show. We had drums, guitars, the whole kit. We were dancing and even had strobe lights.
Steve: It was ghetto.
Did you guys win?
Jeremy: We lost to a 311 cover band.
Steve: We made fun of them.
Jeremy: 311 was the most popular band at the time and we didn't really perform that well.
But you ended up getting signed to Moonshine Records later on.
Jeremy: Yeah. In 2000 we moved out to Tucson and met Taylor a year after that.
Steve: That's when our first single came out on Moonshine.
Jeremy: Yeah, we played a couple of shows then had a couple of theft issues. The house was broken into but luckily they didn't even touch our studio. They took the mouse but not the computer.
Steve: Don't forget the ice cream that they ate and then left on the couch.
Jeremy: Yeah, they stole some frozen food too. One time we also had stuff jacked out of the car. Our music is mostly contained on a PC. It's self contained, so we were just happy they didn't take that.
Taylor: Yeah our live shows could be done with just a microphone, a guitar, and a laptop, but we bring the extra gear because Steve is boring to look at just by himself.
Steve: You're no fun to look at either.
You were saying something about Moonshine Records...
Jeremy: Right. So we decided to press two of our tracks on vinyl. We had it done out in Tennessee with our own money, but we had no knowledge of distribution or ideas on record labels. So we went to Los Angeles, walked around, dropped off some of our demos and then two weeks later...
Steve: Actually, it was the Monday after we got back.
Jeremy: Either way, this guy called, said it was awesome and that they were just starting a new vinyl project. It was the RGB (Red, Green, and Blue) and each color was a different genre. Trance was blue; the other two were breaks and house.
Taylor: The first release on Moonshine was a repress of Progress, the track Steve and Jeremy had self-released.
Jeremy: Moonshine did their own thing and never really helped us promote.
Taylor: I don't think they even do vinyl anymore.
Steve: So, they were hired and fired. We got money for the compilations that Progress was on, but we don't do much with them.
Taylor: So we looked for new labels that would push for artist development.
What label did you end up finding?
Taylor: Functional Breaks, which is run by a really down-to-earth guy named Biff.
Steve: They're based in England.
Jeremy: We had our first release with them in February and it came out in June. We also did some stuff with Ben & Lex. They're talking about letting us share a record with them for their 25th release; we hope to get on that.
Who are Ben & Lex?
Steve: Two of Functional Breaks' in house guys.
Jeremy: They pretty much do their own things. [Being on the Functional Breaks label] has really helped draw attention to us from a crowd we weren't reaching before. Functional offered us a chance to play the Glastonbury Festival, but unfortunately we didn't have the finances to go because it's located all the way across the world near London.
Steve: Bristol, actually.
Jeremy: We're working with a new label based out of Vegas, too.
Taylor: Thanks to Inertia.
Jeremy: Robert Oleysyck [label owner] was in town for Inertia's wedding and Inertia played him some of our material. Robert called us that day and asked us to be a part of his label, Blaq Velvet Recordings. We've signed three releases to that label now. The first two sides, "Ghost" and "Watch" will come out on a single record near the end of the summer.
Our remix of Robert's original track "Music Love" will be released sometime after Watch and Ghost. He's only been producing for 2-3 years, so he's still learning and asking us for critiques. But he's been spinning for a while.
Steve: He's a big DJ in Nevada.
Taylor: Tell me more about LP. (chuckles)
Jeremy: We're setting our sights on another album release for later this year. The last one we did was "Losing Tomorrow." We did all our own tracks - production, recording, mixing, mastering, everything - in our studio. We mostly just distributed it at parties.
When are some of your upcoming shows?
Jeremy: There's a ton of shows we're booked for. Just check out our website, projectargo.com, for all that information. I think we're even booked for a show in October - yeah, October 30th. It's called Killer Klowns From Outer Bass.
Steve: That's pretty far away.
Jeremy: We're trying to play California, but it's expensive.
Taylor: It's expensive to take all of our gear.
Jeremy: We've had some offers to play in Texas, and New Mexico, but one fell through and the other...
Steve: Something happened.
Taylor: Note for all people getting started: watch out for shady promoters.
How would you describe your style?
Taylor: Progressive house, progressive breakbeats.
Steve: That's what we do live, but we can produce anything except country. Well, maybe country.
Jeremy: We like to experiment with different elements of the music. For instance, we played this coffee shop in Tucson a couple of times. It was a real laid back place, and we wanted to transform our show to fit the atmosphere. We ended up with some d'n'b. More chill stuff, not too Dara or Dieselboy. It was one of our improv shows, where instead of following a setlist, we craft an outline while we're playing the set and improvise the song structure. It's pretty free form, I guess.
Taylor: We record all our improv shows and mine them for ideas for new tracks.
Jeremy: It's the best way to take both styles [free form & studio] and blend the two to develop consistency. Then we can recognize things and different styles, which allows us to progress to the next stage, the next level. We like to make every show unique.
What do you think about the local scene?
Taylor: Arizona imports its culture.
Jeremy: Our genre is tougher to succeed in because you're either feeding into the top 40 machine or you play raves, and those are few and far between now. You can only get to a certain point of success here either way, and at that point people start to leave for NY or LA. Markus Schulz recently left and unfortunately he had people look down on him for it, but why stay here?
Taylor: You go to where the support is because this is your job. We're performing musicians by trade and we have to make a living. A lot of jobs do that. We enjoy Arizona, and we're grateful to all of the people who do give support to us and to the scene, but there's not enough of them.
Let's talk about LP again.
Taylor: LP? LP is doing well. We're moving along, but, I mean, we're not rock stars.
Wait?! You're not rock stars? This interview is over! Seriously, I think we pretty much covered everything. Was there anything else that you wanted to add?
Taylor: We like the humpback whales.
Jeremy: Support your local performers, even if they're from Tucson.
Steve: Keep on working even if there's no support or things are hard.
Just keep on trying.
Jeremy: And don't listen to those people drinking Hatorade cuz even if
they're hatin' they're still talking.
www.projectargo.com
