Local Natives | Interview

Story by Dylan Bliss 

| Published Oct 5, 2010

Taylor Rice may not be a household name just yet, but his mustache definitely commands an incredible amount of attention.

Lately, when he’s not trimming and combing, he and the four other members of Local Natives are packing venues, holding hour-long sing-a-longs loaded with soaring three-part harmonies with a percussively folk-based foundation. Their debut album, “Gorilla Manor,” has deftly swept through a not-so-particular sea of alternative music lovers, and their appeal has seemingly been based solely on whether or not you’ve had a chance to listen.

Upon arriving at the Waiting Room in Omaha, the crowd waiting for Local Natives was swelling to burst merely halfway through the second opening act. Once Rice and friends took the stage, the varying levels of intoxication throughout the crowd rose and leveled at the top. Based on the sheer volume of the audience members’ “Ohs” and “Oohs”, it could be said that everyone had both a personal and communal experience with one of their current favorite acts.

Taylor Rice had a few moments to share the band’s perspective of this recent surge:

DerN: What made Local Natives transition from a guitar-based sound to the vocally-centered percussive sound that defines this first album?

Taylor: It is true, we were always very guitar based, but we were always heavily into harmonies — not to the extent that we are now — but to answer your question it was just really what I said is that when we moved in together I’d just graduated college, everyone was kind of ready to make that leap and living in a house together and all focusing on the band it kind of really came together—we really hit a groove.

It was just a steady progression, and finally when we were ready to make this album and writing these songs, the harmonies came to the forefront. We spent a lot of time with an acoustic guitar and around a piano just delving into the songs that way.

I think it was just kind of a maturity thing. When you’re younger you’re a little more focused on maybe some more aggressive music, and guitar based music — at least for us — and then you start listening to all the sixties harmony bands that your parents maybe listened to. Maybe you shrugged it off in the beginning and then you were like “Yeah, these are incredible records from incredible bands, and they’re using harmony in such a great way”


DerN: Different sources have tried to tack on a genre to Local Natives like psych-folk or modern wordly folk. What’s been your favorite genre descriptor? Which is most accurate?

Taylor: I’ll say harmony laden percussive driven indie rock. It’s a broad one that at least is talking about the harmonies and percussion that carry through “Gorilla Manor” pretty coherently.

DerN: What kind of day jobs did you guys have to give up to play music for the past few years? What’s your advice for new bands wanting to take this leap?

Taylor: I wouldn’t say had to give up, I’d say got to give up. The job that I got to give up was selling high end kitchen cutlery to essentially housewives. I would go to the houses and have these appointments with people and sell them these house knives.

I was in this sales job, which was just such a ridiculous job but I did it because we were doing band things so often that I just had time to work whenever I needed to eat another burrito.

Some of the other guys, Matt, for example, our drummer, he had a full time job before in a career with graphic design. He was doing covers for small weekly magazines out of Long Beach. Andy had a job in the fashion industry, he was a bit older than us, so he was a little more established down that route. These were all jobs we were excited to give up.

The advice that I would give to new bands — we really learned by just doing it. It really wasn’t until we made that leap that we all moved in together and said, “This is what we’re doing, this is our dream.” And what we learned is that no one’s gonna care about your music or your band as much as you — you don’t wait for anybody to kinda give you a break, help you out, or “If we just get the right manager or we just get signed to a record label, we just get this one show—there’s no one thing.”

Self funding our record and making it ourselves, and booking all of our shows, and doing all of our own artwork and doing our own quote-unquote PR and just emailing blogs we were fans of — all that stuff worked out great because we were doing it ourselves and we were all so passionate about. That kind of do-it-yourself attitude is what’s imperative to our success.


DerN: Everything you guys create from graphics to lyrics to harmonies has been a bit of a collaboration. How often do your guys’ ideas conflict?

Taylor: (Laughs). Every single time that anyone has an idea, there’s a conflicting idea. I really mean that literally. I don’t think anytime there’s not been something where we’ll put something forth and it doesn’t go through the filter that is the Local Natives collaborative democratic process, and that’s the way our band functions.

So often times, it is very difficult for me to give over what I consider my baby, you know, that you get so close to. It’s hard to let people kinda get their hands on your ideas, but we’ve learned to trust each other. We’ve learned each other's strengths, and I think that tension just creates a broader scope of ideas and we just get a better result in everything.