They first posted their debut EP – The Years – online as a free download less than a year ago, but that 12 minutes of recorded music has catapulted Evan Abeele and Denise Nouvion into an unexpected, but completely deserved, swirl of sudden popularity and hype. They’ve already toured internationally, released several singles and remixes, and are set to put out a disc of ambient music accompanied by a photo book, but Abeele – clearly honored humbled by all of the attention – seems to have a good grip on what the group wants for themselves in the future.
Two days into a North American tour with Twin Sister, REAX caught up with Abeele as he, Nouvion, and touring guitarist Adrian Vieni made their way through the Big Apple en route to a show at the Mercury Lounge. We had a chat about mixtapes, Raekwon, and a new record. We also touched upon what it was like trying to move forward in the real world despite being a band basically born exclusively online.
You can catch them next week at one of their four Florida dates. They hit Orlando’s Backbooth on August 18 and descend upon the Crowbar in Ybor City on Thursday, August 19 where they’ll be supported by Twin Sister, label mates MillionYoung, and Tampa’s own King of Spain. Tickets are $8 in advance and $10 at the door.
REAX: Where are you now?
Evan Abeele of Memoryhouse: We’re in New York just driving to a show at the Mercury Lounge.
REAX: Your music is very multi-dimensional in the fact that you have the visual side to it, do you draw a lot inspiration from the things you’re seeing in New York and on tour in general?
EA: It’s really, really busy, and I wish we could find the time to get inspired around here, but when we’re not playing I think we’re either driving or playing – sometimes both at once.
REAX: It’s been a crazy ride for you, The Years isn’t even a year old and you’re already blogosphere darlings. How do you view the relationship between your music and the Internet. Do you think you could survive in an environment less reliant on the web?
EA: I think we’re moving in the directions where we’re surviving without the Internet. I definitely think we owe a lot, if not most, of our success to the Internet. The attention and publicity has been not only unexpected, but has gone above and beyond our expectations. I mean, we basically got to go on an international tour for two months on the strength of a free EP online, which is pretty much unheard of.
We definitely appreciate that, but at the same time we’d like to get to the point where we are releasing more physical music and doing stuff away from the Internet so we can, I don’t know, become a “real world” band where can materialize a little bit more.
REAX: Are you still going to have the visual aspect to your music?
EA: Yeah absolutely, even live, we have a really unique video collage created by our friend and collaborator Jamie Harley from France and we just knew that, with a live show, we needed something to enhance it – something visual. So Jamie just put together this amazing video composed almost entirely of short footage and spliced and edited it in very different ways and I think that is such a key to our live performance now.
REAX: It definitely adds another element to who you guys are and gives kids a reason to see you. I wanted to touch on the fact that you gave away The Years for free and have put some singles out on vinyl. How do you think the listening habits of your audience affect the way that you release music?
EA: Kids definitely find their music almost exclusively online nowadays, so I think that we were able to appeal to that market because, I mean, you read something on a blog like Pitchfork or something then you check it out. I think that by releasing our music for free we got to eliminate any bias that is associated with buying music. It’s kind of like when you guy something you kind of have a natural bias just trying to enjoy it because you’re not only spending your time and money, whereas by releasing our music for free, we’re just asking for you for your time and want to engage you in some way and introduce ourselves. I think that that’s kind of what got us to where we are – just the fact that we weren’t asking for anything but one time.
REAX: You have a photo book coming out do you have any DVDs in the works?
EA: We may be doing some DVDs. We are gonna be doing more films when we get back, but at the moment we just have the photo book that comes with the CD of ambient music.
REAX: Fans take your stuff and apply it to films, etc. What does it feel like seeing something you’ve created exponentially spawn all of this creativity within others?
EA: I think it’s amazing. It’s a huge honor that people feel that way about our music and get inspired by it and want to create something unique and beautiful with it. I think that that’s definitely the best thing about our band right now – just the fact that people connect with it in their own personal way and they’re making something from that and sharing it with the world. There couldn’t be anything better going on with us right now.
REAX: Did you ever expect that people were going to latch on to your stuff and take it for the ride it’s on right now?
EA: I never expected this or counted on it. It’s just been really overwhelming and humbling for us – it’s just been really different.
Memoryhouse - Bonfire from Jamie Harley on Vimeo.
REAX: What is it like having to read numerous websites attach labels like “glo-fi” and “chillwave” to your music?
EA: I try not to pay too much attention to any labels. I mean, to me it’s just pop music, indie rock, college-rock, whatever people want to call it is definitely fine. I don’t particularly want to associate our music with, like, new genre fads and just over-compartmentalizing of our music. I think if people want to call it what they want to call it, then that’s fine, but I think that I don’t want to limit myself in calling it one specific thing I think that everyone has his or her own meaning to it and I think that that is what makes it special. One person thinks it’s chillwave, someone else things it’s dream pop, other people think college rock, or I don’t know…shoegaze. There are so many names.
REAX: Speaking of trying not to see music as a certain genre, you put the Only Built 4 Cuban Linx track, “Heaven and Hell”, on a recent mixtape, and I can definitely hear some of that vibe on your stuff. Is there anything outside classical or “indie” music that we would be surprised to find you guys listening to on a daily basis?
EA: We’re all really big hip-hop fans and pretty much the only thing we really we listen to in the car is Mos Def, Raekwon, or Ghostface Killah. We don’t really listen to much indie-rock surprisingly and sometimes it gets really alienating when you listen to just one type of music over and over again. I think we find hip-hop really peaceful and really meditative. That’s why I included that song on the mixtape. I just felt like I was listening to that song so often when I was overseas that I had to share it.
REAX: Raekwon calls himself “Chef Raekwon,” do you guys have any nicknames for each other?
EA: We call our touring guitarist “Sandy Pants” because one time we were playing a show on a beach and he went swimming then made a big fuss about going back to the hotel and changing before we played. We always tease him about it because he didn’t want to play with sandy pants, but Adrian is a really awesome guitarist.
REAX: How many people do you have on tour with you right now?
EA: Right now it’s just me, Denise, and Adrian, and we have tour manager (Ryan Foltz) doing tour stuff for us and driving the bus.
REAX: As far as the live setting goes, what kind of gear are you guys running your mics and instruments through? Is it much different from your writing and recording setup?
EA: We have a Roland SP555 sampler, two guitars, a keyboard, and amps and tons of effects pedals. It’s a lot different, but when we’re playing live we don’t try to recreate the album. We try to create new arrangements for it and make it more interesting to people.
The live experience is a lot different than the actual record. It would be really boring to try and play album exactly how it is, so we didn’t even begin to attempt that, so we just wanted to do something new and refreshing and something that audiences can engage with more closely.
REAX: Sometimes, after hearing an album over and over again, people come to shows with certain expectations.
EA: I think an audience may come in with a certain expectation, but I think that they at least appreciate the thought and effort that goes into the show. As fun as it is to hear reproductions, it can also get boring and repetitive, and it can also get repetitive for us to just play it exactly how it is on the record night after night. I think that doing it this way makes it fun for everyone because it’s a little bit different every night.
REAX: Considering how new Memoryhouse is and the unexpected success that the band has already had, has it changed your plans as far as the future of the band? It seems like, nowadays, it’s become harder to have a lasting impact on the scene. At the end of all of your projects, what do you want it all to mean and represent?
EA: I think I want Memoryhouse to always keep growing, progressing, and changing our sound. I think that’s one of the reasons why, as tempting as it is to pigeonhole us, it’s ultimately kind of difficult. We’re always trying on different hats and trying different sounds and I think that our new material that we’ll be releasing in September will be kind of a shock to listeners because it’s very different from what we did on The Years. So I think that ultimately we’d like to stick around and keep progressing, trying new things, and always kind of staying true to our artistic vision and stretching that as far as we can.
REAX: You mentioned a different sound for the new record. Is there a particular reason for that? Have different things been influencing you?
EA: I just think that now, since we’re recording in real studio, we have the opportunity to take our sound to the place where we always wanted to take it. But due to certain money constraints and studio limitations when we were recording in our bedroom it was really difficult to get to the point that we wanted to get to with our music, but now since we have more options, we have the money coming into it to pay for studio recordings. We’re in a better position to be more genuine with the sound that we always wanted to achieve so I think the new stuff is probably the most like us that we’ve ever sounded but its gonna be very different from what audiences are used to from us.
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