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sinceileftyoublog · 1 year

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Calva Louise Interview: Closer to Free

Jess Allanic of Calva Louise

BY JORDAN MAINZER

At the last festival they played before Riot Fest, UK-based rock band Calva Louise were met with a bit of confusion and perhaps a little skepticism. "We're British," they purportedly joked to the crowd, following with a half-hearted, "Innit?" Lead vocalist and guitarist Jess Allanic is from Venezuela, bassist Alizon Taho from France, and drummer Ben Parker from New Zealand, so the seaside town of Blackpool, England, on the Irish Sea coast, is the band's adopted home after "squatting" around London when they formed seven years ago. At the festival, whose lineup skewed folkier, they received more rapturous applause from the metalhead crew than the crowd themselves. "We felt like Marty McFly in the 50s," Allanic told me over a Zoom call earlier this month. "'I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet...but your kids are gonna love it.'" At Riot Fest, on the other hand, the crowd, showing up at the Roots Stage at 12:15 PM, was both ready for and loved the band's hook-laden pop-metal.

Ben Parker of Calva Louise

Calva Louise have gone through a few shifts before arriving where they are now. I first heard them on their pop rock, clean vocal-laden debut, 2019's Rhinoceros, released on Modern Sky UK. The album didn't do as well as the label had hoped, so the band was dropped. 300 Entertainment picked them up next for their sophomore record Euphoric, which featured the more aggressive sound with screamed vocals the band is known for today on songs like "Belicoso". But that label didn't work out either. Calva Louise views their struggles as a blessing in disguise. Now, they self-release, free to take their burgeoning aesthetic in any way they please, learning music and video programs themselves to fulfill their ambitious artistic visions. This year, the band has released four singles, the sneakily thumping "Third Class Citizen", melodic but industrial "Feast Is Over", tempo-hopping "Oportunista", and earlier this month, the dramatic "Square One", each with its own visual-universe-building video. (The songs will appear on an upcoming mixtape, now set for release in December.) Even their live shows are, for lack of a better term, DIY. For instance, when Allanic started recording more intricate piano parts in songs but didn't want to rely on such an inflexible instrument live, Taho bought wood and metal and built her a sliding keyboard so she doesn't have to move from her microphone stand. "I'm not very coordinated when I walk in general," she joked, "So running from one place to another to play a part, I'm gonna fall."

Allanic next to the sliding keyboard Alizon Taho built

At Riot Fest, the band certainly showcased their coordination--at least on their own instruments. Allanic's vocal control, from whisper to scream, on "Third Class Citizen" perfectly meshed with the song's rhythmic barrage and chiming keys. Her fast-picking and Parker's trapdoor stop-starts on "Oportunista" recalled the best of one of the day's later bands, Code Orange. Though they still needed to rely on pre-recorded backing vocals to play songs like "Square One", the band is surely but slowly finding ways to become more efficient with the resources they do have, all the while building in momentum to hopefully allow them some future financial flexibility. "We don't do things for show," Allanic said. "We try to do things that will help us put [out] a clearer image of what we want to express. We don't know how to communicate it yet, because we're just three people and the money is an issue." Calva Louise recently received a grant, which will help and on which they recognize they'll increasingly need to rely as an independent band. And they're even open to being signed again to a label--that is, as long as they're finally given the creative control that every artist deserves.

Read my conversation with the band below, edited for length and clarity.

Alizon Taho of Calva Louise

Since I Left You: Have you been using your live shows to road test the songs you've been writing?

Jess Allanic: When we finish the song, I go through all the possibilities on Logic. Alizon and Ben go over their parts until we figure out the best it can be. We have to rehearse every day to be able to play it physically. If we had more resources and didn't have to work, we'd just be rehearsing 10 hours a day until the song is ready. The gigs really help. 6 months ago, we started playing these songs, and now, we have to think about things like, "Where do I take the mic on stage?" or "When do I breathe?" It's like we have to have a musical director. Gigs are like the experiment, playing the songs constantly and figuring out what we have to change. [For instance,] we'll even change some drum parts [as a result of playing live] and rerecord them. The first time we ever played "Third Class Citizen" live, we knew it was good, but I wore a corset on stage and realized I couldn't breathe the whole song. [laughs] Someone recorded it and put it on YouTube, and it's just me out of breath.

Alizon Taho: There are definitely things playing live teaches you that nothing else can.

SILY: You've been releasing videos alongside the new songs. How important is your visual identity, especially live?

AT: The project is not just music. It's a whole multi-disciplinary project from comic book to the videos Jess makes. It's a big story. The visuals, it's super important they convey that story and make everything link together.

JA: It's hard with the means we have--the availability of gear and computers and knowledge of programs--to get to a level where you make people understand what's happening. We spend a lot of time learning how to do things. Alizon has spent so many hours learning how to program a live rig he built himself. We're really lucky we live in a day and age where technology is available to people like us and we don't have to go through university to study programs that cost a lot. You can get so much out of an online course for $100.

AT: We're still experimenting, too.

JA: How can we DIY something that could cost so much money? How can we trick the system?

AT: The live shows, especially headlining sets, we want it to be more than three people on stage playing music. An actual full visual experience. Every time we've gone on tour, we've tried new things, with projected videos Jess made, DIY lights. I think we're getting better.

SILY: You recently got a grant from The FAC, too.

AT: That will be even more helpful for the videos. You have to make every little detail yourself, otherwise. Now, we can buy some assets.

JA: There was a grant we were applying for for years but never got it. When we did the first video for "Third Class Citizen", we were at the limit. I was really hoping to get some grants because we weren't going to be able to do any more videos. It's such a relief. [Now,] we're hiring a studio.

AT: Usually, it's a green screen in a spare room somewhere. The grant will allow us to step up the production.

JA: And the narrative, because we can work with actors and a scriptwriter. The story is very complex. We're working with a guy in Spain who is a film YouTuber. He's helping us write the script. For the next video, we want to go as far as we can. I love how fast technology is going for videos. I don't know about the rest of [technology], but for art and cinema, the next step will be more studios with LED screens. You'll just need to have the idea and it won't be impossible to accomplish something really good with a small studio. I'm really excited where that's going.

SILY: Is your mixtape coming out this month as planned?

JA: It will be out in December now.

AT: When we started releasing these songs, we got management, which we never had. We got an agent in the US. Plans started changing a little bit with the team growing and more people helping us. We were talking to some labels and things like that, and the mixtape got postponed a little bit because of logistics. The special edition vinyl from the UK is still coming out next week. Good for [those people,] they bought it first. Digitally, it will be December 1st with the videos we are working hard on at the moment. When you're an independent band, things happen like this.

SILY: You have a half hour set early in the day at Riot Fest. How do you go about curating a setlist for people who might not have heard you before? How do you present yourselves in that short timespan?

AT: Just smash the bangers. [laughs] It's probably coming down to what we want to show, the songs we feel are the most representative.

JA: All the new songs, the songs from the mixtape. There's an intro, interludes with bits of the story of the music videos. It's really dense, but in a good way. We're trying to play who we are now. We are kind of eclectic. When we started, we played a different sort of genre of music. That was us, but we were signed [to a label] and had to obey certain rules. We couldn't be 100% free. This set, what we're planning to do for Riot Fest, we've been rehearsing religiously every day. We want to play the heaviest music we have. We want to try to show every little facet of what we do. Kind of like when you have tasters of beers. Hopefully it works.

AT: We have to be really disciplined during the set itself since it's 30 minutes. We have to be as condensed as possible.

JA: We had to time tuning our guitars. We do a mockup every day we practice. We try to time it, and I memorize exactly what I'm going to say. We try to make a good impression. Maybe people will want more. Hopefully, people will like it.

SILY: Can you talk about your most recent song, "Square One"?

JA: The mixtape is extremely DIY. It was the most DIY and cheap thing you can think of. We recorded the instruments in the kitchen. Our friend mixed and mastered it almost for nothing. For us, this is what we can do with no resources. "Square One", most of the vocals are gang vocals because there's not much time to rerecord them. It's one reason we wanted the mixtape to be self-released, to make it the purest form of DIY. I don't think it can get more DIY. It gets clearer and clearer through the process. The next song will be four videos in one, to make a short movie. We're calling it a mixtape and not an album to express that there are no resources put into these songs. That's the best we can do with just us, an interface and getting the stems to our friend. We're really lucky. We have the chance for songs to get into playlists. They're there with bands who have the best production, where you can hear how good it sounds. I feel proud that it's there in those playlists. It's been good.

SILY: Your first two full-length albums were on labels, but the mixtape is being self-released. Why did you go independent?

JA: We started the band in 2016. We're foreigners and didn't know anybody in England. Alizon had to learn English. It was pretty hard. We were squatting in London. When we got an offer to sign, we had to go through the terms. I think we did well in getting the opportunities, because they wouldn't have come otherwise, but because we [initially] obeyed a bit too much, [we didn't end up working] the way labels expected us to be working. We were signed to an English label [Modern Sky], and they were expecting much more reception than we got. We got dropped, which was great for us, and then we got signed by another label [300 Entertainment], but it was the same thing: We couldn't do what they wanted. If people don't understand you, it won't work. It didn't work with the second label. But then we had the freedom to do exactly what we wanted. To us, that was the best thing that could have happened, to have 100% freedom to make our own decisions and strategy, even marketing strategy like Instagram and TikTok. We don't have PR or radio people, but we did what we could and saw what happened. Nothing against labels--and we still want to sign to one--but this wasn't a decision and was just what we had to deal with. We got an offer for a label ages ago, but it was to do exactly what they say, which hadn't worked in the past. We got dropped, owed so much money, and were broke, unable to record or release new music. So we're self-releasing this and will be able to profit a bit from it. We own our publishing, the songs' masters. We can buy food, and that's good!

#interviews #live music #calva louise #riot fest #alizon taho #featured artists coalition #rhinoceros #jess allanic #marty mcfly #modern sky uk #300 entertainment #euphoric #code orange #the fac #ben parker

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