Ex Norwegian

Catch up with indie retro band Ex Norwegian's Roger Houdaille and check out their new video for "On The Sidelines" before catching the band on tour now.

Where does your name, Ex Norwegian, come from?

Roger Houdaille: It basically comes from Monty Python. There was a parrot sketch where the parrot is a Norwegian Blue, which is a made up parrot type, but since it's a dead parrot, there's a point in the sketch where they say, 'ex parrot,' so we got the Ex Norwegian out of that. It was just something I was also looking for when I was trying to name the band; I knew I wanted some country name or something geographical and it just fit once I heard it.

Which musicians have you been influenced by, individually or as a band?

As a band, I think our common thread is a love of classic rock, to cast a wide net. Classic rock would probably be our main inspiration in relation with the band. What's cool though is that everyone listens to so many different things so I think everyone brings in those elements to the band and then, myself, it's a lot of '60s and '70s music, that's really what I listen to, to this day. [Laughs] I'm really stuck in the past. Specifically, stuff like The Kings and The Who and a lot of the British invasion bands, really.

You're heading out on the road, do you have a roadtrip playlist?

[Laughs] I do have a Spotify playlist I've been putting together over the last few days. I know our drummer on tour, he is really excited 'cause he keeps saying how he's going to play us a bunch of tunes; out of all of us, he's probably the one that knows all the stuff that's going on now, plus all the old stuff, so it'll be exciting to see what he puts on. Yeah, part of the trip is definitely going to be that, just playing music for each other on the road; being DJs.

You've got some new tracks for tour too, is there one you're most excited for your fans to hear?

The whole set's kind of exciting and what has me really excited about this tour is the whole thing is basically going to be different. We have a few new ones but we already have 6 albums, so my goal is to try to, at least, do one song from each album but that required some rearranging so it would fit in better, stylistically. For example, we have probably our best known song, "Something Unreal" - which was also our first song - that one's going to be completely different, so I hope people like it because there's also that worry that people want to hear the same thing they hear on the record so changing it up is a bit of an experiment. Then, we have a couple new songs which I think the whole band is just really excited about and we hope to record those as soon as we get back.

What words would you use to describe your current sound?

This album [Pure Gold] was a bit of, I won't say a mistake, but it wasn't really planned, so we didn't start from, 'okay, we want it to sound like this,' or anything, it just sort of happened. We didn't really have a drummer so I used my friend out in LA and he put down some drum tracks so it has more of a studio sound versus what we're doing now. We're going on the road and we've developed more of a live sound and it's going to be more garage rock. We're keeping it very simple: two guitars, bass, drums, and the two vocals - the male and female lead. We've got some fuzz guitar, we got a great drummer named Andres who's just joining us for the first time on the road and it's going to be different again, even from the very last record [laughs].

What was the inspiration for your song and the video for "On The Sidelines"?

The song is inspired by us being in Miami and we're kind of cut off from what's happening all over the country; 10 hours away in Miami is still Florida, where 10 hours from New York City, you're in Chicago. We're really stuck here so we're sort of on the sidelines and we're watching things go on but it's hard for us to be a part of it. For awhile, the band existed but we weren't really that active, we were just mainly recording, so it's about that frustration, I suppose, of being on the side there and not being able to participate or fit in or what have you. The video just came together. We met up with a friend of the bass player who was interested in doing his first music video - so that was actually his first music video - and we shot it in just 5 hours one morning, one cold morning, I will add [laughs]. It was actually 39° on the beach and, I mean, for Miami people, that's like saying you're in Antarctica [laughs]. We were freezing, but I think the video came out great and it just all fell together. The concept is very loosely based on the song's theme and it works because the song itself has a bunch of different parts and it's only two minutes, but it goes through all these different emotions and thoughts and it's hectic and the video was shot and edited for lots of quick cuts and, again, it just happened. It was more of a happy accident than strict planning, and that's sort of the way we've been working the last few years [laughs] just going with the flow.

Could you tell us more about Pure Gold?

Like I mentioned before, this was the 6th album we've put out as Ex Norwegian. For those who have been following the band, the previous album was a big departure; we had a new singer, I didn't sing at all, and it really should have been a side project, but we still put it out as Ex Norwegian. So, this new album just happened because all the old players got back together and our friend gave us some studio time and we started recording songs and most of the songs were actually just covers, songs I wanted to do versions of, and the reels were coming out really, really well, so it just became an album. I had the name, Pure Gold, in mind and all these other ideas and it just put itself together, really. Then, I actually got sick and was in the hospital and I was going to wait on releasing it, try to get a label and do it that way but. in the end, we just put it out there ourselves and so it's a weird release in that sense, too. It just came out a little bit on the underground, so to speak.

The album itself has a bunch of covers, it's about 7 covers out of the 11 songs. What was also cool was each one of the four of us sang a lead song, which is the first time that's happened, so it was a throwback to the early '60s records, like The Kings or The Rolling Stones or especially The Beatles, where they had every member sing a song on those albums and they would also do a lot of covers, so it was a throwback to that era and Pure Gold also relates to that early '50s/'60s era.

What do you want your fans and listeners to take away from your music in general?

I'd like them to enjoy the music [laughs] and just to have a good time with it. It's not too deep, usually, I'm not trying to get serious points across or anything, it's just really about good songs and enjoying them. That's why I like music, just good songs with interesting production value. I try to also incorporate a lot of personality into the recordings, which I hope is unique enough that people catch on and enjoy that too, because that's what I like in music, that attitude or personality attached to recordings. I just hope I'm contributing something to music fans out there and the point is to make these records that people just really want to listen to, more than once. I guess that's why we're doing it [laughs].

Is there anything you'd like to add?

I'm very excited about the tour. We haven't really done much touring, ever. We did a few tours back in the beginning, but we've put out records and we've got more listeners, so I know there's a lot of people excited about this tour, which has me really excited, and the tours a great chance to catch the band. This is going to be a busy year for the band. We've got some California dates coming up also, so hopefully we'll meet and get some new people interested in the band this year.

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Angela Perley & The Howlin' Moons

Catch up with Angela of Angela Perley & The Howlin' Moons and look for the band's sophomore album, Homemade Vision, available now.

What got you interested in songwriting and what brought the band together?

Angela Perley: I started writing songs in high school and probably my first inspiration was Bob Dylan as a songwriter; he definitely had a big influence on my early songwriting and I love listening to his records and his lyrics were like poetry. 

The band started after I went to college at Ohio University. I was an English major and I was playing in different groups, doing some solo stuff, and my college roommate had some demos - I was recording my own solo demos just in my room, using my laptop and Pro Tools and making these little paper bag CDs - our senior year she started interning in Columbus over in Grandview at Vital Companies and she had one of my demos and gave it to Fred Blitzer, who's like the head guy over at Vital, and he listened to it and was really interested. He actually shared my demos to our guitar player and bass player and was like, 'I'd love to record this girl's music, would you guys be interested in being studio players on the recording?' and that's actually how the band started. I came down to Columbus and had a blind music date with Billy Zehnal (bass) and Chris Connor (guitar) and, at the time, we had Jesse Cooper from The Receiver and he was helping out on drums. It kind of started in 2009 and it's been going since and we've had a lot of different drummers throughout the years and, even now, we have four drummers in our band and it rotates in and out on our live shows. But, the three main members of the band, we've been together since 2009.

Do you remember the first song you wrote that you were happy with?

Oh my goodness. I think the first song I was really happy with kind of was the start of the band, it almost was a prelude to The Howlin' Moons and it was actually called, "Yellow Moon". I was just finding my voice with songwriting still and I wrote it in college at Athens and it was on our second EP - we ended up recording it - but it was one of the first songs that Howlin' Moons actually played together and I was really proud of it because it just fit really well with the whole band and even though I'd written it before the band was formed, it was kind of perfect for the band. That was my first one I was proud of because my songwriting has matured a little bit and it had a sound that definitely was more of our rootsier side of the band, so it was like the first chapter.

Other than Bob Dylan, who would you say you've been influenced by?

I love just rock and roll; I love The Rolling Stones. As far as new bands, it's definitely all over the place, I listen to a lot of music so it's hard to say. I think some musicians end up working their way into your subconscious of writing.

Is there an artist or song you've got on repeat now?

Oh, right now I've been listening a lot to Kurt Vile's new record, I really like his songwriting and his new record is great. I've actually liked his music for awhile, but I definitely got more into it recently. I also love Cage The Elephant, that's another band right now that I've been listening to a lot. They have a lot of '60s/'70s influences in their music yet they have a really modern sound and I just really like everything that they're doing.

Which words would you use to describe your own sound?

[Laughs] When people ask that it's hard to say. I usually just say, we're a rock and roll band with country and blues influences. That's kind of the easiest way to describe it.

Could you tell us more about your new album, Homemade Vision?

We just released Homemade Vision January 22nd and it's a lot different than our first album. Hey Kid was definitely very roots rock and this record is similar, but it's a lot different in that it's just very dreamy. The band has evolved a little bit more and there are more dreamy sounds on it and 'homemade vision' just made sense for the album; as an artist you're putting your vision out there, you're making your own little world with your music, and so that was the perfect way to describe the collection of songs that we put on there. And we got 'homemade vision' from a line in the first song on the CD that's called "White Dove"; it's a line that's like, 'hey you with your dark sunglasses on, you're like a homemade vision' so that was a line that stuck out to us and we were like, oh, that kind of is the vibe of the whole record [laughs].

What was the inspiration for this new video for "Your Love"?

Whenever we make videos I'll have these ideas and I'll send them to Vital and be like, 'what do you think about this?,' and it's funny because, with "Your Love", I had a whole list of all these ideas and then I think at 3 in the morning one of the nights before we were planning stuff, the idea of this love interest, this relationship with a wolfman, just popped in my head [laughs]. I don't know if I was really tired or something, but it was a random last minute idea and then I texted it to Fred over at Vital and he was like, 'I think that's a great idea!' so, out of all the ideas, that was this last minute one that everyone was like, 'yeah, that would be sweet, that sounds really funny'. It was cool because usually our videos are more straightforward, so this was one that we could be campy with and it's more funny and pretty lighthearted, yet we try to make it visually beautiful too. There was definitely some artistic elements to it [laughs] and at first we were like, 'oh, we want it to be almost like a wolf love story in a Wes Anderson film,' kind of thing. That was our inspiration that we went off of.

Now that the album's out and everyone's had a chance to listen to it, do you have one track that really stands out to you?

It's not necessarily the single of the album but because it has the theme of the album, I think we really like "White Dove". It seems that one has been connecting to people a lot and it combines what we do live, which is we definitely expand things out; our live version of the song is longer than the recorded version and we kind of jam out a little bit at the end and that's feeling really good right now. That's definitely our favorite play - but things always change on new albums too - but that one has been really fun to play live.

What do you want your listeners to take away from this new album and your music in general?

It was released in January but it's definitely also a Summer album, so we hope that when they're having a little pool party or driving this Summer with the windows down that they just slip in the CD and enjoy [laugh]. We just appreciate if anyone listens and gets something out of it; it means a lot to us.

Is there anything you'd like to add?

We're always running around playing shows and touring and doing all our regional stuff, so maybe just look at our website. We're always adding new dates for this Spring and Summer so we should have a lot more shows coming up, too.

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Idalee

Look for singer-songwriter Idalee's newly released EP, Starting Now, and watch the video for his bonus single "Heal", out now.

What got you interested in music?

Idalee: My dad passed down a guitar to me, I think I was 13 or so, and that was about the same time that I saw the Nirvana MTV Unplugged segment that rocked my world back in the day. I saw Kurt Cobain doing these emotional but simple formed songs and that was kind of the starting point for me writing music and not over-complicating it and just keeping it simple like he did and that raw form of songwriting. But, yeah, back in the day, that's what really got me jazzed and I would take that guitar to the community swimming pool down the street and try to impress the girls and stuff [laughs], so that was another side of it. It's always fun to meet new people through music, so that was the younger starting point.

Why choose the moniker 'Idalee'?

I'm trying for a little separation from myself with it. Ida Lee is actually a park in Virginia where my old bassist and this actor friend of mine grew up, getting in trouble and breaking beer bottles and all that stuff in my hometown of Leesburg, Virginia. We decided to move to Los Angeles and we threw around the idea of moving to DC, which is close to Leesburg, and going there and trying to make some music and stuff or if we should just bite the bullet and drive out to Los Angeles and Ida Lee is where we chose to go out and try to pursue it and, from there, it was a pretty cool journey. We met a lot of good people, we ran into some unfortunate industry connections out there, so it was a turning point for my life. Idalee just kind of stuck with me. 

Other than Nirvana, which musicians have you been influenced by?

Back in the day, my dad played a lot of Creedence Clearwater Revival in my house, pretty much all the time, so I have some of that Southern style rock, which was big with me. Weezer was big with me; even Sublime, back then. These days, I'm watching closely what Imagine Dragons are doing; I like their stuff, a lot. Stuff like The Killers also has influenced this record a little bit. I got into The Killers a lot when I heard that some of the people helping me make this record had worked with The Killers on their Hot Fuss album, and that was exciting, for me to meet the people that worked on those projects. Those are a handful of the folks that influenced me. Also, Elvis Costello has a style that I'm really envious of and I really like his jams, so he's in there, too.

What words would you use to describe your own sound?

It comes from a folky area but I've been told, since talking with industry people, that it's alternative. To me, it's like folk rock, maybe with alternative styles, but I write on an acoustic guitar and just write these melodies and I think they're folky. Alternative folk rock.

What was the inspiration for your song and the video for "Starting Now"?

The reason why it's the title track and the reason why I think we went out with that one first was, it's the on the nose theme of what's going on in my life now; just, a new leaf sentiment. It's about standing up and starting over and I think a lot of people get that. It hits a lot of people that they can start over and I think that a lot of people that were involved in that video searched themselves and they were all holding up their signs and stuff that said, 'starting now I will do something better,' and it's a pretty human instinct. For me, it was when I moved to Phoenix from Virginia; it was a next step for me and also harkens back to my cleaning up and turning a 180 in my life. I was going a certain direction and it would be really hard to get a fresh start, but it's happened and it's a daily reflection and I think that's why a lot of people were into it and wanted to participate in the video.

Could you tell us more about your new album, Starting Now?

Yeah, like I said, starting now is the theme there, but it's a pretty optimistic record. I grew up with Kurt Cobain and a lot of doom and gloom and I held onto that grunge movement longer than probably most people, so I had some melancholy times, for sure, but this was my optimistic comeback. It's a way to get a fresh perspective out there because I'm feeling very good these days and I don't have the same demons that I did back then and so those ideas bleed through a lot of the songs. "Fury", for instance, is about letting go of some of the people in my life that were important to me for some of the wrong reasons and "Home" is about actually relocating and reminiscing about my LA times and I'm in LA more often now, so it's like a weird homecoming song. The whole thing all bleeds through with that optimistic rejuvenation.

Is there a track from that album you're most excited for your fans to be hearing now?

It was just released and the one I'm hearing the most positive about, that really is striking people - and me and my producer felt the same way - is "Barbarian". That's a pretty fun song and that's really a song that I have in a bunch of different versions and we picked that one out of several, but that's really the crux of my style, is that song; the punctuated rhythm of the lyrics and the way that I phrase words weirdly - I don't really know, my old bassist can explain it better than I can - but those verses in that song are like my native land in writing. I really like that that was chosen and it shines through a little bit and that gives me encouragement for the next project to do some of those that come easy to me, 'cause they're fun to write. And it's a rockin' song, it has a fun chorus to it; I think "Barbarian" is one to watch.

What do you want your listeners to be able to take away from your music?

I want them to feel like there's a second chance for everybody and sometimes there's a second, second, second chance; it doesn't really have a number on it. The new leaf, the fresh start, it doesn't have to be on New Years' Day; those resolutions are important to do some self-reflection and be positive but, like I said, I wrote some darker stuff back in the day, I was influenced by some bands that put the demons out there in their songs and there is a place for that and I have songs like that too, but this one I want the fans to feel positive about and to start the work day with it and end their Friday night with it and stuff like that. I want it to be a positive influence.

Is there anything you'd like to add?

"Heal" was a special song that I'd like to single out. It's kind of different from the other ones and it wasn't initially on the EP. It's a little bit of a darker song but it is influenced by my work with prison populations and the extreme of people that really try to start over and they have a lot working against them. That's the extreme version of the whole starting now context and starting over. I'd like people to look at that video on Facebook and YouTube and check out the prisoners performing it with me in that prison in Houston.

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Adrienne Tooley

Catch up with New York-based indie folk artist, Adrienne Tooley, and look for her sophomore EP, This Was True Once, to be released April 8th.

What got you interested in music?

Adrienne Tooley: I had the required youthful piano lessons. There was always classical music playing at our house and my grandpa sang at church, my mom sang around the house, and it kind of just was something I did and didn't realize was weird, but I would sing all of the time under my breath. I remember, I think I was probably 8 years old and I saw a stage production of the musical Annie and I was sitting next to my mom and I just turned to her after the first act and I was like, 'mom, I want to do this,' so I spent most of my youthful teenage years actually in musical theater, so I was very much that typical, I'm listening to show tunes all the time, going to play rehearsals, and doing my homework backstage and it was just this amazing way to be immersed in music all the time and be part of a team. So that's where my love of singing came from and, as I got older, I realized that I didn't have to sing other peoples' words, instead I could sing my own and use it as a platform for my own creativity and that's how songwriting came about.

Do you remember the first song you wrote?

Oh my gosh, I had to have been in high school. I had taken this road trip - and I use that very, very loosely because we were probably just driving around the hills in our town - with two of my best friends and we found this weird little bridge and, in your typical 16 year old girl fashion, made this a very ceremonial thing, like, 'the day we found the bridge'; I went home and I wrote this song that I ended up calling "Crossing Bridges" and it was very much that feeling of being a teenager and having no idea what's going on but you found something that is special and makes you part of a group. I don't think that I could even remember any of the lyrics, but I remember that we would remember that day because I wrote that song.

Which bands or artists have you been influenced by?

It's really all over the board. Like I said, there was a lot of classical music played in my house growing up and that's where you can find a true sense of musicianship, studying those composers and, also, I'm a huge musical theater nerd. I fell off the train for awhile, but recently I've been listening to the Hamilton cast album, basically non-stop, for a couple months; there's just something so incredible about the way that Lin-Manuel Miranda utilizes the language and it's this really amazing, groundbreaking hip-hop musical. It's actually incredible and I'm getting a lot of inspiration from that. Beyond that, I have a lot of love for British folk artists. They're quieter in sound, but that's where you get to really focus on their lyrics and I'm a lyric centric person in my own writing and also in what I choose to listen to; I just really love language and I love people who are able to play with that in an effective way.

Is there an artist you're hooked on now?

I am always a huge fan of Laura Marling, she's my go-to British folk muse. I've seen her live multiple times and she put out a new record - I guess I saw her last Summer - and so whenever I'm in need of a little bit of inspiration or emotional understanding, I go revisit her catalog. I find a lot in what she has to say and I find something new in myself every time I listen.

How would you describe your own sound?

I guess it's a conglomeration of any folk. It's hard, because what you feel about your music and what other people take away are so different and I always hesitate to give myself a little box because I don't want to alienate anyone based on a word that I'd say, but I definitely think that it's wondering and it's wandering and it's a little literary and - I'm sure everyone thinks this but that's one of the beauties of being an artist - I think it's really honest and it's one of the places that I'm the most comfortable allowing myself to be vulnerable.

What was the inspiration behind your new single, "White Noise"?

I don't like to talk about the specifics of songs, it's, again, that you don't want to burst the bubble for anything; the way that one person can listen to and interpret a song can be completely different from what I meant when I go to write it, but again I think that's kind of the beauty of music, is that you can have all of these different ways to feel something for and be influenced by one single track. I will say that this new song is a really lovely form of vulnerability and it's kind of about losing the sense of what you think you know when you love and having to define that and realizing that you don't need to. It's again, very convoluted, but there's something about "White Noise" and it's about how I have had a lot of experiences in life where people will try to define, for me, the way that I love, whether it be friends or old relationships, and sometimes the way that I love doesn't work for them and I think that song is about realizing that that's okay and the chorus is, 'I don't love the way I think I do,' and realizing that maybe that's okay and waiting for someone where my love will work.

How does this new EP, This Was True Once, compare to your last release, Nowhere Girl?

I think they're really different but you can still see me. Nowhere Girl was a really lovely and whirlwind adventure/creation. I was new here to New York City and I met Ted Young, who produced that one, from a friend of a friend and we recorded it all in one night with a live band and I was very bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at that moment and I think you can hear that in, not only in the arrangements, but in the lyrics and the songwriting and it's more of a youthful, jovial record. I wouldn't say that I have necessarily lost any of that bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, eager sense but, obviously, this city is changing all the time and people are changing, artists and musicians change, and I think I would just say - and I'm sure everyone says this - that this album that is about to be released is just a little bit more grown up and it's a little more introspective, the way that my producer, Katie Buchanan, arranged things. It's really surprising and lovely and it's not what you would expect if you listened to Nowhere Girl, but it makes a strange sort of sense in the progression of, not only my musical journey, but just the journey of myself over the past few years.

Could you sum up This Was True Once in one sentence?

It's about recognizing that the things that you felt in the past are always relevant, even if they're not still true.

What do you want your listeners to take away from your music?

I hope that they feel something, whether it be, 'this is a catchy chorus,' or, 'wow, that lyric spoke to me,' but I love music that makes me feel something. I know that's kind of an outrageous demand to ask a listener, like, 'feel something,' and I'm not making music for that sense, but I feel a lot from the songs that I chose to include and I think it's just a really lovely, raw portrait of who I was and who I am and how I've come to kind of straddle that line of 'was' and 'is' and I hope that that can reflect outwardly and that other people can maybe find solace and seek some comfort in that.

Is there anything you'd like to add?

The music video for "White Noise" will be out sometime later this month, I think. I am going to release the record, it's coming out on April 8th and I am having a big EP release show on April 10th here in New York at Rockwood Music Hall.

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