MON., AUGUST 18, 2008
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Who Are...Ra Ra Riot
by J. Edward Keyes
File Under: Blissful, baroque pop, bursting with optimism.
For Fans Of: Vampire Weekend, Spoon (with strings), Belle & Sebastian, Shout Out Louds, Stars
Personae: Wes Miles (vocals), Mathieu Santos (bass), Milo Bonacci (guitars), Alexandra Lawn (cello), Rebecca Zeller (violin)
From: Syracuse
The Statement-of-Purpose lyric comes late in the debut by New York quintet Ra Ra Riot — long after we've been through sluggish winters and drowned ghosts and trips to Gloucester. It's simple and direct, and repetition makes it stick: "We’ve got a lot to learn from each other, we have got to stick together."
This is no idle sentiment. Over the course of a fistful of months, Ra Ra Riot went from whirlwind of hype to harrowing tailspin, buffeted by bum label deals, bailing band members and, tragically, the death of drummer and songwriter John Ryan Pike in 2007. If there was any group of people uniquely suited to weigh in on the question of staying together by falling apart, it's this one.
Rather than collapse or cave in, Ra Ra Riot took their own advice: they stuck together and turned in a thrilling pop record, one loaded with sweet hooks, sprightly guitars and — above all else — sweeping, sunny strings. It's as if someone snuck a Spoon songbook into a college chamber orchestra. It's those arrangements that make the songs sparkle, creating a weightlessness that trumps tragedy and bad luck. Cellist Alexandra Lawn spoke to eMusic about the band's bumpy ascent.
On how a cellist ends up in a pop band:
I had played in a quartet with [Ra Ra Riot violinist] Rebecca [Zeller], mostly off-campus gigs for extra money. She had classes with [guitarist] Milo [Bonacci], who didn't really know her. He just approached her one day and said, "So, I hear you play violin." She was like, "um, yeah...?" And he said, "Well, I'm starting a band for the last semester just for fun — do you want to be in it?" And Rebecca said, "Yeah, that would be awesome!" So then his next question was, "Do you know of any autoharp or cello players?" [laughs]. He really had a vision. So Rebecca mentioned me, and he sent me a Facebook message — this was back when Facebook was kind of cool.
Our first practice was the first time I sat down without having a piece of music put in front of me. All of a sudden, I had this guy saying to me, "OK, come up with a part." I was like, "What? Who? Me?" At first it was really awkward. It was weird — it was never like the strings were "accessories." Maybe it was our ego that made our parts so big — we fulfill the kind of 'lead guitar' role. We're in the band — we're not, like, tinsel.
On the Vampire Weekend connection:
[Vampire Weekend vocalist] Ezra [Koenig] and [Ra Ra Riot vocalist] Wes [Miles] grew up together — they're, like, best friends. Ezra went to school with [Vampire Weekend keyboard player] Rostam [Batmanglij], who then met Wes. Wes was working on a version of "Can You Tell" that he had Rostam take a look at and give some pointers on chord progressions and stuff. Then Wes brought that version back to the band and we took it from there. So we met all of the Vampire Weekend guys through Wes, playing shows together and whatnot. Having friends in other bands has really been a help — you find out that they're just like you, they care about the same things. You think, "Oh, good! I'm not alone!" It's very rewarding to meet other bands, to have friends in these other bands, to remind you that it's not about the lawyers and the business end of the industry. You can sit around and talk about guitars and amps.
On the perils of being a "blog band":
We were a pretty bloggy band for a while there. It's kind of slowed down — thankfully. I don't think we ever had enough attention to be concerned. We're friends and peers of Vampire Weekend — we've both been bands for the same amount of time. Their rise was so quick and so explosive and huge, and it seems like blogs are so mean about them so much of the time. In a way we were like, "OK, whew!" We're not huge fans of blogs — there are a few that we do respect, who are very professional, but sometimes you just get so pissed off at what some of those people have to say about your friends, about talented musicians. And it's probably some, like, schmuck who came home from work and felt grumpy and decided to take it out on a band.
Almost everybody in the band has kind of sworn off blogs, mostly because you never know who's going to get their hands on your album and say what they want about something you've created. I remember one from CMJ, this guy went one by one through every band member and pointed out all these terrible things about us that had nothing to do with the music. "She wore denim shorts." "She looked like she was humping the cello." "The lead singer threw out more 'baby's than a Chinese abortion clinic" — he was talking about the lyrics to "Can You Tell." We joked about it, but it was also like, "Come on. Really? If you hated it that much, why did you spend so much time on it?" There was even a part in the review where he described some plan where he was going to kill our parents and feed us their body parts.
On regrouping after the death of drummer John Ryan Pike:
We didn't talk about it for a while. There was never really a specific time when we sat down and said, "OK, are we going to stick together or not?" We just gave it time. We had a show at South Street Seaport booked, and gradually emails circulated and phone calls started happening, and it just became, "I love you guys, and I think we should celebrate John. It wouldn't be fair to him to just end it all, to not get any credit for everything he had done." We really wanted to do that. That show was hard, but it felt right. It really had a "For John" vibe. And, you know, every show is kind of like that — especially when we play [Pike's song] "St. Peter's Day." That's always when the show really kicks in and goes to the next level. I guess in the end, we decided to take a celebratory stance on all our adversity — you can mope about it, or you can celebrate the good things. And that will make so many more people happy and fulfilled.
On recording at Bear Creek Studios:
Bear Creek was the closest thing to a holy experience for me. It's this gorgeous old horse farm and we lived in the ranch house — which was huge, and had all these cool nooks and crannies. There were all these Christmas lights, which I'm such a sucker for. We got to cook every night, and everybody in the band loves cooking. It was really an amazing experience. Living together just made it so much more intimate. We'd all eat together and then lay around, fight off the food coma, then around 10 or 11 someone would say, "Hey, you guys want to write a song?" You're in this huge wooden atrium where you can light all these candles and get really sentimental. We wrote two songs like that: "Oh, La" and parts of "Run My Mouth Off." It was just really cool, because we had never gotten the chance to sit down and do that. And it was fun to work with a producer as opposed to just ourselves. You could say to him, "We were thinking this song should have a '60s vibe," and he'd say, "OK, I know how to do that." You're squealing like a pig, because you're so excited. You had no idea you could sound like that. Ryan Hadlock was just such a pleasure to work with.
On smoking:
We have a hookah — his name's Baby Clive. He has his own little traveling road case, which was a selling point. We're really into it — actually, Matt and Milo are super scientists about the water, how many things of foil you use. There's always experiments and new levels being reached with this hookah. Which, by the way, is only like nine inches tall. It's nothing extravagant by any means. Me and Matt have been eyeing this cut crystal hookah on the internet for like $350. Every time we're online we're like, "Oh my God, let's go look at it." It's a beautiful hookah. Right now we don't exactly have that money, but eventually…
For Fans Of: Vampire Weekend, Spoon (with strings), Belle & Sebastian, Shout Out Louds, Stars
Personae: Wes Miles (vocals), Mathieu Santos (bass), Milo Bonacci (guitars), Alexandra Lawn (cello), Rebecca Zeller (violin)
From: Syracuse
The Statement-of-Purpose lyric comes late in the debut by New York quintet Ra Ra Riot — long after we've been through sluggish winters and drowned ghosts and trips to Gloucester. It's simple and direct, and repetition makes it stick: "We’ve got a lot to learn from each other, we have got to stick together."
This is no idle sentiment. Over the course of a fistful of months, Ra Ra Riot went from whirlwind of hype to harrowing tailspin, buffeted by bum label deals, bailing band members and, tragically, the death of drummer and songwriter John Ryan Pike in 2007. If there was any group of people uniquely suited to weigh in on the question of staying together by falling apart, it's this one.
Rather than collapse or cave in, Ra Ra Riot took their own advice: they stuck together and turned in a thrilling pop record, one loaded with sweet hooks, sprightly guitars and — above all else — sweeping, sunny strings. It's as if someone snuck a Spoon songbook into a college chamber orchestra. It's those arrangements that make the songs sparkle, creating a weightlessness that trumps tragedy and bad luck. Cellist Alexandra Lawn spoke to eMusic about the band's bumpy ascent.
On how a cellist ends up in a pop band:
I had played in a quartet with [Ra Ra Riot violinist] Rebecca [Zeller], mostly off-campus gigs for extra money. She had classes with [guitarist] Milo [Bonacci], who didn't really know her. He just approached her one day and said, "So, I hear you play violin." She was like, "um, yeah...?" And he said, "Well, I'm starting a band for the last semester just for fun — do you want to be in it?" And Rebecca said, "Yeah, that would be awesome!" So then his next question was, "Do you know of any autoharp or cello players?" [laughs]. He really had a vision. So Rebecca mentioned me, and he sent me a Facebook message — this was back when Facebook was kind of cool.
Our first practice was the first time I sat down without having a piece of music put in front of me. All of a sudden, I had this guy saying to me, "OK, come up with a part." I was like, "What? Who? Me?" At first it was really awkward. It was weird — it was never like the strings were "accessories." Maybe it was our ego that made our parts so big — we fulfill the kind of 'lead guitar' role. We're in the band — we're not, like, tinsel.
On the Vampire Weekend connection:
[Vampire Weekend vocalist] Ezra [Koenig] and [Ra Ra Riot vocalist] Wes [Miles] grew up together — they're, like, best friends. Ezra went to school with [Vampire Weekend keyboard player] Rostam [Batmanglij], who then met Wes. Wes was working on a version of "Can You Tell" that he had Rostam take a look at and give some pointers on chord progressions and stuff. Then Wes brought that version back to the band and we took it from there. So we met all of the Vampire Weekend guys through Wes, playing shows together and whatnot. Having friends in other bands has really been a help — you find out that they're just like you, they care about the same things. You think, "Oh, good! I'm not alone!" It's very rewarding to meet other bands, to have friends in these other bands, to remind you that it's not about the lawyers and the business end of the industry. You can sit around and talk about guitars and amps.
On the perils of being a "blog band":
We were a pretty bloggy band for a while there. It's kind of slowed down — thankfully. I don't think we ever had enough attention to be concerned. We're friends and peers of Vampire Weekend — we've both been bands for the same amount of time. Their rise was so quick and so explosive and huge, and it seems like blogs are so mean about them so much of the time. In a way we were like, "OK, whew!" We're not huge fans of blogs — there are a few that we do respect, who are very professional, but sometimes you just get so pissed off at what some of those people have to say about your friends, about talented musicians. And it's probably some, like, schmuck who came home from work and felt grumpy and decided to take it out on a band.
Almost everybody in the band has kind of sworn off blogs, mostly because you never know who's going to get their hands on your album and say what they want about something you've created. I remember one from CMJ, this guy went one by one through every band member and pointed out all these terrible things about us that had nothing to do with the music. "She wore denim shorts." "She looked like she was humping the cello." "The lead singer threw out more 'baby's than a Chinese abortion clinic" — he was talking about the lyrics to "Can You Tell." We joked about it, but it was also like, "Come on. Really? If you hated it that much, why did you spend so much time on it?" There was even a part in the review where he described some plan where he was going to kill our parents and feed us their body parts.
On regrouping after the death of drummer John Ryan Pike:
We didn't talk about it for a while. There was never really a specific time when we sat down and said, "OK, are we going to stick together or not?" We just gave it time. We had a show at South Street Seaport booked, and gradually emails circulated and phone calls started happening, and it just became, "I love you guys, and I think we should celebrate John. It wouldn't be fair to him to just end it all, to not get any credit for everything he had done." We really wanted to do that. That show was hard, but it felt right. It really had a "For John" vibe. And, you know, every show is kind of like that — especially when we play [Pike's song] "St. Peter's Day." That's always when the show really kicks in and goes to the next level. I guess in the end, we decided to take a celebratory stance on all our adversity — you can mope about it, or you can celebrate the good things. And that will make so many more people happy and fulfilled.
On recording at Bear Creek Studios:
Bear Creek was the closest thing to a holy experience for me. It's this gorgeous old horse farm and we lived in the ranch house — which was huge, and had all these cool nooks and crannies. There were all these Christmas lights, which I'm such a sucker for. We got to cook every night, and everybody in the band loves cooking. It was really an amazing experience. Living together just made it so much more intimate. We'd all eat together and then lay around, fight off the food coma, then around 10 or 11 someone would say, "Hey, you guys want to write a song?" You're in this huge wooden atrium where you can light all these candles and get really sentimental. We wrote two songs like that: "Oh, La" and parts of "Run My Mouth Off." It was just really cool, because we had never gotten the chance to sit down and do that. And it was fun to work with a producer as opposed to just ourselves. You could say to him, "We were thinking this song should have a '60s vibe," and he'd say, "OK, I know how to do that." You're squealing like a pig, because you're so excited. You had no idea you could sound like that. Ryan Hadlock was just such a pleasure to work with.
On smoking:
We have a hookah — his name's Baby Clive. He has his own little traveling road case, which was a selling point. We're really into it — actually, Matt and Milo are super scientists about the water, how many things of foil you use. There's always experiments and new levels being reached with this hookah. Which, by the way, is only like nine inches tall. It's nothing extravagant by any means. Me and Matt have been eyeing this cut crystal hookah on the internet for like $350. Every time we're online we're like, "Oh my God, let's go look at it." It's a beautiful hookah. Right now we don't exactly have that money, but eventually…
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