Event: Battle Cat
Fundraiser, Tonight at 7 p.m.
Interviewed
Artist: Massage Club, performs at 10 p.m. or so
Other Event
Performers: TigerPunch Improv, Sarah Lydia Anne Banks, Honey LaBronx
Vegan Drag Queen, Omar Bustamante, and Dan Monaghan
Venue: Arrogant
Swine, Bushwick, Brooklyn
1. Very excited to see you guys
perform tonight at the Battle Cat Fundraiser at Arrogant Swine in
Brooklyn. What has Massage Club been up to?
Mariá Vas: We just recorded an album
with our friend and producer Kahan James. It’s our first “real”
recording. All new stuff that we’ve been working on for the past
year or so. I really wish we could send you something from it right
now, but we’ve just finished tracking.
2. What from your wonderful BandCamp
page, http://massageclub.bandcamp.com/,
can we expect to see you play live tonight?
Mariá: “Energy” is the only demo
out of those four that we will perform tonight. The other songs are
from a different phase. When the band had a different formation and
sound.
3. Your band has a Brazilian
connection, does it not?
M: I am Brazilian. Born and raised. I
moved to NY about 8 years ago.
4. Since it sounds like only band
members and producer Kahan James are the only ones in the know about
what Massage Club sounds like right now, can you point to other references, e.g. other bands, for fans of indie music in general?
M: This is a tricky question. I can get
inspired by pretty much anything, even things I don’t necessarily
like. And there are a lot of contemporary musicians/bands that we
admire. The list would be huge. Dirty Projectors, Devendra Banhart,
Mac DeMarco, CocoRosie, LCD, David Byrne and Bjork just to name a
few. But we don’t aspire to sound like anything particularly. We
try to give our songs the sound they are asking for. That’s it.
5. Yeah, “Energy” for me would
summon a rich vocal like a Bjork or Joanna Newsom, over minimalist
guitar akin to the xx. But what should we go in expecting for
tonight's benefit show? What is Massage Club on stage?
M: Expect nothing and be ready for
anything. Like dreamers do.
6. Massage Club has been around awhile (https://www.facebook.com/massageclub). But
from what I can gather, the band has chosen to evolve, rather than to
remain static. Can you explain Massage Club's development?
M: Back in 2010 a Brazilian friend of
mine moved into a hole in the wall in a Bushwick loft she shared with
six other people. The next day she called me and said “we are in a
band.” I had never played an instrument or been in a band before.
So I was like “yea right…” It turned out she’d met Steve
Nelson and the two bonded over Caetano Veloso and Os Mutantes and
they decided to do a Tropicália cover band. And she signed me up as
the singer. I went along with it. Few weeks in and I started writing
my own songs. Then a friend, Ian Gilian, joined to play drums and
another Jake Strunk filled in on the bass. We wrote about 6 or 7
songs. They were juicy and fun. These guys all had other bands they
were serious about so Massage Club was our fun little hobby project.
We were kids, there was a whole Bushwick scene and we were playing
all sorts of loft parties, DIY venues and other Brooklyn venues such
as late Trash Bar.
God rest its saintly soul.
M: Then I decided to move to Italy and
that was the end of it. Except it wasn’t. Over the one year I lived
there songs kept coming to me and I kept writing them. When I came
back Steve and I started working on them and we needed a new band.
But these new songs they didn’t call for a typical four piece rock
band. They were different, weirdly structured and often so distinct
from one another. So we invited Sarah Rayne, an old friend from the
loft times and she started playing keys. We worked hard, we tried
out some other members that didn’t work out and eventually brought
in Kahan James to produce us. He is currently recording and producing
our album and also having a blast on the drums. Tonight the four of
us will play what has come out of this collaboration so far. We’ve
come a long way to connect with people through our music and that’s
our favorite thing to do.
That comes through in songs like
“Energy,” which I'll look forward to hearing tonight!
