Featured Artist Interview: Shiloe

By Travis Woods

Photos by Scott Schultz

All fuzzgauzed atmosphere and razor riffs that tightrope from brooding shoegaze to rhythmically unhinged rock, Shiloe is a something of a rarity within their genre tag (always some variant of ‘post-punk revivalism’) in that they don’t stop at the revival—they actually push the music beyond the echoes of whatever bands inspired it (something Editors have never dreamed of and Interpol seems to have given up on).

…And Now the Screaming Starts, Shiloe’s third EP (out 10.14.08 on New and Used Records), finds the band jigsawing their heady influences into their own roaring, wall-of-squall sound. The band spoke recently with Web in Front about the EP, horror films, and the bottomless rewards of the Rat distortion pedal.

The Interview

Web in Front: How’s it going?

Ken Ramos: It’s going really great at the moment! Fall weather has finally started in L.A., our new CD comes out on Tuesday, Halloween is only a few weeks away, and the original version of The Haunting from 1963 is on TV. Life is good!

WiF: I have a copy of the new EP, …And Now the Screaming Starts, and it’s really
good—it’s always refreshing to hear a band that’s willing to use post-punk as a starting point rather than the beginning, middle, and end of their sound. A lot of bands seem content to just sound like Joy Division or Echo and Bunnymen or the Cure, rather than to use them as launching points into their own ‘sound,’ which is what I think that you do…

Ken: Wow, thanks! Those bands are all great bands that influence us, but we both listen to a lot of other bands in different genres as well and I think those influences creep in. We also watch a lot of horror movies, which also influence the music. “Lady In The Attic,” from our first EP/demo (Guardian Ear of the Radio Nurse), was originally written as my idea of an updated soundtrack for the Dario Argento movie Suspiria, and “The Death Of Madame Mustache” from our new EP is about a ghostly showdown in a ghost town.

Melissa Pleckham: I agree, I think one thing that sets us apart from a lot of other bands with similar musical influences is definitely our fascination with the macabre. It’s kind of unusual to find other bands that are into horror movies but aren’t metal bands, and it certainly influences our sound and aesthetic.

WiF: You do list several idiosyncratic or stylistically powerful bands as influences—everyone from Sleater-Kinney, Joy Division, Radiohead, and the Cure to Pixies, Wilco, and Pulp; how difficult or easy is it to process those bands and still emerge with a unique ‘Shiloe sound?’ Those are hard bands to escape from, but you do a good job of doing so…

Ken: Well, one of the things I like about those bands is that they all do their own thing, so maybe that makes it easy. We’ve never sought out to make some sort of sound no one has ever heard before; we just make songs we like and experiment with things along the way.

Melissa: I read an interview with Kathleen Hanna once where she was asked if she thought she sounded too much like Poly Styrene when she sang, and she said something like, “Poly Styrene is great! That’s a compliment. I’m not into the novelty of the new.” I think we feel the same way; we don’t want to sound derivative, of course, but our main objective is to create awesome songs, not necessarily to come up with a sound that no one’s ever heard before. That’s why I love someone like Jack White; he’s not exactly reinventing the wheel musically, but his songs are so strong that it feels like he is. The one thing all of the bands we love have in common is that they all have incredible songs.

Stream “Alarms”

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WiF: The record is released October 14—now that it’s complete, how do you feel about it? How do you think it stands next to the Please Remove Your Teeth From My Neck and Guardian Ear of The Radio Nurse EPs?

Ken: We both feel really good about this EP. We were able to take our time and get the songs to a place where we were both happy with them. To us, this EP is probably the first one that absolutely feels like the recording we set out to make, from start to finish. Sometimes it felt like it was taking a long time, at least compared to the first two EPs, but in the end it was worth it. We’re very proud of it.

WiF: So it is the record you envisioned while the songs were being written?

Melissa: It is; if anything, it’s better! We usually finish the lyrics to our songs while we’re recording, and there’s always this scary thought of, “What if we can’t come up with lyrics this time?!” You’re never sure how it’s going to turn out until it’s actually done. And then a song like “The Death of Madame Mustache” is something that has been rolling around in Ken’s head for years, and he finally got it out and it sounds amazing; in fact, it’s one of my favorites.

WiF: What’s the songwriting process like for the band?

Ken: The songs usually start with an idea that I get on guitar or bass. I’ll work on it at home until I get to a point where I’m either stuck or happy with where it’s at and then I’ll bring it to the rest of the band so we can all play it together. We’ll run through whatever different versions there are and narrow it down to the ideas we all like. After the music is done, I hand off the vocal melody and any lyric ideas I have to Melissa so she can finish them up. I usually have a phrase or two, a general theme, or a few lines that I give to her and then she makes them good.

WiF: And the recording process?

Ken: We recorded this EP with Chris Haynes, who also worked on our last EP with us. He and I used to work together at a recording studio, so I knew he could do good work, and I learned during the recording of our first CD that it isn’t enjoyable at all to record your own band. Spending an hour or two setting up microphones, plugging things in, getting sounds and then trying to jump into what you hope is the best version of a song you’ll ever do is not a good idea.

Chris had us all set up in the room together and record as much as we could that way. It really helped to keep us comfortable, making it more like we were practicing or playing a live show together. We also experimented with some different recording ideas this time, such as covering the drums with dish towels a la The Beatles, suspending the kick drum in the air and hitting it with a mallet (“The Death Of Madame Mustache”) and using different mics and amps for the guitar and bass. The vocals were then recorded in my bedroom and at Melissa’s parents’ house to get a clean take without drums bleeding into the mic.

Stream “The Rat”

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WiF: The eternal question: how did the band form?

Melissa: Ken and I have been playing together for years, but Shiloe only came together about three years ago. We had always played in 4-piece bands together before, and at one point Shiloe did have another guitarist for about a week, but then he moved out of state and we decided to narrow it down to a trio in order to simplify things. For the longest time we were planning to look for another guitar player, but it just never happened. Now it’s the two of us at the core of the band, and we’re playing with two different yet equally awesome drummers who alternate shows. They’re both incredibly talented and they’re both great guys who we really get along with, so we couldn’t be happier.

WiF: Besides the influences we discussed, who do listen to, both locally and nationally?

Melissa: Locally—the Monolators, Wait.Think.Fast, the Karabal Nightlife (Ken and Chris Haynes are actually recording/producing their new album, which is going to be amazing), Summer Darling, Death to Anders. I love Scarling, but I think they might be on hiatus. I also play bass in Kissing Cousins, which is Heather from Summer Darling’s all-girl band. They were my favorite local band (besides Shiloe) even before I joined! There are surely others that I’m forgetting…

Nationally—The White Stripes, the Raconteurs (basically anything Jack White touches is gold), PJ Harvey, Tori Amos, Mary Timony, Sonic Youth, Black Francis…wow, I just named a whole slew of solo artists! I think I’m more excited about other local bands than I am about big national acts nowadays.

Ken: We have similar musical tastes, so all of my favorites are included in Melissa’s list. We played with an S.F. band called Empty Rooms a little while ago and they blew me away. The Black Kites, Rademacher, and IO Echo are some great local bands, and Pulp, Sleater-Kinney, The Beatles, KISS (go rent KISS in the Attack of The Phantoms now!!!!), and British Sea Power are some other great non-local bands though.

WiF: As a brief aside, I need to say here that “The Rat” is insanely catchy.

Melissa: Thank you! “The Rat” is a personal favorite of mine, since the main riff is played on the bass. It’s actually named after the Pro Co Rat distortion pedal that I play through!

Ken: That’s one of those riffs that just happened. I traded a friend for a Rat distortion pedal, brought it to our rehearsal space, plugged it into Melissa’s bass, and that riff just came out.

WiF: Your EPK states that you plan to widen your scope as a band? How so—do you have a particular idea or aesthetic you want the band to move towards?

Ken: Basically we want as many people as possible to hear our music. People outside of L.A., people outside of the United States, people who are younger…in my personal experience, kids in high school are the most fanatical about music, but most of the time we’re playing bars and clubs that are 21 and over so it can be hard for us to get our music out to kids who might really enjoy it. We would love to be able to reach a wider audience. Hopefully our label, New & Used Records, will be able to help us out in that regard.

WiF: Now that the EP’s finished, what’s next for the band?

Ken: Hopefully a residency and some more out-of-town shows! We don’t have any more tours in the works right now for financial reasons, but we would love to do little jaunts to Vegas or SF or wherever. We’ll see what the future holds…

Band Favorites

Ken: “Gone”

Maybe it’s just because it’s new, but that one is my favorite to play
right now.

Melissa:

I’m going to have to pick one from each of our EPs. I love “The Rat” and “Human Voices” because I think they’re the most fun to play, and my favorite from the new EP is “The Death of Madame Mustache,” just because it’s so cool and atmospheric.

Dan: “What Happened to the World in Your Hands”

Anytime a drummer gets to play the
‘60s surf beat, he’s happy!

Daniel: “Gone”

It’s the most fun to play.

Rare Tracks

Shiloe was generous enough to lend Web in Front two rare tracks–a live version of “Lady in the Attic” and an alternate version of “Death of Madame Mustache”’s hazy, moody strum. Enjoy!

October 13, 2008 | Filed Under Exclusive Features, Featured Artist Interviews 

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