Abe Vigoda Interview: SXSW 2010

Posted on Mar 8th 2010 2:12PM by Ngozi Odita
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Abe Vigoda has toured throughout Europe and the United States, opening up for the likes of DIPLO and No Age. In 2010, they'll be playing SXSW for the 2nd year in a row and touring with Vampire Weekend... not bad for a young band out of Los Angeles. Spinner recently spoke with Juan Velazquez of Abe Vigoda about how they got their name, their music and Yoko Ono.

Describe your sound in your own words.

We have changed our sound a lot during the years, but our sound as of now is sort of new wavey and dark, with some post punk guitar influence. There are still some of our old guitar sounds, so I guess mix in some surfy trebly guitars and poppy bass lines. Ha ha, it's sort of difficult to describe our sound, I'm not sure who else to compare it to really...

How did your band form?

Abe Vigoda formed in high school. Mike and I [Juan] had been playing music together after school and just jamming and messing around.. nothing serious. We played as a duo called Microcassette and someone from our school, Zach, saw us and wanted to play drums for us. So we decided we would just start a band different from the stuff Mike and I were doing. Soon after David Reichardt joined us on bass and that was the first 4-piece incarnation of the band. We had this lineup for a year or so, then Zach left the band and Reggie joined in 2005 on drums. That was the lineup till the end of 2008 when Reggie left the band, and we got Dane Chadwick to join.

What are your musical influences?

I think all four of us have different influences that we all bring when we write music. It is a total collaborative effort when we write so it's hard to pinpoint exact influences. But some really huge ones would be New Order, Fleetwood Mac and David Bowie. Dane is really into electronic music and house, I think that these particular influences have changed our sound a lot over the last year, especially with our new album that we just finished recording.

How did you come up with your band name?

Michael and I were chatting on AIM when we were 16 and thought if we had a band we should name it that 'cus it would be funny. We are not like Abe Vigoda (the actor) fans or anything, I think we just thought it would be funny when we were 16! Ha ha, not sure if it was the best choice...but its stuck and people remember it, so it's not too bad, I guess?

What's your biggest vice?

Chili's Margaritas.

What's your musical guilty pleasure?

Not sure if there is a guilty pleasure. Mike and I are really into Madonna's Confession on a Dance Floor album. Its pretty amazing as far as dance records go!

What's in your festival survival kit?

Lots of water,...so you dont get hungover in the middle of the day! We haven't done too many festivals so we are still learning, I guess. But anything that keeps you sane is good, since it can be really overwhelming. I think the best thing is good company, which is easy at SXSW since so many of our friends are there.

What's the craziest thing you've seen or experienced while on tour?

Once when we were in Chicago we played this basement and it was a really packed show. No Age had just played. It started raining really hard and all of a sudden we hear this guy scream in the middle of our set.... "Everyone get out! I don't wanna die!" Turns out that the rain water was starting to flood the basement! We were all plugged in so we quickly unplugged everything including the lights and ran out with our gear. It was super scary I thought I was going to be electrocuted in a basement and die. That was the scariest moment as a band, I think.

If you could collaborate with one artist/musician past or present who would it be and why?

It would be cool to collaborate with Yoko Ono! It would be awesome to write the music and have her sing. We wouldn't even have to collaborate, I think it would be fun to be her backup band. Ha ha, pretty sure that Dane would want to collaborate with Richard D. James. [Aphex Twin]

Fill in the blank. If we weren't musicians we'd be _____________.

BORED!

Whats next for Abe Vigoda?

We are going on a tour with Vampire Weekend, which we are really excited about! We just finished recording our second album which will probably be released in the late summer on PPM in the US and Bella Union overseas. We are really happy with it and can't wait to play these songs live for people. I think they are very different than our older stuff. We are really proud of it.

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