It’s a typical sunny afternoon in LA when I head out to meet 3/5 of non-locals-turned-music blog faves Local Natives -- we’ve agreed to meet at a coffee shop walking distance from the Silverlake house all five members share, and I immediately recognize Kelcey Ayer, Andy Hamm and Matt Frazier sitting on the outdoor deck, sipping coffee and enjoying the perfect weather. 
 
The story of Local Natives begins just south of LA in Orange County, where Ayer met fellow vocalist/guitarists Ryan Hahn and Taylor Rice during high school and formed the band Cavil At Rest.  Hamm replaced the band’s original bassist when he moved from Colorado to attend Chapman University, and drummer Frazier was the second musician to try out for the gig, though it took a year before he was permanently instilled in the lineup.  

For the first couple years, the band was kept more as a sideline project while the members held full-time jobs and kept up with school.  During this time, they moved into the ultimate musician’s playhouse, lovingly dubbed the “Gorilla Manor” – it was here that they wrote the material for the record of the same name.

“We called the house Gorilla Manor because that’s what it was: a bunch of messy, smelly animals living in a house built for humans,” says Ayer.  “We were always banging on tables, our shitty piano, singing along with little regard for how loud or what time it was…no really though, we were very dirty!” 

Around the same time, Cavil At Rest officially became Local Natives.  Everyone in the band felt they were dealing with an entirely new beast, far removed from what the project had been during high school and with a whole new album ready to be recorded.  Nonetheless, Hamm reiterates the fact that it hasn’t been a flawless, rock star dream experience. 

“I’d be lying if I said it was just, let’s change our name and move in together!  It’s been a really trying effort, but worth it.”

Hamm was the first to move out of the house and up to the Silverlake/Sunset Junction area of Los Angeles; it took another year for the rest of the band to follow suit.

“We made a conscious effort to be more of a full-time band,” Hamm says.  “It takes a conscious mental effort to say to yourself, ‘ok, I’m gonna wake up today and try to be a musician,’ versus, ‘today I’m gonna go to work, and if I have time I’m gonna try to write a song.’” 

After the quintet found themselves once again living under the same roof, they set to work meeting as many people as possible, sending emails to bloggers they admired or whose tastes might match the music.  In February 2009, they secured a residency at the Silverlake Lounge, sponsored by local blogger Kevin Bronson and KROQ’s Kat Corbett.  Then, in March, the band headed south to Austin for South By Southwest, booking their own gigs after ostensibly being snubbed for an official showcase date.  Two weeks before the festival, they got the call that they’d be playing alongside Elvis Perkins In Dearland and Grizzly Bear at the Central Presbyterian Church.   

“We’d been to Austin a couple times to play, but never to SXSW – it was a totally new experience,” explains Frazier.  “We played 9 shows in 4 days.  I was stoked, and the sound at [the church] was unbelievable.  It was an other-wordly experience.”

Once again the band’s take-charge spirit paid off in a big way when British music magazine NME took notice of them during the festival.  As a result, they’ve culled a UK following and will be heading across the pond on tour in July, just after ending an East Coast/Canada tour in June. 

“We’ve got NME saying like, they’re the next greatest band ever, they’re the new Fleet Foxes!” says Ayer. “[Fleet Foxes] was a huge buzz band, and hit all this hype.  I feel like a lot of people will just write us off as another over-hyped band.  We definitely want to get any success through hard work and actually being good.” 

Upon listening to songs like “Sun Hands” or the aforementioned “Airplanes,” there is a strikingly tribal, primitive quality to Local Natives’ music.  It’s easy to imagine stripping the songs down to basic rhythms and chanting – something the band has actually already done with their spirited backyard version of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Cecilia.”  Though the songwriting process is very collaborative and no two songs are written the same way, at the bottom of everything is Hamm and Frazier’s relentless backbeat, sometimes with extra percussion played by Ayer or the band’s part-time violinist and long-time friend Amanda Salazar. 

“There’s nothing better than a good beat. It’s that first thing that grabs anybody,” says Ayer.  “You don’t need to know theory, you don’t need to know tuning…you gotta get that beat, man!  So we’re gonna be a hip-hop band,” he quips. 

On the opposite end of the spectrum are the prominent 3-part harmonies formed by Ayer, Rice and Hahn out of appreciation for 60s-style vocals found in The Beatles, Beach Boys, and The Zombies.

“I’m super into just a wall of sound, all these different things going on at once,” says Ayer.  “It really complements the music to have 3 or 4 voices going at the same time.”
 
In the beginning, Hahn took over lead vocals while the other two sang backup; nowadays, though Ayer takes lead more often than not in live shows, no one takes a steady backseat to anyone else on vocal duties. 

“If Kelcey comes up with a melody that his voice is used to, and that sounds best with his voice, it’s gonna be his voice,” says Hamm.  “We don’t come to the table saying, ok we have to write a song with 3-part harmonies.  It’s never been a thing where we’re a harmony band, it’s just been a natural progression of everyone’s contributions.”

The band’s debut full-length Gorilla Manor is due in the fall of this year, and is comprised of 10 songs written in 2007 and 2008 and recorded with Raymond Richards of Red Rockets Glare Studio.

“[Raymond] is a great guy – he’s worked with [LA locals] The Monolators, Red Cortez, The Parson Red Heads.  He does the best work of anybody in LA…because I’ve worked with everyone,” jokes Ayer.  “No that’s not true, I’ve only worked with him.”

Local Natives have a busy few months ahead of them, but it’s obvious that they wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I’m really excited to just get [the album] out and see how people take to it,” Frazier says.  “We’ve been touring, we’ve been in this business mode.  Everyone’s been dabbling, but I can’t wait to sit in a room and start hashing out new stuff.”

Local Natives has two upcoming shows in Los Angeles:  at The El Rey on June 19 with Ben Kweller, and Spaceland on June 22 with Castledoor.  We'll also be posting our live session with the band in the near future.