Interview by Ed Stuart
Who’s answering the questions?
Jeff Kile
Where is the band from?
Costa Mesa, CA
Who is in the band and what instrument do they play?
This band is kind of a revolving cast of characters.
Right now it’s myself, Kyler Le Fav and Max Gomez. We like to switch it
up and keep it interesting though, should be adding a keyboard player soon.
How did the band start?
This started as a solo project I recorded on a
4 track tape recorder. I passed around the tape to friends and started getting
asked to play shows. So, then I went about putting a band together.
What bands did you have in mind when starting this band?
Wire, Please Please Me by the Beatles, Brian
Eno, Buddy Holly, The Chantays, Lucky Dragons
50 years ago people use buy music and get their water for free, now
people pay for water and get their music for free. How do you think affects
music in anyway?
Ha! That’s a great line! In a perfect
world, everything would be free and everyone would be artists. Robots would do
all the hard work and all time would be "free" time, which people
could use to love each other and surf and make music. This is what I’m
working towards. I would love it if I could make a "living" off
music, but until then I’m getting paid to build the robots. As long as
people dig the music I'll keep making it.
What are the song lyrics about?
Girls, the end of the world, heroin junkies,
girls, lsd, surfing, girls
How did you hook up with Sun Fight Records?
This is a label me and my friend Zeke started.
Basically I do all the work like making the website (www.sunfightrecords.com),
pressing records/CD’s/tapes, sending stuff out for review and Zeke takes all
the credit.
Do you agree with your mom that you’re the perfect person to write
the new surf music?
I love the ocean. I think it definitely
inspires the music along with a host of other things. I think everyone is the
perfect person to make music about things that inspire them.
It would be easy to categorize Light Rays as surf pop, but some of
the keys remind me of Devo or Eno, was this done to avoid being pigeonholed?
All the keyboard sounds I made custom for each
song, the idea was to write catchy songs and on each song have a new sound that
exists only on that song and no place else in the world. It’s kind of like
peanut butter and jelly, both are good by themselves, but put them
together and now you’re really on to something.
