Monday, March 8, 2010

Light Rays




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.