voices of the future…

photo cred: Jessy Plume

Recently one of our budding writers had the chance to talk with an equally budding group VOICEsVOICEs. Not only is the duo an up and coming LA artist, they’re damn cute at that – a lethal combination for a frontier yet explored. Look for them around LA in the coming months (Dates after the jump).

VOICEsVOICEs – Tape Noon

VOICEsVOICEs – Flulyk

Interview by Chris

Chris: For starters, how are you girls doing today?

Jenean Farris: Great, we kind of just woke up and we’re cooking some pancakes and sausage right now.

Chris: (laughs) It’s funny I am making the same exact thing.

Jenean: Perfect. We’re having breakfast together. (Laughs)

Chris: First of all, I just want to ask you guys, for the record, what type of music do you guys make?

Jenean: I would say experimental music because everything we do is like a huge experiment. Yeah, it’s kind of hard to classify your [own] music. I could take off from [how] people take it from the sounds we make: so it sounds maybe ambient, or a psychedelic sound. You know rock music, American, and some sort of weird soundscape.

Chris: Well I listened to the band’s album this morning, and it sounds really nice, I really loved it.

Jenean: I am glad you liked it, and of course that’s what we like to hear, rather that ‘I hate your music’ (laughs)

Chris: (laughs) No I am not going to say that! I really loved it.

Jenean: Good. (Laughs)

Chris: So do you guys do any remixes of any kind?

Jenean: Actually we are working on two remixes from some friend’s band who asked us to collaborate with them and remix their songs. Howard Am and this guy who is in this band called the Delta Mirror.

Nico Turner: There is someone always inquiring to remix our songs, which we are a band of – we like that. (Laughs) We like collaborating with people a lot.

Chris: What are the differences between you guys and other artists in the genre?

Nico: (laughs) There is two of us, we are both drummers, we both think that way – I don’t know we are both just waking up.

Chris: (laughs) Me too, I am still stretching as we speak.

Jenean: I mean, yeah we are two girls, which I guess would be an obvious difference from most groups in our genre.

Nico: In a way it’s to say that everything has already been done, so to say that we are doing anything different would be a lie. To be honest we are all trying to recycle the same thing.

Nico: We recently saw stuff from Lori Anderson from back in the 1980’s – and it sounded exactly like us.

Jenean: We could recognize sounds that are current in her music and that was a while ago. Those [were] some pretty groundbreaking kind of years, so experimental music –

Nico: -and it seems influential in a subtle way because I feel like people who are influenced by it do not even realize they are influenced by it, like it’s already happened, people are trying new things when they are experimenting, but taking it to a new level.

Jenean: Maybe for us, the differences that we really see it is all a learning process and the music that we have made thus far has really just been playing around with new equipment and making music for ourselves. So for us, it has been different.

Chris: That’s cool. So have there been any challenges? Any bump in the road? Ever since starting this journey.

Nico: Money – money, it is a big problem. (Laughs) We both make the music and it is interesting putting all those pieces together. Inevitably, it is interesting how at each one of our shows there is a technical difficulty, some little thing that goes off, and it is just a matter of us dealing with that.

Chris: Nothing else besides that?

Jenean: No, maybe creative differences which is inevitable in any group. Yeah, I mean it is difficult to get things off the ground sometimes musically- it’s hard. Also, to release music, and deal with people in the industry is difficult.

Chris: Have you guys tried going to a major record label? Or, do you guys just want to stay independent?

Nico: We are definitely about both; we realize the importance of both. There are labels here we really respect, we’re not one of those bands who say ‘We have to stay independent, to remain authentic.’ I almost think that is backwards thinking in a way. Yeah, we are open definitely and we are going to shop around to some of the bigger ones.

Chris: Where do you guys want to go from here? Do you just want to build on from what you have?

Jenean: We defiently want to build on this, and that might mean experimenting in a new way, we may try out new sounds, take a different direction with the sounds. It is going to be interesting for us, and hopefully interesting for listeners because we defiently want to try out some new stuff and venture further out with the sound that we have created –

Nico: Yeah, we defiently want to keep going with what we have, we have been together for about a year and I think we have done a pretty good job so far and there is no turning back at this point we only want to keep going further.

Chris: Whose influences have you built off of?

Jenean: A lot of people –

Nico: Yeah, everyone influences us: painters, film, anything in art influences us. Musically, it is pretty diverse. I know Jenean is influenced by electronic music – a lot! (Laughs) In a good way.

I tend to be influenced by blues, blues-rock. If we were to break it down, that would be it –

Jenean: I kind of grew up in a musical family, my mom and dad were in a punk band when I was growing up and we listened to a lot of psychedelic kind of rock, I guess some new AG shit, I guess we are both kind of experienced in different types of music.

Nico: Yeah, my dad was a jazz musician –

Jenean: Mine too, Nico.

Nico: I grew up listening to hip hop, classic rock and jazz and that is a big influence from a young age to what I am doing now.

Chris: What are the reactions from other, like family, friends, who are like ‘Oh my God, I know someone who is in this cool band’? Or the reaction from just fans?

Jenean: Well it shows a typically good response, it depends on the places you play. I mean if we played a typical Hollywood bar were people just want to get drunk, you might not win them over with our type of music.

For the most part when we play appropriate venues, we get a really great response. At this point, they are people who say they try and make it to one of our shows but it puts them in a trance, or it makes them feel like they are on drugs.

It is so funny because we don’t do drugs, so that’s pretty cool. So it is a pretty cool response, our families are really supportive, our friends are supportive, and the best part is musicians we really respect, we were fortunate to know them or do shows with them, and they respect us equally.

Nico: Yeah, that is huge.

Get a little stoned off VOICEsVOICEs yourselves: