Neon Indian’s latest album, VEGA INTL. Night School, is an after-hours soundtrack that deftly captures
the blurry euphoria of life after dark. The rituals of nightlife are chronicled
across 14 tracks of dense, synth-drenched dance beats that recall ‘80s funk-pop
like Ready for the World and one-time Prince protégé Andre Cymone on an
Italo-disco jag for an imagined Patrick Nagel-drawn life simulation video game.
Created by band leader Alan Palomo, this third Neon Indian
full-length is a Technicolor explosion of influences that’s the most accessible
of his still burgeoning music career which followed a background in film study,
which the Mexican-born and Denton, Texas raised artist pursued at the
University of North Texas.
During a phone interview from New York between tour dates,
Palomo was open and forthcoming about his latest creation and translating the
new songs into an expansive live experience and possibly a full-length
series.
It feels like this
album has touched a positive nerve with a much wider audience than ever in your
music career. What do you think it is about this record that has such an appeal
with new as well as old fans?
That’s tough to quantify. For me, I get tunnel vision pretty
easily because I’m so focused on the task at hand that I never really entirely
sure what the reception of anything is. I would venture to say that a lot of is
due to the narrative that we’ve been building for years. The growth has been
slow and steady since 2009 when the first record came out. I was surely trying
the patience of fans that were expecting something much sooner. For the first
time in my life I was getting straight up threats about my lack of output. As
far as the sensibilities of the record go, I intentionally wanted it to be a
very eclectic undertaking. In that sense, maybe there’s a lot for people to
enjoy. You look at the song “Annie,” which is of the more compositionally
developed and straightforward pop songs that I’ve written, compared to
something like “61 Cygni Ave” or “Smut,” which might be a little bit more
obtuse.
While it’s such an
upbeat album musically, there seems to be an underlying lyrical darkness to
songs like “Annie” and “The Glitzy Hive” – it feels like through all of the
fun, there’s a grim ending for the song’s characters.
It sort of coincides with my personality. I’m certainly a
social animal, both habitually and because it’s what makes me happy. But also I
would say there’s always going to be some dark undercurrent. I occasionally see
the world through the lens that I think a lot of people in this generation look
at it with which is a sort of giddy nihilism. I’m always trying to offset that
with a tremendous amount of positivity.
You’ve spoken in
recent interviews about the structure of the music industry, and how bands are
treated like horses or stock options that can be bet on. Do you have the sense
that Neon Indian is currently filed under bands to watch right now?
Not necessarily. It’s one of those things where I’m always
going to be my own harshest critic and always thinking about the next thing. My
accomplishments with his record were fulfilled when I turned it in. I look at
my calendar and I literally down have a day off until two days before
Christmas, so that’s gotta be worth something.
Are you seeing this
broader appeal reflected in the audiences?
This initial tour run we’re doing is more intimate venues,
so that’s tough to say. I feel like you get a sense of where things are headed
when you play a festival show. You get this very broad sampling of people and
how many of those people are interesting in seeing you. We haven’t had much
opportunity to do those kinds of shows as much lately, but the few we have,
it’s been cool. There are new people jumping onboard.
What’s the experience
been like translating the new songs live? Is there a particular track that’s
resonating more than others?
“The Glitzy Hive” always gets people moving. When I tour
with a live band, I’m always on board with a certain amount of
reinterpretation. There’s some reimagining of the songs, which to me is kind of
important to keep it interesting for me. I started writing some of these songs
as far back as 2011, so by the time they actually got out there it was pretty
wild. So in addition to the fact that I’ve been seeing the songs undergo all
these different permutations, now they have to be performed every night. That’s
what keeps the adrenaline going.
Is touring the fun
part for you?
I think people look at touring like it’s a vacation, but
it’s kind of grueling. I’m more of a studio rat by nature. I’d rather be
creating than performing. But it’s for the fans. They’re the ones listening to
the record, so you better give them a damn good show and you should sweat it
every night. We have nights where we play a show and then just start driving
through the night, stop in a hotel, sleep for three hours and keep driving.
Those are the nights where it’s not quite the payoff that I think a lot of
people have the perception that it is. We’ve had some really high highs, too.
There have been some really affirming moments of why you became an artist.
What was one of those
affirming moments?
The first show we played on this tour, which was our first
show in three years, was in Mexico City. We played in a city square in Zócalo as part of a bigger arts
festival that happens that. That was fucking insane. From not having played in
three years to suddenly being in front of 15,000 people… We just got thrown in
the fire and had to make it work. It was amazing seeing the show go from
theoretical to practical over the course of an hour. I was making changes to
the MIDI brain that triggers a lot of sounds and feeds the band with click
tracks minutes before we took the stage. It wasn’t official until we went up
there.
At the end of
November you’re playing shows in China. Is this your first trip there?
We’ve done Japan, but we’ve never done Mainland China
before. That’s gonna be wild. I’m pretty excited about it.
What’s something
you’re looking forward to in China?
I just want to stare slack-jawed at the amazing, futuristic
skyline. I can’t wait to see a skyline that completely dwarfs New York, because
that’s just inconceivable to me. It will be an expansion what my interpretation
of the world is.
What’s your response
to the petition to turn the Slumlord
Rising video into a series?
I was really surprised by it, especially since it was the
first time I really got to sink my teeth into some non-union directing. I
directed an animated
short with my friend Johnny (Woods) for the MOCA, and that was really
awesome. But this was definitely the largest undertaking that I’d ever really
done. The petition really made me start thinking about what that plot would be
should it ever arise. If anyone ever wants to do something, they know where to
find me.
So do you have an
idea of where the story goes after the video ends?
Yes, to some extent. The intent when I was making the video
was to imagine it as an excerpt, a climax of a film that doesn’t exist. Much of
what we imagined was to try to have as much auxiliary story components written
down. Like every character had a backstory that I explained meticulously to all
the actors, even though none of that was going to be portrayed in the video. I
just wanted them to have something to hang onto and inform what they were going
to do. The only people that really have answers are (co-director) Tim Nackashi
and myself. So unless we created some sort of series out of it, then none of those
answers will get revealed.
(Originally published on Smashd.co 11/20/2015)
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