Most bands don’t try to keep their first show under wraps because they’re already getting label attention, but that was the case when California band the Neighbourhood played their first ever gig last year.
“I remember thinking, ‘I just wanna play a show with just our friends and just do that one time at least,’” says lead singer Jesse Rutherford, who, along with guitarists Zach Abels and Jeremy Freedman, visited CBC Vancouver last week. “Because I don’t know how long we’re gonna be able to do that.”
If most bands said that, you’d roll your eyes, but not in this case. The Neighbourhood went from releasing songs online to playing their first show, signing a recording contract and getting booked to play Coachella — having only released seven songs — within the span of a year. Their debut album, I Love You, has just been announced and will hit stores on April 23.
So what’s their deal? Well, they’re five guys — some still in their teens — who met while playing in bands around Thousand Oaks, Calif. They play sultry indie rock slow jams that fit somewhere between the xx, the Weeknd, and Chris Isaak. Well, maybe just “Wicked Game;” none of that rockabilly stuff. Check out their new video for “Sweater Weather.”
Their deal, beyond the music, is the aesthetic: greased hair, leather jackets and black-and-white dress code. They’re like The Wild One with neck tattoos. In addition to their clothes, all of the band's videos are in black and white, and they’d prefer only to be photographed in black and white. Just check out the band's Instagram account.
“How we have pictures in black and white, that is a choice obviously,” says Freedman. “But we wear what we like to wear, really.”
“It’s kind of weird to start [a band] like that. Like listen, ‘These are the rules,’” says Rutherford. “I came to the guys and was like, ‘Yo, I think we should do this black-and-white thing. I think it would be dope and I don’t think we should change it.’ And over time it just slowly transformed. We all live it because we want to."
“When we go shopping even,” says Abels. “When I see a shirt that’s like navy blue and it’s not quite black, I’m like, ‘Aw, damn.’”
The other thing that grabs you about the band is that the music is sexy, which is weird to say about teenagers. It’s make-out music, brooding and low key, but that doesn’t mean the band is forever staring sensually into the distance.
“We’re not sexy. We’re silly little kids still,” says Freedman.
Much of the band’s downtime is spent using Snapchat, an iPhone app that allows them to send each other photos and videos that are automatically deleted after a few seconds. While they wouldn’t elaborate, one can imagine how they use it. Oh boy, can one imagine!
“We’ll get into hotel rooms a lot of the time and the first thing I do is strip down completely naked and then lay on whatever bed I see face down,” says Rutherford. “We’re just stupid boys.”
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