Interview With Fool’s Gold

(Click image to zoom in)

One of the things that I look forward to each year is that I know there are going to be a couple bands out there that just catch me by surprise and blow me away, this year Fool’s Gold has been one of them. As a critic I’m supposed to be able to break down and analyze why I like something but there’s there’s just so much here that it would be futile to compartmentalize this music. Flowing horns, a driving rhythm, and a hypnotic guitar and vocal melody just instantly put you into a groove. There’s also something else in the music that can’t be translated by any single element. It comes when so many people come together and start playing music together. Music comes in many different and exciting forms, but there’s really something to be said about a live band. Each person bringing their unique take on the music and weaving it all together live, in front of you, will always be a real treat to me. These are just some of the thoughts I had when I was watching Fool’s Gold run through their soundcheck right before their performance that night. For how much fun their music is, it doesn’t just happen. There I watched them diligently work to get what would seem like a small thing to you and me to sound just right. Afterwards I was thrilled to be able to sit down with members Luke Top and Lewis Pesacov and discuss music, influences, and their home Los Angeles.

I shouldn’t start out with this question because it’s the quickest way to insult someone, but are you guy’s ok with the term jam band?

LUKE TOP: Don’t worry we don’t insult easily, if people are into jam bands and to us then that’s great.

LEWIS PESACOV: I’m ok with it, I’m not as scared of it as some other bands are. I mean, don’t electronic bands jam? Because some of their songs go on for ten minutes but people don’t call them jam bands.

LT: The guitar is what makes people associate it with jam music.

LP: Yeah but I don’t think we sound like Phish. We’re more of a dance band than a jam band… but I do like to jam

(laughs)

Ok well watching sound check It reminded me of my old office job where the first part of the day was just getting through paper work, is sound check like your paperwork?

LT: No it’s still fun. There are elements of stress that come into it when you’re not familiar with the room, but the whole point is to play music, so after driving all day a sound check feels really good.

LP: Yeah, you dial everything in during sound check so you can just enjoy yourself when you play.

LT: It’s like doing the paperwork and then getting your paycheck right after.

(laughs)

So it’s been hard for me to figure out exactly how many people are in the band. Is there a set number of people because I see there’s seven people here tonight but I’ve heard of numbers like ten or twelve.

LP: Traditionally in LA we’ve been twelve, but this is the first tour where we’ve started to whittle it down and this might be the beginning of us becoming a seven-piece band. I think we’re really enjoying having some consistency. Before there generally wasn’t much consistency, kind of a free for all.

LT: The beautiful thing about this band is we’re capable of changing up the numbers when needed, but it’s rarely twelve, we really only do that in Los Angeles,

LP: I really love having four guitars; it’s completely indulgent I know.

Everyone in the band also has other projects going on, how do you even manage to get twelve people in the same room?

LT: We’ve been blessed with the fact that people kept coming to rehearsals and kept playing at the shows. There was never any formal discussion or pressure put on anyone. These days there’s really just the question of, “Okay, so who wants to go on tour?”

So how many musicians are featured on the album?

LP: Everyone and then some were on the record. Honestly, I think there were probably seventeen people at one point.

That’s certainly more than I thought.

LP: Well I was thinking about this the other day, there’s this band from the Congo that I love called The Kasai Allstars. They have like twenty people in their band and I was just thinking, “Damn, that’s cool.”

Speaking of that, the first thing I ever read about Fool’s Gold is the African influence. Do you feel that there is too much focus on one particular influence because there are definitely others in your music.

LT: You can’t deny the fact that it’s a definite part of our sound, but it would be somewhat limiting to just say we’re an African band. At the same time there are a lot of other factors at play. All of us with have very specific, different backgrounds and we bring different things from that into the music.

LP: I mean it depends what people want to say about the band. Because if they want to sum it up in one word they can do that, but if they want to delve into the songs and want to talk about the songs then there’s way more than people can say.

LT: The influences are there and we’re not trying to hide that.

LP: Far from it.

LT: We love this music and we want to expose people to it. We filter the music we love through our songs and that’s why we do it.

So you feel a responsibility to educate people? Because world music and ethnic influences are starting to come back into indie music a lot more but there’s not a whole lot of attribution taking place.

LT: I think it’s important to honor your heroes and honor the music that influences you.

LP: Whatever it is, whether it be world music, folk music, or whatever you’re inspired by.

LT: I mean with whatever art you’re making; ideally you should be aware of the context of what you’re doing in history. The greatest artist of our time have to know the history of what they’re doing, or else they would think they were the first people to do it. You need to know enough to know your place in the spectrum. That makes our music more informed, more honest.

LP: I think we’re doing exactly what we set out to do, in a sense. It wasn’t accidental; we’re playing exactly what we want to play. I would like to think that we’re honoring it by showing people this music.

LT: we’re also starting to do DJ gigs and that’s a great way to show a little bit of what we like.

LP: We’ve been doing interviews where we list ten tracks for people to listen to and we love that, we recently did a list for Zune as well, so it would be cool for people to read that and get the music and enjoy it. I’ve always made mix tapes for friends and I love doing it on a wider spectrum.

I’m always interested with how one’s environment influences their work. Like if I had never heard of you guys before and closed my eyes I would be able to figure out you were from LA. Do you agree with that? Could you have made the same music in Chicago for instance?

LT: I absolutely don’t think so.

LP: Yeah definitely not.

LT: A city like Los Angeles is a perfect environment for our band to evolve. It’s such a large, diverse city with so many different venues. There are public parks, BBQ’s, and clubs that gave us an opportunity to play our songs in so many different settings. Like we’d go from a party, to a museum, from west side to east side. Without that support we couldn’t have made this music.

LP: I do feel that cities have their own sounds. Like New York City, I love a lot of bands from New York, but they tend to have a cold, edgy sound, and LA tends to have a warmer, good feeling sound to it.

LT: And there’s a big tradition of music from California.

LP: Yeah, we’re completely influenced by that. Beach Boys and stuff like that influences us in a really weird way.

Yeah, you really got what I was trying to say. I didn’t know how to intelligently say your music feels like sun.

LT: It’s in our blood, we’re children of California.

LP: I mean it feels like sun to me as much as it does moonlit night with palm trees, there’s that weird dark side of LA as well.

LT: When you’re making art you’re reflecting your surroundings to some degree, either directly or indirectly. Lewis and I love Los Angeles, we love the Lakers.

LP: Yeah I live like a block away from Dodger Stadium so I’m a big Dodgers and Lakers fan.

LT: Yeah, we’re inspired by the Lakers and the Beach Boys.

I’m a big Lakers fan so I appreciate that, but outside these walls people will hate you for that, ( Ed Note: Portland Blazers fans are very bitter towards the Lakers).

LP: (laughs) Yeah, especially up here right?

Well now that I know the influences I was wondering what the writing process is like? There’s such a loose, free flowing nature to your songs. Does it start with a lick or is there a concept that starts it usually?

LP: It can start with just one lick. Most songs have that one lick that just happens throughout the song, and then we just spin it. It’s all about just spinning it, and that’s how most of the songs are written. There are parts to the songs, but they’re definitely open ended. There’s a lot of looking at each other, then the drummer does something else and we go on to the next part.

Luke, I wanted to ask about your vocal style and the concept of melisma. I’ve been reading a lot about it in reviews and I was wondering if you could talk about it some.

LT: I’m just learning about the concept in reading press about our band, it’s really not something I set out to do specifically. Even though I’m doing it, it’s not something I researched before hand; it’s just that this style of singing seems to fit with this band. There is really no academic angle to way I sing.

LP: Basically it’s saying his voice is another instrument, especially when he’s singing in another language that no one can understand. By doing that he’s kind of imitating what the guitars are doing and adding another layer of melody.

LT: Like I said earlier, I’m just filtering all of my influences through me and it just fits with the sound. Luckily when I started singing that way all my friends were really supportive and it just developed over time.

Lewis, I wanted to ask about your work with Mark Randall Osborn. Now I only know a little about his work. It was about breaking apart structures right?

LP: With the classical music? That music is about over structuralizing to the point so that the structures fight against themselves; it’s a crazy thing.

LT: It’s music in the head

LP: The idea is that there are literally structures that you build like little musical machines, and then there’s points where there’s conflict, and that’s where the tension comes from. With this music there’s not much of that, I mean there are structures but it is a lot looser, but all that stuff is in my brain.

LT: This music is more about repetition.

LP: But repetition is a structure, everything has a structure to it.

LT: But that music is a little more non-linear.

LP: Yeah this music is way more linear, but it’s all in there. I mean everything you read or see finds its way in there somehow. I’m sure it’s in there in ways I don’t realize, but I’m just happy playing guitar these days.

(Fool’s Gold is a band from Los Angeles California. You can learn more about them here)

Listen:

Fool’s Gold – Surprise Hotel