Interview: NO
Our lovely intern Luisa asked rising Echo Park band NO a few questions. Read on, and definitely come see them Friday night at the Satellite!
What are your names, what do you play and where are you originally from?
Michael Walker - Drums - Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada
Sean Daniel Stentz - Bass - Whittier CA
Ryan Lallier - Guitar - Keys - Rehoboth MA
Reese Richardson - Guitars - Keys - Lexington KY
Bradley Hanan Carter - Vocals - Auckland - New Zealand
How did you guys come to meet and form a band?
Sean and I actually met through Jennifer who books The Satellite, we were all hanging at Millies for breakfast one morning around June 2010 and Sean asked what i had been working on, so i played him what would become the first NO demo. We decided to write for a year before getting the band actually started. The other guys who we met through friends of friends, they had heard some of the songs we had been working on and wanted to be a part of it too.. After a few months of rehearsing and figuring stuff out we played our first show at The Satellite Nov 9 2011.
I like your band name, don’t get me wrong. Simple, straightforward and most people’s first word. But when I was just trying to find your official website, I found some other band and was half-convinced for ten minutes that you guys had an album out. What made you guys decided on the name NO (and I’m not suggesting it at all, but have you considered changing it)?
I like your band name, don’t get me wrong. Simple, straightforward and most people’s first word. But when I was just trying to find your official website, I found some other band and was half-convinced for ten minutes that you guys had an album out. What made you guys decided on the name NO (and I’m not suggesting it at all, but have you considered changing it)?
Good question.. we wanted something short and something we could spell. But since we went with NO we have discovered that we are harder than most bands to find online, and have also since learned of at least five more bands using the name too. We hope to meet some of them one day and perhaps all come together like Voltron to make a musical of some sort..
Anyone in the group have a traumatic experience with crash test dummies that helped inspired the video for “Stay With Me”? But really, where did the idea come from and how did you guys get to shoot it?
Anyone in the group have a traumatic experience with crash test dummies that helped inspired the video for “Stay With Me”? But really, where did the idea come from and how did you guys get to shoot it?
Well it all is credit to my friend Ryan Reichenfeld who made it.. all i remember is we were having coffee discussing his idea for the video when out of no where he hopped up in front of our table and started acting out scenes he imagined would be in our video.. right in front of me and everyone else at LA Mill that morning.. it was quite the performance! After an enthusiastic five minutes of arms flailing and eyes watering.. i just said to him, Ryan ok i believe you, we should do this..
To Bradley: I have a longstanding obsession with New Zealand, with no small thanks to Lord of the Rings. What’s the biggest/weirdest difference you’ve found between living there and the States?
To Bradley: I have a longstanding obsession with New Zealand, with no small thanks to Lord of the Rings. What’s the biggest/weirdest difference you’ve found between living there and the States?
You guys talk funny.. and i can barely understand you
i actually find it interesting how many Americans don’t mind lining up.. and will wait patiently for hours to get a certain hotdog or for a black friday sale.. NZ’ers as a rule would go elsewhere or break in through a side door. Maybe we get impatient, i guess we have 4 million people to your 300 million so that may have something to do with it.
If you could only play one of the big summer festivals in the U.S. (like Coachella, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Sasquatch, Outside Lands), which one would it be?
They would all be amazing in their own way.. Coachella definitely has that soft spot with us, being so close to LA and after having attended for so many years. Would be nice to get up there sometime.
What’s been your favorite/best show so far?
Im not lying when i say thats a hard thing to answer.. it was not an easy thing to get this band started, so anytime when i see people in the crowd singing along.. it becomes another best show. The last night of our residency at the Echo we had a fourteen man choir on stage with us and that was pretty special..
You guys have a really beautiful melancholy-tinged sound that I don’t want to just classify as “sad music” (aka “music I listen to alone in my room late at night while talking to my cat about my problems”)—but it is really great sad music. Do any of you guys have that one song that just breaks your heart every time you hear it and makes you want to cry, no matter what mood you’re in? (“Stay With Me” has become mine. That’s a compliment.)
Yeah i would personally have to say Nessun Dorma by Puccini does that for me. This version here that Pavarotti sings has brought me to tears several times.. i’ll light a candle and turn this up now and then, and its impossible not to feel that chill.. http://youtu.be/k0J-Ur04_qE
No with Hands & Hott Mt, June 29 @ the Satellite
