When we heard indie-rock band Ra Ra Riot was performing at New York’s Cornell University for Slope Day 2011, we had no choice but to go running for the hills. After the band packed up its guitars, and the screaming fans prepared themselves for the next act, we sat down with the hilarious and down-to-earth lead vocalist, Wes Miles, and bassist, Mathieu Santos, to talk their recently released album, The Orchard, a possible Nelly cover, and new music! Check it.
Swagger: You guys previously described your album The Orchard as “So poppy you will want to throw up on yourself.”
Wes: Who said that?! [Laughs] That sounds like me…
Swagger: After touring behind the album for a number of months, do these songs still evoke nausea?
Wes: Well, that makes a little more sense now with the hundreds of students who rushed over to the port-o-potties as soon as our set was done. [Laughs] I mean that’s great, you know. You always hope your music inspires a visceral response from the listener, so, we’ll take nausea; it’s better than indifference.
Swagger: What were some of the ups and downs of recording an album while holed up in an upstate orchard?
Mat: Well, the ups definitely include all the peaches we got to eat, and all the peace and quiet that we got to experience while we were there so that was the best part of it definitely.
Wes: Another up was that we got to drive to a local ice cream shop, and downs… would probably be an infestation of fruit flies – lots of fruit flies; and, a lot of alone time which is a good and a bad.
Swagger: What did Death Cab guitarist Chris Walla add to your songs when he mixed them?
Wes: [Chris Walla] mixed nine out of the ten songs which was great because we were at the end of the recording and weren’t sure how each one would be treated, but he was just really tasteful like mixing, and some stuff we hadn’t thought of – he added a little bit of keyboard on one song and a tiny bit of guitar on another. It’s like simple stuff, it’s really cool.
Mat: We produced the album ourselves which was really cool and I think we did a pretty good job, but he sort of came in at the end and polished it up.
Swagger: Did you ever in a million years think you’d be playing a show with Nelly?
Wes: No, absolutely not. [Laughs] I actually forgot we were playing a show with Nelly until like last night – I just knew it was some point in the future; but, I was telling Rebecca like, “Oh yeah, we’re playing a show with Nelly tomorrow, by the way,” and I couldn’t believe it. The day is finally here.
Swagger: What would it take to get Ra Ra Riot to cover Nelly’s Hot in Herre?
Mat: I mean normally we do, but we had to cut it from our set today given that he is here. We didn’t want him to hear our rendition of Hot in Herre – no, we’ve never played it before. [Laughs] It might just take seeing him play it live and probably be really inspired and moved – who knows the next time we play at Cornell… Who knows? The future is unwritten. We’ll see.
Swagger: Do you have plans to record any new material?
Wes: Nothing specific, just like probably by the end of the year we’ll probably just start. So, yeah, most likely.
Swagger: Will you change up the setting, or stick to The Orchard environment?
Wes: We might change it up. I mean, that was a great experience and we had a good time and are really happy with how The Orchard came out, but you know just in the interest of shaking things up we’ll probably try a new setting.
Swagger: …like some studios in Brooklyn?
Wes: That’s a possibility, [but] maybe somewhere in Louisiana, I’ve been there a few times and …
Mat: …there’s a great music scene, a lot of stuff happening like fusions. We’ve only really started thinking about writing new music last week.
Swagger: What do you think you’ll be going for this time around?
Mat: Not determined yet. [Laughs] Sorry.
Maybe a Nelly/indie-rock banger? Sounds good to us. For more on Ra Ra Riot, follow them on twitter @RaRaRiot or hit up their website rarariot.com!
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