| The honest habits of NEON TREES... |
| Written by Sarah Mudgway |
| Monday, 28 March 2011 23:21 |
 During our sit-down chat in Auckland Domain with NEON TREES - TYLER GLENN (vocals/keyboards), BRANDEN CAMPBELL (bass), ELAINE BRADLEY (drums/vocals), and CHRIS ALLEN (guitar) - it was easy to see how the band have risen from obscurity and opening for The Killers, to being booked for Coachella Festival and touring the world in their own right in a relatively short space of time. Describing their sound as "fun, honest, soulful, unapologetic pop" - the energy and enthusiasm put forth from the band as we sat in our little circle was contagious... and when Tyler Glenn stated that "everything makes sense when you see us live..." - I couldn’t help but wish that somehow the scheduling Gods would open up some time in their busy promotional schedule to allow a last minute Auckland performance that night. After all, it was only a few weeks earlier that Glenn had been so energetic and lively during a concert that he managed to fall off the stage face-first and smash his front teeth - an event clearly still on his mind as evidenced in the self-portrait he drew for us. Visiting New Zealand for a short but hectic twenty-three hours of interviews and promotion for their debut album ‘HABITS’ - an album that has been out in the U.S. for a year but only just released here - Coup De Main was lucky enough to spend time with the band to talk about their album, their favourite tour stories to date, and their close connection to The Killers...   COUP DE MAIN: Your debut album 'Habits' was released in the 'States last year, however it has only been released in New Zealand now, this year. Have you felt like it has been a long promotional journey touring the album? NEON TREES - TYLER GLENN: It has. What’s cool about it is that we’ve really taken our time, and we’ve been asked like: "why did it take you a year to go international?" - but it started to take off really well in the U.S. and I think you just have to benefit from that. Especially being from the 'States, it’s not that often that a band on their first record really breaks in the 'States and gets a successful song, and so we needed to be there to promote it and continue to tour. So it has been almost double the time... we’re almost repeating last year and reliving it which is cool, it is fun to relive the past I guess. CDM: Reliving the past, just in different countries! TYLER: Yeah, exactly. CDM: Is it weird for you all to be so far from home, all the way in New Zealand, and to not play any shows? TYLER: It is weird. Oh man, I think that’s what we most love. I mean, we like to do interviews because it shows off our personalities, but I think everything makes more sense when you see us live. So yeah, it’s cool we have fans out here in Oceania. NEON TREES - ELAINE BRADLEY: But at least I think even though we’re not playing a show for the public, we are doing several acoustic performances for radio and things like that so that still feels like performing to me somewhat, so at least it doesn’t feel like an empty trip you know.   CDM: As you previously mentioned, you’ve spent much of the past year on tour. Do you have a favourite tour story you’d like to share? ELAINE: Well we’ve run into some weird people. It’s true. I don’t feel like we can talk about the details of one of the weirdest ones, but just know that it centers around our merch girl. We were playing in New York City and there was this super drunk really intoxicated girl... NEON TREES - BRANDEN CAMPBELL: We can say this: she said that she had privileged information about the headlining band. ELAINE: A member of Thirty Seconds To Mars. But the weird thing was, she came up to our merch girl and the whole time was like "I’m really drunk, whoops, oh well..." and kept on repeating "oops, oh well" as she spilled more and more information. So that was fun, that’s a good story. It’s even better when you know the information but I’m not at liberty to say. BRANDEN: I mean, we don’t really have many stories of debauchery or our interactions of people like that, as you meet a lot of people like that but there is no follow-through on our end. I would say on a positive tip that Lollapalooza was a big highlight, and since we spent a lot of time in America promoting the record we got to go to a lot of small towns that aren’t popular for rock concerts. They’re off the beaten path, so when you end up in those places like parts of Texas... TYLER: Here’s one of the craziest things - we were at a party in Hollywood, and we’ve never been in it for fame or to meet people or really care to have famous friends... but we went to this party and Slash was there, so we met Slash... and the girls from 'The Hills' were there... ELAINE: That was weird. TYLER: So we had a picture [taken] and it was just bizarre that we were in this company. I was all to Stephanie Pratt like: "Hey Steph, how are you?" - and she was like: "You’re from Neon Trees, I thought so..." - and it was so weird. I was like: "Coooool, you’re from the Hollywood Hills..." - and then like, even before our record came out Pete Wentz came to our show in New York. Stuff like that is weird, but it’s cool.   CDM: Now Branden, this question is for you! Before Neon Trees, you were in a band with Ronnie Vannucci Jr. who now drums for The Killers. Is that how Neon Trees got taken out on tour with The Killers before you had even released any albums? BRANDEN: Well it was only just two shows that we did with them so it wasn’t the full-on tour, which would have been great, but they weren’t doing a tour at the time. They were just doing a couple of shows to get ready and they asked us... so yeah. I’d invited Ronnie to come to our show when we played in Las Vegas and there were like ten people there and I guess he saw a band that was really working hard, had great energy and good songs, otherwise... well they wouldn’t want a crappy band to be part of their show. It was great, because you get a lot of people who say "do you want to do this or that?" and you think "okay that’d be great... but if it really happens..." Sure enough, they followed through and it was great. CDM: What was it like seeing his band grow so massively? Was there anything you learnt from observing his 'Killers experience? BRANDEN: It was funny, because when he first told me he was playing in a band called The Killers he had been spending a couple of years studying Jazz and Percussion at UNLV [University of Nevada, Las Vegas] - that’s not the funny part. The funny part is that he was such an amazing drummer and this recording that I heard was horrible - it was of 'Mr. Brightside' - and I had to ask like: "Sooo... I listened to your song..." - and it was [recorded] with their old drummer, so Ronnie was quick to say like "that’s not me". It was already a good tune but what he added to it when they recorded it for real... I knew there was something special there so it was great to see them start off. They’re in that same school of working hard and not being afraid to show what you've got.   CDM: Your official website's URL is 'Fame Is Dead' - what is the story behind that? TYLER: It was an encouraging blog I wrote to encourage people to hustle their art and stay true to themselves. I wrote it before we made our record and it was kind of around the time we were getting signed, to express that we’ve never been in this for the business of fame. We understood that we wanted to be a popular band and make people sing and have a good time, so we knew that fame could come with that, but I think fame is such bullshit and it is such a weird thing. I love showbiz and I love entertainment and I love pop culture and I love famous people... but these days it has been tainted I feel, and I think people are famous for the wrong reasons and we’ve never wanted to be included in that. We wanted to be representative of a band working hard. So on the other side, encouraging people and our fans and people who listen to us to do their thing and be true to themselves, and not to worry so much about some of the trivial things. CDM: And for people who are only just picking up your album now, what would you say is the key message you’d like them to take away from 'Habits'? TYLER: The two themes of 'Habits' I think, are youth and honesty. So, I think, as much as it’s a good-time feel-good record, there is some substance to it. We have a motto in the band to stay true to the dreams of your youth... but that is also like what we say at shows and I feel like our shows are an extension of our album. They kind of go hand-in-hand.  |
