Interview with Anthony Gordon of Loquat
San Francisco band Loquat will be coming to Minneapolis for a show on October 16. The band will perform during a live appearance on KARE 11 prior to a playing the lovely Cedar Cultural Center with Greycoats and Chris Koza. Recently the group’s Anthony Gordon was able to answer some questions from Culture Bully’s Jon Behm, finally addressing the rumors of the bands’ notorious appetite for balloons and fruit tree abuse.
Jon Behm: Did you guys name your band after the loquat fruit? Is there a story behind that?
Anthony Gordon: We did name the band after the loquat fruit, or rather after the tree from which the fruit grows. Some say it was because Earl’s father built him his first guitar from the wood of a loquat tree. Others say it’s because of a dream Kylee had as a child in which she imagined a loquat tree on fire, running down the street and screaming in agony. And even others say we picked a random word out of a dictionary. It’s anyone’s guess, really.
JB: You are releasing your new album Secrets of the Sea this Fall, what should the uninitiated expect from the new album?
AG: Firstly, they should expect to become initiated. Secondly, they should expect to hear music that doesn’t pander to fashion but also doesn’t lack sophistication, style or substance. Finally, they should expect to hear a pretty woman’s voice singing about life from a unique perspective and set to music that is both electronically modern and organically ageless.
JB: I read that you found your keyboardist on Craigslist. I once advertised for a roommate on there and consequently received some of the strangest voice messages I have ever heard from people who probably shouldn’t be allowed near phones. Did you have to deal with any crazies before you found the right guy?
AG: We met a few nice folks and also a few crackpots. The tough part is you know after playing with someone for thirty seconds whether or not they’re going to work out. We’d have some people come in, some crazy and some just completely unskilled, and then we’d have to hang out with them for the next three hours. That got awkward. We were relieved to find Ryan. We definitely knew in the first thirty seconds that he was the right guy. Still, we made him wait fourteen years until we told him he got the gig. I’m not sure why.
JB: You are doing a live performance on the Twin Cities’ own KARE 11 News next week before your show here. Are you nervous?
AG: The fact that we’re doing a TV gig in Kylee’s hometown is actually a really special treat for us, so I’d describe our emotional state as being more excited than nervous. We love playing live music so much that it feels like it’s what we’re meant to do. Now if we were opening up for Prince at First Ave on his birthday we’d be nervous, but I suspect that we’ll do our best to entertain the nice folks in the Twin Cities and hopefully they’ll enjoy the experience as much as we will.
JB: Your video for “Harder Hit” reminds me a great deal of that French film The Red Balloon, where the kid chases the red balloon all over Paris. Is there a connection there? How many balloons were lost on the making of that video?
AG: There certainly is a connection—the video is an homage to Le Ballon Rouge (but also with a tip of the cap to the 1960′s cult TV show The Prisoner). While we couldn’t shoot in Paris, I think San Francisco made for a lovely backdrop. We lost scores of balloons—a few to gravity, but even more to eager children. In one scene, we shot in a popular public park and a bunch of little kids and parents with babies kept coming up to us and asking for our balloons. We needed them as props, but it’s sort of cold-hearted to deny a baby a balloon, right ? Our video might have been even better if it wasn’t for those meddling kids and their insatiable greed for balloons.
