Interview: Know Your LA Bands with The Karabal Nightlife

BeatCrave brings you band, The Karabal Nightlife, as part of our Know Your LA Band series. The band has a mysterious sound that matches their unusual name, and LA music goers who have been lucky enough to be entranced by the band have nothing but love to give back.

Jesse Davis (vox, guitar, keys), Lindsay Mancha (bass/vox), and Courtney Olsen (drums/percussion) preserve suspense in their music as it ranges from folk to pop to rock with an irresistible groove. However as they continue to be unpredictable in genre classifications, there is also a remarkable precision in their songwriting. Hear it for yourself when they play The Scene on January 25th along with Seasons, Cobra Lilies, and Odd Modern.

They are currently in the studio working on their follow-up album to The Other Shore. Check out our exclusive interview with The Karabal Nightlife’s bassist, Lindsay, below as she talks about the new record, bad movies, and bad dessert.

I heard the name of the band came from the film, Gymkata. Was the movie really that good?

Well, I wouldn’t say the movie is phenomenal — if anything, it was phenomenally awful, but also highly enjoyable in a B-movie sort of way. In any case, when the main character said “so much for the Karabal nightlife,” the phrase sort of struck a chord with Jesse, so to speak, and the name “the Karabal Nightlife” has stuck ever since.

The name, The Karabal Nightlight, adds a mysterious element to the band. How important do you think mystery is in reference to a band?

I think a sense of mystery is very important to some bands. We have always been interested in myth and symbolism, and for the Karabal Nightlife, it’s compelling to play with these ideas. Some writers have created amazing worlds and a sense of myth in a book or a short story; there’s also a lot of room to do that in music. I guess having a unique band name can lend itself to that, but we just always liked the way the name sounds.

What part of LA are you all from?

Jesse, Courtney, and I are all Valley kids, but these days, we spend most of our time in Silver Lake and Echo Park.

I can’t get over how eclectic the songwriting is. How is your songwriting process currently happening?

Everyone who has ever played in Karabal has had a broad taste in music so that accounts for the eclectic collection of songs that were featured on our first record, “The Other Shore.” As far as the songwriting goes, Jesse brings us a song most often, and we work it out together. We are very proud of the songs we are now working on for our second album which should be done early this year. Overall, I think this next album will be a lot more cohesive than the first but still feel diverse style-wise.

You guys get a lot of comparisons to The Beatles and Neutral Milk Hotel. What do you think of that?

We’re fine with that. Those are two of our favorite bands. Both bands had amazing songs, and that really is our main goal as well, in this band. To write good songs that people can connect with, in some way.

Is a line up change something that should be natural or nonchalant for bands over the years?

It just depends on the band and the situation. The experience we had creating “The Other Shore” a couple years ago with Dan Grayson, our first drummer, was great, but our time together ran it’s course. Soon after, Courtney joined, and it just felt really natural when we started working together because we were friends first…it does sound like a relationship scenario, but that’s sort of what a band’s like. You can’t force it, you just have to see how it gels. Luckly, there’s a lot of people we still want to reach out to, and at this point I don’t think any past line-up changes are going to matter too much.

Have you started recording a new album yet?

We are just finishing up recording final parts for our next release. We expect it to be a full-length or perhaps a longer EP. We don’t want to name an exact month, but we feel like it should be finished in the next couple months. We’re working with engineers, Chris Haynes and Ken Ramos (the lead singer/guitarist from the L.A. band Shiloe).  As Jesse said in a past interview, this record is sounding perhaps darker, but more fun than our first album.

What are some things you’ve learned from recording the first time?

We wouldn’t want to do the first album any differently. We spent a ton of time on it, but we had the luxury of doing that because we had our own studio at the time and recorded it ourselves. We chose to take a different direction this time — to just record as much as we could live, and just take it from there. So far, so good.

Who are some of the local LA bands you are currently digging?

There are a bunch of local bands we’ve loved over the years, but at the moment we are really digging this new band, C-Horse, www.myspace.com/starsinmybrain. The band’s songwriter, Cecilia, has some really great songs and even though there are only rough demos on their page at the moment, you can really hear the talent — all of her songs just go to the right place!

What’s the greatest thing about being a band in LA?

There’s always an interesting show to go to. And the music bloggers are really active within the scene. I know that they’ve done a lot to expose local bands.

Quick Fire Round:
What is your current obsession?

Jesse and I (we are roomies) have been watching a shitload of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadephia” lately. Really funny, especially seasons 1 and 2.

What was the last dessert you had?

Hmm…I think it was a really bad store-bought creme brulee on Christmas Eve? It was pretty awful.

Which 2009 album are you most excited for?

Oh, I know — there’s a really great band from New York called The Shivers who should be releasing an album this year. We love them.

What’s your greatest fear?

I don’t want to get to serious here, but I’ll just say losing someone close to me is my greatest fear. That’s always been the worst, in my opinion.

Tell us one thing about yourself we probably don’t already know.

I worked as a  private investigator and used to go on stake-outs and watch people’s houses not too long ago. That’s something about me. As for the band, we often play trivia on Tuesday nights at a local bar.  Sometimes we win, but more often not. We really just go for the beer.

Photography by Betsy Knauss