Interview: Know Your LA Bands with Eagle and Talon

BeatCrave brings you band, Eagle and Talon, as part of Know Your LA Bands series. The punk duo is a combination of drums, guitar, and Casio keyboards with some quirky lyrics you just won’t have the willpower to quit. This is girl power done fucking right. Forget the platform shoes and pigtails. Eagle and Talon is bringing the sass back in to indie rock with screaming vocals on top of staccato chords and thrashing drums.

Then when it didn’t seem possible to top a song like “Kidnapped in the Yukon,” off of their Eagle and Talon Cares EP,  the pair churned out an entire album of addiction titled Thracian. This spiraling full-length boasts songs such as the infectious “Hot Caught” and righteous “Georgia” telling us the best muse couldn’t have provided tighter harmonies with edgier beats.

Catch a show of theirs to hear the new tracks! They will be playing The Partisan with Rademacher in Merced, California on March 14th. Girls, you’ll get the empowerment where you’ll still feel like rocking out in those red pumps yet also confident enough to put those stiletto heels down on anything that gets in your way. Guys, you will seriously be crushing hardcore on these girls’ skills. We also have a pretty good hunch that Eagle and Talon will still be rocking our faces off years from now and “Baby Spice” will just become… “old spice.” Until then, check out our exclusive interview with Alice and Kim of Eagle and Talon below!

How did you two meet?

Kim: We met through a bass playing divorce attorney who I was starting a band with at the time.

How did you come up with the name, Eagle and Talon?

Alice: It was during our days on the open mic circuit. We had just stumbled on Mr T’s, and were signing up with a different pseudonym every time we played – partly for fun, partly so we could play badly and not ruin our real name. Kim did the christening.

You recently finished your west coast tour. How did that go?

K: It was really fun, at the shows we got into the habit of inviting audience members up on stage to improvise on “One Lark” (a song off the new record). We had rappers, horn players, back-up singers… I realized that there’s a closet performer in most people and people love the opportunity to be on stage! I love that. We also met some great bands that we’re excited to play with again, like Hair Envelope (Seattle) & Railcars (San Fran).

Are you going to do anything different for your spring tour?

A: Go east!  Wake up earlier, eat more fruit, be less OCD about packing the van.

So, you’re going to be on Beverly Hills 90210? How did that happen?

K: We were on tour and spending the night in the middle of nowhere, maybe Yreka?  I can’t remember… and we got an e-mail from Nic Harcourt asking us to do the show. (He’s the music supervisor for 90210.) We were very surprised and Alice seemed very suspicious. Of course we also wanted to know how he found/picked us and he told me he asked the owner of Spaceland to recommend some local bands. E.A.T. was one of them. It happened really quick, no audition, no meetings, and they told us we’d be shooting the next week. I guess they watched some of our crappy “videos” on YouTube.  There was definitely some indie cred concerns but, we decided that at this point we have nothing to lose and that it would probably be stupid not to do it.  All I can say is that Tori Spelling is seriously the nicest person – totally not what I expected.

Did you ever watch the old 90210?

K: Ya, I liked Brenda.
A: Ya, i also watched Our House.

Would you be up for doing more TV spots?

A: I don’t know… It would have to be on a case by case basis. What I’d really like to do is to make my own infomercials for things I just really like. I would do a spot for Oxyclean, the drip coffee at Square One, video iChat (which has quadrupled how often I talk to my mom), etc…

Congrats on completing the new record, Thracian! What is your favorite track off of it?

A: Thanks! Right now I’d say “The All Best.”

What part of LA are you guys currently from?

K: We’re out of the scene; we live in the middle of the city.
A: Two blocks away.

You guys are compared to Sleater-Kinney a lot. What do you think of this?

K: I think it’s hard to write about sound so, often critics will lean on well-known bands to help describe other band’s music. It doesn’t really bother me much because I think they’re great musicians but, I think the comparisons come from there not being enough noisy girl bands with yelling and dissonance.

Quick-Fire Round:
Where is your favorite place to hang out in LA?

A: Follow the food! Square One for breakfast, BCD Tofu House for late night. I’ve only been to three events, but Machine Project always has neat programing. And lately, the most fun places to see shows have been
Echo Curio or Pehrspace – small but very mighty.

What other album by another local artist would you recommend to listeners?

K: The new Fascinoma album is everything I want to listen to on weekdays. I’ve also been listening to “In a Goldmine,” the new Charlie Wadhams EP on vinyl. It’s perfect Sunday music with an amazing Benji Hughes cover as the last track.

Are you more of a coffee or a tea person?

K: Every morning I drink at least one cup of decaf green tea followed by espresso so, I can’t side with either. They help each other make me feel balanced.
A: Good strong black coffee or an americano w/ an apple tart (laced with vanilla custard!) on the side. Tea’s nice too – try toasted brown rice tea for soul-smoothing.

Who is your hero?

K: My mom.
A: Great speech-makers, inventors of stuff like Craigslist, Wikipedia, adobe Photoshop, and whoever’s doing something a little awesome and scary at any given time, like my sister trying to parse really weird hard ideas on her MySpace blog (for god’s sake!), comedian Reggie Watts all of the time, or a friend performing at echo curio the other night, ripping off his shirt at the end of a show and saying “I apologize…to NO ONE!”

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

K: I have a phobia of freeways, the last time I drove on one was about four or five years ago.
A: I am much taller than Kim.