Laveda – Interview – Xperience History

Laveda – Interview – Xperience History – Originally published Mar 2020 – by Joshua Reedy…

Laveda are up and coming Albany stars who have crafted an addicting wave of dream-pop for those of you craving something noisier. Laveda is Ali Genevich (guitar/vocals) and Jake Brooks (guitar/vocals), but the duo has recruited Lemon of Choice leaders Joseph Taurone (drums) and Daniel Carr (bass) for their live performances. Laveda sat down to talk about their favorite shoegaze albums, their new album and their tour leading up to SXSW.

RRX: I always start with origins, so tell me: how did you guys decide to form Laveda?

JB: We met in High School. We both played in the school orchestra.

AG: We started to get to know each other because Jake asked me to sing backup vocals in his band at the time. So I was like “Sure I’ll do it,” and we started playing in a band together.

RRX: Jake, can you tell me about Lucy and some of your other past bands? Someone mentioned to me that you had many previous band names.

JB: Yeah, that was my band with Johnny.

AG: It was Better By Morning first by the way, and that’s when I joined, and then we all changed the band name to Lucy; that was my band name idea.

JB: We rebranded and went on tour and did all that stuff. It worked-ish, it was ok but that wasn’t really where Ali and I were in terms of writing. And then we started writing the Laveda stuff and decided we needed to do our own project. And that started to gain some traction because a guy from Pitchfork really liked “Dream. Sleep” and he premiered it at the Chicago music fest ran by Pitchfork which made us decide to put all our energy into this.

RRX: That’s awesome, which studio was that?

JB: That was at Hook and Fade, down in Bushwick.

RRX: So where does Laveda come from, I heard it was one of your grandparents?

JB: Yeah, it was my grandma’s name. Everyone called her Suzy, but Laveda was her first name. She was from Kentucky and the way they pronounce it over there is (La-vee-dah) but we think (La-vey-dah) is kinda the right way.

RRX: So when you guys get south on your tour are a lot of people gonna be calling you La-vee-da?

Both: Probably (laughs)

RRX: It sounds cool, I didn’t realize it was a name until someone told me a little while ago.

RRX: Has Laveda heard any of your music?

JB: No, she passed away long before we started. She was very supportive of my cover band when I was 12. She would always text me like, “You’re so talented, you’re gonna do great” and I was like, “You’ve never seen perform before Grandma, thanks.”

RRX: (Laughs) that’s still very sweet though. You guys are going on a big tour very soon, are there any hopes or fears you want to talk about in regards to this tour?

AG: Getting sick (laughs)

JB: Catching the flu is the big one.

AG: I’m scared everyone around me has it. But actually just on that topic from a more general stance, just staying healthy because we’re gonna be gone a long time. It will be 3 weeks so it’s our biggest tour that we’ve ever done.

RRX: And you guys are hitting SXSW, right?

JB: Yes, we’re gonna be doing one official showcase with Glam Glare on March 20th, and we’re doing a bunch of unofficial ones before the cut-off time. And we’re playing in Houston twice in a row, for the SXSW overflow fest; that’s gonna be interesting because we’re playing there two nights in a row and I’ve never done anything like that before. Us and Lemon of Choice who are touring with us.

RRX: So, you guys are signed to a label now, correct?

JB: Yes. It’s a very small team, basically us and the guy who owns the label; he does a lot of management stuff with us, very quick to respond to emails and calls.

AG: It’s really good, I like having a small team because you don’t have to worry about, I mean we haven’t really had a big team before…

JB: We had a big team with Lucy, or more band members.

AG: Not really, because we have like, three people working with us on social media and we have people working with us on radio promotion, which is cool. Everything is outsourced, so the label just kinda tells everyone who we are and we get to meet everybody either over conference calls or ya know… it’s good though because everyone is more invested, everybody is excited about our music, or that’s what they say (laughs). So it doesn’t have a corporate feeling like, “Oh this is my job.” People are doing it because they actually want to support us and get our music out there. It’s honestly just been such a goodexperience.

RRX: One thing I wanted to talk about was the first time I saw you perform; it was at the WCDB in-studio performance.

JB: Wow, that was one of our first shows.

RRX: And back then it was just the two of you, so I wanted to talk about the difference between then and now, having a band of four.

JB: Very different. It’s a totally different approach. We definitely like playing as a full band, especially at venues like this (the Byrdhouse) when it’s high energy. When we play as a duo it’s very chill. But when we play as a full band there’s a lot more; we have a drum machine, we have playbacks, two guitars-it’s loud, reverb, the whole thing. It’s a lot, and sometimes it’s a little difficult to pull off but our sound is all of that stuff.

AG: It’s very representative of the recordings now. I’m excited for you to hear it, because you’ll have heard both. A lot of people haven’t heard the duo set.

RRX: I thought you were great as a duo, but I’m excited to see what having two more band members adds to it.

AG: Working with Dan and Joe is great.

RRX: I was gonna ask what it’s like working with them.

AG: They’re very sweet and both so talented.

JB: Ali and I are both very serious people, and they’re so funny. It definitely is really good for our mental health working with them.

RRX: So do you guys have any favorite venues or places to play in Albany?

AG: This spot (the Byrdhouse) is honesty really cool. I feel like so many venues are dying right now unfortunately.

JB: I feel like Albany is in a state right now with the bigger venues that are defaulting to booking the easiest things to book. I think that’s a big disservice to the scene in general.

RRX: Next, I want to talk about what you guys have scheduled for the future. I know you’re new single is out tomorrow (2/28 “Ghost” is out now!) and what is the schedule for future singles?

AG: Our next single is “L” and that will be out March 20th (Check out “L”). And then another single that will be out two weeks after “L” called “Rager” and then the full album out April 24th.

RRX: So let’s talk about your tour, are there any upcoming shows that you really want to talk about?

JB: When this comes out we will have already survived our tour, hopefully. But yeah, we’re going to NYC tomorrow, then New Jersey which will be fun.

AG: Yeah, we played at the Clubhouse in New Jersey before in January and we’re excited to go back, it was an amazing venue. We’re playing with Albany hometown heroes, Another Michael in Philly which we’re super pumped for.

JB: And we’re playing with True Blossom, in Georgia. They played in Albany once with us.

RRX: So what’s it gonna be like on the road? Do you guys have a van?

AG: We have a 2001 or 2002 Suburban; it is Joe’s, our drummer’s. We start tomorrow and there’s six of us. We’ve got places to stay pretty much everywhere so we don’t have to sleep in the car. It’s really not big enough for all of us. I’m really excited I just hope I’m not sick right now! We can also talk about this since it will be out later, we are going to be going on tour after our album comes out and that’s gonna be a really big tour.

RRX: I think my last question will be this: is there anything around Albany you want to give a quick shoutout to?

AG: Shoutout to Lemon of Choice for just being amazing guys and congrats on your record, it’s so good.

JB: Shoutout to the Byrdhouse for having us.

AG: I think that’s it for shoutouts. We are going to be having an album release show at Studio G3 in Saint Rose… On Thursday April 30th; it’s gonna be a little after the album comes out. We’re doing our main album release on the 24th in New York City.

JB: We’re also gonna be playing Fredonia the 25th.

AG: Yeah it’s gonna be crazy, we’ll be off tour for a little bit and then we’ll be back out. I’m saying this also although you’re not supposed to tell anyone yet, but we’re playing Tulip Fest, so come see us there. This won’t be out till April so by then it will be announced.

JB: We’re playing May 9th at 1p.m. Come see it!

AG: And our album release, we’re going to have vinyl that we’ll be selling at the show and some new merch by then. But I think that’s it.

Laveda’s tour was unfortunately cut short due to Coronavirus concerns, however you can check out their singles on all streaming platforms and look forward to their new album, out later in April. Follow them on instagram and facebook at:

@lavedamusic

https://www.facebook.com/lavedamusic/

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