For the 5th band in our Future Talent series meet Chris Hess and Adam Winn aka “Cookie” and “Hot Damn” aka Le Blorr. Joined on the road by bassist Zac “Sugar Butter” Sullivan the Satellite beach trio is complete.Their blend of psychedelic rock n roll riffs, electronic beats and piercing vocals are captured on debut EP "Bim Bom".
Le Blorr are currently touring the UK for the first time after being hand picked by Tom DeLonge to support his band Angels & Airwaves. We headed down to the Leeds show to catch up with the band to chat touring, influences and just how they got their nicknames!
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| Le Blorr's Chris on stage in Leeds |
So for people who haven’t heard of
you guys before where are you from, how did you form and can you tell us more
about the name- “Bastard Lovechild of Rock n Roll” or Le Blorr?
CHRIS- So, I started recording some music
in my room for myself; I was pretty scared to play in front anyone or show
anyone the music I was recording. But, Adam was one of the people from my home
town that I knew liked the same music as me so I would send it to him and
eventually I got the courage to not just sing to the walls of my bedroom. The
name came from a dream travel…
ADAM- I was dreaming one night that I was
hanging out with Marc Bolan from T-Rex and I know Chris is a huge fan of Marc
Bolan so I travel over to Chris’ dream and I took him over to hang out with me
and Marc Bolan. Marc was like “you guys need to play music together and you
need to be named “The Bastard Lovechild of Rock n Roll”” And we were like
“that’s kinda long though, don’t you think?” And he got a little offended I
think and said “well, for short you can go by Le Blorr”. And then, Freddie
Mercury shows up and was like “we need to give you some sassy names”; so he
called me “Hot Damn” and this is “Cookie” [Chris] and “Sugar Butter” [Zac].
We read that your influences,
amongst others, were Led Zeppelin and Freddie Mercury – a few British classic
rock bands then?
C- I think it strays more than that,
because since we first started playing music together our interests and sounds
have evolved. We’re playing mostly older songs tonight, but I’d say when we
first started the influences were a little heavier, so from Led Zeppelin, Pink
Floyd and stuff. And then as we’ve evolved, Prince and The Flaming Lips and
bands that try to be original we like the most.
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| Le Blorr bassist Zac Sullivan |
You guys have a background in
surfing, right? And your music has been used in surf videos?
A- We’ve surfed most of our lives, so we have a lot of
friends in the surf industry and friends that surf professionally, so they used
our music quite a bit and so it was just a ripple effect through the surfing
world. We’re kind of sick of it appearing on surfing stuff now, and when people
email us asking if they can use it we usually say no now, just because we want
to be out of the surf world now. But it’s still cool and we enjoy the
opportunities that have come from it.
You’re currently supporting Angels
and Airwaves. Your music is a bit more psychedelic and electronic to their, but
it’s quite nice having a varied bill – how have the shows gone so far?
Zac- Yeah, it’s been good. It’s always surprising to see different people
that might not like it but respond positively to it. For instance, the other
night, we saw this guy in a “Tool” shirt, a John Deer hat with a big old beard
and he immediately came to the table after to buy a t-shirt and wanted us to
sign it and stuff. So, it’s really cool to be in front of a crowd that you
wouldn’t necessarily pick yourself and to communicate with them.
A- It’s a little different, just because it’s their crowd and it was them
that sold out the shows. So, on our way out to the stage we knew that they may
hate us or maybe they won’t. So it’s always nerve wracking at first, but once
we get going and people get into it then it’s great.
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| Tom DeLonge who hand selected Le Blorr as tour support |
Did you know the Angels and Airwaves
guys before coming on this tour?
A-
We met Tom in California California
How would you sum up your live show
experience?
C-
I think it’s funny because it depends on where we are a little bit. No matter
what, we give it our all because we’re always really happy to be up there. Our
main thing is not to play into the whole “ we’re too cool to even have fun playing music to people”.
A-
We think having fun is cool! Some bands don’t think it’s cool to look like
they’re having fun and they wanna look like they’re badass, but we like having
fun.
Your single “Seven Sisters” is released 23rd April and the video accompanying it is shot underwater with mermaid like women– can you tell us a bit about the song and video?
A- Basically a company came to Chris and I and said they would make a video for us for free, and one of our favourite songs from “Bim Bom” was “Seven Sisters”. We thought it would be cool to do something in the water and then kept throwing ideas around.
C- It’s such an ethereal song that has that aesthetic to it, and I remember thinking it would be really cool to shoot stuff under water because the song has that vibe.
You have an EP out, “Bim Bom”. How do you go about writing something like that? A lot of your music in electronic based, do you come up with that first? Do you write together?
C- Usually I’ll bring a skeleton and see if Adam approves, and if he likes it then we just mess round with it for a while and see what grows. I think on “Bim Bom” the songs are more ideas so the lyrics came last and the melody first.
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| Le Blorr drummer Adam |
What do you guys have planned for 2012?
A- Well, after this we head home on the 15th and have a festival and finish writing our new album; we are going in to the studio in May. We’re playing some dates with Blink 182 which is going to be interesting and pretty awesome, and that’s all we have planned so far. I think we are trying to make plans to come back this summer and play some festivals, so hopefully that will work out.
For more on Le Blorr check them out HERE
To read what happened when Le Blorr took to the stage supporting Angels and Airwaves click HERE for our full live review.
Photo credit: Danny Peart Graphics