Neighbourhood Freak
Aaron Feaver
ISSUE 01
002
ISSUE 1
Neighbourhood Freak EDITORIAL Editor & Publisher Emily Traver
INTERVIEWEES Kid Runner Thanks to Bobby, Drew, Fran, Kurt, and Scott facebook.com/kidrunner MS MR Thanks to Lizzie and Max msmrsounds.com facebook.com/msmrsounds Young Guns Thanks to Fraser and John weareyoungguns.com facebook.com/younggunsuk
Chloe Chaplin withdrumsandcolour.com Nan Palmero nanperlmero.com
Camille Richez camillerichez.com facebook.com/ camillerichezphotography Celeste Ortiz cargocollective.com/ celesteortiz Joe Caster about.me/joecaster
Marnie Rappell Makeup artist, Saturdays marnierappell.com Nancy Ingrey Makeup artist, Strawberry Fields facebook.com/ nancyingreymakeup Roisin Ferguson Stylist, Strawberry Fields facebook.com/ fashionmermaid Ton Aguilar Stylist, Scab tonaguilar.com
Nuala Swan nualaswan.com facebook.com/ nualaswanphoto
JOIN THE FREAKS
Sara Meister meistersara.500px.com facebook.com/ meistersphotography
Neighbourhood Freak Magazine Š 2013 - 2016. All creative content is property of Neighbourhood Freak or the respective artists and shall not be reproduced without explicit written consent. This magazine is not authorized for digital or print resale.
PHOTO-EDITORIAL TEAMS
Aaron Feaver aaronfeaver.com facebook.com/aaronfeaver
Devin Joplin MUA & hair, Scab devjop.com
Beth Lane
Madeline Roberts
neighbourhoodfreak.com facebook.com/ neighbourhoodfreak
003
FEATURED PHOTOGRAPHY
Anna Wade Hair, Strawberry Fields facebook.com/ haircreationsbyanna
neighbourhoodfreak.com
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHY
bethlane.com.au facebook.com/ bethlanephotography
Stylist, Saturdays cargocollective.com/ madelineroberts
056
Neighbourhood Freak
ISSUE 1
CONTENTS
Issue 01 12
MS MR Keeping it 100 when your name is on every cool girl’s lips and summer festival’s lineup 32
YOUNG GUNS Living our wildest teenaged fantasy of starting a rock band with your crew 48
KID RUNNER On big horizons and simple dreams 06 - 65
06 - Camille Richez // The Wild Swans 16 - Aaron Feaver // Scab 24 - Nuala Swan // Strawberry Fields 36 - Sara Meister // Through Smoke 42 - Beth Lane // Saturdays 52 - Celeste Ortiz // A Series of Self Portraits 58 - Joe Caster // The Girls
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
PHOTOGRAPHY
005
photographer | Camille Richez makeup & hair | Eleonore Mixay model | Ana Castelo @ Mademoiselle stylist | Amany Behounna
006
ISSUE 1
THE WILD SWANS
LEFT dress by Zoé la Fée RIGHT dress by Kokon to Zai / bracelet by L’atelier des dames
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
007
008
ISSUE 1
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK 009
LEFT dress by Brigitte Bardot / bracelet and ring by L’atelier des dames RIGHT dress by Kokon to zai / shawl by Zoé la Fée
010
ISSUE 1
LEFT shirt by Brigitte Bardot RIGHT dress by Brigitte Bardot / collar by Numph / shoes by San Marina
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK 011
MS MR WORDS BY EMILY NF staff
I’d like to talk about your album that was just released. Did you find the writing process different from your previously released EP? MAX: We actually wrote all the songs in the same year-and-a-half time period, and from there we decided which would appear on the album and which on the EP. So it was one big process, but I think the EP was a good introduction to our sound because those songs are really a foundation to who we are as musicians. The album on top of that really gives a range of our musical interests. A lot of artists go through that process of holing up in a cabin for six months, nothing but themselves and what they’re trying to create. How did you go about it?
012
ISSUE 1
LIZZIE: We really recorded everything in Max’s little closet-turned-studio using a laptop, keyboard, and microphone. We actually didn’t tell anyone we were making music for the first year and a half of the project so it was just a little special secret that Max and I were sharing. We were doing it between both
of our jobs, Mac at the time was a modern dancer at the Martha Graham School of Dance and a waiter and I was running my record label (Neon Gold). So it was actually a lot of fun, the pressure was our own to record and we found time early in the morning, late at night – we were just so focused and efficient about writing when we were together and thinking about writing when we weren’t and it was really gratifying at the end of it all, to piece it all together and have this real collection of work. So it’s a really homemade album in that sense. LIZZIE: Absolutely. Do you think that finding yourselves in this setup rather than a professional studio lent itself to the process? MAX: Definitely. I’m a big believer in working with what you have, and working through your constraints. I don’t think you have to have a lot of gear or a lot of money to be making music that feels complete. For us there’s a funny sort of discord, the way it was recorded using very little in this cramped space and then it has this grandiosity to it. We really didn’t shy
away from drama or big orchestral sounds or anything like that. So I guess that’s more a statement to that belief than anything else – even on a laptop you can create your giant world. But then we did reach some limits with the equipment we had, you can heard that almost warped, static-y sound throughout the album. For us, we don’t necessarily mind that the fact that we wrote this on a laptop can be a little explicit. Having wrapped this up, have you given any thought to where you’d want to take your sound in future projects?
>>>
013
Did you always see making music professionally as part of your life, or did this come about more from messing around and thinking that you should make something of it?
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
LIZZIE: I think Max and I are just starting to scratch the surface of what we’re really capable of. For both of us this is our first musical project, so in that way I think we’re both really happy to be sharing our first reflection of our musical capabilities and where we can go from here. Being new to this sort of leaves the door wide open to where we can go from here – I think you see that in the album actually, we experiment with so many genres and try out so many different things for ourselves. Max and I don’t really have a predetermined notion of what kind of music we’ll continue to make and we’re always looking to challenge ourselves, so while we love what we’ve come up with here our next album could be something entirely different. We really love being in the studio and I think that creative process is our favourite part of what we do.
014
ISSUE 1
Being based in NYC at the time of writing this album, how did you deal with the overwhelming amount of other artists in the local scene? Was it enriching or intimidating?
Photography by Nan Palmero San Antonio, TX, USA nanpalmero.com
015
LIZZIE: Well, New York does mean a lot to us and played a huge role in the creation of this record, but honestly we never found ourselves overly involved in the scene there. When we did, it never felt competitive, but very celebratory and quite inclusive actually. I’ve always found the idea of competing musicians strange, I know that it’s a reality but just because you love one band doesn’t mean you can’t love another. Back to being in New York,
it was a pretty amazing community where we would all go to each other’s shows and share bands we’d found. We were so lucky to be a part of this network where as we’d continue to go to shows and festivals we’d find more and more just amazing, creative people. I think at the end of the day we’re all hoping the best for each other.
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
MAX: Well I’ve been playing instruments my entire life, but I was never really focused on it and I was terrible with going to lessons and things. So I think for both of us it was unplanned, but that was a great thing about it – it was very free, there wasn’t any pressure from a life of leading up to this moment of making an album. Coming into it we realized that we had complimentary skillsets, but also neither of us was much more experienced than the other to the point that it would be intimidating for one of us. It really fostered a mutually supportive environment.
ISSUE 1 016
SCAB photographer Aaron Feaver @ Nouvelle Vague stylist Ton Aguilar makeup artist & hair stylist Devin Joplin Model Emily Ruhl @ Vision
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
017
018
ISSUE 1
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
019
020
ISSUE 1
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
021
022
ISSUE 1
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
023
024
ISSUE 1
Strawberry Fields
025
photographer | Nuala Swan makeup | Nancy Ingrey hair | Anna Wade model | Taylor Sommerville @ Superior stylist | Roisin Ferguson clothing and accessories by Magdalena Wilk-Dryło
026
ISSUE 1
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
027
028
ISSUE 1
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
029
030
ISSUE 1
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
031
YOUNG GUNS
WORDS BY EMILY NF staff Can you tell us a bit about your experience writing Bones?
ISSUE 1
FRASER: Well, I think we started as a group doing it all in a room together and jamming and then we realized that didn’t really work. JOHN: We just hung out and got a lot of hanging out done and nothing else.
032
FRASER: So then we would split up and me and John would write a riff or something and Gus would write the vocals, we’d do a drum beat. We’d do it over the computer sometimes email it, that was something that helped us out a lot. JOHN: It’s quite a weird process how we write, we change it up quite a lot we’re very fussy us. It takes a long time to write a song but when we finally do we’re all happy because we were so meticulous about it and we’ve all had a part in it. Did the amount of touring and traveling you did during the writing process influence your work at all? FRASER: The opposite!
FRASER: The opposite! JOHN: Yeah it just got in the way really. I’m sure our label would be quite excited if we could do proper work on the road but we just – don’t know why, but we just can’t seem to get anything done when we’re touring. FRASER: You get very much in tour mode, you know. When you’re touring, you don’t have much time to chill. The only time you have to think is through the night when you’re driving, and then you’re just thinking about touring stuff. Where you’re staying and how the shows have been and that. When you get home and you have writing time you get into that frame of mind. It’s quite a separate thing in that way – ideally, anyways. We’ve tried but we do find it very hard to do both. A lot of bands do it, and we try. JOHN: We tried for like the first day and then go oh, so that’s not happening… FRASER: Pretty well. We’re the type who like to you know, get in the zone and we like to be in the studio, lock ourselves away and create a really nice vibe in there. We’ve done a lot of writing in New York lately which has helped us out a lot because our label’s got a great studio there. We’re still trying to be able to write properly on
studio there. We’re still trying to write properly on the road though. That’d be really nice. One day. JOHN: It’s our final frontier.
FRASER: We are quite careful to never purposely take influence when we write a song, there was never a time where we thought that we want to sound like this band or that album. We listen to such a huge range, we’ll go from Thrice to Michael Jackson to AC / DC to Metallica to Bon Iver to Taylor Swift. It all influences us. Going back a bit, how did you all get started in music? JOHN: Well we all grew up in the same area, and there was a really kind of crap little venue, it was this strip club by day and venue by night – FRASER: It was quite classy. JOHN: Super classy yeah. And we were all in our own bands, I think we were all in sort of skate punk bands at the time. FRASER: Blink-182 rip offs.
>>>
033
FRASER: Well there are a few themes that came up, and that is actually one way that our environment influenced the writing. One particular song was unfinished when we got to Thailand, and there was this huge thunderstorm that brought Gus back to when he was a young boy and he wrote lyrics for the whole song right then. There were a few times where something similar to that happened, not just for Gus but for us where the environment of being in Thailand helped and it was such a chill, relaxed time. Feeding off that a bit really helped.
JOHN: Trying to remember what we were listening to at the time… we were listening to a lot of White Lies, and the new Incubus album at the time actually. Because we were in Thailand and we were just so relaxed, we were into that kind of a thing. Normally though I think our favourite band as a group would be Thrice, I think they’ll always kind of have an influence over us. And we all grew up in the ‘90s so I mean, that’s always going to affect what we’re writing.
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
Are there any overarching concepts behind the writing of Bones?
What about any musical influences?
JOHN: Yeah and so the people that decided they didn’t want to be in bands anymore flitted off and went to uni and stuff, and then we kind of were the ones left! FRASER: I think it was a bit more of a choice! JOHN: Well maybe a bit more. FRASER: We were all in like 3-4 different bands each, as you are when you’re a kid – you know, “I want to be in a band with you! No I want to be in a band with you now!” – and then you have all but one practice. So our lineup has changed around but we’ve all been playing together in some way or another for the better part of ten years now really. What do you think separated the bands that stuck together from the ones that fizzled out, aside from not being a priority of the members? FRASER: I think that’s the biggest part of it actually. JOHN: Yeah, the dedication.
ISSUE 1
FRASER: Just the ones who don’t give up. We’ve worked so hard that it’s just where we want to be. JOHN: You kind of get people where it’s very hard to drop everything. You’re in your 20s and you’re living on bread and water, but we did it. We all quit our jobs, we all moved back to our parents’ places, we all lived on scraps so we could do the band. A lot of people find it hard to put everything on the line. I like to think that we’ve all been in bands for years, we put in so much work and we’ve got confidence in our abilities and a great team behind us. And I mean that’s part of it too, we almost have no choice – we haven’t got much else if we fail, better put everything in it!
034
Photography by Chloe Chaplin Oxford, UK withdrumsandcolour.com
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
035
036
ISSUE 1
THROUGH SMOKE photographer Sara Meister makeup artist & hair stylist Annika Lackermayer model Tabea @ Tempomodels
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK 037
LEFT outfit by Eljot RIGHT outfit by outfit Isabel Helf
ISSUE 1 038
RIGHT outfit by Elvira Greblic
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
039
ISSUE 1 040
LEFT outfit by Laura Haberkorn RIGHT outfit by Teresa Toth
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
041
042
ISSUE 1
044
ISSUE 1
LEFT jacket Hayley Elsaesser / jumpsuit Koren Wheatley / earrings Asos / shoes Asos RIGHT split maxi Soot / pants Hayley Elsaesser / shoes Sportsgirl / ring YSL / earrings Asos
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK 045
ISSUE 1 046
shirt Ruby Sees All (Happy Cabin) / pants Soot / shoes Vans / hat Hayley Elsaesser / necklace Happy Cabin / board Penny Skateboards
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK 047
jacket One One Seven (Happy Cabin) / shirt Tiger Temple / shorts Hayley Elsaesser / bag The Herschel Supply Co. (Happy Cabin) / earrings Asos / knee pads Asics / roller skates are vintage
KID RUNNER WORDS BY EMILY NF staff
Is there any overarching concept to your EP?
Tell us a bit about the writing process behind your EP.
SCOTT: There’s no underlying concept, but we are very into utilizing the technological side of music in both our recordings and our live show. We are always trying to incorporate new techniques to keep it interesting for both us and the audience.
FRAN: The cool thing about this EP, and all of our songs, is that it’s truly collaborative. There’s not one single songwriter. We all have different ideas that usually morph into a song. One of us will come up with a hook or guitar riff, and someone else with start singing a melody over it. We are also self-produced and we recorded 95% of the EP in our living room! If you listen really closely, you can hear all of the lovely Columbus cars passing by the window. We also worked closely with mixing engineer Steve Thomas, and he’s been a huge help on the whole project.
ISSUE 1
KURT: We were one week away from booking a $5000 studio in New York to record our EP in June. We backed out last minute and opted to do it ourselves the old fashioned way! SCOTT: We ended up spending roughly $5000 less than we would have...job well done!
048
How did it feel to finally have something to show for all the work that went into your EP? SCOTT: We’ve been sitting on these songs for so long that it was just really nice to finally let people listen to them. Sometime in June, I told my dear grandma that I’d have an EP for her on July 4th. I finally gave her one on Thanksgiving. Close enough.
Going back a bit, you’ve all known each other for some time. How was growing up in your hometown as a young musician? FRAN: Columbus, Ohio has an incredible music scene! We have one of the only independent alternative radio stations left in the country, CD102.5, and they are extremely supportive when it comes to local music. Kurt: There’s a huge variety of music, as well. Any given night of the week, you can go to a bar or gallery and there will be live music. It rocks. Drew: It’s cool, there’s so many genres. And everyone supports each other. Rock bands and hip-hop groups play on the same show all the time. How did the members of Kid Runner eventually decide to form a band? FRAN: Three of us graduated school together a couple of years ago and had talked about forming a band. We found a sweet singer (Drew!) and an awesome drummer (Bobby!) and Kid Runner came to be. SCOTT: I think we’d all like to drive around in a van for the rest of our lives, playing music. So we decided to do it together, in the same van...
we really need to get a van. So you’ve been through a lot together. What do you think seperates the bands who start with great ideas and fizzle out before anything is ever recorded from the bands who stick it through? KURT: We didn’t want to play shows until we had something to give to people. We started pre-production on our EP months before we played our first show. We wanted to have plenty songs together and ready before we showed them to people. DREW: Setting goals and deadlines is really important for any band. You can have amazing, catchy songs, but get caught up in playing show after show and never record anything. We wanted to have EP’s to give people the first time they heard us. That kind of failed... but we had them ready by our 5th show!
DREW: For sure. I think it’s the primary place that people look for new music nowadays. I dont know about you, but I’m constantly on the internet searching for new music.
FRAN: We set out with the indie-electronic vibe in mind. >>>
049
Moving back to your recordings, how was writing after so many years as a formed band? Has Kid Runner always been set to have this indie-electronic sound, or had you experimented with other genres?
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
Aside from recording, I’ve heard a lot of bands mention the importance of a stronger online presence. Is this something you’ve found necessary?
050
ISSUE 1
We obviously don’t let it hinder our writing. If we want to try somethig new, we will! DREW: We started out as a country band.
FRAN: I would love to tour with Passion Pit... I think we have a fairly similar vibe and setup. And we’d get to watch their show every single night... so... !
SCOTT: We didn’t start out as a country band...
SCOTT: The Who... I think we have a fairly similar vibe and set-up...
KURT: What?
KURT: My dream tour would be opening for Anathallo and Black Dahlia Murder. Unfortunately, Anathallo broke up and Black Dahlia Murder plays death metal and very very rarely tours with indie-pop groups.
[we all share a hearty laugh] Have you started thinking about your next project yet? KURT: We’ve actually already started writing and recording some new songs which have landed us a pretty cool opportunity. Stay tuned for the announcement! We’re really excited about it. SCOTT: We’re always recording and working out new ideas. We’ll hopefully have another EP out late spring! And also, look for some live acoustic videos in the near future! And what about a tour? What dream tour could we arrange to drag you up to Canada?
DREW: One Direction. So I can meet some of their groupies.... BOBBY: Justin Bieber. We’d get a private jet, right? FRAN: But we would love to see Canada! Nothing is scheduled yet, but we are definitely working on it! Photography courtesy of Kid Runner This interview orginally appeared in Glacier Magazine (2012) and is reprinted under joint license by the author and publisher
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
051
052
ISSUE 1
photographer Celeste Ortiz
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
A SERIES OF SELF PORTRAITS
053
054
ISSUE 1
055
056
ISSUE 1
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
057
THE GIRLs
058
ISSUE 1
photographer & hair stylist Joseph Caster stylist & makeup artist Rose Serra models Haley Nix, Callie Bishop, Heather Chipperfeild (unsigned)
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
059
060
ISSUE 1
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
061
062
ISSUE 1
063
064
ISSUE 1
NEIGHBOURHOOD FREAK
065
ISSUE 1 OCTOBER 2014 PRINT: CAD $13.50 Made proudly in Toronto, Canada COVER PHOTOGRAPHY Aaron Feaver