| ABOVE
Aaron
Kyle, photographed in his Echo Park home, in what was originally
intented to be the dining room. Instead, he's arranged his
record collection on one side of the room and a small, linear
desk on the other. This is also where Le
Switch is completing recordings for their upcoming full
length record, tentatively titled The Rest of Me is
Space.
Photographed
on April 12, 2009. |
|
In
a music scene often filled with geographic transplants,
Aaron Kyle, lead singer and guitarist for Le Switch, is
somewhat of a rarity: a true Los Angeles native. He
grew up in Burbank and, except for a six month hiatus in
Portland, has lived in Los Angeles his entire life. "It's
70 degrees year round, why would I move?" His music
is thoughtful and mature, with a depth that is becoming
more and more rare in contemporary rock. But this comes
as no surprise considering he's one of the most sincere
and thoughtful musicians playing in Los Angeles. I spoke
with Aaron in December of 2009 shortly after Le Switch had
returned from a week of recording in Sacramento. They plan
to release their next full length record sometime in 2010.
How
have you been?
Aaron Kyle: I've been good.
How's
the recording of the new record going?
AK: It's good, it's still going. We've
been doing recordings here, Joe [Napolitano] brings over
a couple things and then we set up and go for it.
Is
Joe producing the record?
AK: We're all sort of producing it. He
definitely has more experience doing this stuff than we
do but we're all putting in our ideas and trying to make
the best record possible. Also the most different record
that we possibly can. Yeah, I think we're just trying to
experiment a little bit and not try and be pigeonholed into
something. But yep, it's been fun, it's been cool, those
seven days we did up in Sacramento were cool.
What
did you guys get done in Sacramento?
AK: We finished all the basic tracks, so
like guitars, some vocals, bass, all of the drums and piano,
and all the keyboards were done up in Sacramento.
Did
you just run out of time up there?
AK: Yeah, totally.
Why
choose to record in Sacramento, did you have a personal
connection?
AK: Well, for a couple reasons. The studio
there is awesome for drums; it's this huge warehouse space
and its just a great place to record drums because you can
get a really tightly miced [sound], to where you just put
a mic right up to the drums, or you can get the space of
the room and get this big massive sound. We put up two drum
sets so that one was capturing the room sound and one was
capturing a really tight sound so if we wanted a really
tight sound for a song we have that, it was all baffled
up, and if we want to have the drum sound of the room we
could use that. And on top of that they have every piece
of equipment we would ever want to use as far as amps, preamps,
etc. Their boards are fucking outstanding...if that studio
were here in L.A. they would charge $750 a day and they
charged us $200 a day. It just made sense, and we stayed
there for free.
Did
you record your last record there?
AK: No, this was the first time we recorded
up there. The Broken West recorded their last record there.
And
that's how you found out about it?
AK: Yeah.
Are
you excited about the record?
AK: I'm really excited about it. It's gonna
be a lot different, it's gonna be louder, there's gonna
be a lot more guitars. More rock–less Jazz/New Orleans
vibe.
When
is it slated to be done?
AK: I don't know. I'm not in a big hurry.
we've been offered to have it put out on Autumn Tone if
we want, but we're not in a big hurry to get it done. I
just want it to be really good. I don't want to rush it
just because of time, I just want it to be awesome. I'm
hoping, I want to have it done by February–I want
to have it finished but I don't know when it'll be out. |
|
Bands
talk about how they booked two weeks in the studio and in
that span of time wrote all the songs for the record. Was
that the case with you guys? When did you write the songs?
AK: We had most of the songs six months
ago; we started doing demos, five or six months ago or something
like that. We did live demos in our rehearsal space and
then we started doing the actual demos which took about
a month and a half, two months of sitting down and being
like, "okay this is gonna be on this, these are the
guitars for this," so that when we actually played
it up in Sacramento we knew exactly what we were doing.
How
is your relationship with Autumn Tone? Are they involved
with the record yet?
AK: It's great, I had a meeting with them
last night and they're interested, that's all I can really
say. We had a one album deal with them, and they also did
the EP. So they did the album and the EP. So, you know,
we'll see.
Let's
talk about when you started playing music, were you playing
music when you were really young? Or did you start later?
AK: I got my first guitar when I was 8 years
old. I started playing "Johnny B. Goode" and stuff
like that and then threw away the guitar after three lessons.
I was not interested in it. It sat in the closet for a few
years. I started listening to hip hop music and then I finally
got into rock music again when I was like 14, 15. I was
the lead singer in a band and when I got kicked out I started
playing guitar.
Why
did you get kicked out of the band?
AK: I think it was artistic differences. (laughs)
How
old were you at the time?
AK: I was 14, we played one
show. We played at the Coconut Teaszer on Sunset Boulevard
and that was back in the day when the Coconut Teaszer was
a cool club, not even like a cool club, it wasn't cool even
then, it was kinda like a Sunset Strip club, you know.
What
was the name of the band?
AK: Lithium (laughs), it
was ridiculous. It was these twin brothers and this other
guy. The other guy, he was the guitar player, kicked me
out because he thought I was too punk rock and they wanted
to be more grunge and I thought it was so weird because
the grunge movement sorta started from punk rock.
Yeah,
those two seem so close to each other.
AK: It was weird.
I've
met your brother, and I know you have another brother. Do
either of them play music or anyone else in your family?
AK: My brother is learning to play guitar
right now, that's my older brother Jared who I think you
met. But nobody [in my immediate family] plays music. I
come from a line of musicians, like my grandmother was a
musician, she used to play coffee houses here in L.A. and
put a seven inch out, or a 45 back in the day. And my second
cousin (Mark Fosson) is a really great guitar player from
the 70s and he put out a record recently, it was a reissue
on Drag City. It was supposed to be put out in the 70s but
never got put out, it was like a lost record for Takoma
Records, which was John Fahey, Leo Kottke and all those
guys. And my other cousin (Tiffany Anders), she's a really
great guitar player and songwriter. She was on Up Records
during the whole Seattle scene when Built to Spill and Modest
Mouse and all those bands were coming up in the mid to late
90s. So she was in a band.
Have
you played with her?
AK: She doesn't really play much anymore.
One of her records is being reissued soon, she had a record
that was produced by PJ Harvey and J Mascis played drums
on it. She did music for a while, but I think she just got
tired of it.
|
Le
Switch - Hello Today EP