This week, we met Bethany Consentino front lady and general ideas person behind the Californian stoner surf band.  You may, like us, have seen them tour with Cali play mates Vivian Girls earlier this year. They have new album Crazy For You out on Wichita this week. Sunny sun sun sun sun sun. And you’ll most likely have bopped your head to the single ‘Make You Mine’. This is her:

And this is what happened:

Ballad: How’s it going?

 Bethany Consentino: Pretty good, how are you?

 B: Pretty rough to be honest, flying by the seat of my pants…

 BC: Me too, I was in 4 different countries this weekend, 5 even!

 B: Yeah?

 BC: Italy, Portugal, England and Sweden and Denmark.  Just gigging for the album

 B: And how have those been going?

 BC: Portugal was crazy, it was a festival in the middle of the woods, kids just camped out in tents and stuff in the middle of nature, and we didn’t go on til 3am.  We didn’t really expect anyone to stay and watch us, because we barely want to be awake at 3 in the morning and thought that no one would watch us, but then a couple of thousand people there watching us and singing along to everything, and we all sort of looked at each other afterwards and were like ‘did that really happen?’ So Portugal was a really awesome experience

 B: People in Europe seem pretty laid backed…

 BC: I know! people in Europe are really up for staying up late, all hours of the night.  Because then we played in Sweden and we played at 2.30 in the morning and people showed up to the show were like ‘ah you already played, how come you’re not staying?!’ – because its 4am in the morning and we need to go to sleep

 B: We don’t work on that time scale, it’s the same in the UK everything plays really early and we go home at 10pm – Primavera though, we’d be up til 7am on the beach

 BC: Yeah – a country full of ragers, Mr Ragers!

 B: Ok, here’s a generic question for you. How would describe your sound/music to someone who’s never heard you?

 BC: Pop.  Pop music inspired by love, everyday life and California. Its pretty much pop music, I don’t think its any of this other shit that everyone wants to call it, I think it’s just straight forward pop music.

 B: Yeah, do you feel about the whole new lo-fi thing, I mean, 2 years ago there was none of this stuff? Or has it always been a Californian thing?

 BC: For me, I don’t really know why this music has taken off.  I just think, to be honest with you, bands see other bands do well in a certain type of music and they attempt to make their own kind of version of that music.  Which in a way is cool because it means that bands are inspiring each other to do other things. For me though, it just really stemmed from my move back to California and being back somewhere where it was beachy and sunny and all the stuff I talk about California being like and it’s also inspired by the music that I listened to when I lived in New York that reminded me of home.  I wanted to make a band that sounded like that and I also wanted to make a band that allowed people that were stuck in the middle of nowhere to feel that they were a part of warm summer fun in Los Angeles

 B: How long where you in New York?

 BC: About 9 months

 B: And you just didn’t like it?

 BC: No

 B: What was it that you weren’t so keen on?

 BC: It’s messy, it’s dirty, it’s loud, it’s huge, it’s crowded… I could go on forever there’s just a lot of things about it that didn’t mesh well with me. I think when you’re a west coast person you are very laid back, people form California are very laid back - it’s loud and messy and crowded up there as well but in a different way, I think California has a lot of neurotic people but more relaxed neurotic people and New York there is a very intense neurosis.  …I’m not used to cold weather and rain and snow and all that – as winey  and complainy as it sounds, I just didn’t enjoy being in that kind of weather.  I was in New York talking to my friends and family in LA and ‘oh its 80 degrees here and the sun is out and its January’ and I was like, oh it 12 degrees and freezing and you cant open my front door because there’s snow blocking it. Once that started I was like ‘I’m over this’.

 B: Yeah, weather can dictate your life. 

 BC: New York is an awesome place to visit, we’re there all the time, it’s the starting point for tours on the east coast and it’s the place you go to before Europe and all that shit, it’s fun to visit but there’s a really very small period of time in New York when the weather is really nice, so you’re almost never there when that’s happening. We were just there before we came here, it was just the most humid, all of us were just miserable because it was so humid you cant enjoy yourself because your body is just so uncomfortable.  But there are really great things about New York too, really amazing culture, music and art…

 B: … you must’ve been inspired by the music there?

 BC: …yeah, and there’s great food, there’s a lot of good stuff about it but I’d much rather visit than to ever live there again. 

 B: What is it that makes you write songs when you get up in the morning?

 BC: Yeah pretty much that. I don’t ever sit and wait for something to inspire me, I just wake up one day and I’m like ‘oh ok I hear something in my head’ and I’m gonna work on it.  Or in the middle of the day I’ll hear something and run to my room and pick up the guitar and try to work on something. I’m a true believer in just following natural feelings as far as music goes, I don’t try to pre plan anything out, I never force myself tow write -  I write a lot, but I never wake up and say ok, you’ haven’t written in a long time you have to do it today. I believe that it’s something I do when I truly feel inspired to do it.

 B: What kind of music are you listening to at the moment?

 BC: I mostly only listen to rap

 B: Anything in particular?

 BC: I like Drake and I really like the new Big Boi record…

 B: That’s done well actually, that record

 BC: Yeah, its really good.  There are a couple of songs that don’t really stand on their own but for the most past that whole record is really great. I think that I listen to so much surf music and 50′s and 60′s pop when I’m sort of looking for inspiration that when I’m on tour and when I’m just in my house I’m most of the time listening to music that has absolutely no connection to the music I make. Cos you kinda get sick of the stuff that you’re always listening to.

 B: Well… if you don’t eat the same thing every day…

 BC: Yeah that’s right, I just listen to a variety of different things but right now I’m mostly listening to rap, r n b and stuff

 B: You’ve been in bands before. How did this musical project come about?

 BC: I moved away and then I started a band when I got home, and the band was really inspired to the music I listened to in New York that made me feel closer to home.  Stuff like Beach Boys and Ronnettes and that old surfy, sunny, happy pop music and I wanted to make a band that sounded like that and make a band that would make people in random part of the world where there was no sun or beach kinda feel like they were a part of that. I had worked with Bob before in a previous band, and we got on really well, and I knew that Bob was a fan of the Beach Boys and the Beatles - all the simple pop music that I was drawing inspiration form. So I just ask if he wanted to be part of it, I wrote a bunch of songs and sent them to him and it all went from there.  Bob is the guy that fills everything out and make things sound bigger, if it was just me, it’d just be power chords!