Interview With Kat Corbett Of KROQ 106.7’s Locals Only
As much a scene supporter as she is a tastemaker, KROQ’s Kat Corbett is not only helping listeners discover gems in the rough, but also creating a unique opportunity for independent musicians in the area to get major radio play and promotion with her weekly show, Locals Only. Running every Sunday night before Loveline from 9 p.m. until 10 p.m. on KROQ 106.7 FM, Locals Only showcases songs from handpicked local artists alongside interview clips from a featured local up-and-coming band, with the playlist and entire interview posted online.
Q: How did you get involved with KROQ?
A: I started in Boston at a station called WFNX while I was in college. It got a little too cold for me out on the East Coast and I just kind of lost it and was like, ‘That’s it – I’m leaving.’ It was probably like two years of trying to figure out how everything worked in Los Angeles – then I just became a big enough pain in the ass to Kevin Weatherly [VP of Programming at KROQ], and he gave me a shot and I got hired. That was in ’99. I decided I would have enough time to take on a locals show a couple years ago — it actually takes more work than doing my entire show all week — and [Local’s Only] has become the most fulfilling part of my job.
Q: How can local bands get on the show?
A: First of all, they have to write good songs. That’s any genre. The show goes anywhere from metal to singer/songwriter and everything in between to electronica to pop. Then there’s production – you have to understand if you’re an unknown band, your first impression to the world should be your best.
Q: How do you prefer submissions?
A: My email box can’t handle mp3s, so I want people to send me the hard CD. I like a one-sheet too; you could fit it on an index card even. Don’t spend your money on a photo shoot and a press kit – if the music’s not good, I don’t care how pretty you are. If your band name is hard to pronounce, spell it out phonetically. If you have 500 tracks on your debut, put a star next to the one you think is a single – and don’t star every track! Put your CD in a CD case, not wrapped with a piece of notebook paper. (You must have an old Sublime record tray that you can clean out and throw your CD in!) And if you want to make sure we’ve gotten it, send it certified mail —
I get 300 emails a day and just can’t respond to everyone and let them know we received their CDs.
Q: How far in advance?
A: I plan out Locals Only the Wednesday prior to the Sunday.
Q: After being involved in the L.A. music scene for 10 years, what advice would you give to independent musicians about navigating the industry there?
A: It goes back to writing great music, that’s the beginning. Then being able to take criticism – you’re going to have to be able to do that. You can’t just play your music for your mother, your brother and your girlfriend, you’re going to have to find some ears. Southern California is great because you can play 10 different counties and not hit the same thing. Go to Orange County, go to Riverside – even if you’re just playing to two people, you’re getting the experience. Also, go out and meet other musicians. You show up to their shows and fill the room and then they come see you play or you can end up on their show. There’s this awesome brother and sisterhood here that really propels a scene forward.
Q: What local bands do you have on your radar now?
A: So many different bands for so many different reasons – some are great live, some would be great for a movie soundtrack. I’ll start with The Airborne Toxic Event. They’ve taken out a big chunk of my heart this past year. Death to Anders, The Henry Clay People, Aushua, The Happy Hollows, Thailand, The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra, Earlimart, The Bronx…
www.kroq-data.com/localsonly/localsonly_all.asp
INTERVIEW WITH Pete Lyman, Owner/Engineer of Infrasonic Sound Recording Company
Infrasonic Sound Recording Company is a 2” 16/24-track recording studio, CD and vinyl mastering suite and record label collective located in East L.A and owned by Pete Lyman and Jeff Ehrenberg. Completely custom-built with one of the largest tracking rooms of any independent studio in the area, the facility is also home to Vintage King Audio, which provides endless equipment inventory. Infrasonic Sound has set its sights on keeping vinyl alive, putting its Neumann lathe to good use and releasing vinyl records from Qui (featuring David Yow of The Jesus Lizard), Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Moonrats and The Starlite Desperation on Infrasonic Sound Records in the last year.
Q: What’s your philosophy toward recording?
A: Do the best I can to track what I want to mix – guitar tones, bass tones, drum sounds. I try to use the least amount of gear possible, so I’m not automatically going to pull up a mix and insert a compressor on every channel, I’m going to insert a compressor when I think I might need one. Unfortunately, I feel like with digital recordings being so prevalent, people will just record tracks and then spend hours and hours EQing the hell out of them trying to get it to sound like how they want it to sound, when if they had just spent a little more time using the right guitar, the right guitar amp, placing the mic properly, etc., they could have had a better sound from the start.
Q: As an engineer who frequently masters albums too, what do you ask of other engineers?
A: Don’t do anything that makes it loud – leave that for the mastering guy.
Q: Tell us more about direct-to-disc recording.
A: Our mastering room is actually wired up to the studio and basically we’re recording like you would’ve in the ‘40s or early ‘50s, where the musicians set up, everything is recorded and mixed and the whole session is recorded directly to vinyl. So no ProTools, no tape even – it’s just a live performance straight to vinyl. It’s a lot of fun. We did a session for Beck last year and have a plan to do a modular synth direct-to-disc 12-inch with Alessandro Cortini of Nine Inch Nails and our friend David Scott Stone.
Q: Is vinyl sustainable, in a business sense?
A: I would say this year alone, our vinyl mastering has increased at least 60 percent. It was kind of slow for a couple of years, but now there’s quite a few bands just doing vinyl and digital only, without even putting out CDs. We’ve definitely seen a pretty big increase there.
Q: What was your experience like recording the new No Age record, Nouns, and preserving the band’s raw sound?
A: They definitely have their own sound, and I didn’t want it to be too slick. The way [Nouns] sounds is totally intentional. We were recording live drums and then recording the same drums through a microcassette recorder and changing the pitch and the speed and blending that in with the mix.
Q: Do you think all styles of music sound better on tape?
A: It really depends. I think more than genres, there are certain things that sound fine to me in ProTools. I prefer tracking vocals to ProTools just because I think with a good mic and a compressor, you’re usually not trying to hit tape super hard when you’re recording vocals anyway, so I don’t really miss the tape compression there. 2” tape is so expensive that the money spent on tape could mean two to three extra days in the studio. A lot of times what I end up doing, especially if a band is on a budget, we’ll track basics – drums, bass and guitar – to 2” tape and then transfer that into ProTools. When I use ProTools, it’s just like a tape machine to me. I don’t like to use a ton of plug-ins and I don’t like to mix through it. I’d rather get a good performance than spend a bunch of time editing to a grid.
www.infrasonicsound.com
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IN THE NEWS
The Airborne Toxic Event recently released its self-titled debut full length on Majordomo Records. The Loz Feliz quintet is the second signee on the new Shout! Factory imprint, alongside Earlimart, and has been taking L.A. by storm, vaulted into regular rotation on radio stations along the West Coast. The band has also been playing a number of high-profile shows this summer, including the Download Festival in Philadelphia
and an appearance on Late Night With Conan O’Brien. They will perform at the Virgin Festival in Toronto on September 6 and then head over to Red Rocks in Colorado for the Monolith Festival on September 14.
www.myspace.com/
theairbornetoxicevent
On September 9, Epitaph will release the third full-length record from Sound of Animals Fighting, titled The Ocean and the Sun. The collective springs out of L.A. but claims members across the U.S., and invokes an Animal Collective-esque fixation via their zoological pseudonym – except on the raucous, harder side of the coin.
www.epitaph.com
After an extended U.S. tour, Jeremy Jay will jet to Europe this month for a fall stint in support of his well-received K Records debut LP, A Place Where We Could Go. The tour kicks off on September 16 in Berlin, Germany and wraps on October 11 in Cork, Ireland. Jay has also released a music video for “Someone Cares” to accompany the album and is planning to tour down under in November.
www.myspace.com/
jeremyjay
The Broken West will release their sophomore album on September 9 via Merge Records. The 10-track record, Now or Heaven, is the follow-up to 2007’s highly acclaimed I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On.
www.thebrokenwest.com
Death to Anders are September’s Monday night resident at The Echo this month. The four-piece band will perform free shows at the venue on September 8, 15, 22 and 29, with other local guests as support.
www.deathtoanders.com
After opening up for The Faint last month at the Henry Fonda Theater, Abe Vigoda will partner with Vampire Weekend this month for a handful of Los Angeles area dates. Abe Vigoda recently released an album, Skeleton, on PPM, and performed at the Capitol Hill Block Party in Seattle alongside Vampire Weekend earlier this summer.
www.myspace.com/
abevigoda
On September 19-21, Indie 103.1 will host the Port of Los Angeles Lobster Fest in San Pedro, an event that promises music, feasting and pirates. Among local artists scheduled to perform are The Binges, The Henry Clay People, Oliver Future, Robert Francis, The Weather Underground and The Monolators.
www.lobsterfest.com
The Henry Clay People have signed to Autumn Tone Records and plan to release their new full length this fall. The band has a record release party scheduled for October 3 at Spaceland with labelmates The Switch as well as The Parson Red Heads and Downtown/Union, and will perform this month at the Lobster Fest in San Pedro on September 20. www.thehenryclaypeople
.com
On September 9, Los Angeles’ Gus Seyffert will release his debut solo album as Willoughby, titled I Know What You’re Up To. Seyffert embarked on an East Coast tour earlier this summer with Priscilla Ahn and will be supporting his former tourmates The Bird and the Bee for a handful of dates around the U.S. in September and October. www.willoughbyrecordings
.com
Los Angeles-based electro-pop duo Uh Huh Her (the PJ Harvey dedication is in fact one part Leisha Hailey of TV’s The L Word and one part multi-instrumentalist/singer Camila Grey formerly of indie outfit Mellodrone) released its debut, Common Reaction, last month on Nettwerk/Live Nation. Produced by Al Clay (The Pixies, Blur, Pink), this 11-song album is the follow-up to Uh Huh Her’s 2007 self-released EP, I See Red. www.uhhuhher.com
On September 9, Santa Barbara’s Wednesday Records will release the latest offering from Evansville, Ind.’s Mock Orange. Titled Captain Love, the disc contains 12 songs, including bonus track “Beauty of a Scar.” The band plans to head out on a national tour with Phoenix, Ariz.’s Miniature Tigers in support of the new release. www.wednesdayrecords
.com
Los Angeles hard-rock foursome Silent Treatment has been hitting the California highways this past month and will continue touring the state through November. The band recently completed a three-song demo with producer Kevin Churko (Ozzy Osbourne) in Las Vegas, released earlier this summer, and has a full length and an EP already under its belt. www.myspace.com/stface
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