Los Angeles – First things first: James Supercave is not an actual person, but the result of a long running collaboration between three musicians based in Los Angeles. Joaquin Pastor, Patrick Logothetti, and Andrés Villalobos have been playing together for years, and for the last three years they have called their current project James Supercave. The band released its debut LP, Better Strange, on February 12 through Fairfax Recordings. The album received praise for its ability to navigate several strains of psychedelic pop music while still managing to sound incredibly coherent and cohesive. When asked about the interesting name of the band, Pastor admitted to not being able to remember James Supercave’s origin story but expressed excitement in seeing where “he” will end up.
The band previously released an EP in 2014, titled The Afternoon. Pastor talked to Best New Bands about how James Supercave evolved in the two years between the release of the extended player and the full length studio debut:
“I think production has gotten a lot better. There’s a song on the EP [The Right Thing] that actually made it onto the LP, and I think that the songs on the LP have grown up quite a bit. We’ve essentially been working on this record for years and gone through multiple drafts of all of these songs. A handful of songs came together pretty quickly right at the beginning of the recording process. But it’s a step up – the EP kind of hinted at the spaces we were interested in going, and the LP kind of expands those spaces. There’s a lot of genre hopping in the music, and there’s a lot of pretty spastic tastes going on within the band. We’re a little all over the place, but we tried to make something that felt coherent with itself. The biggest influences were Bowie, Talking Heads, Portishead, Of Montreal, Blonde Redhead. The list is kind of endless, but those are some key players.”
The three original players in James Supercave are joined by a drum and bass rhythm section that tends to be shuffled from time to time. Pastor plays guitar and sings, Villalobos mostly sticks to guitar, and Logothetti is on keyboards, although the three switch around a lot, particularly when recording in the studio. Living just a few blocks from each other in Echo Park certainly makes rehearsals and coordinating schedules a lot easier for the members of James Supercave. The band’s writing process is quite collaborative, though it never sticks to one specific formula. When asked about how the three musicians create the songs, Pastor said:
“It varies – I did a lot of writing on these songs, and then there was more than a handful of songs where Pat or Andy would have something really strong and then we would bring it together and start developing it. The ethos in the band is ‘may the best part win.’ I wouldn’t say that there’s necessarily a democracy going on but there is fortunately a really high ratio of agreeing. We just tend to know when we’ve hit ‘money,’ and all agree on it.”
James Supercave just wrapped up a small tour in February and will head out with Wild Belle for a long jaunt across the United States. There are many reasons for the band to look forward to this high profile tour, and Pastor detailed a few of them:
“It is a change to get in front of people that will be receptive to what we are doing. Being in front of people who are in touch with the kind of music we are making and being in front of large audiences, it’s a completely different equation. So it’s really exciting. All of those dates are going to be – just looking at the venues, it’s going to be a lot of fun. We’ve never been east of Texas, so we are getting out to New York for the first time as this band. The show consists mostly of the new record, with maybe just one or two songs that we’ll change that were either on the EP or the b-sides that we haven’t released.”
James Supercave’s United States tour with Wild Belle begins on April 24 in Columbus, OH, heading up the East Coast and then through the South before heading north along the West Coast, concluding on May 17 in Seattle. Find tickets to those shows on James Supercave’s Facebook page.
Matt Matasci
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