North Highlands, named after the hometown of singer Brenda Malvini, is a Brooklyn-based band made up of transplants. Guitarist Mike Barron, drummer Jasper Berg, bassist Andy Kasperbauer, and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Stewart are all from elsewhere, but their band bases them in Brooklyn. They’ve had a good year, with the recording of their first full length, Wild One, played shows with bands like Stars, and they have even bigger plans for the new year. Before one of their shows at Glasslands, the venue that we love to love, I sat down with them to talk about their nostalgic sounds, New Year’s resolutions, and more.
Kelly Knapp: How did you form as North Highlands?
Brenda Malvini: I had some songs that I’d been sitting on for a few years, in college, and never really had any time to get it together. Mike and I had jammed for a while, and then towards graduation, a friend of mine who booked shows at Market Hotel was like, “Yo, get your shit together. I booked you a show.” He basically gave me five weeks to get a band together, and I had met Daniel and Jasper in school and Andy in my apartment, in the basement one morning.
Andy Kasperbauer: After a party.
BM: Yeah…he was awake in my house. And then we just kind of jammed on a couple of songs. Everyone was somewhat available. You hear bands all the time that are like, I want to get a thing together, but everyone’s so busy. It was just the right timing for everyone to start playing music together. Then we played that show, and after that we were like, let’s record something, and everyone was excited, so that’s the beginning.
KK: Is that when you started recording your EP?
BM: The Sugarlips EP. It’s pretty much just basically what we had, and then we just threw it on a CD.
Mike Barron: We recorded that EP two or three months after we actually started playing, and it was literally every song we had up to that point.
Daniel Stewart: Except for Fresca.
BM: It’s about this girl my roommate was dating, that drank Fresca every time I saw her. She was nuts.
AK: She liked her Fresca.
Jasper Berg: That was a really fast process, though. Playing these sketches that Brenda had, then playing a few shows, then realizing we had something amazing, and then recording. It all happened really quick. Even the recording of it was really quick, and we did it very DIY. We tracked in a basement of a friend’s house, off the Halsey stop on the L train, and then we tracked all the vocals and overdubs in my apartment, and I lived on Flatbush Avenue, so it was really loud. It was a hilarious place and time to record. We’d have to wait for the cops station to shut up, or whatever. It’s very likely that deep down in one of those songs on the EP…
MB: Oh yeah! When we were recording in the basement, it was on Puerto Rican street or something, and they had this huge barbeque on the street, like two barbeques going on at the same time, and they were blasting reggaeton.
KK: Was it a very different process when you recorded your new album you just released?
BM: Absolutely.
JB: It was like a real recording process. As real as it can get.
BM: Our friend introduced us to this producer, Kyle “Slick” Johnson. He’s rad. His name is so funny. It’s a nickname he was given by Fischerspooner. He’s been all around. I didn’t get a chance to listen to all the projects that he’s done, but it was like, he had an idea already of what he wanted to do on this record, and it was really exciting to hear his enthusiasm, when it was someone we had just met. He didn’t see us play live until a month ago. He’s a very interesting character – very innovative. We went and recorded in Connecticut at Carriage House Studios. Doolittle was recorded there, Beyonce, Shrek…
AK: Pantera.
JB: The place has some history.
MB: Meatloaf recorded there.
BM: And they had an apartment above the recording studios, so some of us shared rooms. Kyle slept in the diva room – each of them had names. Every morning we’d get up in our jams, and turn the espresso and coffee on and get ready, and make Red Baron pizza in the oven that smelled up the whole place. It was amazing, so fun.
JB: It was cool to be in a place that was non-stop creativity, where we’d wake up at 9am or 10am, eat breakfast and have coffee and be recording by like, 11am or 12pm, and go until 1am, then go to sleep and do the same thing again. We did that for three days.
MB: We did all the overdubs and stuff in Philadelphia, in Kyle’s studio – Fancy Time Studio. It was fun. There was a month there where a lot of us – specifically, Brenda the most – but we were off and in transit every weekend, between New York and Philly and back. It was cool, and it was nice to get out of New York, too.
BM: And each of us would send each other the latest demos when each of us would go. So as I was finishing the songs I would get another version of the songs. Really, it was constantly changing my idea of the songs.
KK: So it was like the process was in the process.
BM: It definitely was. Some of the lyrics on some of the older songs, I was like, I don’t know if this even fits with what this sound like anymore, so it was exciting for me as a writer, because it was just constantly changing. I was going crazy.
JB: Yeah, the songs would completely change. They went into a world we didn’t know we could enter, and that was super fun.
BM: Especially because in the writing process, we can’t often hear what each other are playing in our practice space, and our demos are a joke because we can’t capture everything at once. It just sounds like a big puddle.
MB: It sounds like the band.
BM: That was our inspiration.
MB: It really turned out differently in the recording process.
BM: Fancy Time Studios is in the basement of this huge factory, so there’s this really long hallway. I call it the Saw III hallway because it’s really scary when you turn the lights off, and you’d have to turn the lights off because you’d catch the sound of the fluorescent lights. So, I was constantly singing in the dark.
KK: So it was like you were recording in a torture dungeon?
BM: Basically.
JB: It was scary.
BM: And out in the hallway I’d just be screaming and doing really crazy stuff, and I hadn’t done that in so long. It was really fun working with Kyle.
Brenda Malvini
KK: Are the songs on this album very nostalgic? Were you thinking about home a lot?
BM: Always. All of us come from different cities. Living here as a transplant or coming here to make music, or whatever you come here for, you’re constantly just working towards something and always thinking about home, and how comfortable that was. Even if it’s just that romantic side of it. I grew up in North Highlands (Calif.), and spent my childhood there.
KK: Hence, the band…
BM: Yeah, each of us is very in love with where we come from, and life here gets pretty damn shitty, and you get sick of things pretty fast while you’re trying to make it work somehow. That’s a lot of what’s going on in the songs.
KK: Even though you came here for a reason.
BM: Yeah, and this band is the reason we’re all still here. We all graduated like, two years ago. I can’t even believe that.
KK: What did you guys listen to growing up?
MB: Bruce Springsteen.
DS: Led Zeppelin.
AK: Guns N’ Roses!
JB: I was raised on jazz. It was tons of Coltrane and Miles Davis, and Ella Fitzgerald. My parents didn’t really listen to anything else. My dad would listen to really awesome classical guitar players, but then there was always the wild card album that my mom would really like; like a newish Sting contemporary album. Or when Dave Matthews Band came out, we would listen to Crash every time we cleaned the house. But it was mostly jazz.
DS: What do your parents listen to now, Jasper?
JB: North Highlands. And like, Grizzly Bear. They’re totally hip now. Every time I go home they say, ‘Can you bring a mix?’ and I bring a mixtape.
BM: They live in Cape Town, South Africa now.
JB: Yeah, they’re a little removed from the pop music world, so I just funnel them shit.
BM: You’re a real pirate.
JB: I don’t think they’re ready for Das Racist yet, though.
BM: I basically grew up listening to what my grandpa listened to, which was 50s music, then I listened to country with my mom, then me and my sister would listen to rap music. And it would always change. My first concert was 98 degrees, Bewitched, and Jessica Simpson.
JB: Your first concert was 98 degrees? Amazing. Mine was James Taylor.
AK: Billy Joel!
MB: Mine was Mustard Plug, I think; the ska band from Michigan. I was really into ska when I was 12.
MB: That was your first show? That’s the best answer to have.
KK: How old were you?
DS: I was like, 15.
MB: Well, you win.
KK: What’s your dynamic like as a band?
BM: Jasper’s the mom. Always positive.
JB: Nurturing.
BM: Posi-core over there.
JB: No matter what, it’s ok. No matter WHAT.
BM: He always has band-aids. Writing-wise, it’s constantly changing, In the beginning it was sketches of my songs, and we’d all flesh out our parts on top of it. Then with Wild One, it was a mixture of both, with Mike coming in with parts and me coming in with parts. The three of us would work – me, Daniel, and Mike – and kind of bring each other in. Jasper was away while we were writing a lot, but then he’d come in and the sound would change a lot. Now, it’s just kind of jamming and not worrying about where the song goes. Kind of just not stressing about it, because we don’t know when we’ll record next, so we’re just working on that sound again.
KK: What about in your shows? Are you improvisational at all, or do you just stick to what you rehearse?
BM: Whatever I say on stage is probably the most awkward thing ever.
JB: Brenda and I kind of have an on-stage dynamic.
BM: I always forget that when someone else speaks into the mic, the audience can hear them. Like, when I was little I didn’t know you could hear me when I was humming. So I feel like Jasper is a voice in my head, so I always repeat what he says on stage.
DS: He was provoked once by the audience to do drugs on stage.
JB: That was only once! I just asked if anybody had – I was asking on behalf of a friend – does anybody have pot out there for someone? And some dude passed up a pipe fully packed, and I took it and was like, that’s not was I was asking, but…and we had like, three songs left so I was like, fuck it. It was fun, come on, Get your heads out of the gutter.
AK: We should ask for cookies.
JB: Throw up a pipe again, I think that was fun.
MB: Crystal Meth?
DS: We watch a lot of Breaking Bad.
BM: Oh yeah. There are times where all I do is watch Netflix. And then we’ll talk about it at practice, what episodes we’re on. That’s another role in the band.
KK: So was this pipe show one of the more memorable shows for you?
DS: No.
MB: I don’t even remember what show that was.
JB: On a personal level, yeah, because it was funny.
DS: I feel like every Glasslands show has been memorable. It’s always just a fun, comfortable place.
Daniel Stewart
KK: I hear that a lot from bands.
BM: Yeah, it’s just a good vibe.
KK: But you guys have played with bands like Stars, and Ra Ra Riot. Was that really cool for you guys?
BM: Oh yeah, Doing the dates with Stars was great. They’re really amazing people.
KK: Did they give you some good advice?
BM: They gave us some good wine.
JB: They were actually really, really great. They invited us on the bus, and I went to the back with Torquil, and we sat and he pulled out some records that he started playing on a portable record player, and he just started giving me advice on what to do. And their manager was really cool, and he was just telling us, keep doing what you’re doing, and try to keep things as fresh as possible at all times. They’re all really sweet and nurturing.
MB: The shows were great, too.
BM: Yeah, because we played the Williamsburg show, and there’s so much going on backstage, and one of the members of the band was like, ‘We’re going down to Chapel Hill tomorrow!’ and we were like, so are we! He had no idea we were playing with them. But we were just so excited. Then we get there and drink with them, play the show, then drink with them after. It was the best. You don’t usually get to do that in Brooklyn, because everyone’s doing their own thing. It was amazing. And you see them, and they’re older, and they’re living life in this bus. They’re whole life is this, and you’re just starry-eyed, like yes, I wanna do that. They’re like, ‘Come play Canada with us next year!’ and we’re like, we’ll hold you to that! We will be there.
JB: Yeah, put that in print. Don’t forget, guys.
MB: Now no one get arrested between now and then.
KK: Do you have a lot of dates coming up because of your album release?
BM: No, we’re working on SXSW, and planning some dates for February. It’s kind of been this slow and steady thing, and just trying to do what’s realistic.
MB: It’s especially tough around the holidays.
BM: We’re all kind of breaking for a month, which is really exciting – it kind of feels like you’re still in college. We’re like, yay winter break!
KK: Any New Years resolutions?
JB: We’ve been talking about band resolutions…
MB: We’ve had this practice space for two and a half years, it’s the size of a closet, it looks like shit, and we’ve been talking about a loft and making it look better for two and a half years. So it’s finally happening. My new year’s resolution is to make this actually happen.
DS: I got $20 that says it doesn’t happen.
MB: I will take that $20 and use it for lumber, my friend.
BM: A resolution for me is just writing more, even if it doesn’t go anywhere. And just constantly trying to do something all the time. I’ve been listening to LCD Soundsystem a lot, and that one lyric is like, how much time do you waste every day? And you’re just thinking about that and you’re like, oh shit, you’re right.
DS: I’m wasting time listening to you right now! I should be writing music!
JB: We really want to play out of town more, that’s our main resolution.
KK: Yeah, you’ve got this full length, you’ve got some great build up going…
JB: So other people need to hear it, and it’d be great to find a bill, find another band that we could go tour with and do some support.
KK: Do you have a wishlist of bands you want to play with?
JB: That’s a great question.
MB: Bruce Springsteen.
DS: Mighty Boosh.
JB: There are some bands that I think would be really cool. One that comes to mind is The War on Drugs. That’d be a really cool band to play with, and I think that the people who like their music would really like our music. The people who came to the Stars shows really ate it up.
MB: I love The National. I would love to play a show with them.
JB: We can dream. The one thing I think about when playing with other bands, is that I don’t ever want to think about having to play a show with another female singer. I feel like that always gets lumped into one category, no matter what band you’re in. If you ask what our influences are, there’s not a single band that we all listen to that has a female singer. Brenda, your influences are male singers, across the board. For me, I don’t like to get pigeon-holed with that.
BM: You try not to worry about that kind of stuff, but it does kind of irk you. All I listen to is what Mike listens to, because my technology situation is so sad right now, so he puts stuff on my ipod. Then I’m like, I want to tour with Unknown Mortal Orchestra, even though that doesn’t really make sense, but I love that band and it’d be fun as hell to watch them play every night.
KK: And fans of music like that, that’s not the only thing they listen to. Everyone listens to everything now.
BM: That’s the thing. I feel like people are getting more settled into that. I was visiting some of Mike’s friends in Chicago, and everyone supports each other no matter what music they play. These jazz experimental kids go to our show, and our friend will play our music and loves it – I’ll go to his shows when he’s in town. That’s the shit. That’s just supporting art, it doesn’t matter if it’s cool or different. It’s just having a good time.
