NO Makes an Imprint on The Satellite
Wednesday night’s show wasn’t the first time I’d seen NO. I was able to catch the second legitimate live performance these guys played last month, and the energy between the band members was astonishing. I couldn’t believe they had only played in front of an audience just once before. Since then, they’ve played a smattering of local shows, so I was eager to check them out after some more practice. That kinetic vigor had grown, especially in vocalist/guitarist Bradley Carter.
The first time I saw him perform, he was mobile, utilizing the stage and feeding off his audience and band members. This time around he looked like a rock star. His charisma paired perfectly with the brand of anthematic indie rock he produces. He sauntered across the stage and used large, sweeping hand gestures as he sang. His lyrics sounded so heartfelt and authentic that when he belted out, “Stay with me, isn’t there a place for me inside your heart?” from the EP’s closer, “Stay With Me,” it sent chills down my spine. His face expressed both pain and hope. His honesty was refreshing.
The band, as a whole, was spot on. Each member in this band is such a proficient musician that he could play his part with his eyes closed. And each band member had a microphone to conduct grandiose five-part harmonies, allowing Carter to joke about the ability for the audience to apply to their men’s choir online.
NO is not meant to play in small venues (although I love intimate shows) it is meant for a stadium. Its sound is so large and its energy is so powerful, it needs to resonate in a larger space, and I think, as long as the quintet keeps doing what its doing, it will be playing larger clubs in no time.
Your next chance to see NO is Monday, June 30, at Bootleg Bar. This show is FREE! 21+.NO Plays FREE Show at LA’s The Satellite
When I interviewed Bradley Carter and Sean Stentz of NO back in December, the band was still getting its bearings. The quintet had just released its debut EP, Don’t Worry, You’ll be Here Forever, and had admitted that not many people were familiar with the band—including friends and acquaintances—until right before the album release. The band had only played on legitimate show, at Silverlake’s The Satellite, and Carter spoke of hopes and dreams to tour across the country, and eventually the globe, with NO. Well, I’ve got some good news for you, Bradley; your dream may come true sooner than you expected.
In the mere month since I chatted with Carter and Stentz, they have played shows at iconic Los Angeles clubs including Troubadour, The Echoplex, and Bootleg Bar, with a March Monday residency already in the book at The Echo. NO has also been listed as a “band to watch for in 2012” in numerous U.S. and UK publications. After listening to the EP and seeing the five-piece perform, this instant recognition does not surprise me in the slightest. Not only does the indie outfit bring to the table a grandiose brand of anthematic rock similar to The oh-so-amazing National, but the musicians’ onstage chemistry and energy is unbelievable. When I saw them at Bootleg Bar it was only their second performance at a venue, but it felt like these guys had been playing music together for years. Every man knew his role, and executed it perfectly, and Carter is one hell of a front man, making his heartfelt lyrics feel even more genuine as he belts them out to an audience.
If you live in the LA area, a encourage you to come out to The Satellite on Wednesday, January 11, and see for yourself what all the fuss is about. Doors at 8:30, show starts at 9 pm. 21+. FREE.
Interview - NO: It’s not surprising if you haven’t heard of NO yet
It’s not surprising if you haven’t heard of NO yet—the majority of the anthematic indie rock band’s friends hadn’t even heard of them until the last few months. That’s not to say the band is brand new; in fact, founders Bradley Carter and Sean Stentz started writing music under the moniker a year and a half ago, but their meticulous nature prevented them from releasing any music until the songs were 100 percent complete. This November, Carter, Stentz, and the rest of NO released their debut EP, Don’t Worry, We’ll Be Here Forever, and have since been spreading the word and booking shows like madmen in their hometown of Los Angeles. Carter and Stentz were nice enough to take the time out of their hectic lives and talk with me about the band’s love of house parties, their anticipation for touring, and their goal to change the world’s perception of the word, “no.”
Katrina: How did the band form?
Sean Stentz: Breakfast
Bradley Carter: It’s kind of a cool community here, a bunch of us like to come meet for breakfast at the diner up the road. A mutual friend of ours introduced us, and we started talking about different music we liked and stuff we’d been writing. I emailed [Sean] one of the songs I had been working on, and he wrote back, “Dude, do you want someone to play bass on this?”
SS: Both of us were looking to do something different than what we had been doing…we wanted something to claim ownership on.
BC: I think we both wanted to put our own stamp on what we were making, because we’re always a part of other people’s things. From there, we just started writing.
KN: How did you guys come up with this band name? Because it is absolutely impossible to Google search you guys!
BC: We wanted to add an element of mystery, yeah. Sean and I were kind of going back and forth with names and I really wanted something simple. I thought about NO one day and asked Sean, and it’s interesting because [the word] kind of seems negative, but what we’re doing is [positive].
SS: We came up with our own personal mythology. So yeah, “no” is this negative word, but we really want to do something uplifting…so we were like, “Yeah, we’re going to take ‘no’ and make it a positive word and take the power back.”
KN: The problem is, the name has been used before. When I tried looking you guys up, I found an Australian band with the same name.
BC: Yeah, we’ve actually found about four or five, and one day it’d be nice if we could meet them and have a big concert.
KN: No Fest
BC: Yeah! There’s apparently this German metal band called No.
SS: That’s our favorite.
KN: How many shows have you guys played so far?
SS: One
BC: [Two] really. We played a proper show at The Satellite, and then we did the EP party.
KN: That was a house party, right?
SS: Yeah, it was pretty fun.
KN: I love house parties.
SS: Yeah, we do too! I’m not sure if people are afraid to, or if the cops come and shut them down too much, or what, but there’s just not enough parties where people go, and the band plays in the living room, and it’s cramped and sweaty and everyone’s moving; I miss that. We wanted to have something like that.
BC: We want to do more of that too, especially around this neighborhood.
KN: You guys should rejuvenate that scene. I see NO is playing some more local shows. Are you planning a national tour?
SS: Yes. We want to leave home and never come back.
BC: Yeah, we basically just want to go on the road forever. That’s actually why we’re taking our time to get our songs out there, and hopefully next year sometime we can get in a van and not come back. That’s definitely the next focus for us—getting our band tight enough that we can play a bunch of shows. I really want to go to Europe and UK as well.
KN: Why did you guys decide to release an EP instead of an LP?
BC: There are quite a lot of bands coming out every day, and the last thing we want to do is overwhelm people. Also, I think [six songs] is enough for someone to digest. We wanted to keep it simple. We made the EP a free download and want everyone to just be able to take it, because not everyone can afford music right now. For us, it’s more important that people can hear it than worry about them paying for it. We’d rather people come to the shows and know the words so they can sing along.
KN: What do you want your listeners to get out of your music and live performances?
SS: Lyrically, we just really want to speak to them. We keep saying we want people to sing along, but we want people to feel it and scream it back at us.
BC: We want them to feel hope. It’s been a tough couple of years for me personally, but you can either choose to let that get you down, or you can keep fighting. I think, for us, a lot of the songs are personal, and we’re really just creating something we can believe in to give ourselves hope. If someone else catches on to that too, that’s really cool.
NO will be playing at LA’s Bootleg Theatre on December 13 and have recently been confirmed to headline The Echo’s Monday March residency. You can download the band’s EP for free here.
