Music And Hobbies With Gardens & Villa

Gardens & Villa is a rock band from Santa Barbra, Calif.

Drummer Shane Mcillop recently wrote in to discuss the evolution of the band’s sound and their hobbies outside of music.

Gardens & Villa is playing the Kanrocksas Music Festival in August.

For more about the band Gardens & Villa, check out http://www.gardensandvilla.com.

How did Gardens & Villa first come together?
Gardens & Villa first came together around 2008. The three core members consisted of Chris (vocals), Adam (keys) and Levi (drums) who had all been playing together for several years prior. They had a noise rock band that casually played around town incubating and growing throughout the college years and the years after graduation.

The sound shifted from post-rock to a more down-tempo shoegaze, physhe band around 2008. It was definitely a slow process. There was no overall rush or push to start gigging or touring until last year. I was a close friend that loved going to their shows and hanging out. Once I needed a place to stay in Santa Barbara, I asked the guys if they would let me move into their closet in the house they all lived in and they agreed. I would hear them practicing and slowly start sitting in on the songwriting process and jam along with them. The sound slowly started to shift into a more up tempo rhythmic orientation during those couple of months.  I had made plans to spend a summer in Switzerland, but Chris was able to convince me to stay for the summer and record an album in Oregon. Being a fan of the music for so long, I couldn’t resist, so I stayed. Dusty, a friend of mine, was added to the lineup after we did the record to really fill out the sound live.

Your debut album has a very dreamy quality to it. What inspires you lyrically?
Chris writes most of the lyrics. They come from many different places. From day dreams and reflections on nature, to childhood flashbacks from the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Sometimes he free-writes a lot of stuff off the top of his head, after listening to an instrumental track, and then goes back and tries to figure out the major themes and/or images – trying to tap into his subconscious. He firmly believes lyrics should never be forced and that they should always organically arise from the vibe of the music.

Your songs are very synth driven. How does your songwriting process work?
We have three core songwriters in the group being Adam, Chris and I. Chris usually brings entire songs to us on acoustic guitar and we paint on top, and so does Adam. A lot of our songs are synth driven, but the main idea for “Black Hills” was written by Adam on a beat up accordion he got for his birthday.  The usual trend is each person will bring a song that’s halfway done and ask, “What do you guys think? Where should it go?” Then from there, it’s pulling teeth for hours at a time really adding and trimming parts and reworking it as a group until everybody is happy.

Did you find it hard to recreate the lushness of your album onstage?
Yes and no. While we were recording the album, we let our producer Richard Swift add little bells and whistles all over most of the tracks. Synth part here, percussion part here, bell part there. We knew we were creating a challenge for ourselves when we were recording the album, but we didn’t let it stop us.  We came home and started rehearsing for some shows and it became apparent to us that we don’t have four hands that work at the same time. We needed someone to help us. I had a friend that I’ve been playing with for several years named Dusty Ineman who’s this creature that’s somewhat indefinable in terms of “guitar player”/”synth player” yada, yada. He really can play everything with great rhythm and style so he was an easy fix to our problem. He really tied the room together for us.

How did you meet producer Richard Swift?
Chris, our singer, has an old family friend who manages a lot of incredible artists. He knew that we were looking for a great producer for our record and he recommended Swift to us. Once we did our homework on who he was, we realized that we had landed an incredible opportunity. We barely spoke on the phone and we never even met in person before spending two weeks at his house in Oregon. We ended up connecting strongly and formed a lifelong friendship and collaborator. Swift is an incredible visionary.

What was the first song you wrote for the album?
“Chemtrails” and “Sunday Morning” were songs that had been in rotation for the longest amount of time. Those are the two songs on the album that reflect where Gardens & Villa came from early on.

Are there any albums that you listened to a lot while recording your debut album?
We didn’t really spend much time on a single album while we recorded. However, we were exposed to a few late night DJ set’s from Richard’s record collection. There would be times that we would need a little inspiration for recording a certain song and later in the evening I think he would subliminally inspire us through the records he would put on. A couple of artists that stood out and really blew our minds were these obscure tracks from the Tom Tom Club, Paul McCartney, Captain Beefheart, Human League…

What are your hobbies outside of music?
Some of us surf, some of us really love photography, all of us love getting lost in the woods. Santa Barbara County is home to some of the most beautiful trails and backcountry in the entire nation. It’s really easy to stay occupied. We are lovers of really good coffee, too. Grab a book and a cup at The French Press on State Street in Santa Barbara and you’re set.

What have been the hardest obstacles you’ve had to overcome in your career?
We’re still discovering the hardships that come with transferring your life into this new career in music. We’re all feeling the disconnect from our families: missing nephews’ birthdays, not being able to move your Mom into a new house, missing your brothers bachelor party. These are all of the things you give up for months at a time. Also, not having a place to come home to or a garden that you can tend to has been really hard for all of us, Chris especially. We used to live together in the same house and have family dinners every Monday with all of our friends with food from our backyard garden. It’s not always easy giving in to Subway on a highway pitstop. Even though it’s hard, it’s always good to abandon your safety bubble. It keeps you alive. We know what we want to go back to once we feel we’ve put in the hard work.