A few hours before their parisian gig at Le Petit Bain, we had the chance to meet the californian guys from Our Last Night, to talk about their road to the throne, or to success. A younger dream that is now becomming real. A small talk before going home.
Hi ! How are you doing a few hours before your gig ?
Matt (guitar/vocals): Good.
Woody (bass): We’re doing great, yes!
Trevor (vocals): We are tired but we have coffee. Lot of coffee. So it’s fine.
You’re now kind of accustomed to France now.
All: Yeah, sure.
But, do you have any apprehensions about tonight?
Tim (drums): I don’t so, I think all should go pretty well.
W: It will be awesome!
M: We love playing here.
Trevor: Yeah it’s like the last past three times we’ve been here, the shows were really good, so we’re really excited for tonight. Should be fun!
You became popular mainly through YouTube, isn’t it?
Trevor: Yes, that’s it.
Did you ever think you could become that popular someday?
M: We always wanted to, but it’s not something that you expect to. I don’t know. Not really.
W: You shouldn’t.
M: Yeah. We’re trying not to have expectations, like we just have to do, and keep doing, doing it for fun then see where it takes you. And we’re kind of taking it step by step. And we were pretty excited, and stocked that our videos were working so well on YouTube, and that kind of helped us worrying less than ever.
According to you, what makes Our Last Night different from other bands? What makes your originality?
Trevor: I think that we do everything ourselves, like we’re not in a record label anymore. We’re recording our own work, we’re recording everything including filming pretty much of our music videos ourselves.
Tim : And I think our fans enjoy that too. Because they can see all of our creativity. You know, directly from the band.
Trevor: Yeah, and we enjoy doing our labour, doing it ourselves, lot more fun.
Talking the fact that you unsigned from Epitaph Records, and your reasons to do so, do you think the music industry could be somehow bad for the artists?
Trevor: I think it depends on the band. Like, I mean, every band, every artist is different.
Tim: Maybe we didn’t have the best experience in a record label. But we still wouldn’t be able to do what we do right now, without them, if we didn’t have them.
Trevor: I think a lot of bands are getting a lot worse than we did. For sure. So we’re kind of lucky in a way. I don’t know, it kind of helped us to know exactly what we want to do, and not do to while being in a band. So it helped, for sure. But I would never sign to a label again.
Your own songs are deep and powerful, while your cover and more “light” speaking of the meaning of the lyrics. How do you choose the songs you’re covering? Do you have a special interest on the meaning?
M: Only about the one we cover? I think of a combination. It’s not mainly based on the lyrics. I think we listen to the music first, and as long as the chords, and like the…
Trevor: The structure.
M: Yeah, and the vibe of the song fits, like something maybe we would write. And that makes it kind of easy for us to make it sound like Our Last Night. And it’s still on us what our song sounds as well. But I think, after we decided that the music is good, we do look at the lyrics and we’re like “ok what do the lyrics say?”.
Trevor: Sometimes we just feel like by a bunch of boys, it’s weird for us. (laughs)
M: Like sometimes it sounds funny for us to sing, maybe like a Ke$ha song like even if we like it or even if the music is really cool chances the lyrics are gonna be kind of silly for us to sing. When in Justin Timberlake songs, his lyrics are normally pretty awesome, so like it might’ve probably like fit in more or Adele she’s great with lyrics.
Trevor: Sometimes we would change the lyrics a bit like we did a Tove Lo, “Habits”.
M: And it says “chasing daddies in the playground” so we changed it to “mummies”. (laughs) It’s just that we’re not homosexuals, even if that’s totally fine.
Now considering your own work, your songs are often related to being strong, never giving up, but also about relationships, or your family as your new song “Home”. Some songs such as “Oak Island” are linked to real events. Is there a general message you’re trying to share through all this?
M: I think every song is different, but like he said, about the vibe of the song just kind of depends on the lyrics to it. I think you start, at least the music to it’s song, you kind of listen to it, kind of, whatever that makes you feel, I think kind of, something in your life or something you care about kind of comes to you when you listen to the music and atleast that’s kind of how i like to do it, to wear. The music contributes to what the lyrics are about. So it’s more convincing when you listen to it. For like, “Oak Island” has such like a mysterious sounding song, and the lyrics had to fit that , fit the music to the song. So it depends on the song. You don’t wanna write angry lyrics, but sometimes you can and it can be cool, there’s no rules, which is the cool thing but you kind of try to make the lyrics fit to the sound of the song.
So you talked about “Oak Island”. Of course the story is interesting, but in the end, why did you chose that story? Why is it worth writing about it?
Trevor: I don’t know, I just thought it was really fascinating, there’s not many things in the world that are completely 100% unexplained, and I mean there are a bunch of them, but I just think it’s a very interesting thing that there’s not a lot of things humains they have no idea about, at least that they assume, or come to the conclusion of things that they should actually considered but there are a few, there are a handful of things that they have no idea what’s gonna find and I think it’s really cool. I guess.
In a certain way, isn’t it a kind of metaphorical story about life?
M: IT CAN BE TOO! It’s really cool! I think constantly searching for something, without knowing if there’s something in the bottom at all and not letting it go like just…we don’t know. I think yes, it’s an interesting metaphor.
Which song would you recommend to someone who doesn’t know your band?
Trevor: I would say our new song “Home”, definitely. They should check that one on YouTube.
Why?
Trevor: Just because it’s our new song. (laughs)
M: Personally, it’s one of my favorite one, there’s a lot of new things in this one, it’s important to us and that’s why we want to promote it.
Trevor: We’re not going into a new direction really, but there’s no more return now, and that’s important.
Who inspired you the most in your work and who would you like to be touring with?
Trevor: That’s a great one. I mean there’s a lot of great artists.
W: Changes a lot
Tim: Yeah that changes a lot!
M: I don’t know, I think a band I first started with like Good Charlotte, Blink 182, Green Day, things like that. For “Oak Island” it was The Neighborhood a lot, you know that band? And now there’s The 1975 too, maybe that doesn’t really show through our music. And I don’t know, I think a lot of songs we cover also like by default kind of inspired, because…I mean, we were sitting analyzing the song, and there were really cool songs, we learnt a lot about rhythmic technics in these songs just by covering them : we read the lyrics, listened to the melodies, the chrorus, progressions, and this taught us a lot. Just by doing the covers.
What are the last songs you added to your iPods?
W: The last songs we added to our iPods? The new Mumford & Sons! The new album is coming out really soon!
Tomorrow, in fact.
W: Yeah, it’s actually tomorrow but they realised some songs here and there so I was listening to them and that was pretty cool!
M: I haven’t listened much songs because I was working on our own songs, mixing them.
Trevor: Have you heard the band PVRIS?
Yeah, they did a gig in Paris this week.
Trevor: Oh! Yeah, they’re amazing, I like them a lot. And how about you, Tim?
W: He doesn’t even have an iPod, so… (laughs)
Tim: No, I would like to say the same thing as Woody, the new Mumford and sons songs are amazing!
W: Yes, the progression that band is taking is amazing, I mean a folk band with drums and stuff, it’s really cool, and they have really cool songs.
Tim: And it really shows great emotions. Mumford & Sons all the way!
Trevor: One day we will open for them!
Tim: Would be cool.
And what are your plans for the future?
W: Who knows?
M: We have a world tour coming up, with places we’ve never been. We’ll be very busy all this year. I don’t know where it’s gonna take us, we’ll just take it as it goes. We’ll have the Warped tour in the summer.
Trevor: Coming up in June!
W: We’re excited about that one too!
Trevor: And I think we’re gonna come back here on October 28th. It’s kind of a secret, so don’t tell everybody!
W: (laughs) That’s the plan!
Trevor: And who knows, it’s a mystery!
Finally, our website is called “RockUrLife”, so what rocks your life guys?
W: My body rocks my life!
M: My fans!
Trevor: My fans, my family rocks my life, my girlfriend rocks my life.
W: She really rocks your life. (laughs)
Trevor: Yeah, just being able to do what we love to do, it makes our lives amazing and rocks our life.
M: I like that!
W: Yeah, me too!
Trevor: Did you create that? Is that your idea, the RockUrLife question? Did you make that up?
No, it’s an habit, we always ask this one to conclude an interview!
Trevor : Well, I like it, it’s a great one! That was a great interview, thank you very much!
W: Yeah, awesome!
M: See you tonight!
Website: ourlastnight.com
