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Artist Interviews
Q&A: The Like
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 25 May 2010
Formed in 2001, The Like are an indie rock band from Los Angeles. Initially set up by Elizabeth ‘Z’ Berg, Tennessee Thomas and Charlotte Froom, they were later joined by Laena Geronimo and Reni Lane after Froom’s departure in 2009. With influences lying between The Kinks and Carole King, the band deliver 60s-influenced pop with a feisty edge. After a number of independent releases, they signed to Geffen Records in 2004 and went on to release their debut album ‘Are You Thinking What I’m Thinking’ the following year. Their Mark Ronson-produced second LP, ‘Release Me’, will be released later this year, with the first single from it, ‘He’s Not A Boy’, out on 31 May via Polydor. We caught up with lead singer Z to ask the Same Six.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
I sang before I could talk (one of those super annoying kids) and I started playing piano aged five, then guitar at thirteen. I started writing when I started playing guitar. I never wrote on piano before that, I think because it’s too logical an instrument; it’s literally designed to be logical. The strange mystical aspect of the guitar (especially when you don’t know what the hell you’re doing) really just instantly made me start writing.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
Everything! A few years of hard living. Desperation. Writing songs is the only way I know with which to process the world around me, so that’s what I do! Everything is worth it if the song is good.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
The writing of a song usually involves dragging myself out of bed at three in the morning on tour, while my band is sleeping next to me, and going out into the hallway to record whatever harebrained idea was interrupting my sleep. Then over time it becomes a song. It’s magic, I think.
The recording process of this record was pretty epic. We spent a couple of days intensively rearranging and arranging songs with Mark [Ronson], then went into the studio where we recorded it live, all of us in one room, onto tape, with one mic on the drums. Pretty old school, but we realised that there is a reason the records we love sound the way they do.
The low fidelity of old recording equipment and methods add so much to the sound of the music. And playing it live, with all the mistakes and the urgency, and being forced to be good enough to get it right without any possibility of fixing your mistakes makes you have to be good enough to get it right. I can’t believe rock and roll music is recorded any other way.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
I mean, we really grew up listening to the music that inspired this record. It’s really a return to my childhood for me: The Beatles, The Stones, The Kinks, The Zombies, The Ronnettes, The Shirelles, The Supremes, Dusty Springfield, Jackie Deshannon, Ellie Greenwich, Lesley Gore, Skeeter Davis, The Beach Boys, The Animals, Carole King, The Shangri La’s, Elvis, Nancy Sinatra.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
Enjoy!
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
I just wanna make music and tour the world for the rest of my life.
MORE>> www.myspace.com/thelike
