Beach House
Beach House's Alex Scally talks 'Teen Dream,' becoming jaded and Coachella
Beach House’s Alex Scally and Victoria Legrand met through mutual friends and almost immediate musical chemistry. The Baltimore duo is three albums deep with a style called “dream pop,” and new record Teen Dream is their most accessible work yet. Recently we had a chance to talk to guitarist/keyboardist and the all around tired sounding Alex Scally.
HEAVE: Beach House has only been together since 2004 and you’re about to release your third album - all have which been critically acclaimed. Without thinking of a better way to put it, how do you and Victoria create masterpieces so effortlessly?
Alex Scally: I think that she and I have always done what just comes naturally to us. And we are really lucky. We were lucky in the fact that we made our first record in my basement in two days, and this dude from DC put it out. And then people on the Internet said they liked it. It was sort of “right place right time,” and just doing what we naturally do.
HEAVE: I’ve read a couple different interviews where you’ve mentioned that your music is it’s own little world. What type of world is it?
Alex Scally: I think it’s largely a fantasy world. I think it’s a world of internal energies and emotions. I listen to a lot of music and the artist is just sort of looking at the world from an outside view. Like Bob Dylan – it’s sort of going directly into him and then back out in a kind of A + B manner. I think when Victoria and I write we try to think that everything in the world is part of our brains. It’s like an emotional mindscape or something. Does that make sense? I’m terribly inarticulate. You should probably include in the interview that I’m near brain dead.
HEAVE: All right, you asked for it. So I’m listening to the new album. It seems very uplifting and completely heartbreaking at the same time. What is it to you?
Alex Scally: That’s a very good question. Each song was this great writing experience between Victoria and me. We had these great writing experiences and ideas. The songs will never be as good for us as the day we wrote them – so for us it’s this nice scrapbook of our year. Now we are going to go and try and recreate that live. Live music is always like that – you try so hard to recreate something, but it will never be like it was for the first time. So that means we just go and keep writing more songs.
HEAVE: It came out recently that you are playing Coachella. Planning to hit a couple festivals this year?
Alex Scally: That’s what they want you to do in the industry. Festivals are fun because it’s awesome to meet people in other bands and be like, “Oh yeah – you guys are screwed, too.” I’m sure there are other festivals, but we don’t know what they will be. Coachella is kind of right in the middle of our tour.
HEAVE: Planning on hanging out with Jay-Z?
Alex Scally: Oh yeah. He already Twittered about it with us.
HEAVE: Since the new album is called Teen Dream, and I’m not sure how old you are, but what were your dreams when you were a teenager?
Alex Scally: I just wanted to play music. But I think if I had heard the music that I was making now when I was a teenager I would have thought it was really stupid. I liked funk and reggae and jazz. I thought I was really sophisticated. I didn’t really have any dreams. I wanted to have fun (laughs). I think teenagers are kind of dumb. I think that’s the funniest thing about teenagers. How dumb they can be. They really have no idea what is going on in the world at all yet. It’s very pure.
HEAVE: In a similar question – what is the scariest dream you’ve ever had?
Alex Scally: I don’t think I’d want to share the scariest dream I’ve ever had because it would be too disturbing. But I’ve had a lot of dreams where I’m sliding downward and I can’t stop. I’m on a slope and I’m trying to stop it but I’m just endlessly heading downward. Who knows where it’s going. Maybe I’m sliding into the sand pit in Star Wars or something like that.
HEAVE: Does it get pretty annoying always having to explain that you and Victoria aren’t dating?
Alex Scally: No, I think it’s pretty common whenever there is a boy and a girl together in a band. We met when we were in different bands and we had really great musical chemistry. We started making music and now we’ve spent six years together. We are pretty inseparable. It’s pretty telepathic now. I always know what is going on in her brain. I can tell her thoughts before they came out. It’s like Summer Camp times twenty - for better or for worse.
HEAVE: You guys get so hyped by Grizzly Bear’s Edward Droste. So play the part of Edward right now and hype your current favorite band.
Alex Scally: Oh there are tons. I’m personally not jaded at all by the music world. There is a ton of really great music out there. I feel lucky to be able to tour with Washed Out. I think what he is doing is really wonderful. It’s really powerful. There is another dude from Baltimore called Moss Of Aura that is awesome. There is really no end. There is way too much good music.
It’s funny. Ed has some sort of absurd, uncanny ability to constantly talk about us. We love Ed to death. He is a very good friend. It’s just really funny how much he talks about us. And since he talks about us we end up talking about him all the time.
HEAVE: Earlier you said you’re not jaded by the music industry. Why do you think it jades people?
Alex Scally: I think we’re lucky because we’ve had very modest, underground success that has allowed us to keep going and keep writing. But I think there is a lot of really good music out there that doesn’t see the light of day or get as popular as it should be. I don’t think it’s because horrible music is getting popular, I think there is just only so many listeners. It’s really hard to get anything to the mainstream. If you look at the people who don’t listen to mainstream music, well – it’s only so many people. You can only go to so many shows and follow so many bands.
I think people get jaded because there is a formula to getting popular and that can be depressing. Sometimes really gimmicky stuff gets popular and that can be depressing – but that has been the case in music since the beginning of time. And so many great musicians don’t get the respect they deserved for being great. That can also be depressing, but none of these have to be depressing. They are just facts of life.
I know it’s shifted a little with the Internet – but the basic streamline of what’s popular and what isn’t popular is still pretty much the same. All we can do is live up to any attention we are getting. We really want to put on an insane show this year. We don’t want any undeserved attention. If people want to buy the record and people want to give us attention, we want it to be because we are actually doing something. Not because it’s cool or hyped up.
Posted by Wes Soltis on Jan 26, 2010 @ 9:00 am
