Little Daylight
from the moment we heard Little Daylight, we’ve been ‘overdose’-ing on the lead single. Their music is upbeat and reflects emotions we’ve all experienced-the exciting, almost dangerous, side of new encounters.
At Hipstamatic we’re all about visual story telling ...What’s the story of Little Daylight? Hi! We also are very interested in the visual aspects of story telling. From the beginning we focused on the music, as well as the way music was presented visually. We put out our first song, “Overdose”, with a video that we created right after Hurricane Sandy. We felt like it was important to convey the way we felt about the song, visually, right along with the music.
The story of LD? We started the band 2 summers ago at a friend’s lake house upstate New York. Matt, Nikki, and I (Eric) got together to work on a few songs that we had started on our own and to do a couple of remixes for bands that we knew (the first few were for Penguin Prison, Niki and the Dove, and St. Lucia). Pretty quickly it became apparent to us that there was a very deep connection musically, so within a month or so we had committed to making Little Daylight a real thing. We dove in completely and began working on our first EP Tunnel Vision. We started working out the live set in early 2013 and played for the first time at SXSW last year. It’s been a crazy ride since then.
We’ve done a lot of touring (with Marina and the Diamonds, the Neighbourhood, Charli XCX, and Bastille) and made our first LP. We just played SXSW again this year and are currently on tour with Terraplane Sun and Flagship.
listen to little daylight
Tell me about the awesome and intentional juxtaposition between the more complex lyrics and the pop tones in your music.
Thank you! Some of that is actually unintentional though. Both the music and the lyrics come about in an organic way. We never set out to write a certain type of song. We let either a specific lyric or a melody or a production idea guide the journey a song will travel. With a song like “Overdose”, it started with a nearly full-formed instrumental before we ever put any lyrics into it. But, on the other hand, some of the new songs on our upcoming LP started with lyrics and melodies before any of the production came into focus. We try to write with our hearts and generally trust our instincts. The music and lyrics are a product of what we listen to, what we read, who we spend time with, and our life’s experiences up to this point. It’s kind of out of our control and we hope that people connect with it, and us!
Tell us a little bit about the LP. We spent most of the past 6 months working on the LP. We started by renting a carriage house in Brooklyn and bringing in all of our musical gear and toys. We each brought in a ton of ideas
that we were working on and spent the summer developing the kernels of ideas into more full-formed song-like entities. By the end of the 3 months in the carriage house, we had a good sense of maybe 10-12 things that we wanted to keep working on for the album. We moved to a studio in Greenpoint and set up shop there for 3 months to record and produce the album. It was just the 3 of us together working. It was important for us not to bring in any outside producers or anything. We’ve always done it this way and really love the way it works.
We think of the album, Hello Memory, as a journey, and as a complete album rather than just a collection of songs. It was inspired by things going on our in our lives leading up to [and while we were making] the record. There are narrative throughlines over the course of the record, presented out-of-order (a la a Tarantino movie). The album will come out this summer, and it’s definitely a summer album! We are pumped to share it with the world.
Why did you pick music as your creative outlet: What about music inspires you? For me (Eric), personally, it was never really a choice, and I think it’s safe to say the same You’re a Brooklyn band. Top 5 things people should do in Brooklyn from a local’s point of view.
applies to Matt and Nikki. My life has led me in different directions at times, but it was always music that I returned to, and once I decided that music was all I really wanted to spend my time
1) Get a roti at Gloria’s in Prospect Heights (then walk to the G train and board towards Williamsburg)
doing, everything came into focus. Being in a band is amazing because it enables us to use other skills than just being a musician, which we find rewarding. We’re writers, producers, musicians, but also get to create visual content, work on music videos, think about the business
2) Get off at Metropolitan and walk to Spuyten Duyvil and drink copious delicious beers (current fave is the Sixpoint Belgium Dark Rye)
side of making albums, touring, creating merch.
3) Stumble 10 Blocks or So to the
In terms of music in particular, especially as opposed to some of the other arts, we have thought a lot about the fact that music has real meaning for almost everyone. Music
Wythe Hotel, get a room there, and spend some time on the roof looking at the amazing view. Take a nap if need be.
provides the sound track for so many different and substantial life experiences. It’s something people share with one another. It’s a social activity. It can be spiritual and religious and fun and sad. It meshes in with regular life easier than film or theatre or books, and that’s something that I, personally, find inspiring about music.
Nikki was talking to her friend Marty at our
4) Wake up and walk to Blue Bottle Coffee a few blocks away for a New Orleans blend iced coffee. The large quantity of caffeine will jolt you into full consciousness. A deep hunger will present itself.
show in Philly the other night, and Marty was telling her about how there were some medical concerns with her father and she was at the hospital for awhile feeling pretty down. But then she put Little Daylight on for the car ride back to the house, rolled the windows down,
5) Manage to get all the way down to Bensonhurst for 3 slices of Sicilian pizza at L&B Spumoni Gardens (AKA the best Sicilian pizza in the world [excluding Sicily, perhaps]).
and reconnected with joy and happiness for awhile. We thought that was really touching and something awesome music can do for people.
see more of the interview online at Snapm.ag Tap to see the offical video of Overdoes by little Daylight
