Neon Musical Insight

Considering the name of this blog, it only became a matter of time before I got the chance to interview Alan Palomo — better known as Neon Indian, who is also a key figure in the disco house band Vega. Neon Indian received a huge amount of praise last year after releasing his solo debut Psychic Chasms from predictable sources like Pitchfork and Gorilla vs. Bear to not-so-predictable one’s, like Disney tween star Demi Lovato. In this interview, we got the chance to discuss how Neon Indian first came to fruition, Palomo’s obsession with New Order and Vega’s forthcoming full-length.

NMI: You just got back from overseas, right? How’d that go?

Neon Indian: Yeah, I did. I was in Australia for a week and a half. It was amazing. The whole country was an immense culture shock for the band, but I’d actually been there back in June. I don’t think I really internalized what Australia was like until I gotten there in the summer time. We had this blizzard here in Dallas before we headed to Australia, the when we got there, it was like the hottest place on earth. It was pretty amazing.

NMI: How was the audience?

Neon Indian: They were amazing. I mean Psychic Chasms doesn’t come out for another two weeks there, so it was really just kind of a testing grounds to see what the reaction was like in a live environment, but it was mainly festivals, so you had this brief show where you were leaving a resonating impression on a new audience. The only press we’ve really had in Australia was like Triple J radio. It was kinda cool seeing people get into it regardless of not having a tangible album.

NMI: Finding out the history of musicians has been something that I’m into has always been something of interest for me. You grew up in Texas, right?

Neon Indian: Yeah, I was born in Mexico and when I was around 5 or 6 we moved to Texas. I pretty much moved around all over there my entire life. I’ve lived in San Antonio predominantly, but I had stints in Dallas and Austin, places around there.

NMI: How was that? When did you first start playing music?

Neon Indian: I’ve always absorbed music passively through my dad and my brother. My dad was a musician his whole life and I think my brother started playing when he was like 5. I didn’t really show any certain interest in it until late in high school. It was always a background of my life from living home though. Sunday afternoon was cleaning around the house and like, listening to the Doobie Brothers or something and it was always kind of there.

NMI: What type of music were you most into when you first started playing?

Neon Indian: I think when I first becoming heavily infatuated with electronic music was when I kind of had this weird epiphany in high school after realizing that I’d been listening to, since I was a little kid, “Bizzarre Love Triangle”. I became pretty obsessed with New Order. Surely after that it kind of just led to aiming to get a good idea of the chronology of electronic music through bands like Badgadget and Depeche Mode and stuff; From there I just totally geeked out for a few years in college. That was my first interaction with the process of making music and then I had my first band GHOSTHUSTLER, which was a collaborative effort between me and three other people. It all served as a little crash course to Neon Indian, where we tried to outweird each other with like Obscure power singles and shit like that (laughs).

NMI: Just to clear things up, I’m aware that you have a live band that helps bring the show to the stage, but are you technically the sole member of Neon Indian? Did you write all of the music?

Neon Indian: It’s just my sole project. I do have a live band and I think performing the songs live has sort of allowed me to re-contextualize, not only in understanding the songs from the perspective of writing them, but from hearing them have their own individual reinterpretations, which is something that I encourage amongst my band mates, because it’s people that I’ve known for years and I trust them really well. So it’s like yeah, we’re playing “Deadbeat Summer”, but here’s this ten minute weird noise in it and see what happens from there! I think Psychic Chasms is the most transparent and personal thing to me because it is my sole project. It’s like Vega is to Deerhunter as Neon Indian is to Atlas Sound.

NMI: So what was the recording process like for Psychic Chasms?

Neon Indian: Well I wrote Psychic Chasms in about 3 ½ weeks at a time when I was in school and didn’t have a car, so I wasn’t getting out too much. I wrote “I Should Have Taken Acid With You” a few months before that and I became really fixated on what had come out. I really tried to rewrite it as a Vega single, and it just didn’t fit. It seemed like the initial incarnation that I did, didn’t really make any sense for Vega, so I started writing more stuff to go with that and it formed into this creative exercise where it was just like, write a song and try to not spend more than two days on it and don’t get lost in the production or in polishing the sound and just get the songwriting out; There’s components to it. It has a really good whole in the end. It was pretty cathartic. I just wrote, wrote, wrote until I had like 12 songs upon completion.

NMI: How did you meet the other members of Vega?

Neon Indian: We all met in Texas, sort of like a typical scenario where you meet your friends in college.

NMI: How are things going with Vega? Anything new on the horizon?

Neon Indian: We’re actually heading into the studio to record next month. Right now I’m writing a Neon Indian EP, which will be about 4 or 5 songs, and with Vega we’ll be releasing a full-length, which will be on Fools Gold sort of as an extended family member. Definitely looking forward to that.

NMI: Psychic Chasms seems to consist of like this whirlwind of ageless, yet older technology that has a way of remaining relevant. Were a lot of the sounds that were created on the record brought to life through older equipment? Or was it sort of a re-imagination of a past through modern gadgets?

Neon Indian: I’ve always been really obsessed with sounds that sort of seem to transcend the context. It’s like a narrative used to create that isn’t immediately dictated by the lyrics, you know? It isn’t like “This is a song blah blah blah”. I like working with instruments like synths because they’re a little more temperamental. I went through the whole plug-in phase as my introduction to writing electronic music, but there’s always just a certain finality with what you can do with that, giving it a really clean and controlled sound. It’s never really abstract or consisting of those weird little strings. In a way, it hints at there being a personalized touch. Otherwise, it’s really associated with being more mechanical and predictable.

NMI: The indie world took a pretty tragic blow when Jay Reatard unexpectedly died about a week ago. Did you know him personally?

Neon Indian: I did not, but I definitely deemed him as this influential character. I feel like our music community is really centralized, where people are always interacting and acknowledging each other. He definitely seemed like a very loveable character. It was a genuine disappointment. It’s not like he was someone who was known for a body of work that was popular or recognizable from decades ago. It was someone who was incredibly active and really undergoing what seemed to be a flourishing career.

NMI: Recently, Hipster Runoff reported that a Disney tween star named Demi Lovato professed that “Deadbeat Summer” is her favorite new song and Neon Indian as being her “favorite new band”. How does that sit with you?

Neon Indian: (laughs) It’s kind of funny because she was at a Dallas show and Jason, our drummer, I guess knows her or something, and she caught wind of our band and just happened to be in town for the holidays and checked it out. I mean hey, as much as people might think that that’s a precarious thing… I remember seeing on Hipster Runoff where people would respond things like “Oh man, well does this mean that I can still like Neon Indian?” It’s a very careful line that you trail. If somebody like that can appreciate it, then I’m glad that she finds value in the music and I’m glad that there most likely will be people that predominantly listen to Disney music will hear this weird fucking song like “Deadbeat Summer” and think “Oh, this makes me want to listen to other strange, warped music and I want to know where I can find it and how it’s accessible. “ And just listen to other music in general. So yeah, I think there needs to be more thirteen- year-old kids listening to “Terminally Chill” (laughs).

NMI: Yeah, for sure. I mean it’s a testament to the music. If the “obsessive music fan” that’s constantly reading blogs loves Neon Indian, as well as thirteen-year-old Disney watchers, then that brings the accomplishment to a whole other level.

Neon Indian: Yeah, absolutely. I’ve always found it really strange if people respond in that way, especially if someone looks it at like “well, is it relevant to me anymore? Because I caught Neon Indian during the first wave, before anyone else.” It’s like the sound waves have not been altered in any way, and your decision to listen to the music is being influenced by the other people who are listening to it alone. If people are listening to me for that purpose, then I feel like they never really liked me at all.

NMI: Absolutely.

Neon Indian: I feel like that they were behind it because someone told them to be.

NMI: To wrap things up a bit, are you shooting for a specific time to release that Neon Indian EP?

Neon Indian: I would say within the first quarter of this year; Probably around the time of SXSW or maybe shortly after that.

NMI: Any new remixes to come?

Neon Indian: I just finished “1901” for Phoenix and I’m waiting on the approval process. I’m also working on a Passion Pit remix for “Little Secrets”.

NMI: That’s funny, because I just spoke to Dayve of Memory Tapes and he just recorded a remix of “1901” as well…

Neon Indian: Oh, yeah, apparently the remixes are gonna be compiled apart of a 12”.

NMI: Awesome. And touring?

Neon Indian: A bunch. There are gonna be a good amount of Brooklyn/New York Neon Indian/Vega shows coming up in the next month… as well as throughout the country and SXSW.