THE INTERNET GARBAGE
Band Interview - January 11, 2012
Zoe DeJesus
Gossip Girl, Vamps and 2012...
The Internet Garbage

The Internet Garbage was lucky enough to interview New York band, The Lost Patrol. We spoke with lead singer, Mollie Israel, along with band members Michael Williams, and Stephen Masucci. Read up on the band to hear about some of their exciting events coming up! Including a song, and acting debut on CW’s hit show
Gossip Girl.

Mollie, Last time I saw you, you mentioned that you would be having your acting debut on the CW’s Gossip Girl. Were you intimidated at all by that typical Gossip Girl flamboyant style?

Mollie: Not really. Actually, it was a very pleasant experience because everybody was very nice… and as it turns out, I went to high school with Leighton Meester. It was a kind of funny reunion on the set. I was fairly comfortable because my mother is actually the director of the episode I was featured in, and the LP is also going to have our song, “This Road Is Long” featured in the episode.

I didn’t know you went to high school with Leighton Meester, that’s awesome!

Mollie: Yeah it was funny because I didn’t remember her from high school. Apparently she was this really nerdy little girl, and now she’s the star of Gossip Girl.

Your song, “This Road Is Long” is being featured on the show as well. That’s a pretty significant accomplishment, congratulations! Did the producers ask for a specific song, or did you simply feel as if “This Road” was just the right fit for the episode.

Mollie: My mother selected ‘This Road Is Long’ because she thought that it was a really nice, heartfelt song that would emphasize the emotion in the scene that they are using it in. And actually we are going to have a new music video for ‘This Road Is Long’ for the air date. I think the episode is January 23rd, so we are going to have the video posted by then as a cross promotion type thing.

Can you tell us about your role?

Mollie: Sure. It was a two second role. I played a goth girl who was standing outside of a night club smoking a joint, and I’m looking for a light, and I hand the joint to Leighton Meester and then she get’s arrested. It’s an essential role for the plot, I feel (laughs).

If you could use one of your albums as the soundtrack for any show, what would it be?

Mollie: Really good question! I would probably tend to favor our latest release “Rocket Surgery” only because I feel that there is a significant amount of growth. It’s my 3rd album with the band, so I felt the vocals and the lyrics were stronger. And also I feel like we experimented a little more on “Rocket Surgery.” So there is more diversity from song to song. So, it would offer the broadest range of emotion.

Have you always been a fan of the show, or was the opportunity something that was just sprung on you?

Mollie: It was kind of sprung on me, my mom is a fan of the show. So they offered her to direct and episode and she said, “Oh there is a role for a pot smoking goth girl, and it’s the role that you were born to play.” (laughs) So that’s how I got the role.

She’s also been very cool in helping out the band. She featured us in her movie Vamps which is coming out sometime in 2012...

The Lost Patrol went to Michigan this past August to film a movie called ‘Vamps,’ which was actually directed by your mom, who is the acclaimed director, Amy Heckerling. Without any spoiler alerts, what can you tell us about the movie?

Mollie: Totally. Well, you know it was fun being in Detroit shooting the movie because the whole process was so exciting and we were so honored to be a part of it. They were using quite a few of our songs, which was nice. Also hanging out with Alicia Silverstone and Sigourney Weaver… that was a lot of fun. Detroit, a lot of movies are being shot there for the tax incentive, so thats why it was filmed in Michigan.

Your music is incredible and has the ability to please the ears of even the most diverse listeners. When I hit the play button on a Lost Patrol track, I get a rush of so many different vibes. There is beachy, dream pop – I could go on. And in reading about your band, critics never fail to mention a menagerie of genres including ‘shoegazing’ and ‘spaghetti western.’ How would you describe your genre in your own words?

Mollie: You know its always nice when people reference a lot of genres for your music but we’ve recently been coined as folk noir, which is a new genre name that I think emerged for us and our and our friends The Blueflowers, and Dotsun Moon, it’s a mix of all those things that you just mentioned, like you know, dream pop, cinematic, and spaghetti western. But then again its always hard to try and pigeonhole us into one thing.

We always want to continue to grow and expand what we do, and frankly no matter how people describe us, no matter what words they use, we are always just very grateful for the press and the recognition. We’ve actually been getting a lot of very positive reviews on the last album from The Big Takeover and people like that so it’s been cool.

You have an interesting story behind the creation of your band. Can you tell us about how you all found each other?

Mollie: Well (laughs) the band was around for a few years before I came along, and when their old singer left for personal reasons, they found me on CraigsList, because I was just a singer/songwriter and I was always looking to join a band. So I posted an ad saying, “everyone and their mother is a singer/songwriter” and they thought that was funny.

Your music definitely has a slight throwback vibe. Is that intentional?

Mollie: Yeah, I definitely think that. We are very huge fans of a lot of older music – stuff from the 80s, 60s, and 50?s. We do try to put a contemporary spin on it, we don’t want to sound like we are mimicking older groups. We want to sound like it’s almost timeless, as if you can’t pin it down to one time period.

Working with three people can be difficult, especially in an environment where everyone is so creative and passionate about their craft. How do you all get along, and does everyone have equal input?

Mollie: I like to think so. Of course when you are doing anything creative with a group of people sometimes there are disagreements that arise. We’ve never had any major blowouts over a chorus or a bridge, we always manage to find a solution that pleases all of us. We really arrange the song from the ground up together for the most part, so it is a very collaborative process.

Michael: Interestingly enough too, we all get along very well, and we have cohesive visions for what the ultimate outcome of the music will be.

Mollie: Since we are all on the same page to begin with, there is not a lot of conflict. You can’t do anything creative with other people without there being some disagreements along the way.

Who are some of your musical inspirations and influences? Any favorite bands at the moment?

Mollie: I personally am a big fan of a lot of 60s artists. Main influences are the Beatles, but I am also a big fan of Dusty Springfield, Melanie Safka and Shirley Manson and Garbage, I really like a lot of their music. A lot of the things that they experiment with, and a lot of the sound textures that they use in their music.

Michael: As far as any new music, I am actually intrigued by the Vivian Girls at the moment. They kind of have that older feel to some of their music but they do it, again, in a contemporary way. As far as Steven and I, I know we like a lot of female fronted music too and have always been partial to the female voice, so we find a lot of common ground with bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cocteau twins, Elizabeth Fraser and Beth Gibbons. You know, I think we have a lot of the same CDs in our collections. We are always trying to keep each other updated on what we like.

The songs on your new album, ‘Rocket Surgery’ are truly heartfelt. For example, we have a lyric here that goes, “I was broken up, I let you rest in pieces, I had enough, time slid on by, I got mine.” What was the thought process behind your writing?

Mollie: well I was going through some emotional troubles from a relationship, just having a lot of conflicting emotions. I was on a hiatus from my boyfriend and those were just the thoughts and feelings that were going through my head at the time. I mean usually that’s where the best lyrics come from, I think.

We like to ask this next question to every band we interview, just because the answers are always pretty interesting. What would you be doing if you weren’t recording artists?

Mollie: Well i studied at NYU as a screenwriting major so I’d just be trying to develop my sitcom (laughs), and you know sitting on my “tuchas” writing.

Michael: Yeah I actually went to school for visual arts so I do a lot of graphic design work which I really enjoy. And you know, I was also an aspiring painter at one point... but because of so many things going on I’m actually just focused on music right now. But I do enjoy painting and the fine aspects of art as well but you know I think we all dabble in a lot of things creatively, its just what we do.

Stephen: I was going to run a chain of self-serve massage parlors, so there was that idea. I don’t know, I had a couple of business plans, one of them involved rat extermination, but there were a lot of things on my plate so..(laughs) I’m kidding. No, I wouldn’t know what to do. No matter what I did I’d always have to record or play or do something. I’m lucky to work with Mike and Mollie. But you know, even if I didn’t do it with them, I’d still be doing it at home by myself.

Are there any shows or big things we should be waiting to come from The Lost Patrol in the future?

Mollie: I’ve been deemed the spokes person since steve cant be serious for 2 seconds (laughs). This is why we don’t let him talk. We have a couple shows coming up. We’re actually going to be playing in Butler, New Jersey at a place called Architekt on February 4th. That show starts at 7. And we’re also playing at a club in New York City called The Delancey on February 18th and thats actually part of an evening of DJs called ‘Contempt.’ It’s gonna be really cool, it’s going to be a bunch of DJs and then we go on at 10pm. DJ HI-Fi Hilary is playing and Subvert, it’s gonna be a cool night. We’re also booking for California and Nashville while we’re working on our new album.

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