Interview to Lucid Fly
La Caja del Rock has been able to interview to Lucid Fly a rock band with more potential for the alternative scenes in the United States. Doug Mecca, guitarrist and co-founder of the band, we answered some questions about the beginnings of the band and their difficults. He also talks of their music and what are their main motivations in the composition.
LCDR: Tell us about the first days of the band.
Doug Mecca: Lucid Fly started officially back in Orlando, FL when I found
Nikki through a classified ad for an available singer. Nikki’s ad
mentioned “K’s Choice” as one of her influences, and at that time “Paradise In
Me” was constantly in my CD player. We auditioned at my apartment with
some acoustic covers and it was a no-brainer -- the chemistry was instant. We
got a rehearsal space right away and wrote songs together that were pretty
diverse at first, with several different drummers and bassists who joined the
band for a bit here and there, some for quite a long time. Over a couple
years the style evolved towards a more signature sound. Lucid Fly
performed shows every chance we got. We played further and further from
home -- sometimes pushing the comfort level of the other band members.
Ultimately that led to the decision for Nikki and I to relocate to L.A.
on our own, and basically start over from scratch even though we had released
“Adapting to Gravity” which was a collection of recordings we had made in
Orlando.
LCDR: Your music reminds us of Evanescence, but who are your musical
influences? How would you describe the music of your band?
Doug Mecca: The band’s influences are literally all over the place! Nikki and
I have been pretty much obsessed with music since we were really young, and we
have huge collections from all genres of music. That passion for
discovering and appreciating new bands has been significant in our ability to
evolve together musically. That has been consistent since we met and
definitely affects the longevity of the band lineup -- since our musical tastes
are constantly expanding it’s more natural to create with other musicians who
do that too. But it might be safe to say that music from the 70s and 80s
started that trend - especially rock with great melody such as Heart, Journey,
Tom Petty comes to mind. Over time any artists that exude passion have
always had the greatest impact, particularly when all aspects of the
songwriting pushed some boundaries -- especially the edgier stuff. The
90s brought huge influence from truly artistic musicians like Tool, Incubus,
Imogen Heap, Alice in Chains. Then in the 2000s that continued with A
Perfect Circle, Dredg, Deftones, Muse, as well as more electronic-based acts
like Baxter (Nina Ramsby), Imogen Heap again as she continued to evolve.
In the past few years we’re heavily into alternative-progressive bands
like Karnivool, Dead Letter Circus, Tesseract, and more electronic rock in
projects like Team Sleep and Crosses (Chino Moreno), Puscifer, and not to
mention an endless list of voices, drummers, guitarists and bassists from every
genre! Nikki and I just recently started a monthly radio show on Lucky
Star Radio (Live365.com) to showcase our favorite discoveries.
LCDR: How is your music different from other bands?
Doug Mecca: Ultimately it must be the combination of each member’s influence
that defines the style of Lucid Fly’s - it changes a bit every time we write
something new probably because we all listen to so much diverse music.
The one common thread might be that each song has to keep everyone in the
band interested -- and with all our influences that means it can’t ever be
boring! Songs can be written almost completely in an hour or meticulously
worked over several months until everyone feels that it’s complete - but pretty
much no song is truly complete until it’s tracked in the studio. Maybe
it’s safe to say that the band likes to take potentially complex and busy ideas
and combine them into a cohesive song that hides the details within -- yet each
song is loaded with details. In the end they are just songs that each
member feels are fun both to listen to and to perform, even after many, many
times!
LCDR: When you compose a song where do you get ideas from, and how
does a song evolve?
Doug Mecca: Ooo that’s almost never the same twice! An idea can spark
from a jam, a thought or a concept, a new instrument or tone, or even from a
random seed like a mathematical pattern. In every case there’s some sort
of natural flow that makes each song a “song” -- it often means moving parts
around or changing their length or repetition, experimenting with the
subdivisions of the beats, until that flow is consistent yet with just enough
“unpredictable” to keep us excited about it. Sometimes songs that start
out in a rehearsal jam are taken into the computer to try out more combinations
and experimentation, and sometimes the other way around. Using visual
editing tools (like Ableton Live) can really expand the potential for a song
arrangement, as well as open up the door to too many possibilities! But every
creation lately combines live collaborations, digital editing, and open minds,
often in several cycles before entering the studio.
LCDR: What were the biggest obstacles for your band?
Doug Mecca: Maybe since the writing process is so personal -- all the instrumentation
as well as the lyrical content -- member changes have at times completely
stopped momentum, and even reversed it. It often takes a while to find
chemistry between 4 individuals, equally passionate about music and attached to
the music they create together. Major life events can and do happen and
for some people, they can change the priority of being in a band. Over
the years members have left due to a relationship, a baby, money issues, career
opportunities, and even musical growth that happened over a long period of
playing together. Bringing a new member into this band has many times been a
painfully slow process -- especially for the drummer!
LCDR: Has it been positive for the band to move from Orlando to Los
Angeles?
Doug Mecca: Absolutely! L.A. has so much going on and so many musicians.
Finding like-minded people here has been much different than in a small
city like Orlando. Plus there’s quite an alternative-progressive scene
building here that’s full of talent and enthusiasm, and most importantly, bands
working together to make it happen. Rather than leaving it to random
promoters to fill stages with any band that will pay, bands here are taking it
on themselves to create events that bring together like-minded artists and fans
that want to spend an entire night together. This is an exciting time to
be in L.A.!
LCDR: What are your dreams and goals in the music world?
Doug Mecca: The ultimate goal is to perform all this extremely personal music
live for the fans that resonate with our art, wherever they are. We’d
love to travel the world sharing stages with our own favorite bands, performing
for those who appreciate the live experience as much as we do. We’re huge
music fans so how awesome would it be to combine all those things together --
watching our favorite bands on stage in cities all over the planet and then
getting on the stage ourselves and performing our art! Also, music is
inherently connected to moments in time -- like when a song forever reminds you
of a certain experience or people. One day it would be amazing to know
that our music is someone’s soundtrack to a key moment in their life.
LCDR: What’s the best and worst thing about the music world?
Doug Mecca: Best: the people who have become friends and family. Forming
the band, playing locally and traveling constantly introduces new people.
It’s hard to look back since starting the band without noticing that we
met every important person in our lives somehow through the music.
Worst: probably when musicians feel that they have to give up for
any reason, especially when it’s for something like money. There are
artists everywhere that nobody has heard of yet, but when they give up, it’s
guaranteed that their art will never be shared with the world. That of
course is not limited to musicians.
LCDR: Has the internet helped the word about the band and its music?
Doug Mecca: If anything, the band completely depends on the internet! It
takes quite a bit of support to get on the road these days as it is, but to get
an audience to find you along the way is essential. Terrestrial radio
seems to only reach a small fraction of potential fans, especially unsigned
bands that aren’t playing the most popular genre. With the web, the band
has been able to reach people on just about every continent directly.
This has helped everything from getting heard to finding bandmates, and
lately even our collaborations have been online! Our latest singles were
mixed and mastered completely over the internet, as we worked with Forrester
Savell in Australia for “Waiting”, and Adam Barber in Florida for both “What
Winter Was Like” and “In This Ocean”. Traveling as a band to either place
for that would have been impractical if not impossible! We’re already
starting that process again as we start mixing our upcoming CD.
LCDR: Could you take us through some highlights of the last studio
album.
Doug Mecca: The most exciting part of these last 3 songs (released Autumn
2014) was our experimentation. The first song is “Waiting”, and this one
has some of the first results of this new approach to writing. We got to
really stretch our legs so to speak, as far as putting unexpected parts
together but maintaining a continuous flow. There were quite a few layers
of ideas on the rough demo of this track, and even though it was a bit above
and beyond our typical ingredients for a song, altogether it really felt like
“us”. At the time, even when tracking all those extra layers in the
studio, we weren’t sure if any producers would want to squeeze all that into
the mix, let alone make it sound balanced the way we imagined it, The first
name that came to mind was Forrester Savell (Karnivool, Dead Letter Circus) and
we were beyond thrilled that he would mix our first track, Everything
came out balanced so well like it was nothing at all for him, and that really
felt right and it kinda set the bar for what’s to follow! The next CD
picks up where “Waiting” left off, but now with the confidence that there are
absolutely no limitations when it comes to trying out every band member’s
ideas.
LCDR: What is a typical day in the life of members of Lucid Fly, and
what do you enjoy doing in your spare time?
Doug Mecca: For most of the band it starts with coffee! After that
anything goes. At the moment we’ve been putting a lot of effort into the
preproduction and tracking of the next release. We just recently got back
from Oregon where the foundation was put down for the most songs we’ve ever
tracked in one shot, as well as a record-breaking amount of coffee. Also
it’s no shocker that we attend a lot of concerts. As I said before, L.A.
has a burgeoning scene for local progressive rock and it also brings tons of
touring acts, so there’s always another show to check out.
LCDR: What tracks does the band most enjoy performing live and why?
Doug Mecca: It’s funny but
this probably is the case for a lot of bands -- whatever song is the one we
just finished is the most exciting to perform. The “favorite” changes
pretty much every time we come out with something new. There’s something
to be said for the upbeat ones though -- those are always fun since they require
and give off a burst of energy in the show. It’s been pretty normal forLucid Fly to come up with the each show’s set list the day of the show.
Every night has a different vibe and so the songs that we want to play
and in which order can totally change from the previous show. That keeps
it interesting for the band as well and let’s us be free to always try
something new.
LCDR: Tell us about
the next shows and why we should be there.
Doug Mecca: The next show is
going to be so amazing! We know nothing about it haha. But seriously it will be
significantly different for Lucid Fly as the recent writing added new elements
that will also be added to the live shows -- including new members. The
music has gotten fuller and that will take more musicians to perform it all so
expect to see a bigger version of the band in more ways than one.
LCDR: Thank you very much for the interview and we wish you much luck in your projects.
Doug Mecca: Thank
YOU!
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