The New Limb is from Orange County. You know: fake tans, fake … um … other things, “real” housewives, and dudes still listening to Sublime and old school No Doubt. Nevertheless, the OC was the band’s home until late 2010 when they decided to pack up their things and cross the “Orange Curtain” into Los Angeles.
Since then, they’ve been working on an EP, playing residency shows, and getting air time on Los Angeles’ biggest rock radio station, KROQ.
The members of The New Limb are similar to a cast of a soap opera (except without all the crying, backstabbing and “That guy had an evil twin!” moments) in that they — in one way or another — are all connected to each other. You have Dan Perez and Lauren Salamone, who are married; brothers Adam and Joey Chavez who have been friends with Dan for a decade; and then there’s Dave Berg, “the new guy.”
The New Limb’s sound is strategically polished, yet remains authentic. They blend pop melodies with keyboards and guitars, steady beats, and a male-female singing dynamic reminiscent of The xx, but more upbeat. Call them what you will, but be sure of this: they are not an Orange County band.
Benjamin Panama: How has your Three Clubs residency in Hollywood been?
Dan Perez: It’s been a really good run.
BP: Do you feel like you’re playing the same show every week?
Joey Chavez: No. We do our best to change the song structure every night.
Dave Berg: Different crowds, different bands. The whole set up, and the way the bands hang out — or don’t hang out — changes from week to week.
JC: The first night we played was magical; all the bands were hanging out, all relating to each other.
BP: Sounds like summer camp. You are Orange County-based. When did you make the move to Los Angeles?
DP: Not too long ago. December of 2010.
Lauren Salamone: Well, we moved in December, but didn’t play any shows until February.
BP: Why the move?
DP: I always wanted to live here [L.A.] my whole life, but I moved down there [O.C.] after college.
DB: I already lived here, so there was no move for me to make. I’m the original L.A. native.
LS: He also joined the band in December, so he’s the “new guy.”
JC: Yeah we called him on Christmas Day to tell him the good news.
LS: We’d been “dating” him since April, so it was as good a time as any.
DB: I felt like things were getting pretty serious. They let me dangle for a little bit; but it’s alright.
Adam Chavez: We were down there [O.C.] not strategically like, “Hey let’s be an Orange County band.” That thought never crossed our minds. That’s just where most of us went to college. We decided to live there and do the band thing for a while. Moving up [to L.A.] wasn’t a strategic thing either. We decided, “Let’s live in L.A. and still be a band.” We didn’t decide to be an L.A. band.
JC: We basically did everything you can do in Orange County as a band. It’s not a matter of leaving Orange County either. We wanted to maintain all of the cool stuff we were doing in Orange County, but also invest ourselves in [L.A.] as well.
BP: Lauren and Dan, how long have you been married?
DP: Four months.
AC: We’re kind of all related somehow: Joey and I are brothers.
BP: Is it easier being married in the band than it was being engaged or dating?
LS: Well, there was this period of time where we were dating, but kept it under wraps.
AC: We all made a vow not to date Lauren.
JC: We made something of a Fleetwood Mac pact.
AC: A “Fleetwood Pact.”
LS: Anyway, we tried to fight it. We tried really hard.
DP: But we realized we had to be together. It’s still a really good dynamic. I’ve known Joey for about 10 years now, so we’re really close. I think bands come [to L.A.] to play shows, and a lot of them seem like good friends; but a lot just get together to rehearse and play shows.
DB: It’s a different scene, band-wise, in L.A. I’ve been down here for years and I’ve played in a lot of bands. I’ve seen bands simply put together to try to make it big, or people using bands as side projects to their own careers. But people lose the heart of being in a band to make something special and be something significant together. When I started playing with TNL it was super refreshing. They all were so close-knit and focused on the same direction.
BP: Do you ever feel like you’re “the new guy”?
DB: I still do!
DP: We still treat him like the new guy.
LS: It’s definitely a rhythm thing that’s going to take time to develop.
DB: With my past experience in bands, being the new guy with TNL is still better than being “the hired guy.” Except it doesn’t pay as much.
BP: Whose idea was it to start the month-long “What Inspires Us” project on Tumblr?
LS: It was mine.
BP: I like it because with a lot of bands you just get the lead singer’s perspective — or whoever is most outspoken. It’s refreshing to hear how each of you sees life, and what motivates and inspires you as individuals. Now that the project is over, are you considering keeping it going?
AC: We want to, yes.
JC: We used to do a lot of audio podcasts, then we started doing videos with different seasons. It was cool; we were all there, sharing our opinions and being goofy. This is an extension of that, but definitely more focused.
LS: I’ve been thinking about doing blog posts on different topics either every other day or weekly. Maybe not on what inspires us, but more about telling a story through words, pictures, etcetera.
BP: Was your “What Inspires Us” project difficult to do? You had a new post every Monday through Friday, each from a different band member. How did you coordinate that?
LS: Originally, I wanted to have the guys send me their blog posts for the entire week on Sunday nights. Then the morning of, I’d be like, “Adam, where’s your blog post?” And he’d be like, “I’ll get it to you later.”
JC: Hey, you can’t rush inspiration; you have to let it come to you.
DB: One thing I thought was interesting on the inspiration blogs is I found out that some things I like, I’m not necessarily inspired by.
BP: Like what?
DB: Calvin and Hobbes. I’m a huge Calvin and Hobbes fan; I’ve always been. But when I tried to write on how it inspired me, I couldn’t. I guess it didn’t really make me want to create, as much as it entertained me and gave me a respect for the work. That was surprising because it was the only thing I knew I wanted to write about when we started the project.
DP: I tried writing a post for The Catcher in the Rye and just couldn’t do it. That has been inspirational to me, just as a person; but it was hard for me to translate that into artistic inspiration.
BP: Joey, I noticed your post on Thomas Kinkade. All I have to say is bravo.
JC: That was a fun one to write, but tough too. I didn’t want to attack him and say what he does is bad art, but I didn’t exactly say it was good art either. Maybe there’s no such thing as bad art.
BP: You picked a pretty easy target, too. With someone like Kinkade, one term thrown around is “sellout.” Is that possibly the worst insult you can receive as a band? Where is the line between being popular and being a sellout?
DB: It’s such a weird thing because being a professional artist — or aspiring to be — are you a sellout as soon as you start making money? Or are you a sellout if you try to make more money by compromising your standards?
JC: We’ve actually had a couple conversations with the bass player from Sugar Ray. They were just like, “Whatever, call us sellouts; we want to write other music and make money.”
AC: It was cool to hear the story from their perspective. They’ve definitely been labeled as sellouts by others. But he was a really cool guy, and I learned a lot from that conversation.
DB: With that said, we’d like to announce that our new album will be sponsored by Pepsi.
BP: You have a new EP recorded. When will it be released?
JC: It’s in the process of getting mixed now, so it’ll come out whenever our producers are done with it.
BP: Your music has been on KROQ, and the last leg of your residency at Three Clubs was sponsored by them. How long has this relationship lasted?
DP: They’ve been playing our music since January on their Locals Only program, and they were playing our music all week prior to our residency.
LS: A few weeks ago, a bunch of people from KROQ came out to a show and were like, “Next week we’re going to make it a spotlight KROQ show.”
AC: It’s been really cool, considering we’re still pretty new to L.A. The last show was great; we got to know a ton of people in the [music] industry.
DP: We’re also in limbo right now, waiting to see if and when somebody hears our music and decides to run with it.
LS: It’s been nice though, because once we play a few shows in L.A., we no longer have to ask to play more; people start asking us.
JC: It definitely wasn’t like that in Orange County. We were just starting from scratch there, spending a lot of our time clawing our way to the top.
BP: Do you think part of it is because the O.C. is more suburban and L.A. is more industry-minded?
DP: Totally. Plus the music that is inspired down there has more punk and hard rock roots.
JC: Most bands down there have an eclectic and original sound, but it’s just the industry in Orange County that typically goes after that type of music.
—–
For more information visit TheNewLimb.com. Photography by Megan Morgan.
This week’s RSS feed is sponsored by Gallerytopia.
