Despite what the name implies, the Velvet Teen has a gaping hole
in its fan base in the teenage demographic.
In the primary leg of its transnational tour, the Velvet Teen is
hitting UCLA tonight at the Cooperage. The members are used to
coming to Los Angeles and playing for either the 21-and-over crowd
at Spaceland or the 16-and-under crowd at Anaheim’s Chain
Reaction.
“I’m really looking forward to playing somewhere
where there are college kids,” said bassist and vocalist Josh
Staples. “It’s kind of a captive audience in a couple
ways, too, when you’re playing on the campus of a college,
there are so many people there that wouldn’t normally hear
you, but they come see you because you’re in their home,
essentially.”
This will actually be the band’s second national tour,
despite its short existence. The members only got together about
two years ago, but they already have fans all over the country.
Staples credits the free trade of music online as the main reason
they have been so quickly successful away from home.
“I think it’s the best thing that’s ever
happened to music,” Staples said. “As far as getting it
to people who would normally not hear it or hear of your band,
it’s the most useful tool in modern music, for
sure.”
This love of new technology and its effects of everyday life is
not surprising coming from a band comprised of three computer
nerds. Staples and his band mates, Judah Nagler and Logan
Whitehurst, are all graphic designers in their free time from the
rock star life. Though Staples is the only one currently holding a
full time job, Nagler and Whitehurst pick up freelance design work
as often as possible.
“We’re just actually extremely busy all the
time,” Staples said. “We rehearse a couple times a week
and record pretty often. Plus, we play a lot of shows. There are
really only a couple days a week that we don’t have anything
to do after our days jobs.”
Having experience both in the studio and on tour, Staples
expresses passion about both aspects of being a musician. He
appreciates the studio work as a chance to take a creative thought
and commit it to a physical medium.
The Velvet Teen is fresh out of the studio, having released
their first full-length album, “Out of the Fierce
Parade” a few months ago. The material on the record spans
the group’s entire existence, with some songs up to two years
old and others that were written while recording last March.
Staples is very proud of the band’s efforts and the
diversity on the CD. There is a definite distinction between the
older, more upbeat songs and the newer, more subtle and slow songs.
All, however, are products of the same creativity that was inspired
in the Velvet Teen by bands like the Cure, Devo, Prince and Depeche
Mode.
Overall, the band has a rock/pop sound to it, but Staples
insists that they are more artistically driven and experimental
than most mainstream pop groups.
“The more common phrase that gets thrown around so loosely
that it doesn’t mean much to anyone anymore is
“˜indie-rocker’, or “˜art-pop indie rock
bands,'” Staples said. “Generally, we have a
mostly indie-rock crowd, but that doesn’t mean that my
parents aren’t really into it, either.”
The Velvet Teen plays at the Cooperage tonight at 7 p.m. with
Sunday’s Best and Gusto. The show is free.