I sat down with Chris LaRoque, singer and recording extraordinaire for the Color and Sound, at Kennedy Studios. We discussed his new studio, just how friendly he is with his band mates, song writing dynamics and more. Check out the video for the Color and Sound’s song Graves and read the interview underneath!
HF: Hey everyone I’m Haley Flight am I’m interviewing Chris LaRocque of the Color and Sound and the Dirty Looks. (Yup two bands!) So how are you doing?
Chris LaRocque: I’m doing great! How are you doing?
HF: Fantastic. So where are we? Let’s talk about that.
CL: We’re in my recording studio that me and my friend Steve (Aliperta) own called Kennedy Studios. We just moved to a new spot in Burlington, Massachusetts. We’re recording other bands as well as our own bands.
HF: Awesome. What made you guys decide to make your own recording studio?
CL: Well I had always liked audio recording stuff. I had done tech and stage crew in high school and gotten into recording by learning different programs. Honestly, throughout the course of being in a band outside of high school for a little while seeing what paying for recording time was like and seeing how other producers interacted with our bands made me really want to start a studio that was made by guys in bands that understand what it’s like make a record. So it started with that idea and it’s obviously at a certain level of convenience because we can record our own bands whenever we want for whatever reason. So that’s super nice. Yeah the main thing was that I genuinely love doing it but also Steve and I love being able to be guys that are in bands helping bands make their records.
HF: What is your favorite thing to track and why?
CL: I like tracking everything. Drums are actually my favorite because drums are the biggest challenge. You can get drums sounding awesome and you just naturally build everything off of that. Bass is fun. Guitars are a massive pain because tone has to be perfect and tuning has to be perfect and if it’s not that then it kinda sucks so guitars definitely really suck. Vocals are really fun because I’m a vocalist. Steve’s a great singer and knows a ton about vocals. Steve is the vocal guy so he loves doing vocals. But yeah I’d say drums.
HF: Five must haves in the studio, not music related:
CL: Netflix because of downtime. Food. We’re right across from Lacascia’s (sub shop) so that’s awesome. A positive attitude! If you don’t have a positive attitude what’s the point? Tracking your record’s a pain so have a good attitude. Awesome jokes. If you don’t have sick jokes to tell us there’s no point. Stop bringing your friends around! That’s my thing. Friends come, they’re like: “This should be louder.” Come on we’re recording a record. Friends just get in the way.
HF: Okay back to band stuff: You guys just came out onto the music scene as the Color and Sound and you already have an EP out, a music video, and have toured with Modern Baseball. Seems like you’re on your way to the big time. Do you guys want fame or are you just into having fun playing music with friends?
CL: We’re into playing music with friends. I mean we’ve been in bands for a long time, this is the first band I guess that’s gotten any notable attention for any reason. Whatever that reason is. But the band started very simply as us wanting to -fruit fly interruption- hang out with each other. And we spent a long time in bands that were trying to be something specific and it wasn’t worth it. So to be in a band not worried about that is great. So at this point it’s about being in a band that generally always has fun with whatever we do.
HF: I personally want to know what the song writing process is like? It would probably be a better to talk to the whole band but…
CL: I can explain it at least. It’s an interesting question to ask because over the course of the Spring Tour EP and the EP we’re about to put out [our song writing process has] changed naturally. With the Spring Tour EP Steve wrote 4 out of 5 songs. I wrote the song called Graves. We took the other’s and leashed them out as a whole band from the acoustic skeletons Steve had. WE built off what Steve had already set up. With our new EP we have, there are 3 songs Steve did and 2 that I brought the skeleton in for. There’s one that Nick wrote the instrumentals for while Steve and I went back and forth for lyrics. We had never done that before and it turned out pretty cool. Now that we’re starting brand new stuff, everyone is just writing on their own and it’s just a self sustaining thing. Before it was just the skeleton and then slugging to bring everything together to finish it. But yeah, we’re straight killin’ it.
HF: What’s your favorite thing to do with all of them besides play music? Obviously not go camping [the rest of the band was camping]…
CL: Not go camping. Ally’s not camping either. Honestly our favorite thing to do is just hanging out. We’re all pretty friendly laid back people. This question really sets me up to say something inappropriate but… We’re very first and foremost really good friends with each other and any time a personal relationship might be coming into question or tense because of band stuff it immediately gets squashed because fuck that. We are way closer friends than band mates for very good reason.
HF: In closing, anything you want to tell anybody?
CL: Just livin’ the dream. Brand new studio we’re really excited about. Working on new songs. About to put out an EP with new songs. Playing a bunch of shows, one in Lowell (August 20), one in Boston (August 22). Just living the dream day in day out.
Connect with the Color and Sound:
https://www.facebook.com/TheColorAndSound
http://thecolorandsound.bandcamp.com
