Interview: Ethan Carlson of The Westar

The Westar – the band formerly known as Vic Kingsley – formed at the University of Miami in 2007. Recently reduced to a duo, Vic Garcia and Ethan Carlson are relocating to Los Angeles, where they’ll face the challenges of breaking into a treacherous industry while maintaining their independent dignity. Have a listen.

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How did things begin?

Ethan Carlson: Kingsley started out with Vic [Garcia] and myself collaborating on recording seven songs in the summer of 2007. It started out that Vic was strictly the songwriter and I was the producer, but as the summer progressed and show opportunities came up, I joined the band, and Luke [Moellman] who recorded drums on the album became a band member too. The line up was rounded out by Jon Draper later in the fall and the band Kingsley was formed.

Eventually the lineup switched to having Jorge [Balbi] on drums as Luke continued with school and other musical projects. At this point Vic and I are moving out to L.A. to continue with the band there, and Jon has moved to Nashville to pursue music there. Jorge is staying in Miami.

Is Vic Garcia “Vic Kingsley?” Or just in the same way that Darius Rucker is Hootie?

EC: Well after some web browsing, there appeared to be a band in L.A. by the name of Kingsley so we were forced to adopt a new name, and since we were pretty sold on the Kingsley part we opted to add Vic’s name to make it Vic Kingsley. Although Vic’s name was in the name of the band, he is still Vic Garcia and the band was Vic Kingsley.

So the band came together as a result of the recording of your album “These Frequencies?”

EC: The album began just as songs that Vic had written and wanted to record. After the first seven songs were record in the summer, we recorded another four songs in the fall once the band was together. Finally by April 2008 we released the album in its entirety.

The album has enough cohesiveness considering how much it seems to have been pieced together.

EC: Since everyone in the band has either school or other jobs, it takes quite a while to get everything done. The drums and bass were tracked at Dungeon studios in North Miami and the guitars, keys and vocals were recorded at my house.

Did being in school make the album difficult to fund as well, then? Did you shop record labels before the recording, or after, or intend on going strictly DIY?

EC: There was always the expectation at the beginning that we would put the album together and promote it on our own. We were fortunate to have or first manager help finance getting the CD’s printed up, and we hired people or had friends who took pictures, did graphic design and put together our first music video for “B for Breaking My Heart”.

I think we were all really happy with how the album turned out and with all the promotion. We had a great CD release party at the Gibson Showroom in Miami. People were impressed at how well we had created a ‘package’ as a local band with a sound and image and style that all made sense together.

When I heard “These Frequencies” the first couple times, it seemed like every ten seconds there would be something – a production technique, vocal inflection, chord progression, whatever – that reminded me of more and more different artists. Do you aim to sound like anyone specific, and are there any strange or offensive similarities you try to avoid?

EC: We have a lot of bands that we’d love to sound like – Coldplay, Mute Math, Travis, As Tall As Lions, Radiohead, Wilco… Vic is famous for finding an album, falling in love with it and having that inspire him to write a couple new songs. But even with our influences I feel that we’re taking the parts we like from bands and incorporating that into our style rather than just sounding like one band. Some people have told Vic he sounds like Elvis Costello… but overall we do hope to remain unique and bring something new to the table.

Are there any other main sources of inspiration?

EC: Aside from music, Vic studied creative literature at University of Miami and that has been a big influence on his style of writing lyrics. The city of Miami has definitely influenced some of the music, although it has been more of the parts that we don’t like about the city rather than the fun and sun.

How has the band, as a creative unit, treated the situation of being unsigned?

EC: Starting a band is extremely difficult. Finding enough time to devote to the project, while also being able to make money to pay the rent, and then using what money you do have to promote, get to shows, produce CD’s… At the beginning everything is an expense and any money made by the band goes right back into paying for another expense. Of course it would be lovely to have a record company hand us a bunch of money…. but with that comes a lot of complicated issues that can destroy a band if not handled carefully.

Do you actively try to find a deal?

EC: Well at the end of the day, most bands that make money are signed to a record company, so of course that is what we’d like. However, this is such a passion and dream for us that we are not going to wait for a record company to sign us and we want to make sure that we’re ready for a record company before we try to sign with them. The more of a history we have and the more music and fans we have, the more leverage we would have with signing a deal so that’s what we’re working on now. And if by some chance we are able to make enough fans and money without a label by doing what we’re doing, then all the better.

Is there glamor in independence?

EC: Bands who are independent and make enough money to survive deserve a lot of credit. It’s all about what is the best fit for the band whether being completley independent, on an indie label or on a major label.

What have you found to be the best methods of marketing and self-promotion? Do you feel you’ve been able to fairly well accomplish what a record label and its associates would otherwise do for you?

EC: Independently we’ve been able to market through magazines and online, book shows around the country, make a music video, release a CD physically and online and most importantly make fans. At this point one of our most limiting factors is having the budget to do those things on a larger scale, which a record company would be able to do.

Honestly the best way of marketing has been playing shows and making sure to talk with fans so they will come back and bring their friends back to the next show. Aside from that it’s spending hours on Myspace sending freind requests. We send our music out to a bunch of podcasts around the world which helped expose our music to places that we don’t have the opportunity to play at this point.

How has your association with University of Miami affected things?

EC: Being a band from there has enabled us to play a lot of shows for the college crowd on campus and has actually helped us book shows elsewhere in the country where graduates have relocated. We met our manager from a connection at UM. So far it’s been great to have all the connections associated with a university of that size.

So you’re fairly spur-of-the-moment deciding to pick up and move to Los Angeles. What are your goals and expectations for life on the West Coast?

EC: At this point we’re planning to move because we feel that we have a better opportunity to play meaningful shows and develop a larger fan base out there. So far our strongest point has been developing a sound and a style, but what we need to work on are having amazing songs and building a strong fan base.

L.A. means having a lot more competition, but we’re confident that we have the work ethic and talent to compete out there. We’re beginning to record another album, but we’re still waiting on seeing what the right time and direction is to make it really count for us.