You may have now heard of the cultural phenomenon of the Local Natives that is fully sweeping the nation at the moment.
I first caught them supporting Of Montreal which was their second gig in the country where they were still selling CD-R’s at the merch stand. Their set was amazing and they were by far one of the best support acts I have ever seen.
It’s been a hell of a summer for these guys, being on the NME’s and XFM’s hotlist, having an album of the month at Rough Trade, an advert on Spotify and gracing the airwaves of countless radio stations and even Topman. Pretty good for a band that only really played their first shows over here in June time of this year.
If you knew any of the information I have just spouted at you, chances are you would have had a gander at their amazing artwork at some point. T shirts, posters and the wonderful album were all created by their charming drummer Mr Matt Frazier and their lovely bassist, sir Andy Hamm.
I hooked up with these guys recently to talk about how they created the artwork....Although we did end up having a rather lengthy discussion about Death Metal and Radiohead but it’s all good.
MB: Why do you feel it is so important that you create your own artwork?
AH: I guess it all comes from when I was growing up, I would get attached to bands even more so if they had really great visuals and imagery that went along with the music and fortunately we have had enough time as a band to develop our own style and I guess tying in the visuals with the music goes hand in hand, so the music reminds you of the visuals visa versa then you’ve done something right so if we can accomplish that I’ll be even happier.
MF: I’ve always been a fan of maintaining physical copies of cd’s and we’re in this digital age now so the fact that we have the means to create something that’s physical, something you can hold on to forever I think that’s really important.
MB: Does the artwork you’ve created have a personal message or a relation to the music itself?
AH: Yeah I think that anything that I’ve done that’s related to the band has been probably thought over way too many times, I put a lot of thought into each one and I try to find a balance with what I personally want to accomplish mixed with making it relevant to the band with whatever sense I’m working on.
MF: I mean I think we’ve come into this style that really embodies the nature of the band in a way that we weren’t really able to capture before, not only have we fumbled through finding our own sound but it’s also been with the artwork as well. It’s been this kind of organic growth.
MB: What was the inspiration behind the album artwork?
MF: For the album Andy pretty much did the whole thing.
AH: I’m trying to think of a short winded answer....I kind of had a thought process on how the band in itself and this album had done so many good things for me but at the same time there’s always this worry, I over think things like over and over and I just thought of the exploding heads idea as a psychical thing in my head, if that makes any sense and how my head was growing and growing and there was this pressure so I took that psychical idea and put it into each individuals head, it sort of get’s to the point where you feel like your head is going to explode and the cover is based off of that idea, the heads are exploded and everything inside that head relates to each of the individual personalities. There’s a bunch of different stuff in everyone’s head but in a weird, twisted way it’s all linked to the band whilst
also maintaining a visual that I liked.
MB: Were you interested in art and design before you started the band?
MF: I’ve always dabbled in art and design since High School, I worked full time as a graphic designer and I was an art director for a couple of magazines in southern California and did mainly print stuff. I’m still playing catch up on web but yeah I’ve always been absolutely fascinated with the world of art and design.
MB: Have you been inspired by an art and design recently? Has anything caught your eye that you just thought wow?
AH: I picked up a skate book recently which had a load of skateboard art on decks. I used to skate a bit, I think i loved the artwork better than the skating itself. There was a lot of work by VCJ, he was the first guy that pioneered the Bones Brigade and the ‘Peralta style,’ he really set the tone and it wasn’t until I read this book that I found out he was pretty much in charge of every image I was into with skating when I was younger, he set the tone that everyone copied. That was like early eighties?
MF: Actually right before we left I was reintroduced to someone i always drew influence from, you know David Carson? I’m a huge typography guy, that’s always been my thing and I just picked up a book which I forgot I had called the End of Print and I absolutely adore that book, it’s just something I’ve always been drawn to.
MB: Now here’s the proper music nerdy question, what are your top five album covers?
AH: (pauses) I can’t think of any recently but I used to listen to Death Metal and really heavy stuff when I was younger and think whether I like it or not I still get attracted to that sort of sloppiness, that in your face, violent design but there’s always been something beautiful about it. I’m thinking early Slayer and Cannibal Corpse, very graphic and really aggressive; I couldn’t go into a store without looking at those. It was so curious to me and definitely from an early age it’s very punk rock, very anti and I still love that feeling you get where you almost feel you shouldn’t be looking at it but at the same time you can’t take your eyes off it.
MF: I’m drawn to certain album covers that are memorable but not like a specific top five. Like I’m not really sure why it comes to mind but it’s by the Butthole Surfers where this pencil is getting jammed into an ear, I don’t know why but that’s always stuck with me. There are a couple of Radiohead albums too, like Amnesiac and all the sketches that they do.
photo by Kyle Johnson
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