Earlier this month Light Club released their debut EP ‘Youth is Fading’ and ‘they’ have now been kind enough to answer some of our questions. Come inside, meet the family…
We are: Gabe Mouer: all instruments !
We are from: Portland, Oregon
Our name doesn’t come from: Nightlife or club culture, despite having “club” in the title, haha.
The first song I wrote was: I’ve been writing songs since I was 13, and like any other adolescent male I was filled with teen angst. I can’t begin to remember the title of my first song, but it was probably something melodramatic, haha.
Our first gig was: I played my first ever show in the summer before High School, but Light Club isn’t playing live quite yet.
When people ask us who or what we sound like we say: St Lucia, The 1975, Wild Cub.
We recorded ‘Youth Is Fading’ at: the majority of the EP was recorded in my apartment and my in-laws’ garage, then I did additional recording at The Odditorium in Portland, OR with engineer/co-producer Jeff Bond.
Our writing process is: Representative of my utter lack of focus, I mostly work on a handful of songs at once, hopping back and forth so as to not get bored with any one track.
The first Light Club song written is: ‘What We Found’ was the first song I wrote for this project.
We wrote it: In Spring of 2014. After my old group called it quits, I found myself in somewhat of a rut creatively, the Portland pop music scene was on a slow decline and it felt for a long time like there was a malaise or feeling of apathy blanketing the city. I became disenchanted and ultimately projected my frustrations on my environment. What We Found is sort of my cathartic release of those frustrations, it’s about being young and not being able to stay in one place for too long.
Who in your life do you most credit with influencing your music? It’s hard to point to one person, each member of my family influenced me in such a substantial way, they always fostered my interest in pursuing music. I will say that growing up my grandpa had a jam band that would practice weeknights in our garage, I always loved sitting in and listening to them, occasionally he would let me play the maracas, haha. It was thanks to a snide remark he made about singing on stage without a guitar that I decided to learn to play guitar. He also reintroduced me to the idea of playing the piano at 17. As far as actually influencing the music I write, my wife is a no-brainer. While I try not to write too many love songs (they begin to sound trite after awhile), conversations we have will inspire the subject matter, and she is usually the only person outside of my co-producer who will hear the songs before they’re recorded.
Which artist(s) do you most credit with influencing your music ? The Cure is the first band I ever really loved and will always be a band I look up to, but I picked up the guitar and decided to write songs largely thanks to emo “darlings” Saves the Day. Discovering them around the time I was 13 was a pivotal moment in my life. As far as my current sound goes, I’m not sure that it really resembles what first inspired me to write songs in any significant way, the Light Club “sound” mostly boils down to my perspective or spin on what I hear happening in modern pop and alternative music.
If we could collaborate with one artist it would be: Michael Angelakos of Passion Pit would probably be amazing to collaborate with, his ear for arrangements is pretty astounding.
Other bands I have been in: In addition to Light Club, which has become my main focus, I also play guitar for the Portland Indie Rock outfit, Altadore. I spent my late teens and early 20’s in an Indie Pop band called The Welcome Home, after 5 years together really trying to make it work we kind of lost our fire, it no longer felt like a solid unit with a cogent purpose, so I decided it would be best to disband.
If you had the wheels and the time you would go to: New England; I’ve always wanted to see Maine during Fall.
You could say our live show is: Still in the works, but I’m aiming for a sense of spontaneity, playing with samplers and looped keyboards. More than anything I hope that it’s something the audience will find arresting.
You can next catch us at: I should be posting some live solo performances online in the coming weeks. I’m hoping to start playing shows before the end of the year!
