Talking Nonsense with Wild Party

Wild Party: L-R Ethan Kaufmann (bass), Cary LaScala (drums), Lincoln Kreifels (vocals), Lucas Hughes (guitar). Photos by Dan Meyer.

When you google "wild party" the first few results are all about the the band Wild Party! Which is pretty impressive because I was expecting to find a bunch of Yahoo Answers entries from people asking about the key ingredients for a wild party. I would've expected the replies to say: "Make sure you have tons of solo cups." (As someone who didn't grow up in the US, I'm always baffled by the endless solo cup situaion at any given soiree).

Actually I have a tip: Even if you're having a chill party, if you want everyone to think you're having a wild party just ask them to throw their hands in the air when you take that all important [insert social network site here] picture. That's exactly what's happening in the first four pictures in google images under "wild party." But my personal favorite is the fifth image. This guy:

Is he a Wild Party fan? He should be. I feel like he might be.

Wild Party say they hail from San Antonio, TX, but really they live in three different states and still they make it work! Technology is super awesome, and, in all sincerity, so is Wild Party's music. Their newly released debut album, Phantom Pop, is crammed with songs like "Chasin' Honey" and "Outright" which make no bones about the band's knack for penning effortless indie-pop hooks. It's the kind of music you'd have to be a really grumpy asshole not to love. Not too long ago I met up with the guys to talk about bed bugs, smuggling porn in their hair, and drummer Cary's shirt collection, a collection specially cut for the slimmer, smaller gents out there. FYI, they've been worn by everyone from Dave Grohl to Beck to Rivers Cuomo. Hi guys…

Noisey: What’s the deal? Do you have bed bugs? Is Air B&B to blame?
Cary: Oh my God. I got the fuck out of there last night. Had to get a hotel.

Lincoln: I’ve got three bites in a row and apparently that’s bad. Actually I got another one last night, so that’s two nights in a row I’ve been aware and I’m just putting it off. Only a couple more nights.

Lucas: Lincoln also left his suitcase in a hotel a week ago, so he has no clothes to worry about.

Lincoln: I’m getting bed bugs in other people’s clothes so it’s all good.

How do you leave your suitcase at a hotel?
Lincoln: I don’t know. I wasn’t even high. I was just tired I guess. It was a small suitcase. Ethan: There are these lyrics to one of our songs and the pre-chorus is “I barely move / I rarely care” and that’s the most defining thing about Lincoln.

Lincoln: I’ve been moving more. I still don’t really care though.

Well you’re being moved by force. By your tour manager.
Lincoln: Yeah. I wish he would carry me more actually.

So Lincoln and Lucas—you guys went to high school and middle school together. So you’ve made it through the most awkward times in life together.
Lincoln: Oh it’s still going. We’re still growing. We were 12. We bonded over music and being weird. Although we met in the football locker room I think. Love at first sight.

Lucas: We played middle school football and horsed around all the time.

What music were you into at 12?
Lucas: The Starting Line.

Lincoln: A lot of pop punk but some indie stuff too like The Strokes and Death Cab for Cutie.

Really early on in your career, back in 2011, you flew to England to support the Wombats. Random.
Lucas: It was weird. It was awesome but we were so new and hadn’t really ever played live. Lincoln had never played shows. His third one was in the UK.

Lincoln: I’d never moved away from the mic stand. I was trying to pull a Julian Casablancas thing. I was pouring sweat the whole time. By the end of the two week tour we were getting pretty good but then we didn’t do shit for the next six months.

Cary I want to talk about your line of shirts. You’re a drummer but also the creator of many a slimline shirt!
Cary: It started in 2010 and it was just out of frustration—I could never find anything that fit me well. I’m a smaller guy, I fall between a kids and a men’s size and there’s nothing really readily available. I’ve been a buyer at different clothing stores and at the time I had one store in San Francisco and people would refer me to pattern makers and cutters. Because I had my store it was easy to sell my output, small runs like 50 shirts, just to try it out. Now I have three clothing stores and I sell them there and wholesale them.

Well you’ve got your shit together.
Cary: I also did a private label thing for Weezer this last spring. I made them their own shirt for the Weezer cruise merch. I kinda want to get into that and also make shirts for bands.

How do your shirts end up on people like Dave Grohl and Beck?
Cary: Just knowing people. That was because my girlfriend used to work for a TV show interviewing bands and she got us backstage for a Beck show and I gave him a shirt. He was stoked because he was like: “You make shirts that fit me?” And I was like: “Here’s an extra small.” I used to be in a band Chris Shiflett, who is Foo Fighters, so that’s the Dave Grohl connection. It’s really just about being a musician for however many years and slipping people a shirt now and then.

Wild Party is a pretty big claim of a name.
Lucas: I think it’s supposed to be ironic.

Lincoln: Lucas and I used to have hour-long conversations spitting out band names back and forth in high school. We were bored as shit and didn’t have anything else to do, got to Wild Party and thought, hey that might work. Didn’t realize we’d have to live up to that name someday! But l like that it’s kind of ballsy. It makes us have to be confident. People are interested: “Who’s got the balls to call themselves Wild Party?”

How has your live performance improved since that first tour?
Lincoln: well I take my mic off the stand. I have a few moves down. I’m working on my repertoire, a backflip, some breakdancing, some toe pointing. Pretty diverse. So one of my favorite songs is “Chasing Honey” which to me sounds like a euphemism for chasing ladies…
Lincoln: It’s kind of about that. It’s about motives and conscious decisions versus subconscious decisions, and the fact that most people are chasing girls or chasing money.

Ethan: It’s actually about literal honey. It’s great for your tea and coffee.

It has restorative qualities.
Ethan: I put it on my skin at night.

What’s “Outright” about?
Lincoln: All my songs are about the same thing: dreams versus reality.

Lucas: I think that’s a little darker than the rest of the album, which is funny because it’s super pop.

Lincoln: I say: “Sometimes I wish dreaming was as real as this feeling since I left you,” and I guess it’s thinking about the idea of how real dreams are like when you’re in them. And then you wake up and it’s nothing, and you have to go back to reality. I guess I almost wish you could continue those feelings you had in your dream.

Lucas: I think that’s Eminem actually: “Back to reality / Whoops there goes gravity.” Just kidding!

Moving on. You have a song called "When I Get Older." Did you ever want to be anything else but be in a band when you were a kid?
Lincoln: I wanted to be an actor.

Well that explains why you’re the singer.
Lucas: In the high school yearbook he was voted Most Likely to Be Famous.

Lincoln: He was Most Artistic.

Ethan: I had Best Hair. No big deal. What did you have Cary?

Carey: Nothing.

Ethan: And all three of our middle names are Daniel. What’s yours?

Carey: Lane

Most Likely to Make Flannel Shirts?
Carey: I didn’t get that! But I showed them!

Their crystal ball knew nothing. And now look, Ethan, you’re covering your hair up with a hat, no one knows what’s going on under there.
Ethan: Well check it out. [Removes hat.]

Woah you could hide so much shit in there.
Ethan: And there was…

Lincoln: You hid porn and weed in there.

Was there a hard drive of porn in there or was it old school porn?
Ethan: Magazines.

Lucas: They were being printed in there.

There were whole photo shoots going on in there.
Ethan: [Nods slowly.] It was crazy.

Phantom Pop is out on Old Friends Records now.

Kim Taylor Bennett thought she might get a shirt out of this interview. She did not, but hey, she's on Twitter.