Music

Behind The Scenes with Neon Indian

by Michael Joffe

Watch the full interview and performance with Neon Indian here.

It’s a strange time for Alan Palomo. The music he recorded in his apartment has caught the attention of every credible music publication in North America (especially this one), garnering him the precarious status as today’s it band. It’s a strange time because nobody really asks to be a buzz band, and yet when you become one, a self-fulfilling prophesy is set in motion where the only questions press ask you are about what it’s like to be a buzz band. Thus was the case when we followed Alan and his band, Neon Indian around on Thursday night while they were in town to play a set as part of Canadian Music Week.  Neon Indian is the fourth band featured in our show What We See Is What You Get.  When we first got in touch it was a few days before their now much blogged about Jimmy Fallon performance.  Would things change afterwords? Would they still be interested in having us hang around and shooting the stuff that usually gets edited out of other interviews? Within a few moments of meeting them at the Royal York it became obvious that nothing had changed. This was a band essentially unfazed to a point bordering on disinterest, by their tremendous success in a relatively short period of time. They’re proud of how far they’ve come, from playing an empty Webster Hall, to playing a sold out night in under a year, but has all the Pitchfork love gone to their heads? Not that we saw.

Neon Indian is the brain child of Alan Palomo, who together with his manager and childhood friend, Daniel Carissimi took out a ten thousand dollar loan and went on tour with their reverberated chillwave sound.  A massive risk, that has definitely paid off.

From the hotel, we crammed ourselves into their van, a beat up old renter that Daniel got stuck with because he’s under 25, and set off to find something to eat near the venue.  This was the first time that they’ve played Toronto and they were still excited from the last night’s show in Montreal – Toronto, while warm, wasn’t as wild as the Montreal crowd.  Driving down Bloor, Alan told us about how weird it was to see Jimmy Fallon holding their LP, and the fight or flight adrenaline that hit the band seconds before going to camera.  After dinner, we returned to the van to interview the band, which was interrupted by Crystal Castles’ Ethan Kath who dropped in to introduce himself.

In a way it’s fascinating to observe a band on the cusp of something big but not quite there yet. Walking on Bloor people yelled “Hey Neon Indian! You guys rock”, I asked Alan if that happens a lot, “More recently, yeah” he answered, smiling.

This momentary bout with celebrity was quickly squashed when the overzealous bouncers at Lee’s Palace had Alan and the group line up to get into their own show, a slight made absurd as fans in the line whispered to each other when they recognized the band.

Next week, Neon Indian will play SXSW in their native Texas (the band now calls Brooklyn home) and they’re well aware of the hype and expectation surrounding them. Check back soon  for their completed episode of What We See Is What You Get.