_ Yael Meyer plays pretty music. Meyer would likely not object to that, general, designation. She says it is a mix of folk, pop and electronic.

“It is hopefully music that will make you feel happy, peaceful and content.” she says.

Her latest record, Everything Will Be Alright, comes out November 15 on her own imprint, Kli Records.

Meyer was born in Santiago, Chile and was enrolled in a classical music conservatory at age five. She studied piano and later the guitar. At 18 she won a scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston. She took a degree in three and a half years.  She produced her debut, Common Ground, during that time.

The school has produced numerous performers of all varieties. How does a formal music education help a pop singer/songwriter?

“I would say that in my own experience I learned most not from what I got out of the classrooms, which in itself was absolutely much more than I could have ever imagined, but rather what I was able to experience by having the opportunity to befriend and play with so many talented musicians from around the world,” says Meyer. “Being able as well to devote such a solid amount of time, a few years that is full time, solely to exploring music in various shapes, ways and forms is a rare privilege that I was able to enjoy, and it was possible for me to take in this experience unhindered and uninterrupted, completely open and ready to learn as much I could from every opportunity that I encountered.”

Following her time at Berklee Meyer says she had to take time to let what she learned sink in; she also says she needed to forget what she had learned to be able to make pop music again. There is a downside to such an education and choosing such a profession. She questioned her choice of being a musician frequently.

“I spent many years at war with myself trying to figure out whether this is what I was supposed to be doing or not. Still today there are days when I say to myself ‘oh my goodness, why can't I be more normal, why couldn't I just be ok with a normal life, a 9-5 regular job and staying in one place?’ But the truth is that I don't think this is a profession you can actually choose, I think it is more a profession that you are kind of handed over,” says Meyer. “I rarely think of it in terms of ‘why did I choose this’ anymore. I have accepted that this is my path in this life, my journey and my job and I am happy and grateful to have the opportunity to what I love for a living. I won't lie to you and tell you that it is not challenging at times, or that at times I wish I could have ‘chosen’ something more normal, but I know that it is who I am and that this is what I am supposed to be doing, and I don't let myself take it any further than that.”
 

_ Meyer’s music has been featured in numerous television shows and films. When it comes to writing for film and television Meyer says she has both ‘written songs to order’ for a specific film and written songs that just happened to be used in a film.

“Out of both situations I prefer the latter one, the main reason being that if I have to write FOR a film I am writing not for myself, but to please a whole lot of people, the director, the audience, the crew, the cast, the editor, etc. There are too many eyes, too many ears and in my personal experience it disrupts the honesty of writing, or at least it does for me,” she says. “When I write, I like to be in a place of solitude, where there are no judges, and I can write in full honesty, totally naked, completely open and revealing. Whether someone will ever get to hear that song is another matter, but I don't really want to be thinking of a scene, or a director's opinion when I am writing a song.”

Meyer says she would rather write a song because the song “needs” to be written and she can be its channel into the world rather than having to write something to please other people. She would rather write what moves her than for a check. She isn’t against writing specifically for a project, however.

“Not that I have anything against that method at all, for some people it works and they are amazing at it, but it is just not the way that I like to do it, or the one that makes me the happiest.” she says.

_ Her latest record began as an EP, a group of song she wrote while taking a break from the music industry. She wasn’t sure if she was coming back either.
 
“So the songs were very honest, and open like I was saying before and I wasn't writing to please anyone in particular when writing them. I was just writing songs that I really wanted to write.” says Meyer.

But then she realized, like it or not, music was a big part of her and her life. She knew she was going to be going to bed at 5 a.m. with songs in her head.

“I also had a baby and realized that either way I was going to have to make a living doing something, and that if that something was going take me away from my beautiful baby, I needed to make sure the time I was putting into work, was time well spent. So I embraced music as my career, my path, and my job and never questioned it again,” she says. “I started looking for a producer to help me record these new songs, but couldn't find anyone that felt right, so I began recording my songs at home by myself while looking for someone to mix them. Then through a friend and fellow artist Laura Jansen, I met Bill Lefler, who I initially reached out to, to see if he could mix some of what I had been working on, but to my own astonishment during our conversation the words ‘I am looking for a producer’ came out of my mouth.”

Meyer sent Lefler the demos and he liked them and the two decided to work together. It turned out to be smooth sailing, according to Meyer, after that.

“I have done this too many times before and I knew that I would know in the first 10 seconds in the studio with him, whether this was going to be great, or whether this was going to be really bad, because for me with music and my work there are no in betweens,” she says. “We clicked and it was easy and it flowed, and I knew that I wanted this to be an LP, but that it would have to wait.”

As an independent artist, with her own label, she has considerations artists who work with large companies do not have (but also freedoms they might not have).

“I own my own label and we finance everything ourselves so I knew that to make it happen I would basically have to spend the next year or so working the EP the most I could, planting seeds and cementing the foundation that we needed to get this going to a certain point, so that we could get back in to the studio and finish the album,” says Meyer. “That was, thank G'd, a great year, at the end of which we regrouped in the studio to finish what we had started. During this year I was also continuously writing material for what in my mind would be the completion of the EP. Fire was the last song I wrote for the record, only a few weeks before we went into the studio.”

_ Meyer and Lefler’s collaboration was one where each had their own distinct opinions but also one of respect. With good communication and chemistry they, as Meyer puts it, “nurtured” each song.

“He gets me and gets who I am and what I am about and I feel safe when working with him because I know that there are no egos involved. We both want the same thing,” says Meyer. “We both want to make the best work we can make, be honest and make the songs the best songs they can be. It's not about him as a producer, or me as an artist, it's about the music that we are making together and doing the best work that we can.”

When working on a song, Meyer’s focus changes. Sometimes she relies on her engineer. Other times she wants a very specific sound. It all depends on the song and who she happens to be working with.
 
“Craig Frank our engineer is truly incredible to work with. He is amazingly patient, nurturing and kind and puts an incredible amount of attention into every detail, to the millimeter of a mic placement. He also gets it really quickly. He understands what we have in mind in a second,” says Meyer. “We just have really great communication, and he is just so talented, that I don't feel the need to be so picky, because his own pickiness puts me at ease. However I do have very specific ideas sometimes of what I want for a particular song, a particular sound, a particular filter, or how I want one instrument to be processed and if that is the case I will make it known, but again, Craig and Bill both get it so fast that I don't really need to push it too hard because we all know what we are trying to accomplish and are working together towards a collective idea.”

_ Meyer currently lives in Los Angeles. Tour plans for the USA, Europe and South America to support the new record are in the works. But don’t expect her back East this winter.

“I lived in Boston for four years. I know how cruel the east coast winters can be. We toured the east coast last spring and when we were at the airport someone said; ‘Why are you taking those huge jackets? It's March!’  And I said ‘Yes, it is March, but it's Boston!’ It was 29ºF when we landed. So, east coast definitely, yes!  Once things start heating back up we'll be ready to rock out the east coast for the summer!”

The Postelles finished a headlining tour earlier this summer. They play an old school variety of rock n roll that calls to mind New York City, which isn’t accidental.

“Well for one thing, we are all truly born and raised in New York - all delivered in NYC hospitals so we are about as authentic as you can get. I guess we've always been especially drawn to music, and art in general, that originates in our hometown. It always seems to have more power when the music you're listening to is about the streets you walk every day.” says bassist John Speyer.

The band is out on a new tour, this time opening for The Wombats. How is that different for them than their headlining gigs?

“I think when we open we make a conscious decision to play a set designed to make an impact as quickly as possible. You have less time to build up a set,” he says. “We probably shy away from some of our slower material and maybe throw in an extra cover or two in the mix.” 

When it comes to songwriting, singer/guitarist Daniel Balk comes to the other guys with an idea; a verse, a chorus, a riff. Then they sort it out together.

“Daniel handles the lyrical side of the band, but I know our first album is very personal to all of us,” says Speyer. “It's basically about the first twenty years of our lives and growing up in New York, failing in and out of love, etc.”

As to being called a “New York City band” Speyer has no issue with the label.

“It's a high compliment to call us an NYC band so I'll definitely take that. I like to think of us as a pure rock and roll band.” he says. 

The band is already working on their second album.

“We’ve got about 12 new songs recorded already. Not a day goes by when we don't try something new in soundcheck. We are very much in the songwriting process right now.” says Speyer.

2012 is going to be a big year for The Postelles.

Tour
November 10, Wonder Ballroom, Portland OR w The Wombats
November 11, Venue, Vancouver, Canada w The Wombats
November 12 Crocodile Café, Seattle, WA w The Wombats
November 15 The Trocadero, Philadelphia, PA w The Kooks
November 16 & 17  Webster Hall, NYC w The Kooks (sold out)
November 19 House of Blues, Boston MA w The Kooks
November 20 930 Club, Washington DC w The Kooks
November 22  Metropolis, Montreal, PQ
November 23  Sound Academy, Toronto, ON w The Kooks
November 25 Newport Music Hall, Columbus OH w The Kooks
November 26 The Vic Theater, Chicago IL w The Kooks
November 27 Wolf Den-Mohegan Sun, Uncasville, CT
December 6  Bootleg Theater, Los Angeles CA

Sammy Lewis, front man of Being There, a London-based lo-fi rock act, was kind enough to answer some questions about the band ages ago. But they got lost, which had nothing to do with drunkenness (or at least very little to do). The band is on Young And Lost Club Records, also home to Noah and The Whale, among others.

When given the opportunity to decry the label some folks have hung on the band, namely “lo-fi” he is philosophical.

“I guess for a lot of people 'lo-fi' now means a philosophy or an approach, more than an actual sound, so if people have said that about our songs then I can understand that. I like lo-fi, so I'll go with that - lo-fi indie rock.” he says.

This question, incidentally, was posed as “if you had a gun to your head and had to choose a genre?” Fortunately this is rarely the case, excepting in some parts of Detroit. Perhaps if your booking agent accidentally sets up a show in Jackson, Mississippi.

The band apparently uses different instruments to fit the mood of their tracks. One of those tracks had an old school synth sound but that is, apparently, not all the band is about.

“Well The Radio is actually the only track on the album that has those kind of synths. I knew I wanted something a bit different for this track, as it seemed straighter and poppier than other songs we recorded. We recorded our album with Richard Formby at his studio in Leeds, and he has a bunch of old organs and keyboards there, old Farfisas and the like (one of which you can hear on the Herman Dune track Recording Farfisa),” says Lewis. “We tried a bunch of those, and piano, but ultimately I ended up trying at the last minute this little Yamaha keyboard that Louis from Spectrals had left behind from his last session with Richard. And it worked so we stuck with it. So Louis, if you're reading this, thanks buddy.”

What is it he thinks makes the band stand out? What is it he feels that makes them different from all the other young guys hopping into the path of the train that is the music business?

“I think that there are very few British guitar bands these days that deal with real life. Bands like Electrelane and Sleeping States were so good about discussing real lives and feelings. Growing up, going to work, walking around the city. But I think we've kind of lost that in this country. Which seems so strange to me, especially at a time when more young people than ever are going through difficult times, people I know leaving uni with no work, trying to move out of their parents place but not being able to afford it,” he says. “In America, on the other hand, you have bands like Kurt Vile, Ducktails, Woods, Nodzzz, Times New Viking (the list goes on) that just seem like regular people making great music about real life. Not that every band should try to be 100% 'real', that would be boring; but I think it's so important to be true to yourself. I think we're at least trying to do that, and it's a shame that there are so few bands in this country that feel like they can do that and be accepted by the industry.”

Good answer!

There isn’t a single way the band go about creating a song. But there is a starting point.

“Hmm it really varies so much. But generally it starts with me messing around on my guitar and coming up with a riff or a chord sequence that I like. Then I'll work on that until I've got the structure of the song more or less finished. And then I just wait and hope that lyrics will pop into my head, which they usually do when I'm walking around town.” says Lewis.

-by Patrick Ogle

The band played a tour in the UK with Noah and the Whale and has a launch for their new single in November.

“Then after Xmas we'll release another single and then the album after that, which is called Breaking Away. Hopefully we'll get the chance to play more cool shows around then.” says Lewis. “I'm really excited about the new songs we've been working on since finishing the recording of Breaking Away; we're playing some of them live now, so check them out in person.”