Xylos is not a difficult band to like. Its electro-pop overflows with warm and inviting elements: lush harmonies, uplifting instrumental swells, zippy backbeats, and a dynamic frontwoman in Monika Heidemann. The New York five-piece makes it sound effortless.
Of course, just because it sounds effortless doesn't mean it actually is. In fact, Xylos has endured a number of growing pains in its two-plus years of existence. During that time, the band moved its sound closer to the dance floor, and transformed from a solo project of guitarist Eric Zeiler to a full-fledged band fronted by Heidemann and her rich alto, which often recalls The Long Blondes' Katie Jackson. (That's no faint praise in our book.)
All that history is prelude to its excellent self-titled debut full-length. Xylos was released in April, and although the album speaks for itself, we still gave Eric and Monika a call to talk about it. United by the wonders of modern technology, our conversation also touched on fashion, 80s music, and telling business school to fuck off.
Xylos visits the District on Thursday to play a benefit show for nonprofit 826DC at DC9.
BYT: Where are each of you right now?
Eric Zeiler: I’m in Brooklyn, sitting in my studio. It’s finally nice out, for the first time in, like, a year. It’s looking sunny out. Is it sunny where you are, Monika?
Monika Heidemann: Is it actually sunny! It just rained, but it’s also sunny at the same time. I’m in North Hampton, Massachusetts for a couple of hours. Doing some errands with my girlfriend. [Xylos] just came off a little tour yesterday, and then we kind of split up. I went to go visit my dad in Vermont, and we’re just kind of slowly making our way back to New York.
BYT: How was the tour?
Eric: It went great.
Monika: It was short. It was, like, five days. We went to Montreal. That was really fun city. I’d never played there before. It was nice – we did the tour with a band that’s a friend of ours, from Gilbert, New Hampshire, called Tan Vampires. It was nice to be on tour with people that we like.
BYT: Have you bad experiences touring with bands?
Eric: No. No. Absolutely not.
Monika: [Laughs] That sounded really bad.
Eric: I knew you were going to ask that. I think what she means is that we’ve toured with bands that we’ve only gotten to know over the course of a tour. All the bands that we’ve toured with have been really nice. These guys were just friends of ours already. We played with them a year ago when we were in New England, then we kind of got snowed in for a couple of days. It’s different starting [a tour] with a band that you already know, you love their music, and you really get along. There’s no transition phase. When you tour with a band that you don’t know, it’s always a funny thing: for, like, a three work tour, there’s not a lot of communication for the first two weeks, and in that third week you become best friends. And then [the tour’s] over. So this was nice to have that vibe right from the beginning.
BYT: You’re playing with Guards on Thursday. Are you all familiar with them? You seem to have a shared friend in Chairlift’s Caroline Polachek.
Eric: I’ve been hearing about [Guards] for a while, and I’ve taken a listen to their music – it’s great. I sort of know them as an auxiliary thing to Cults. I think they share a member with them, and they’re touring together. Is that right?
BYT: Yeah, Guards is somewhat of a solo project of Richie James Follin, who also plays guitar in Cults. His sister is Cults’ singer.
Eric: So he’s one of the many dudes in the band with really long hair?
BYT: That’s right. Although I’m not sure who officially is in the band. It at least started with two people, and I think those two are dating. So Guards gets to go on tour with his sister and her boyfriend.
Eric: That’s funny.
Monika: Wow.
Eric: I saw [Cults] at SXSW and they all had really long hair. I couldn’t really tell what they looked like. I saw hair, and that was really it.
Monika: Yeah, what’s up with their hair, man?
Eric: [Laughs] No, Guards seems cool and we’re excited to be playing with them.
BYT: Well you have time to grow out your hair, or at least purchase a good wig.
Eric: There could be more long hair in [Xylos], but it would come from both the girls.
BYT: Speaking of “the girls,” Eric, Xylos started out as project of yours, but in recent music videos and album art seem to feature the girls most prominently. Was that weird at all to step back a little bit?
Eric: Well, the day before the photo shoot of the album cover, there was a fire and I got burned really badly on my face. And so I had to pull myself out of the shoot.
Monika: [Laughs]
Eric: No, I’m just kidding. I was actually at the shoot. I was on the other side of the camera. I don’t know – I think what you’re asking is true, but that doesn’t necessarily have to do with the album cover. We sort of saw the album cover as, like, a set piece, where the average person wouldn’t even know that the girls were in the band. It would be like a photo that the band painted on the album cover. But what you say does have validity in that when the band did start, I was the first member, but as it grew it turned into really a collaboration between myself, Nikki, and Monika as the three songwriters. And Monika is the lead-singer, so naturally she’s the focal point of the band live. It’s sort of a transition that we were all really excited about and working towards wholeheartedly.
BYT: Well, realizing there may not be a short answer to this, what is the brief history of Xylos? What brought you to the album you released in March?
Monika: Eric started Xylos on his own. He wrote a bunch of songs without me about four years ago, and then had people support on it. And then was inspired to start sort of a live band, and that’s when I was brought in. I wasn’t even on the first recording. After the band was formed, we were playing mostly Eric’s music for the first couple of months, but then Eric and I started collaborating on music and it was really working well. The two of us were bringing a lot of stuff in, and then Nikki started coming in. And then as the band formed, we took what was originally there and it transformed into what is now Xylos. And then we made some other changes: I was originally the bass player, and there was another singer, and he and I shared lead-singing duties. Last summer, things finalized to what you see now. That’s kind of a brief history of it. And now we all collaborate. I don’t think that any of the songs that Eric wrote – well, maybe one of the songs, or a couple of the songs – are on the album now, but it’s mostly the three of us.
Eric: There was a year and half of switching things up, and kind of mutating until last summer, when all of a sudden it sort of clicked. The line-up changed and solidified last August. So, like, only ten months ago. Nine months ago we started the record, and that was the beginning of the band. It’s sort of divided between the first era, and the current era, which is sort of the real era for Xylos, last summer. We started the record and that really gave us a focal point with the new songs, and we finished that around the New Year. It really does feel like a new band. Our bass player now has only been the band for a little bit, and our drummer is fairly new, so there is this sense of freshness right now with this album and this line-up.
BYT: I read about an album being scrapped somewhere in there. I was curious about how a band just starting out makes that decision, at least from a financial standpoint. But it sounds like your having a studio might have mitigated it.
Eric: I have a home studio. Monika has recording equipment at her place. We have friends with studios. And we also utilize on this record, like, a full-fledged, expensive, real studio for mixing, so we sort of bridge the gap between home-recording and real deal, professional mixing. The way it turned out, we were finishing that [scrapped record] when we were really shifting the focus of the band, to Monika being the lead-singer and to some stylistic differences – we were getting more electronic – that even though it was a waste of money, it didn’t really make sense to put that [older] stuff out. We were super-psyched on these new songs, and we just jumped into that. Why put out something that doesn’t feel like us completely right now?
Monika: The whole album wasn’t scrapped.
Eric: Yeah, we kept four songs.
Monika: It wasn’t a total waste of money.
Eric: No, and it was a learning experience. And the songs are cool. We still like them. We don’t play them live, and we don’t really hear them, but they’re cool. They exist somewhere.
BYT: Eric, I heard you had been accepted to and enrolled at Columbia Business School, before deciding not to go at the last second. That’s not a minor commitment to scrap either. You seem to have a history of this.
Eric: I just love wasting money. It’s my favorite thing. [Laughs] No, I guess if it wasn’t for business school Xylos wouldn’t exist. And if it wasn’t for Xylos, I would probably have just graduated business school, and would be even more in debt, because that’s super expensive. I moved to New York after living in California for a while, and kind of had an identity crisis of: “What the hell am I doing?” So I thought, “Sure, I’ll go to business school and then I’ll do some cool musical entrepreneurial thing after I get out, and I’ll have two years to figure it out.” So I went through the process of applying and did all of that. Then I got in. And the day I got in I sort of felt like I had six months to live. I was like, “What am I going to do in these six months before school starts? I’m going to make a record.” I started writing that day. Right around that time that I was supposed to go to orientation, that summer, the EP was done, and I was like, “Fuck this. Fuck business school. Let’s make music; it’s way better.” And that’s when we decided to get a live band going and do it.
BYT: Sounds like that decision is working out alright. Returning to your choice to move to New York: something that I often see mentioned in your press is this association with Brooklyn. I think there's a general fixation with the geographic origins of bands - at least in their early stages –does being based in Brooklyn actually mean anything with you? What's your relationship with NYC like?
Eric: The association is something in that, for some reason, there is an insane amount of music in Brooklyn. Growing up in New Jersey, I went to New York all the time, so for me it was always home. I left it for a while to go to California, but there was this pull to comeback. Monika’s been in Brooklyn for longer than I have, so maybe she could speak more about the scene. But there’s something magical about it. I don’t know what it is.
Monika: It feels like everyone around you is doing something creative. If it’s not music, then it’ designing clothes, or art. I don’t think there are many places in the world that have that energy going on. Brooklyn is that.
Eric: Doesn’t it feel like it’s been happening for a while now? I would have thought by now like it would have passed, but it still seems like it’s growing. It still feels like there’s more to come, even though it’s been, what, seven years that Brooklyn’s been the hot place? I feel like we’re ready for something else, but I don’t know.
Monika: I mean, it definitely happens in other places. I don’t feel like we necessarily have to be in Brooklyn to do what we’re doing, but it worked out that way, so we’re there. It’s nice. It’s inspiring.
BYT: You mention a fashion aspect of Brooklyn. One attribute that I sometimes see tied to Xylos is that you are a particularly stylish band. Is there anyone in the band who drives that style? Does anyone ever come out on stage dressed in a raggedy t-shirt and then get told to go back and change?
Eric: [Laughs] No, that has never happened as many times as many times as we have toured with bands that we don’t get along with. Monika and Nikki pretty much drive the style of the band. I remember early on, before we had the sort of stuff we’re wearing [now], it was sort of like, “Nikki and Monika, what are you guys wearing? How can we, as guys, compliment that? Because our outfits are simpler, like, color-wise.” There were definitely times we had to talk about it and think about it, but now we’re sort of in a natural groove with how we look and kind of our individual styles.
Monika: I think there’s definitely something to be said for taking some kind of care in looking a certain way onstage, not that has it be super-stylized. It is a show after all.
BYT: I like to imagine how Interpol would have been received if they were a couple of fat dudes in torn-up t-shirts and not these guys in sleek suits. That style becomes something that you associate with the nocturnal tone and feel of their music.
Eric: Yeah. We toured with this band whose members all had one outfit. It was funny, they would wear the some exact outfit every night, because when they’re in a different city nobody knows. But then I saw in photos, and people can see they’re in the same clothes every night. I think I need at least, like, five [outfits].
BYT: One outfit would allow you to tour with a lighter load.
Monika: I thought it was a good idea. If something looks good then why not stick with it?
Eric: My problem is that I sweat so much. I can’t wear anything more than once. A shirt stinks after a show.
Monika: They should have ten different shirts, but the same one.
Eric: Monika, I feel like you have so many friends that own clothing stores and design stuff that you get a lot of gifts, and people dress you up. That helps.
Monika: Yeah, I have a lot of, like, stage moms that are really into doing it for some reason. I have friends that will just say, “Look, I found this on the street.” People are always throwing their stuff on the street in Williamsburg and New York. They’ll be like, “Oh, I thought you could wear it onstage.” I get interesting things that way sometimes. And I do have a couple friends who have stores in town. That helps keep it interesting.
BYT: Getting back to the audio side of the equation, I’ve heard people struggle to describe your music, and I’m curious how you convey what you make to, say, your parents.
Eric: My dad is usually the one who tells people what kind of music we make. My dad is a huge fan of the band, which is funny in its own way. I don’t know – I feel like we each have our own way of the describing the band. We haven’t yet come to consensus of how we talk about the band.
Monika: I think lately I’ve been telling people – this week I’ve been telling people – it’s kind of electronic pop.
Eric: Me too!
Monika: Oh my god! Weird! No, we’re somewhat eclectic, a little bit 80s-inspired, but definitely modern. We’re definitely not like a covers band or a covers style, trying to be 80s.
Eric: The 80s thing is weird for me, because it’s a common reference, even though it's not one that I particularly identify with. What I think it’s about is the tools that bands were using when they were creating music in the 80s are somewhat similar to the tools that we’re using now. When you have certain synth sounds and you’re putting them in touch with certain drum sound and drums beats – that’s the common reference. It seems like a cop out for people to say, “Oh, 80s.” There are maybe one or two songs of the whole record that I think reference the 80s. Like, at the end of “X-Ray”, that may be the only time that I feel it, and then the fact that people would use it describe “Darling Dearest” is strange.
Monika: Yeah, I don’t really hear it in most of the songs, except for maybe a couple.
Eric: I feel like we – or at least I feel like I – love music from the 80s, but I like it in that it’s fun, it’s danceable, it’s electronic. That’s kind of the stuff I’ve looked for in any music. There happened to be a lot of it in 80s, and there happens to be a lot of it now.
BYT: Right. At the end of the day, the 80s are a decade and not an all-encompassing genre.
Eric: It was the first decade where synthesizers were accessible. Bands were definitely using them in the 70s, but they became part of the common pallet in the 80s, along with electronic drums. Those are two important parts of our music that we happen to share with that era. Then in the 90s and the first part of the 2000s, bands weren’t using these tools.
Monika: Bands went kind of more acoustic in the 90s.
Eric: Yeah, and, like, rock and roll. I don’t know, I’m into thinking of our music as electronic pop, and more and more the dance-oriented element is something we’re excited about. I mean, I was talking to Monika today: I’m in interested in exploring for our future music different ways to approach dance music – danceable music – outside of four-on-the-floor kick drums and stuff like that. That’s an interesting path the band could take.
BYT: I saw the New York Times gave you a nice shout-out. It described Xylos– not in necessarily a negative way – as “iPad commercial” music. What was your reaction to that descriptor?
Eric: It’s funny. I mean, I guess I hear what they’re saying. I think, again, as much with the thing about the 80s, it’s more about shared sound than influence. If we have a song that happens to vibe with the kind of stuff Apple uses for its commercials, I think that’s more of a coincidence than anything.
Monika: Apple can call me.
Eric: We were laughing about maybe Apple will call after that and decide to use one of our songs, which we wouldn’t argue with.
BYT: That wouldn’t be a bad paycheck. And it falls in line with the trend of commercials as a form of radio for emerging bands. I heard Xylos in a car commercial, so it doesn’t seem like you take issue with getting your music out however you can.
Eric: I think that’s a true statement. There are ways to use music in commercials that’s cheesy as hell. I remember when Of Montreal a couple years ago rewrote the lyrics to one of its songs for an Outback commercial, and that was, like, the silliest thing I’ve ever seen. But then there have been pretty cool situations where songs end up in commercials, so I think it’s certainly a case-by-case thing. If we’re approached in some situation, we always have a choice to take advantage of an opportunity or not.
BYT: I think Of Montreal certainly heard it from it fans, in large part because it was kind of tacky to turn an existing song into a jingle. But that was also at outset of it becoming such a common practice.
Eric: Did you see the Black Keys and Vampire Weekend arguing on "The Colbert Report" about who is the biggest sell-out? I think that sort of sums it up at this point. Everyone is in on the joke.
BYT: Anything you want to leave us with?
Eric: I think we’re psyched to come down and play in DC again, and to be part of this benefit show. It seems like an awesome cause.
Previously in BYT interviews:
- 5/18: INTERVIEW: Jasmine Solano
- 5/18: Interview: Richard Linklater
- 5/17: Interview: Penguin Prison
- 5/16: Interview: Brian Regan
- 5/15: Richard Davies (Cardinal) Interviewed by Archie Moore
- 5/11: Interview: Horse Feathers' Justin Ringle
- 5/10: Reflections on a Conversation with Mickey Avalon
- 5/9: Inside the STYLELINER
- 5/8: The Politics of Mastodon
- 5/4: Preview: Mucca Pazza @ The Kennedy Center's "Look Both Ways" Festival
God loves a cheerful giver.
LOVE this band.