Three Stars: Laughing Man

How has your sound progressed as you’ve added a third member?

Michael: I think Luke made us funkier. He added the nod factor.

Luke: I mean, it sounds like a full band. A power trio kind of construction: guitar, bass drums. I like it. Because it’s made the sound fuller. I know whenever I first saw them, and this is what I think of every band that doesn’t have a bass player, I think, “Where is the bass?”

It sounds like you have a wide range of influences on your sound. How do you put together songs? Do you have any bands that you reference when you’re putting songs together?

Michael: Brandon writes pretty much all the songs. We don’t really know any covers. Some guy asked me if we were playing any bars as a cover band. We wouldn’t even know where to start with that. But Brandon usually comes in with sort of an idea. Sometimes it’s a really big idea. Sometimes it’s kind of a small idea that we made bigger. But usually, Brandon will come in with something and we’ll really get into it and we’ll jam on it for a really long time. Sometimes we’ll record it and listen to it and sort of like the coal, rub it down into a diamond. Luke will throw his bass line on it. I’ll try to come up with a rough kind of beat. Sometimes Brandon will have a drumbeat in mind. He’ll say “I heard this,” and I’ll say, “OK, I’ll try that.” Usually comes together like that.

I don’t really know that we think of other bands when we’re writing songs but I think a lot of our songs maybe get inspired by bands we play with, like The Love Language, Ffever, True Womanhood. I feel like sometimes we’ll see a band, especially like, the local bands, because then you have an emotional connection. I remember around the time we wrote “Abbington,” I had just seen an Imperial China show. It wasn’t something that I got from them, but it was a similar sort of drumbeat I was considering when we were working on the Spring Garden/Abbington sessions. I kinda saw Patrick doing something and was like, “Oh, wow! That’s cool! That’s exactly what I want to do.”

It’s seeing bands, bands that tour here like Abe Vigoda, Grizzly Bear and Dirty Projectors. I get more, I think from seeing bands than actually listening to them.

Only recently have I started to hear about you playing out of the milieu of house shows. Do you have a strong connection with DIY spaces?

Michael: Yeah, definitely. I know that us, both living in Philadelphia there was a really kind of vibrant house party scene. So, I think, at least when I moved here it seemed like that was kind of lacking but it’s not so much that it’s lacking, it’s just that you have to sort of have to find your way into the places that do that kind of thing and now there’s actually a pretty vibrant scene here, too. It’s just that because it’s D.C., it’s maybe harder to sustain than in like Philly and Baltimore for house shows and things like that. It just feels like the neighborhoods don’t lend themselves as well to that sort of environment.

But, there’s definitely a good scene for that. I personally like playing house shows more than venues. I mean, venue shows are nice too, but house shows, people typically don’t have to pay as much so you have usually a pretty good crowd. They’ll stand closer to you. It just seems like it’s more energetic. I haven’t even done that many house shows. Brandon did the Crab’s Claw one. I think we as a group are going to play Crab’s Claw like, November 1. So, personally I look forward to the more non-traditional venues just cause, it’s just different. Like, the Board of Trade parties. We’ve played those and they’re always really cool.

I’m not familiar with those parties. Who runs them?

Michael: It’s a friend of ours, Lindsey Hart. She curates vintage fashion. She has these seasonal parties in a basement.

What’s been your favorite place to play so far?

Luke: I would say Fort Reno has probably been my favorite so far. Just ‘cause, first of all, the amount of people we got to play in front of and the fact that we were in an outside sort of festival thing. I thought that was real cool. And it was just a nice chill afternoon setting.

Michael: Yeah, it was a pretty night. I was worried all day ‘cause they said it was going to rain and then it was a perfect night. There was sunshine. I didn’t think we would actually get to play ‘cause every forecast said thunderstorms. So, that we even played was awesome. Black Cat, also. I like their shows.

Luke: They treat bands very nicely. Not only do they pay you, which is important, but on top of that, they’ll bring you whatever beer or alcohol that you want. It’s not like you have to get paid that way.

This is a cool practice space, how did you find it?

Michael: The guy who lives next door, Michael Berman, he’s been an artist in DC for awhile. He’s friends with a guy named Stevens J. Carter who used to reside at the place where our last practice space was. Whoever moved out of here put a lot of money into the place and before it went on Craigslist, Michael just happened to say to Stevens, do you know any musicians who are looking for a space? And I kinda took it on as an investment just cause it seemed like a place where I could live and work for awhile and perhaps record bands and have bands practice here. So that’s kind of the plan. I also have a gallery, the DC Mini and I was also going to move some of that stuff, or also do it here, since this is so far away from everyone.

Where is DC Mini Gallery?

Michael: 14th Street Heights. Close to Petworth.

What’s going on with DC Mini Gallery? There were shows scheduled there but then they had to get moved or canceled entirely.

Michael: Yeah, we were having shows. We had a lot of things booked. We sort of had a false complaint called in which triggered a response by a lot of the government agencies. As a result, even though we weren’t guilty of anything that we were accused of, it still forced us to kind of go back and sort of reapply for a few permits and it sort of created a snowball of problems that I only recently found my way out of. So now it’s not really a problem of red tape so much as raising money and keeping money in so we can continue.

It sounds then like you’re still holding the shows. Where are you holding them?

We started holding shows at Jackie’s in Silver Spring. We did a couple there but there just wasn’t enough planning or preparation to just move to Silver Spring. Our crowd didn’t really follow the shows and it seemed like it just wasn’t worth doing so I just basically stopped booking shows 'til I have everything with the Mini Gallery straightened out. But we’ve basically recently found out that we can probably, once we get our stuff together, set up and do shows. Just not as many as I’d done before, but some shows, yes. So now, just trying to generate capital. There’s a few renovations I want to make on the space. It’s definitely a DIY space.