Three Stars: Frau Eva

Is Ash Lovely still around?

Ben: They changed the name to The Ash Lovelies.

Vanessa: They’re kind of a collective so a lot of musicians come and play. It’s a good atmosphere.

Do you ever still come and play with them?

Ben: No. We go to their shows sometimes. Sometimes Lou asks us to play with them. Lou Black is sort of the lead guy.

How would you say your songs diverged from what you were doing with Ash Lovely?

David: Well, I feel like with Ash Lovely, we had a lot of fun and it was good but I guess we weren’t sure if we were progressing at some point?

Vanessa: Well, we really wanted to carefully arrange our music and put a lot of thought into it. We spent a lot of time on the songs that are in the show, which is kind of cool, because we practiced these songs so hard, no one ever heard them, so it’s like, at our first show it was exciting, unveiling our child.

David: It’s not a put down for what we were doing before, because it was good.

Ben: It was fun and poppy.

David: Yeah, it was good, we just had ideas for things that we couldn’t really do in the context of that group.

Ben: The real diverging point is heavily arranging the songs.

Vanessa: We all three write songs.

What instruments does everybody play? It seems surprising on listening to your songs that there’s only three of you.

Vanessa: We do a lot of doubling, I guess. I play mostly electric guitar and flute. I sing.

Ben: We all sing. I play drums, mostly, but I play some guitar on the songs that I write.

David: I play keyboard mainly, and some trumpet and flugelhorn. I play guitar on a song or two and I sing.

Vanessa: And sometimes he’ll be playing flugelhorn and keyboard together. We’re only three people, so we wanted to fill out the songs as much as possible, so we spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to do that.

Ben: The recordings that we have now are pretty much what it sounds like live. We wanted to actually put a lot more tracks of different instruments in the recordings but we didn’t have that much time because we were going on a little tour this summer and so we recorded the EP, basically, for the tour.

David: It was really rushed.

Ben: So, it got down to the day before and we were still recording.

Vanessa: And mixing.

David: It was exciting for sure.

Ben: I think when we record next, there will be even more tracks merged in there.

Vanessa: Lots of really late nights for a week. And we were also making shirts at the same time and trying to figure out packaging. We designed all the packaging and made it using string.

David: Even if people throw away the CD, they’ll keep the packaging. It’s called Rip Out the Threads. But don’t actually rip out the threads. False advertising.

Vanessa: "Rip Out the Threads" is actually one of the lyrics to one of the songs.

I love that you have a song called Morrissey Smiling.

David: It’s not really about Morrissey himself, it’s more commenting on...

Vanessa: How he presents himself.

David: As kind of being a sad-sack. So it’s commenting how that’s his whole appeal. It’s commenting on how if life loses its drama, it also loses its dramatic appeal. So that would be like, if Morrissey were to fix all his problems and never be sad again, I wouldn’t want to listen to that album!

Did you play a lot in D.C. before you went on tour? It seems like that all happened really quickly.

Vanessa: It did.

Ben: We played our first show in May! May 7th. The whole summer just flew by.

Vanessa: We practiced a lot and then in May we had a show and then in July we went on tour. We just decided we wanted to do it.

Ben: So we played five or six shows, mostly house shows, in and around D.C. before we went on tour.

Where did you go on tour?

Ben: Well, I’m from Lafayette, LA and my parents really wanted me to visit. And Wild Fictions was going on tour and they were going to pass through Lafayette. So I guess I got this crazy idea that we could play a show with them in my hometown if we were on tour, too. So, we sort of built a tour around going to visit my parents in Lafayette, LA and play a show with Wild Fictions and just have fun. But we went through Asheville, we were supposed to stop in Georgia.

Vanessa: Mississippi, New Orleans, Lafayette.

David: I recommend that everyone go on tour! Even if you’re not in a band. They’d be expecting a band. Do a performance art set. The touring was the fun part!

Vanessa: I’d never been to Mississsippi or Louisiana so that was fun. Not knowing where we were going to sleep. We camped one night. It was wonderful.

Ben: We were supposed to camp on the way home, too, but we were too excited and drinking too many Rock Stars.

David: Ben thought that was a self-fulfilling prophecy. All your family friends came out so we had a big following.

Ben: We were rock stars that night. Another really awesome part of the tour was that my stepbrother does a lot of film stuff and when we were home the Saturday before we played in Lafayette we had him video tape us do a few of our songs in our backyard which is basically some sugarcane fields and those came out really well, I think.

Vanessa: We were kind of reformatting our songs to play in that setting. So it was fun.

Ben: I had a very minimal drumset.

Vanessa: But you rocked it.

Any particular venues you played on your tour that you liked?

Ben: At New Orleans we played at Circle Bar. We mostly played in bars.

Vanessa: In Jackson, we played this cool space. It’s an art gallery and the birthplace of Eudora Welty. She’s a writer. And the old mansion that she grew up in has turned into a place that you can rent for events and also a coffee shop and a bookstore and a courtyard. It’s a really unique venue and we played there. We were the only ones. They were really nice.

Ben: They were really nice. There weren’t that many people but I feel like they bought the most merch.

Vanessa: One really cool thing about the tour was that people were really excited about what we were doing. And we were really excited. So there was a lot of energy bouncing around that room. It was cool to also see these other bands that we were really excited about so there was a lot of creative energy going on. Which was maybe part of the reason why it was so awesome. Everything happened so fast. Going from one place to another and you have everything squeezed into this small time.

David: It’s cool to just travel long distance and just see the scenery change.

Vanessa: The Appalachia Basin was one of the coolest things.

What are some bands you’re currently inspired by?

Ben: Right now, we’re fascinated by The Beatles.

David: He just got the anthology, the documentary and we watched it and we all got real excited.

Vanessa: Well what’s getting me excited about that is then I went and read about some of the albums and how exactly it was recorded and all the production things they did and it’s pretty novel at the time and experimental and listening to the tracks that I’ve heard thousands of times and hearing all the stuff that I’ve never heard before.

Ben: I like how you see the documentary and you watch them growing. Because if you’re listening to them and you grew up listening to them, it’s like, clearly this song is good because these rock gods made it, but you watch the documentary and you see them as people and every song they like they’re just pushing themselves to do something that they haven’t done before. Which, when I was watching I got really excited because I feel like that’s how we try to approach music. It’s just nice to see people push themselves to try to do something different because that’s really what we try to do with our songs, especially when we’re arranging them and now it’s continuing with new material. We’re just always trying to step up our game.

David: Most bands try to fit themselves into a genre and I feel like we try to stay away from that.

Vanessa: Well, we just don’t really think about it.

Ben: I have a lot of different influences and I want to experiment with all of them. But another band that I’m listening to a lot right now is Girls. Later that night we ended up talking to them and they came back and we hung out all night with them and they crashed here on this very floor. But we had a lot of fun with them and I really like their music.

David: Dirty Projectors. We’ve been into their new album. We were into them before too. I guess we got excited by the new stuff they’ve put out. Sometimes I’m worried that if I start to get a little bit complacent I’ll lose the excitement. So, I heard this and I got excited and I was like, okay, I haven’t lost the ability to get excited about music. It had been awhile since a band really blew me away. From time to time you’ll listen to a band and go, wow, that’s what needs to be done. This is what I should aspire to.

Ben: I guess another band that definitely influences me in a way is Grizzly Bear.

David: We all went to their concert at the 9:30 Club. It was a super duper concert.

Ben: We used to say we sounded kind of like them but after hearing their new album...they’re way better than us.

David: I wasn’t sure that I’d be blown away when I saw them but the concert exceeded my expectations.

Vanessa: I really like, as with any band, really watching what people do.

Who are some of the local acts that interest and inspire you?

David: Our friend Matt Himmerlein set up the H Street Festival show for us. You should check his music out. He does some good stuff.

Vanessa: I really like Janel and Anthony. They moved just recently, but they still play here a lot.

Ben: They’re the best. They’re awesome. And they play a lot with Ted Zook who we enjoy.

Vanessa: I like that whole scene and I’m just starting to get into it. We’ve seen Anthony and Janel play in separate bands.

Ben: I guess he’s not playing shows that much, but Kitty Hawk. He plays a few songs at Federal Reserve nights at Iota. But he’s playing in a project with Stephen Guidry from the Cassettes. Stephen Guidry is from Lafayette, LA, too! So we’re somehow kindred spirits. But Kitty Hawk has amazing songs. I wish I’d written those songs. Pree is really awesome. I think they’re probably my favorite band to see around town.

David: Oh, we’re so biased.

Vanessa: I also like the Federal Reserve in general. I like the idea of it. We’ve talked about doing a collective, too. Something similar to that. Because we’re friends with a lot of people with similar ideas.

Ben: There’s so much talent around here.

Vanessa: It’s a really great place to be right now. There’s so many people who inspire me. There’s a lot of creativity going around, and community.

Ben: Birdlips. We want to include them. We like them a lot. And Hume is doing some crazy stuff. Deleted Scenes is good, too. Dave played a show with Deleted Scenes.

Dave: I played trumpet.

Ben: They’re really good. And their show is so tight. We went to see them at Black Cat Backstage when they played with True Womanhood.

Are there any venues in particular that you like playing?

Vanessa: House shows are awesome.

Ben: Oh, Girl Cave. We went there a few times the last week because we played there right before we went on tour with Caddywhompus which is an amazing New Orleans band.

David: Ben got really excited about them.

Vanessa: I think the biggest stage we’ve played on so far has been Rock and Roll Hotel. We played with Dizzy Spells and Pree. It was a really nice show with great sound and everything. David really wants to play a show in a treehouse.

David: Recently, I’ve been getting all these unconventional ideas and I think a lot of them kind of fizzle out but I get really excited about them at times.

Ben: It’s not just recently.

David: Well, I had this idea that I wanted to play a treehouse show. That I wanted to play a show in a treehouse. So, I was like, oh, I need a battery powered amp. So, I bought a battery powered amp. Then, I was like, I don’t know of any treehouses. Then I was like, also, my keyboard needs to be plugged in. So, there’s actually a lot of problems, but I have a battery powered amp now. So I just need to find a treehouse and buy a battery powered keyboard.

Ben: We could play in Malcolm X Park with the water fountain turned off.

Does it seem to you like house show aesthetic has been growing in D.C.?

Ben: I hope so.

Vanessa: I think so.

David: Maybe.

Ben: But at the same time, there are several DIY spaces that are going under.

David: Like, the Girl Cave is no more really but they’re going to move into a place where they can only have acoustic shows.

Ben: The Lighthouse is shut down. But I think DIY or house shows are just getting more press recently. It’s always been sort of a thing where they rise up and they fall. DIY’s not a new idea.

Vanessa: Well, the reason I like them is that I’d rather play to people who have fun.

Ben: There’s a lot of stress when you play a bar and try to bring people out to a show.

David: I think the DIY shows are the most fun to play because it’s just a more personal environment, I guess.

Have you continued to create new material?

David: On the EP, you can’t really tell that some of our stuff has a jazz influence.

Ben: In the next few months we’re going to record, hopefully.

Vanessa: Right now we’re just focusing on developing the new songs which is really exciting.

Ben: And maybe getting a fourth member. We’ve got lots of songs that are written but just not arranged yet.

Vanessa: Even if one person writes a song we really come together and think about it and maybe change it a little or add parts but we talk about it as a whole. I don’t like to think about it as “This is David’s song” or “This is my song.” I think all our songs are our songs.

Ben: Part of it is that we hang out so much and we just jam. Even before things are written, there are a lot of things. We all see every bit of the song from the first few chords or few notes to the finished product.

David: There are some songs where we collaborate where Vanessa will come up with a guitar part and then I’ll add a guitar part and then I’ll put words to it.

Vanessa: The cool thing is that every song’s different, how it forms. We don’t have a formula, just, whatever happens. And we have so much material and just so many things that we’re excited about getting into that it’s way more than we can tackle it.

Ben: It’s really just hard to find the time to arrange all of it.

Vanessa: We really just need to quit our jobs and just focus on this specifically. All I think about all day is music and I can’t wait to get home and play it. Not that I dislike my job!