by Joe Fielder
Have you caught upbeat indie pop act Oh Darling around town yet? They're originally from Portland, Oregon, but have been sneaking down to play and/or living here (as explained below) for awhile now.
If not, you'll have your chance this Thursday night at Spaceland when they play with Wires in the Walls, Wake Up Lucid, and The Steelwells.
We recently checked in with their lead Jasmine Ash for a few quick questions.
Hey, there. How long have you guys been in LA now? What brought you here?
Hello! We’ve been living here a year and a half, the year before we moved we were coming here about once a month to play shows, perform music sup showcases and just meet people.
We were lucky to do well in Portland, but for what we’re doing, it seemed like Los Angeles was a great fit.We met our manager via myspace and she lives down here, it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. We’re all Oregonians and were ready for a change.
Do you miss Portland? Great music scene up there (and the people are really damn nice).
Yes and no. We miss our friends and families, but the sunny weather has made for a nice change. (It rains a lot in Portland.)
Our drummer actually still lives in Portland (for better or worse), so we’ve been lucky enough to travel back about once every 6 weeks to play shows and see our loved ones.
Portland’s such a great town and you’re right, the music scene is RAD and eveyone’s super nice.
How are you liking it here? What are the ups and downs of playing in LA?
We actually love it here. We’ve been super lucky and have met tons of great musicians and chose the BEST neighborhood to live in. It’s so cool how we can go out any night of the week and see a GREAT local band, or a rad national act all within a couple miles of us.
That could be one of the downsides too, there’s SO many shows going on and so many bands that want to play those shows, so we have to work extra hard on booking and getting these people to listen to our music.
We’ve been fortunate enough to play some great shows with some amazing local bands, and somehow people keep coming out! It’s been neat to see how supportive people can be, because it seems like every show we play there are just a few more people that show up.
We’re extremely appreciative of that, because we realize how many options there are on any given night in this town.
Who have you been playing with?
We’ve played with The Black Apples, Fitz & The Tantrums, The 88, Everest, Useless Keys and July 8th we’re playing with our friends Wires in the Walls, The Steelwells, and Wake Up Lucid at Spaceland.
How was that Fitz and The Tantrums show at Spaceland the other night?
The Fitz show was AWESOME. They were all SO nice and talented. One of the coolest shows we’ve seen in Los Angeles It was their first residency show at Spaceland, so everyone was really excited. It was neat to be a part of that night.
How did you guys first meet and start playing?
We all knew each other in Portland from different bands in the same scene. One day Jasmine (the singer/keyboardist) and J. Marie (bassist) were having a glass of wine together and decided to start a band. The rest is literally history, we’ve been a band ever since.
We’re pretty sure we wrote a couple of the songs that we still play today the day after that meeting.
How many releases do you have out now?
We’ve put out two records and are working on our third, due to come out sometime this fall.
What's next for you? Any residencies coming or are you recording?
We basically spend everyday in our home studio writing and recording for our new album. Over the last year and a half we’ve been lucky enough to have a handful of film and TV placements and have signed with a new licensing company, Primary Wave, which we are very excited about. We’ll be playing some shows in Portland and a few around here over the summer months and are planning to tour around the release of our record in the fall. Of course, a residency in this neighborhood would be really great.
Last question: What are you listening to these days?
We pretty much can’t stop listening to the new National record, Nico Stai, the new Matt Pond PA record, and the new Stars record. (We could go on, but that might take all day.)
Photo by Paul Redmond
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