Livingmore came to life in 2014 when Alex Moore and Spencer Livingston began collaborating. They bonded over a wide swath of influences, including Garbage, The Hives, Roy Orbison, Modest Mouse, Wilco, Radiohead, The Cure, The Smiths, and Wes Anderson movies. As the duo continued to write, Mike Schadel (drums/keys) and Rodrigo Moreno (bass) eventually joined the fold, and the group’s 2015 self-titled EP, Livingmore, gained traction online. Between countless shows, the band dropped their full-length debut, OK To Land, in 2018. As the world slipped into lockdown in 2020, the quartet locked into creative mode for what would become album number two. We sat down with Alex and Spencer on the eve of the release of their latest album Take Me to talk about the new release, going into professional wrestling and much more!
I’m Music Magazine- How the heck are you?
Alex Moore- I’m good, better now that the world is starting to open up a bit.
I’m liking it, but cautiously liking it.
Alex- Yeah. I’m vaccinated. So I’m all…yeah.
Likewise; shows are returning here to North Carolina. We’re actually covering our first show in over a year and a half on Saturday.
Alex- Wow. Cool!
Yeah, it’s a welcome return. You guys are musicians, so I’m sure you’re chomping at the bit to get out there and play for people because that’s your love. That’s your passion.
Alex- Oh yeah. We’re so excited to play.
Where are you located?
Alex- We’re in Los Angeles.
Oh Wow. So have things opened up there, like venues, and actual live shows yet?
Alex- You know, not really. A lot of venues that we loved to play at, they’re all gone and there’s a few that are alive and well but they’re just not open yet. So there you’re allowed to play now, but it’s like saying, you’re allowed to do something, but nothing’s there. Like you’re in a desert land they’re like, yeah you can have a party but you know just there’s nothing around you.
Wow.
Spencer Livingston-Hi, this is Spencer I’m just jumping on here.
Hi Spencer.
Spencer- Hey, how’s it going?
It’s going ok. We’re just rambling about life. So, as an artist, how do you know when it’s time to put something else out?
Alex- We don’t really have so much of a like a schedule where we’re under pressure from anybody to do something at speed, other than what comes naturally to us. So we kind of just, when we feel like we have a collection of songs that fits, since we’re constantly writing. We have a bunch of songs that we write and then, we try to kind of fit them together in in a collection, that makes sense together. And then we try to see if we can find a little connector pieces and make a little storybook out of.
Spencer- And then also like instincts, kind of. It’s like, you put something out, and there’s a lot that goes into putting something out. Once that’s all done you might not put something out for a while but you start to just like feel that you’re ready at a certain point, It’s hard to really explain.
Gotcha. I was always curious about that because, I know some, as you briefly mentioned, sometimes there is a schedule. Like if it’s a major label or something. They’re like, oh, it’s been two years, it’s time to get everyone together and make a new record.
Spencer- In the creative sense, I see it as a blessing just that we’ve never really had the pressure of a major label or some entity like that putting pressure on us to speed things up or deliver.
Alex- I think we put more stuff out because we don’t have an entity like that. Like I think we put a lot of things out. I think we’re more not held up because we don’t have a big entity.
Spencer- Sometimes a big label will slow you down also and kind of make you censor to yourself more, or you’ll write a song that you would release and then they say they don’t like this and they won’t put it out. But we we kind of put things that we like out regardless of pressure from anybody else.
Just from each other.
Alex-Yeah (chuckles) Right.
So, with the pandemic, how, when did you start the recording process of this? Was it pre-pandemic? I’m wondering how that affected the whole the process of making the album.
Spencer-Well, we just started recording like the week before it really got serious. And we started in like, late February, early March. We have our own studio luckily, which we’re really thankful to have had during this time. We’re also roommates with our drummer.
So, from the time the lockdown started happening and getting really serious; when you couldn’t see people or do anything or go anywhere, we just locked down the studio for months, and just worked on music, jammed and recorded. We had a lot of the songs written right before, 90% of them written. Some of them kind of came more to fruition as we started recording. Alex wrote some lyrics while we were in the studio, since certain things change as we kind of finesse things to start finalizing things and putting them under the microscope. Things naturally kind of just change a little bit. It was just the beginning; we started and then we probably were finished with recording in July or so. Maybe mid June, early July. And then we mixed everything with our friend Josiah, who is over in Eagle Rock, California. We normally we would have gone there with him and sat there and mix things with him. But because of the [lockdown] thing, we didn’t do that. We sent him all the files in like a Dropbox and then we’d just get by doing Zoom meetings with him over Skype and Zoom. And countless emails, just going back and forth. He did a really awesome job. He was really patient with us and with all of our notes cause we could get kind of particular about things.
Alex- As one does with their art. Yeah. And he put up with us for a few months with mixing it took I guess. We were probably done in, maybe I want to say, August? September?
Spencer: We’ve kind of finished mastering, he mastered that, and I also mixed and mastered it. It took a couple months to mix it and then mastering , that took like a week or so, a couple weeks maybe to get it, how we wanted it to sound and yeah, it’s a true COVID album.
Nice! You mentioned the studio and. Is it in your apartment or were you live and your home?
Spencer- No. It’s about two miles from where we live. It’s in an industrial area over in Van Nuys. Yeah, our drummer’s had the place for 20 years. It’s really, his studio. And we’ve been in a band with him for seven years now. So, it’s all of our Studios at this point. We pretty much have recorded all of our all of our stuff there. But yeah, we rehearse there. It’s about a 2000 square-foot kind of just big warehouse space. It’s like, it’s a pretty amazing, little Wonderland of a place. You walk in and it’s kind of like, a dream little Studio that’s been converted. We’re very fortunate to be able to have that placed at our disposal for all this time. We rehearse there, we record there. We have parties there. We’ve sometimes had, I mean, not in a year and a half now, but we’ve had some big parties there. We played, and will host will host nights of music and bands and probably, if no venues end up opening up you know, when it feels right. We probably will do a party there at some point. That may be the last venue left in Los Angeles.
That’s crazy. We’ve lost quite a few here in North Carolina. Some of the smaller, independent smaller venues, dive bars and stuff. They just couldn’t make it. It’s kind of sad…It’s not kind of sad. It IS sad. Now, referring to the studio. I was just wondering if there’s a certain different type of discipline that has to be used with. If you’ve recorded all your stuff there, I’m not sure what other type of recording that you’ve done prior to this. But I noticed, you know, sometimes bands They have a certain block of time at a studio and that’s the time they have allotted to record an album. But if you’ve got this studio at your disposal and you know is it is a different type of discipline you know to make yourself. Do I got to get up and go to the studio today? Come on, let’s get dressed. Let’s just go, let’s do this.
Alex- You know, we definitely don’t take it for granted. Like we are always excited to go and record there. If anything, it’s more freeing because we have all the time in the world to make creative decisions and change things rather than at a studio, where you only have a certain time to do something.
Spencer- Yeah, and it’s also nice to not have to. I mean, bands spent so much money recording. Just when you go to a studio you can you can rack up thousands of dollars in just one afternoon at a expensive studio. So to be able to basically record for free is we definitely don’t take that for granted and we try them try to be as productive as we can make use of our time. We’re also not the type of people that get comfortable sitting around for too long. Like, our work ethic, it’s comes naturally to us, to be productive without really thinking about it too much. It’s kind of just what we do. I think we all kind of made a decision, when we were 15 years old, that this is what we wanted to do with our lives. So to be able to have the means to do what we love doing, it’s kind of a no-brainer for us. We wake up in the morning and it’s what we want to do,
Well, speaking of no-brainers…another one of the music nerds in me, wonders this. When you have such a strong album like this, how do you decide what to do? Do we release this one first? Do we release that one? I mean, how did you decide to go with “Sharp”? Kind of a shock to people in a way; kind of shake them up a little.
Alex- Yeah, exactly. Like, you didn’t expect this, did you? Boom.
Catch ‘em off guard, that’s it. Throw ‘em a curve.
Alex- Yeah, we love doing that.
Spencer – We like surprises. Actually, we have recorded…after we finished this album, we recorded another album. We’re going to put it out as well, maybe at the end of the year and it’s also totally different. I don’t even want to say too much about what. But it’s the complete opposite end of the spectrum from what this album is. And I think I think it’s also going to totally take people by surprise. It’s going to be a different type of surprise, a complete opposite type of album but we’re equally proud of it. It’s kind of, we’ve been working, and we just finished it in January. So we’ve been just keeping at it, there’s nothing else to do.
I’m really loving the new videos! The cowboy in “Got Me Feelin’ Like” is such a scene stealer!
Alex: I know, right? He’s a friend of ours! As I wrote the lyrics, I had him in my head as a character. The fact that he said yes, that he was gonna do it, I was so excited. It was kinda surreal seeing it all play out because it definitely was exactly how I envisioned it. yeah, You don’t even have to give him that much direction, he just kills it. You could say just like dance around in a liquor store like you think you’re the man.n writing the song. I think he was he was always been kind of in the back of her mind. (Laughing)
Spencer: I think Alex envisioned him even before she started writing the song. I think she always had him in the back of her mind.
Alex- I got the costume online and it took a lot of bedazzling. I was so excited to find, like, the whole thing. I really wanted to find a pink cowboy costume. I was so happy when I found a Halloween costume that was like that and then I just sort of made it its own thing with the rhinestones and it was very about the styling too. It had to be the exact right thing. I didn’t want him to come across too nerdy, or to cool. It had to be, like, somewhere in between where people may be something people would stare at, but he could also have some sort of redemption moment of this, like, underdogs, feeling, like, he’s cool. And he’s like, the star of his own show before. I really thought about it.
How anxious are you guys to get this new album out? You know, it’s like this is your baby and it’s you’re about to give birth and release it to everyone. How anxious are you two to finally get it out.
Alex- It’s funny. I feel like weirdly relaxed. The first album is when I felt so anxious. I felt like it was taking forever. I was, like, this is never going to come out. This time, I’m just so really; I feel so happy with what we already put out like that. I feel really complete even with what we already released like I just feel good about it and I’m very excited and I feel good definitely.
Spencer – There’s definitely a release as far as, we’ve just been kind of sitting on it and we have a lot of built-up energy, just from this whole year, not being able to play shows.
Alex- Yeah, I want to play. That’s what I feel.
Spencer- There’s definitely an excitement, and we’ve felt a lot. More so even on our first album, just from people that are fans of the band and have been kind of following what we’ve been doing for the past few years. We’ve definitely felt an excitement. I think people are looking forward to, to get listening to the album. And yeah, we just hope we can give something to people, that’ll make ‘em feel good. We’re definitely excited about it though. We’ve been sitting on it since July too. So it feels going to be all new to everybody else, but to us it’ll be like, Oh Thank God!
Is there anything you want to add about the album that maybe we didn’t cover?
Spencer- We are going to have vinyl, which we have a pre-sale on our website, livingmore dot com. You can also go to nomadyieldrecords. They have been putting it out and they’re going to have it on their BandCamp. And yeah, we’re going to be touring later next year. We haven’t announced anything yet but things are starting to finally form and will later a bit later in the year we’re going to start announcing some stuff but that’s pretty exciting. But until then we don’t really have any states that we can speak of at the moment, okay?
3 for the road. Theses are just three fun questions, more about kind your personality, not as much about, you know, promoting the release and everything. This is more about you guys. So each of you, who was your first celebrity crush.
Alex- This is really funny, but mine was Macaulay Culkin in “Home Alone”. I can’t believe that was the first one. I would say him and then David Bowie from the Labyrinth. Those are both my first two. I like the blondes.
(chuckling) And that’s where the similarities end.
Alex- Yeah, one’s like, a goblin king, and the other is a little boy. (Laughing) Please say, this is when I was like five.
Spencer- I’m trying to think of first celebrity crush. I don’t, I honestly I can’t even, I don’t know if I ever really had a celebrity crush to be honest, but… I don’t know. My first celebrity crush was the velociraptor in “Jurassic Park “. (Lots of laughter)
We’ll go with that one then. All right, if you could have, you know, like in movies and stuff where the character will be walking down the road or something and then you hear their inner voice talking about what they’re thinking. Sometimes their inner voice is not always their own voice. So if you could have anybody, cartoon character, celebrity, whoever to be your inner voice, who would it be?
Alex- That’s a good one. Um…I feel like Aubrey Plaza, definitely.
Spencer- I knew you were going to say that.
Alex, do you know who his is going to be?
Alex- Um, the voice of Darth Vader.
Spencer- No, no I’m going to go with Indiana Jones.
Indiana Jones… ok! You were close…there is a Harrison Ford six degrees there (chuckles) OK, last one. If music was over today and you guys had to go into professional wrestling. What do you think you’re wrestling name would be?
Alex: (laughs) I love these!
Spencer- I want to be called The Lounge Lizard.
Alex: Oh that’s a good one. I would be………………The Skull Crusher.
That’s a very colorful tag team, right there. That’s great. That’s it for me and I do appreciate your time and thanks a lot. I really dig this album; it’s a lot of fun and it cool flowing throughout the entire thing. It has a very infectious feel when you listen to it. So I’m, I’m going to be like, stalking your social media to see everyone’s feedback and stuff to see what they have to say that.
Alex and Spencer: Awesome! Thank you so much; this was fun! We really like your blog and we’ve been keeping up with it for a while now.
I appreciate that; thanks so much! Best of luck with this new release and we can’t wait to see you back on the road!
I’m Music Magazine Owner/Editor Johnny Price
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