LOUCEY, NEW ORLEANS: BAND INTERVIEW
Getting tight with loucey: The band members of loucey, the New Orleans, trip-hop-based art project (photos by Katie Sikora)
THE JUICE IS LOUCE(Y): TRIP HOP, BOOM BAP AND an accidental concept album
Interview by Paul Oswell
We round up new music here on OAD every couple of months (i.e. when I have time to sit down and listen). The songs or albums are chosen fairly randomly, a quick search on BandCamp, filtering for new releases from New Orleans - it seems democratic, and that way I listen to music I might not otherwise have found. This last time, I clicked on the track 'illusions' by loucey, and it immediately hooked me. The gloriously muddy beats took this Gen X Brit transplant back to the UK trip-hop explosion of the mid 90s, evoking Massive Attack, Tricky and Portishead. The vocals cut through the ambiance with crystal clear expressiveness and inflections. It's the kind of downbeat but infectious groove that I love, a pure hit of nostalgia but from a contemporary-sounding album. I wanted to get loosey-goosey with loucey and find out more, so I sat down with multi-talented vocalist/lyricist/musician Cherie McCabe, and beatmaker extraordinaire Ben Lorio.
Paul (Out All Day): Congratulations on the album! I heard the single (illusions) randomly on Bandcamp and I just instantly had to hear more. As someone who graduated college in the mid 90s, it really took me back to some of the trip hop that was breaking through at the time, but it’s still a very contemporary sound. I love it, anyway. You’ve been recording since 2017, though - tell me a bit about the early days, how you all got together.
Cherie: Ben and I are longtime friends and we had worked on music casually. Then we brought in my husband, Sam, who plays guitar and the three of us worked on music in Ben’s studio, as he has all the tools.
Ben: I was just going to record two songs for you guys as a wedding present! We did that, and then it just kept going. Jeremy was a good friend of mine and we also brought him in.
C: Then I thought: we’re going to need a drummer. It can't be me. And I was like, why not you, Ben?
B: Right. I was not supposed to be the drummer. I was just gonna be on the soundboards and somebody else was gonna play. But, yeah, here we are.
C: This band is like an art project of friends. It starts, it stops. It's not this constant thing, because life happens. There was the pandemic, and I had two kids, but we were able to just come back and tap into what we love. For Ben especially, this was a fresh opportunity to indulge his trip hop interests.
B: I’m a producer and an engineer, and I work with a lot of artists, helping them create their own sound. During the pandemic, I took stock of my own life. I wanted to make the kind of music that I loved in high school - 90s boom bap, and trip hop. I was just gonna make beats again for myself, for fun. So I started doing it, but I quickly realized that Cherie would sound really good over these. If I could just convince her to sing over a couple of tracks, then we might have something. So I asked, and it just really went from there.
P: I'm really glad it did! You mentioned that you identify as an art project rather than a band. What makes the difference?
B: We call it an art project because we don't really tour (laughs).
C: I’m a lyricist and I have a graphic design background, so thinking about the packaging, the album, the content and the stories - sharing that creative outpouring is a very joyful thing. I'm not just thinking about a show, I'm thinking about the experience. Especially with this album, there was such a story to tell in my mind.
P: What is that story? What would you say are the main themes of the album?
C: It's an accidental concept album. I had turned inward and home life was on my mind. It’s about what it's like to have expectations that come with parenthood and trying to be an artist. I was reading a great book called “The Baby On The Fire Escape” that talked about how to juggle creativity with parenting. I would put my kids to bed, and then immediately go to the studio and work on these tracks. It was this duality. So when it came time to write lyrics, I was pulling from my own life. It really became this almost postpartum album, but the guys were on board, which I love them for. Ben said, “You know what? As long as I can help shape the sound, you just tell the stories you wanna tell.”
P: Tell me about the songwriting process. Does it begin with Ben’s beats and atmospherics, and then Cherie, you add your lyrics and a vocal melody?
B: It’s about 50-50. Some songs Cherie writes on guitar, and I make a beat around it, then the other half are straight beats, and she writes melodies. If you hear a guitar all the way through a song, chances are she wrote it (laughs).
C: There was a moment where Ben had a digital folder of beats and I had a notebook filled with songs. And we thought, can we do this? So much of this album was this constant push and pull, this quest to figure out, okay, how do we make a record that speaks to what both of us really love?
P: You both clearly have divergent influences. Ben, tell me a bit more about yours.
B: New York, east coast, early- to mid-nineties hip hop and trip hop. Artists like A Tribe Called Quest, boom-bap (note: a genre of hip hop broadly from the east coast in the 1990s, mixing in vintage jazz and soul samples) and bands like Portishead. I have this one drum machine I love, and I mix in sixties-sounding, cinematic samples.
P: I love the vinyl crackles and kind of dustiness of it, it feels textured, like it has this depth.
B: I love engineering and producing music for other bands, but they’re usually looking for a super clean and perfect sound. One day I was listening to Closer by Nine Inch Nails and I thought, this song is so noisy, there’s a hiss. I want all those crackles, that makes it more real to me.
P: Cherie, I wondered who some of your vocal or songwriting inspirations might be?
C: I'm a child of the nineties and my first CDs were Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Destiny's Child. I just loved soulful pop vocals. I was a kid wanting to imitate Alicia Keys, Fiona Apple, some of those incredible vocalists. Fiona, especially, with the layering on her records. I love a good chorus hook. I love texture. Ben has exposed me to techniques so that you know how to pull back, how to be intimate on the mic, and then also how to let loose in moments where the emotion calls for that. That's something I feel like with this record, I really got to play with my voice more than ever.
P: Is it a tough record to recreate on stage? There are so many atmospheric and intimate touches. Ben, is that a challenge to maintain that ambience in a live setting?
B: New Orleans is a live music town. We made our early music to be played live. When this one came together, we thought… "Oh, shit, we’re gonna have to play this!” So we started with different live arrangements and figuring out how to do it. I'm really proud, though. Like, we've figured out how to play all the songs. But every band member has to do multiple parts. We’re all very busy on stage.
P: When you’re not busy on stage, who do you make an effort to get out and see locally?
B: Our favorite band is People Museum, which Jeremy is in. We love them. Any time they play, it's a band field trip. We all go and watch them.
C: I saw Maddy Kirgo live recently and was blown away, I love the Kelly Duplex record that our label Strange Daisy just released and need to catch them soon. Lyla George is on my radar right now, she's put out a few singles that are really killer. Our good friend Laura Fisher turned me on to her, and Laura’s project, Matron, and her solo stuff is super great.
P: We've done recent interviews with bands like Whisper Party and Alexis and the Sanity, and I think that, like you said, synth forward, indie pop/indie rock is having a moment in New Orleans at the moment. Would you agree?
B: Yeah. It's kind of what we were trying to do seven years ago, and now it's really happening! New Orleans will always be a town for dancing. It's really hard to play slow, singer-songwriter stuff. You wanna dance here. So synth-pop-indie is definitely killing it in New Orleans right now. Of course, this is the exact time that we decide to make a slow trip hop album (laughs).
C: It’s a super moody record. Like, come and see us and think about your life?
B: We're friends with those bands you mentioned, and we’re working to line up shows with some of them. So you can come and dance and then also get moody and move to us.
That's loucey, then: a band who will move you and make you move, mixing downbeats and upbeats, intimacy and cinematic expansiveness. Not bad for a casual art project, and - for this writer at least - one of the best albums of the year so far.
loucey play NOLA Mix records on Sunday June 22nd (1pm-3pm show). participation trophy wife is out now, released by Strange Daisy Records. Listen on bandcamp and spotify or wherever you listen to music.
We round up new music here on OAD every couple of months (i.e. when I have time to sit down and listen). The songs or albums are chosen fairly randomly, a quick search on BandCamp, filtering for new releases from New Orleans - it seems democratic, and that way I listen to music I might not otherwise have found. This last time, I clicked on the track 'illusions' by loucey, and it immediately hooked me. The gloriously muddy beats took this Gen X Brit transplant back to the UK trip-hop explosion of the mid 90s, evoking Massive Attack, Tricky and Portishead. The vocals cut through the ambiance with crystal clear expressiveness and inflections. It's the kind of downbeat but infectious groove that I love, a pure hit of nostalgia but from a contemporary-sounding album. I wanted to get loosey-goosey with loucey and find out more, so I sat down with multi-talented vocalist/lyricist/musician Cherie McCabe, and beatmaker extraordinaire Ben Lorio.
Paul (Out All Day): Congratulations on the album! I heard the single (illusions) randomly on Bandcamp and I just instantly had to hear more. As someone who graduated college in the mid 90s, it really took me back to some of the trip hop that was breaking through at the time, but it’s still a very contemporary sound. I love it, anyway. You’ve been recording since 2017, though - tell me a bit about the early days, how you all got together.
Cherie: Ben and I are longtime friends and we had worked on music casually. Then we brought in my husband, Sam, who plays guitar and the three of us worked on music in Ben’s studio, as he has all the tools.
Ben: I was just going to record two songs for you guys as a wedding present! We did that, and then it just kept going. Jeremy was a good friend of mine and we also brought him in.
C: Then I thought: we’re going to need a drummer. It can't be me. And I was like, why not you, Ben?
B: Right. I was not supposed to be the drummer. I was just gonna be on the soundboards and somebody else was gonna play. But, yeah, here we are.
C: This band is like an art project of friends. It starts, it stops. It's not this constant thing, because life happens. There was the pandemic, and I had two kids, but we were able to just come back and tap into what we love. For Ben especially, this was a fresh opportunity to indulge his trip hop interests.
B: I’m a producer and an engineer, and I work with a lot of artists, helping them create their own sound. During the pandemic, I took stock of my own life. I wanted to make the kind of music that I loved in high school - 90s boom bap, and trip hop. I was just gonna make beats again for myself, for fun. So I started doing it, but I quickly realized that Cherie would sound really good over these. If I could just convince her to sing over a couple of tracks, then we might have something. So I asked, and it just really went from there.
P: I'm really glad it did! You mentioned that you identify as an art project rather than a band. What makes the difference?
B: We call it an art project because we don't really tour (laughs).
C: I’m a lyricist and I have a graphic design background, so thinking about the packaging, the album, the content and the stories - sharing that creative outpouring is a very joyful thing. I'm not just thinking about a show, I'm thinking about the experience. Especially with this album, there was such a story to tell in my mind.
P: What is that story? What would you say are the main themes of the album?
C: It's an accidental concept album. I had turned inward and home life was on my mind. It’s about what it's like to have expectations that come with parenthood and trying to be an artist. I was reading a great book called “The Baby On The Fire Escape” that talked about how to juggle creativity with parenting. I would put my kids to bed, and then immediately go to the studio and work on these tracks. It was this duality. So when it came time to write lyrics, I was pulling from my own life. It really became this almost postpartum album, but the guys were on board, which I love them for. Ben said, “You know what? As long as I can help shape the sound, you just tell the stories you wanna tell.”
P: Tell me about the songwriting process. Does it begin with Ben’s beats and atmospherics, and then Cherie, you add your lyrics and a vocal melody?
B: It’s about 50-50. Some songs Cherie writes on guitar, and I make a beat around it, then the other half are straight beats, and she writes melodies. If you hear a guitar all the way through a song, chances are she wrote it (laughs).
C: There was a moment where Ben had a digital folder of beats and I had a notebook filled with songs. And we thought, can we do this? So much of this album was this constant push and pull, this quest to figure out, okay, how do we make a record that speaks to what both of us really love?
P: You both clearly have divergent influences. Ben, tell me a bit more about yours.
B: New York, east coast, early- to mid-nineties hip hop and trip hop. Artists like A Tribe Called Quest, boom-bap (note: a genre of hip hop broadly from the east coast in the 1990s, mixing in vintage jazz and soul samples) and bands like Portishead. I have this one drum machine I love, and I mix in sixties-sounding, cinematic samples.
P: I love the vinyl crackles and kind of dustiness of it, it feels textured, like it has this depth.
B: I love engineering and producing music for other bands, but they’re usually looking for a super clean and perfect sound. One day I was listening to Closer by Nine Inch Nails and I thought, this song is so noisy, there’s a hiss. I want all those crackles, that makes it more real to me.
P: Cherie, I wondered who some of your vocal or songwriting inspirations might be?
C: I'm a child of the nineties and my first CDs were Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Destiny's Child. I just loved soulful pop vocals. I was a kid wanting to imitate Alicia Keys, Fiona Apple, some of those incredible vocalists. Fiona, especially, with the layering on her records. I love a good chorus hook. I love texture. Ben has exposed me to techniques so that you know how to pull back, how to be intimate on the mic, and then also how to let loose in moments where the emotion calls for that. That's something I feel like with this record, I really got to play with my voice more than ever.
P: Is it a tough record to recreate on stage? There are so many atmospheric and intimate touches. Ben, is that a challenge to maintain that ambience in a live setting?
B: New Orleans is a live music town. We made our early music to be played live. When this one came together, we thought… "Oh, shit, we’re gonna have to play this!” So we started with different live arrangements and figuring out how to do it. I'm really proud, though. Like, we've figured out how to play all the songs. But every band member has to do multiple parts. We’re all very busy on stage.
P: When you’re not busy on stage, who do you make an effort to get out and see locally?
B: Our favorite band is People Museum, which Jeremy is in. We love them. Any time they play, it's a band field trip. We all go and watch them.
C: I saw Maddy Kirgo live recently and was blown away, I love the Kelly Duplex record that our label Strange Daisy just released and need to catch them soon. Lyla George is on my radar right now, she's put out a few singles that are really killer. Our good friend Laura Fisher turned me on to her, and Laura’s project, Matron, and her solo stuff is super great.
P: We've done recent interviews with bands like Whisper Party and Alexis and the Sanity, and I think that, like you said, synth forward, indie pop/indie rock is having a moment in New Orleans at the moment. Would you agree?
B: Yeah. It's kind of what we were trying to do seven years ago, and now it's really happening! New Orleans will always be a town for dancing. It's really hard to play slow, singer-songwriter stuff. You wanna dance here. So synth-pop-indie is definitely killing it in New Orleans right now. Of course, this is the exact time that we decide to make a slow trip hop album (laughs).
C: It’s a super moody record. Like, come and see us and think about your life?
B: We're friends with those bands you mentioned, and we’re working to line up shows with some of them. So you can come and dance and then also get moody and move to us.
That's loucey, then: a band who will move you and make you move, mixing downbeats and upbeats, intimacy and cinematic expansiveness. Not bad for a casual art project, and - for this writer at least - one of the best albums of the year so far.
loucey play NOLA Mix records on Sunday June 22nd (1pm-3pm show). participation trophy wife is out now, released by Strange Daisy Records. Listen on bandcamp and spotify or wherever you listen to music.
Check out the full strange daisy roster via the link below!
