Pop music can be really diverse and after I presented you The Gravity Drive two weeks ago, here is another band that shows us their personal approach to the other side of pop music.
The Last City are Adam and Lizbet Palmer. They met in South Carolina, fell in love, married and started a band. Then they moved to Hiroshima, Japan, where they currently reside. The duo composes and performs smooth and polished classical pop, with sensual male vocals and beautiful soundscapes, born by a mix of violins, piano, guitars and a beat here and there. And they just issued their first big project “The Last City” EP, available for free download here.
I love the concept behind the EP – according to the band it explores five of the most prominent “characters” we associate ourselves with; the overlooked woman, the womanizer, the outcast, the used up and forgotten, and the helpless romantic.
The EP opens with “The Stepping stone: Rosaline” which is my favorite.
We hear electronic glitch, followed shortly by Lizbet’s violin and Adam’s vocals – the melody and the composition are very addictive and moving and go great in combination with lyrics like “So you call yourself a lover, but love don’t even know your name…”.
Next song “White Collar Crimes“, inspired by Fall Out Boy, blends in smoothly and adds some more guitars. “The Used: Sweet Escape” features vocals by Melody Haira and is followed by the first single “The Vagabond: Erasing the end”, that possess a distinctive indie vibe.
The EP finishes with “Interlude: Why are you doing this?” and “The dependable:Chalk in the rain” – songs with a slow, ballad rhythm and beautiful piano melodies. Among the best sides of “The Last City EP” is that all the tracks sound different one from another, yet they create a distinctive for the band sound. It’s a must-hear for the lovers of soft and a little melancholic alternative pop
Here’s what Adam told me about the life in Japan, the story behind the album and his other influences including Jimi Hendrix and My Chemical Romance:
You started the band in South Carolina, but moved to Hiroshima, Japan? How did that happened?
The Last City, for now, is my wife, Lizbet, and myself. We started dating while we were playing together in a band in South Carolina. A while after that she was offered a job through her school in SC to come teach English at a sister-university here in Hiroshima. I figured I would tag along.
Hiroshima, Japan is The Last City’s current home
Do you like the music scene in Japan more than the one in the States now?
Each has its benefits, but here in Japan there seems to be a widespread appreciation for musicianship. There isn’t as much of a music scene (at least for English speakers), but we get regular shows at different spots that actually pay pretty well. And here, they have beer gardens, where you get all you can eat and drink for about $35. For the past two summers, we played regular shows at these in front of hundreds of drunk Japanese businessmen and college kids. Usually that would be a recipe for disaster, but here they just get REALLY happy, and don’t mind dancing in front of the stage. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a few Japanese guys in full suits salsa dance to “I Want You Back”.
Your new EP “Willfully human” has a very interesting concept. It explores five. of the most prominent “characters” we associate ourselves with; the overlooked woman, the womanizer, the outcast, the used up and forgotten, and the helpless romantic. How did you got the idea for that and what personage you see inside you?
The pieces just sort of fell into place. On our website, there are short stories that I wrote that correspond with the characters. Before we had the name, we knew we wanted to include other media in the project: a couple music videos, original artwork, short stories, and whatever else we could use to enhance the project. My wife was thinking up a name for a song I had written (now called “Erasing the End”) and came up with the idea of us being “willfully human”, slowly losing the desire to be anything more than just that. I’ve always tried to write songs by digging deep into a certain mindset or idea, whether it was natural to me or not, and trying to explore how other people might see the world. A couple of the other songs on the album were written from different perspectives (White Collar Crimes was my ode to Fall Out Boy, and Sweet Escape was written based on a conversation with one of my best girl friends) and the short stories followed shortly.
The first short story I wrote was just me feeling too confined by rhyme and meter for a few days and just spilling my thoughts a different way. It felt more auto-biographical than I would have liked, and I found it quite ironic that when we were discussing which character it would be, my wife said it sounded like a misogynist. So much to my own chagrin, I think the Misogynist. Who is in recovery.
Why you decide to make pop music and what are your favorite pop artists?
Pop covers a wide range, and as we write different songs and try different styles, we fit less and less into any more specific genre. My wife is big on Christina Perry, Muse and Panic at the Disco, while artists like Fall Out Boy, John Mayer and Justin Timberlake are sort of my bread and butter.
What other music genres do you like?
Rock is near and dear to me, with artists like Jimi Hendrix and My Chemical Romance. But on the right day, just slow acoustic music like Damien Rice or Steven Fiore is good for the soul. And pretty much any song in any genre that has the right kind of tongue-in-cheek wit about it.
If you could choose three artists to play a show with who would you pick?
Emery is my easy first choice; the energy and just raw power they have live is infectious. Justin Timberlake; say what you want about the songs, lyrics, whatever, but the man doesn’t put on shows, he puts together productions. And probably an acoustic set with One Republic.
The Last City would love to play with post-hardcore heroes Emery
Where are you playing next? Any plans to swing back to the States soon?
Our next show is actually our CD Release show at an Italian Place owned by a Japanese guy called Brassier Vendage. I recently took a trip back, and there is a plan for down the road, but right now we wanna sink our teeth into the scene here.
Do you work on new material?
We are always writing and recording something. It’s what we’ve been doing for over a decade or so now, and it’s a habit I don’t want to ever break.
More about The Last City on their official website , ReverbNation, Facebook, Twitter @thelastcityband, Tumblr & Soundcloud.
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