INDIO, California – Indie-rock foursome Rogue Wave have been on tour since the release of September's Asleep at Heaven's Gate. The Oakland, California, band squeezed into its sked its first-ever Coachella performance, on Friday, and spoke with Buzznet about the festival experience, which Coachella acts the guys geeked out for, and the process of creating their latest release.



Buzznet: How's Coachella treating you guys so far? How was the show?

Pat Spurgeon: The show was early, and it was amazing, because it was so early, we didn't expect anyone to come out, and they were all there. Not this many people ... but we had a great crowd.

Buzznet: Does playing Coachella mean something special to you guys?

Gram LeBron: It's kind of a big deal.

Spurgeon: It's a big deal because for us and for the other guys in the band. It's our first time ever being here, and it's our first time playing here, so it's a double whammy for us, so it's really nice.

LeBron: We talked about it for a long time, we kind of joked about, you know, "Oh, oh, yeah, it'll sound miserable, it's so hot and everyone's hanging out." We used to joke, like, we'd only play Coachella if we were ... playing, so here we are.

Spurgeon: I thought it was going to be a completely different atmosphere. I thought it was going to be more arid. And I didn't realize there were gonna be trees and tents and everything, so I ... would definitely come back, whether we were playing or not.

Buzznet: Tell me about the making of this record for you guys. It definitely has a different feel. Was there a different process for you guys?

Spurgeon: There definitely was a different process, 'cause we kinda started this record with a new band. We added a new bass player, Patrick Abernethy, and he came in. ... The last record was sort of like us as a live band.

LeBron: We just got off tour. We'd been touring really hard. We got off tour, we had 10 days in the studio, we made a record really quickly.

Spurgeon: This one we worked with Roger Moutenot, who works with Yo La Tengo. [He's a] guy we all respect, 'cause we love his body of work. And so we had this guy we could bounce ideas off of and he could help kind of steer us, and we've never been really steered. And so it was really nice to kind of not really be fully aware of what we're doing all time, you know, because he would come in with his ideas and, anyway, it was a great collaborate process. I think that's the one thing we'd been missing from previous records, because the first record [2003's Out of the Shadow] is mostly [singer] Zack [Rogue], and it's a beautiful record, one of my all-time favorite records. Then the next record was collaborative because, well, we basically holed up in the studio. This one was more experimental, and everybody did their thing. [Guitarist] Gram [Lebron] did a ton of engineering.

LeBron: You did a lot of external work on a four-track outside of what was going on. The last record was more like, we're off tour, we have to make a new record, we have the songs, that's cool, and we spent time [making it]. This one was like, we have all this time, we have all these songs, so the songs changed, some of them changed radically from what they were before, and we just really wanted to spend time making a record rather than, like, let's just present what we do live.

Spurgeon: We got to stretch out a little bit.

Buzznet: "Lake Michigan" is one of my favorite songs.

LeBron: The beginning, the whole intro to "Lake Michigan," is just a practice. We recorded at practice. All that drums at the beginning was just like ...

Spurgeon: One mic in the room, just us kind of figuring out were gonna play this, and then listen to it and see how we wanna do it, and then it ends up being like, wow, "Lake Michigan."

Buzznet: Is that one of the songs that the crowd reaction is strongest too?

LeBron: It's the one they know. It's the single. It's in the commercials.

Spurgeon: We've been getting good crowd responses. I noticed in "Publish My Love," a song from Descended From Vultures, I was looking out and there's, like, people loving it, you know. "Lake Michigan" is, like, the one that they know.

Buzznet: You guys did a Pixies cover for the "OC" soundtrack? Did you see the Breeders today?

Spurgeon: We were doing interviews so ...

LeBron: We were geeking out. Our pedal-steel player was geeking out. He's like, "Look over there," and the Breeders' throw cases were all there, and Kim Deal's amp, and it says "Pixies" on it.

Spurgeon: I took a picture of the drum riser, 'cause it said Prince on it.

LeBron: We're nerds. Music nerds.

Spurgeon: If you're not a music nerd, what are you doing here?

Buzznet: Is there any band that you guys are, like, totally gonna see while you're here?

LeBron: I wanna go see Aphex Twin. I wanna see Death Cab tomorrow and Jack [Johnson] tonight. I wanna try to see the Dap-Kings and Sharon Jones.

Spurgeon: If I was gonna be here till Sunday, I'd definitely see Swervedriver and Spirtualized back to back. I would be there.

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Did you miss Coachella? Check out Buzznet's Coachella review of Friday, Saturday and Sunday.