Locksley Blends LES Grit & Pop Sophistication On Be In Love

We first heard Locksley in 2005 at Guy Benny’s studio, The Space, in the Lower East Side. It was a Kinks vs. Beatles garage-rock sound, catchy as can be. A fresh-faced four-piece, newly in town from Wisconsin, Locksley was just rough-and-tumble enough to pull off this British Invasion-style in a post-Strokes NYC. Benny had produced Locksley’s EP, and in the process, took over management of the band.

“They were green but they were all good musicians, and the songwriting and singing was really strong,” Benny recalls. “And I could tell they had integrity. That’s what I look for most in a band — good songs, good singing and integrity — because I really think everything stems from integrity.”

Five years later, Locksley’s about to release its second full-length record, Be In Love. Everything the band has accomplished up to this moment — from its TV, film and video game placements to its MTV’s “Artist of the Week” residency, to touring with hero Ray Davies — it’s accomplished as an unsigned band. Talent has allowed Locksley to make strides, but integrity is what keeps pushing them forward.

“No one wanted to sign the band back when we released the EP,” says Benny. “They’d say ‘Oh, this is too much like the Beatles,’ and I’d be thinking ‘Um, aren’t the Beatles the best-selling artist in history?’ So, we moved on, we needed money. And — surprise, surprise — they write highly catchy tunes, which were highly licensable, so we did really well on our own. And then all of a sudden, all these labels started showing up: ‘Oh, Locksley, I love this band.’ But by that time, we were doing well on our own and didn’t see the point in signing a deal.”

Be In Love picks up where the band left off on ‘07’s Don’t Make Me Wait, with new garage-pop tunes like “Love You Too,” “Darling It’s True” (see video below) and “One More Minute” produced in slightly grittier, more punk-infused fashion than their earlier all Brit pop-styled rock. And tracks like “Days of Youth” and “21st Century” take the band in new directions, pairing their snappy 60s pop-rock songwriting with airier, indie-rock arrangements and production.

Locksley’s lead singer/rhythm guitar player, Jesse Laz, describes, “We have a special fondness for older music and the way it was recorded but we’re very conscious of not being some knock-off retro band. We could only sound the way we sound coming out now and we like that. We don’t want to come across as desperately trying to recapture a lost era as much as bringing the best parts to this one.”

MAKING USE OF ‘THE SPACE’ ON BE IN LOVE

On Be In Love, Locksley wanted to retain the raw, youthful energy of their debut LP while also writing more off-beat arrangements and working more creatively, and in some cases painstakingly, in Benny’s studio, The Space.

“They wanted to be more elaborate in terms of the recording and instrumentation, but still keep an organic, all-at-once live band kind of sound,” describes Benny. “Since they have a studio at their disposal, Locksley is able to work on their music all the time. So their arranging has gotten a lot stronger — there are some songs on this record that have been worked and re-worked, totally undone and then put back together into their final form. And then some songs were really learn-as-you-go, and that combination kept the record really fresh.

“The challenge in recording it was keeping that live vibe while also augmenting it to a fuller or more dynamic and texturally rich sound.”

Locksley gets colorful on Be In Love. Photo by Micah Schmidt

For the band, the big-picture challenge was landing on the right kind of “organic” rock sound. Says Laz: “Organic is always key but we’re always back and forth between a more polished organic sound — like the first two Kings of Leon records or The Rapture’s Pieces of the People We Love — or more raw like The Libertines’ first record or one of the first couple Strokes albums.”

And of the songwriting / pre-production, Laz adds, “Several of the songs went through a variety of arrangements before we settled on a final version,” says Laz. “There were different influences too, especially on the arranging. More doo-wop and early punk type stuff than British invasion (though that’s pretty ingrained in us).”

The Space is located in what was the loading dock for an old theater on Clinton Street that’s been converted into an event space and private studio. The main tracking area at The Space has a 60-foot ceiling. And though it’s taller than it is wide, the control room’s lofted, leaving more than enough surface area in the live room for multi-player rock and jazz sessions. Downstairs, there are individual, isolated rooms — designed to be rehearsal and/or smaller recording rooms.

“There are so many options,” Benny describes. “If you want a tighter sound, you can record the drums in one of the downstairs rooms. But I really like the natural sound of the main live room and depending on where you setup the room mics, you can really tailor in what kind of sound you get.

“For Be In Love, we did most of the drums in the live room and mixed and matched with other drums recorded downstairs,” continues Benny. “I used a modified Glyn Johns miking setup on a couple songs —“21st Century” and “One More Minute” — where I augmented the Glyn Johns setup with some cymbal and room mics. And blending in the room sound definitely makes a different impact, on ‘One More Minute,’ for example, which is a more Motown-sounding song. ”

Guitars, too, were recorded in the towering main tracking area. Benny adds, “Just having the ability to distance-mic the room and blend that into the sound gave such a life to the guitar. It takes more work because you’re using three mics and you have to blend them down and get the right blends. But when it works, like on ‘Darling It’s True,’ it’s a tremendous sound. I used two close mics — a ribbon mic and a Shure SM57 — and then a Neumann U67 in the room to pick up the ambience.”

NEW FLAVORS, POP + GRIT BLENDS & BREATHING ROOM

Locksley (l-r): Sam Bair, Jesse Laz, Jordan Laz and Kai Kennedy. Photo by Micah Schmidt

Locksley has a new bass player and voice — Jordan Laz (Jesse’s brother) — who’s brought a new flavor to the band’s sound. “He’s a very strong bass player and I think the bass just sounds phenomenal on this record,” says Benny. “Plus, with Jordan there are now three vocalists on the record, as opposed to the last one which was pretty much split between Jesse and Kai [Kennedy, guitar/vox].”

Each of the three vocalists take lead on two or three songs. “There’s a lot of trade-off,” says Benny, “It’s definitely a poppy record — there’s a ton of hooks and melody and catchiness, but now there’s also grit. There’s a song called ‘On Fire,’ which is reminiscent of the White Stripes. It’s recorded purposely to be a little dingier and lo-fi. And there’s some other stuff that’s more produced and polished. Kind of a mixed bag.

“These guys like pop records, but they don’t like when everything sounds so glossy. They don’t want that perfect kick drum sound. So we made sure to have the ying-yang of raw to sophisticated — you’ll have this distorted guitar sound, but then you’ll hear a sweet vocal over it.”

So, into the classic pop-rock songwriting on Be In Love, Benny blended new sonic elements and textures. The Americana-tinged folk-rocker, “Days of Youth” feels exceedingly organic and yet, Benny cites this tune when he mentions using hip-hop production elements and looping. “But, we created all of these elements organically from recorded instrumentation,” he distinguishes. “So we’re not looping from samples, it’s all stuff we played and processed to sound like it’s on drugs.”

“And, instead of recording an acoustic guitar, we recorded the front of a hollow-body Silvertone guitar. I miked the front of it with a ribbon mic, and that added a big percussive element to the song without using an acoustic. It creates a sonic dimension that is pretty cool and different.”

And on the song “It Isn’t Love,” a stomp-clap break-down section provides a raucous, atmospheric sound. “It’s another element that really makes the record breathe and adds to the dynamics,” Benny cites.

IS THE VOCAL LOUD ENOUGH?

Locksley is a very vocal band, between the various leads, group and call-and-response singing that drive nearly every song. “I always focus on vocals,” Benny admits, “Of course, I always produce to an artist’s strengths, but a long time ago, Steve Lillywhite taught me something: ‘There’s only one thing you want to ask yourself in the mix: ‘Is the vocal loud enough?’”

On Be In Love, there were tons of vocals to record and then balance. “We’ll record group vocals out in the big live room, around one mic, with a lot of distance miking,” Benny describes. Here some big Locksley group vocals on “The Whip,” which can be downloaded here.

“On one of the songs, we did a group vocal with them right up on the mic, then halfway back from the mic, and then farther away again. There’s a lot of sing-a-long on this record, and for that, you want to capture people actually singing in a room. We also recorded a lot of vocals downstairs, which is a little drier, to give it some more articulation. I like to record a lot of vocals and blend them into the mix in unusual ways to add texture to the songs. A lot of times you won’t recognize it as a vocal, you’ll hear something interesting and not realize that it’s a vocal at all.”

For more on Locksley, visit http://www.locksley.com. Be In Love will be available digitally on February 23, and in stores March 16. Locksley will play its record release party at Mercury Lounge on March 2.

Guy Benny’s studio, The Space, is open to outside bookings – recent clients include Fiction Plane and Sam Fogarino, of Interpol. For more information on the studio, visit http://www.thespaceny.net.

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