The indie-poptastic US trio Strange Names recently released their debut album Use Your Time Wisely. The Minneapolis threesome bring the classic New Age sound of the 80s into the contemporary, with meaningful pop. The band came together at The Univeristy of Minnesota, in order to bring a dynamic depth to an infectious form of music.

We chat to the groups lead singer Liam Benzvi about their ‘Next Wave’ sound, rubbing shoulders with Azelia Banks on tour and Strange Names rising recognition…

Strange Names seem to create feel-good indie-pop with underlying meaningful lyrics. But how would the band themselves describe their sound?

I love ‘underlying meaningful lyrics’… It’s melodically sensible but still cynical.

Have you been pleased with the responses to your debut Use Your Time Wisely so far?

Yeah, I think people are enjoying the songs. Yeah, I think it’s an album that definitely speaks to the last three years of our lives. So yeah, if they don’t like it we’re just going go to therapy. We’ll relive those three years all over again.

What do the band try to comment on with their enticing lyrics?

I think we just try to find interesting ways to communicate complicated emotions.

It’s just all-different kinds of emotion. I feel like with this record in particular, that every song is probably about a different individual, or about us, but its using weird abstract imagery and different ways to express whatever kind of emotion; angst or happiness, whatever it may be. Because it’s more interesting to express yourself in poetry than any other way I guess.

You seem to explore a lot of different themes ‘Neighborhood’ seems to have themes of adolescence, whilst the likes of ‘Only Boy’ seems seductive. Would you agree Strange Names are pop-chameleons of mood, able to impressively change your themes and dynamics from track-to-track?

Totally. We actually sort-of honed in our sound, I think it was a lot more random earlier on. We just wanted to do everything.

You recorded the album in New York. This was a re-recording. What made the band want to re-record the album? Is this when Strange Names honed in their sound?

It was just not quite there. It was like whenever you create something, you kind of dissect it and turn it inside and out… There’s like almost no way to describe how… It’s like something is just not fitting right. So we connected with this guy Andrew Maury who helped us produce and he was just, the way he expressed himself was very much in tune with how we expressed ourselves. So he was kind of the missing piece for us.

Did the band to have chance to have some fun exploring when recording in New York or was it all heads down hard work?

No, yeah well we live here now, so we do that every night.

Did you enjoy the recording process?

Yeah it was a lot of fun.

Your music has been described to derive from the late 70s and 80s new age pop. Are you guy’s fans of old-school pop music?

Absolutely.

We’ve also heard the band beholds a big fan of Earth Wind & Fire…

I think that Fletcher our drummer might have mentioned that in an interview but we all really like Earth Wind & Fire. So we can make that clear, we actually do this dance called ‘The Bus Stop’ it’s a 70s line dance… It has somehow made its way into two of our very, very early videos. When we were like, way back when, when we were first starting.

What made the band coin the phrase ‘Next Wave’ on your Facebook page?

It was just a cheeky way to kind-of…We would always say we’re pop music and when people hear ‘pop’, when people hear someone say that, they think it has a shallow or negative connotation to it, it reminds people of Top 40. And that’s not what we’re thinking, we’re thinking more kind of late 70s, 80s like, whatever those bands, when they were making that pop music, they were making a formula with lots of instruments involved.

How do Strange Names feel about being the modern day Human League?

Well that’s very sweet. I don’t think we could ever be the modern day Human League but yeah we’re doing our own thing and it’s kind of cool, we take from all those artists and its cool when we people say we remind them of certain artists and then we make people nostalgic when they listen to our record. Which is cool but I think with our next record which we’re writing right now, we’ll try and make it even more our own sound, we’ll just hone in on our own randomness into something even weirder.

You’ve been compared to the likes of modern bands like Phoenix and Passion Pit to older legends such as Talking Heads, are the band flattered by these comparisons?

Sure, they really successful bands and they make catchy songs, they make hooky songs, and we strive to do the same.

Azelia Banks has given you guys great praise on Twitter and you’ve played live-dates with the rap-singer. What’s the bands relationship with the star is it true your friendship began in high-school Liam?

Yeah I went to high-school with her. She used to send me her old demoes and I’d send her my demoes. We always just kind of kept track of each other. So it’s cool when we talk now because we’re both artists, we’re both doing it.

Did you have fun playing recent live shows as support to Banks in New York, Chicago and Boston?

Oh yeah, it was a blast!

Which was your favourite location to play?

All of them were great. I liked Irving Plaza the most in New York, just because I’ve always wanted to play that venue as a child. And the sound was great, our producer was doing our sound. And it was just like, a big homecoming, it was kind of like, we had some friends there… it was like a New York event, which is cool. But the other cities were also very, very fun, the audiences were fucking awesome.

What’s next for Strange Names, could you be embarking on a tour of your own perhaps? Most importantly, is there any chance we might get to see you live in the UK soon?

Yes for sure, we haven’t announced any dates yet but its definitely happening.

Use Your Time Wisely is out now on Frenchkiss records in the UK and the US.

Emily Schofield
@EmSchofield94

(Photo by Jane Bruce)