Singer/songwriters Jason Hill and Brian Karscig have been busy with their own solo stuff – Jason produced and played on the new New York Dolls album and is putting together a platter of his own, while Brian created Nervous Wreckords. But after their late-year CONVOY reunion (a band most of ‘em were in before even Louis), it seemed that the air had not totally gone outta the LouisXIV Zeppelin. (Woo double entendre!)

Fans at the show described it as a bit tentative, that perhaps newly-reformed-ish Louis lads (Hill, Karscig, drummer Mark Maigaard and bassist James Armbrust) were a bit nervous. They also commented that the stage was a mile too high, thus negating much crowd interaction, but hey,whatchoo expect? First gig in two years? Uh hello, rusty!

Nevermind. When I asked, Karscig described the gig as fun, “familiar…and right.” So that’s good, hey? But I had a few more Q’s for the bearded hatman. Questions, such as:

Did you arm wrestle over the set list?
Brian Karscig: Not really, I think we all agreed that our 19 song set was what everyone wanted to hear, and we each got to have our one selfish moment with our individual favorites in the set as well.  But songs like “The Distances From Everyone to You”, “All the Little Pieces”, “Hopesick” and other big epics I know Jason and I have been really enjoying going back and listening to those recordings.

What brought the reunion about? And why now?
Well, before LXIV, Mark, Jason, and I were in  CONVOY.  We did a reunion of that band largely for one of the most instrumental members who left the music scene, our good friend and CONVOY star, band mate Robbie Dodds.  That reunion got Mark, Jason, andmyself back on stage, and playing music together again for the first time since the hiatus of LXIV after the last UK/EU/AUS tour.  It was so much fun, and really put us back in touch, and I think we all realized, even with our other musical endeavors we are happy pursuing individually now, we also realized how much we miss playingtogether as well.

New album in the works? Girl needs details.
Well…we’ll see. Jason and I holed up in a Los Angeles studio for a couple of days, drank wine, made dinner, caught up with each other face to face for the first time in a long time, then the next thing you know…..something really magical happened.

Creatively, we hadn’t lost a step as far as how we work together, and it was almost scary how cool of a song we came up with after not really collaborating together in awhile.  If we can do that 9-10 more times, there could be an album, but we’ve put no pressure or plans in writing, so to speak.

Jason is working on some solo material that sounds great! [BSR note - Hill sent me a couple of tracks a year ago and they're total earworms. Loved them...if they make it on this platter, one's a groovy slow track, the other's a T-Rex-ian stomper] and I am working on a new Nervous Wreckords album as we speak that we are really excited about.

After this show, our chemistry, and the time we have been spending together, I think we both realize that we love having our creative freedoms and individual outlets, but we do write some great songs together. \m/

Thanks to Indi Flowers for the photos!

Although BackstageRider has a long history with Brian Karscig and his previous band, Louis XIV , it’s been a while since I metaphorically pinned BK down to catch up on all things Nervous Wreckords.

Nervous Wreckords, you may recall, have been together for an a few ounces more than a year, and are purveyors of fine, sunshiney, piano-synthy rock, clever lyrics and a really decent beard (on Brian, not on Lindsay). Their debut full-lengther Valuminium has got its groove on, and the band’s been getting its road legs on UhMerican soil.

So, then, it’s clearly time to grab the man under the hat and see how the hell the last year’s been for The NW’s. Here goes:

Wasn’t Valuminium being reissued this month?

We self-released the album 31st Aug. of 2010, but nobody knew who we were, and are actually still getting to know us.  Now that we have been touring, have become a band, it just felt right to re-release the record.  Probably won’t be until March though.

What was the best bit of 2010 for you?

2010 was an interesting year.   I would say for the band, the best part of 2010 was just becoming a band.  TNW started as just a solo record that was going to be called The Nervous Record.  LouisXIV was on a break, and I wanted to release stuff I was working on with my friend Anthony Saffery from Cornershop.

I am a nervous person, it was a record that I had no real plans with except to just be creative with no pressure or expectations attached, and I think it came out that way. Fun, honest, and not over-thought.

The Killers called me up right after it was finished and asked if I had a band (Mark Stoermer played bass on a couple of tracks, and Dave Keuning played the cello intro on “Everything Stops for Tea”), because they loved the record, and wanted TNW to open their last leg of their Day and Age tour in the US.

I didn’t, but fibbed and said I had a band ready to go.  For the next week I called some friends from other bands, and for two weeks we rehearsed the material.  Our first show was sold out at Red Rocks in Colorado, like 11,000 or something.  That was the end of 2009.  Now, everyone from that “thrown together” band of friends have gone back with their other bands/music endeavors except Lindsay and I.  2010 brought us Cindy and Tony who have been with us ever since, and we finally feel like a band.

Do you have any rock and roll resolutions for the next year?

World Domination, and touring.

Now that the band’s a year old, what are you learning about each other and the music?

I think every time we get in the van and start a tour, we continually learn something new about each other as people, each others’ sense of humor, personalities, etc., and become better friends.  As musicians, I think we are just getting to that point where we trust one another on stage, and are comfortable relying on each other to do what our respective roles are.  We believe that each of us will be able to recover or pull it off,  if something goes wrong. Everyone in the band have made the songs on the record their own…ours, and it feels like that when we play live now. Rather than just “playing the parts on the record”, everyone is adding their own style, feel, and contributing to the songs, and they feel 10 times more alive.

You’ve been touring extensively this past year, what’s the craziest story from the road?

Well, lots of crazy things happen on the road, but that generally stays on the road:)

What’re your fave bits/songs on Valuminium and why?

That’s really hard to say. All the songs mean a lot, but at the moment, I’m loving “Pitchforks” and “The Rich Get Richer”..  Those songs were written over a year ago, but its eerie how relative to now they are lyrically.  Plus, we haven’t started playing them live yet.  Since we’re so new, we’re primarily a support band or a 45-minute-set band.  We pretty much play all the upbeat ones on the record, but plan on bringing in the slower-tempo ones once people get more familiar with the record.

Any plans for hooking up the NW’s with another tour that will take you up to Canada and over to the east coast?

We’re hoping for it.  And always crossing our fingers for the opportunity.  It’s a whole new model on how to get your music out there. We’re still counting on making new fans, word of mouth, etc.  But we are a self-released, self-funded band. So generally have to stick within our means touring-wise which has kept us on the West Coast for the last 7 months or so.

Maybe BackStage Rider should fund a tour and have TNW on the bill?

Uh, yeah! Totally! *reaches into her pockets and finds some fluff and a quarter* You’ve always been prolific…you writing at all these days? Or plans to?

I’m constantly writing.  Its what I do and am still very passionate about it.  I still sometimes go 3-4 songs, sometimes more, where I’ll spend days on it, and won’t be that happy with it in the end. But then there are ones that I spend 5 minutes on, and immediately feel like something magical came out.

You’ve also had a really DIY approach to your own promotion (with help from yours truly in social media, right? and done lots of cool things (your own label). Is that what it takes now for bands to survive? To be utterly and completely hands on, on all aspects of their own business?

It’s kind of difficult, really.  I mean, there are so many deals out there that do not cater to the best interests of the artists.  I really tried to make a solid run at starting a new label (Nervous Wreckords, which was going to be a label, before it was a record, before it was a band) and had some success with starting The Pineapple Recording Group with my longtime friend Jason.  I wanted to be able to record bands on really good gear for cheap, release the records, and promote the bands by touring and social media.  Some artists were part of the early incarnations of The Nervous Wreckords, and other artists would open for us.  It was on its way to being a really cool touring Rock and Roll Circus.

It was about halfway through the first tour we did with the Killers that I found that just because you may have the passion to want to nurture or help along bands or artists that you see potential in, or believe in, the situation can backfire on you due to circumstances beyond your control.  So now, we are the only band on our label.  It feels good to know that when we put in 100% we’ll get back 100%.

What other music/bands out there are really turning you on?

There are a lot of cool bands out there.  I really like Arcade Fire, Cee-Lo Green, and the Julian Casablancas record “Phrazes for the Young”.
Anything else kooky or exciting on the cards for your gang this year?

We’re excited to play with Cee-Lo Green in Feb., and have a lot of really promising tour opportunities coming up, that I don’t want to jinx because they are not “confirmed”.  Otherwise, we just keep writing, doing our own bookings, and just keep pushing forward doing what we do best.

Will you send me a pic of you doing the Rockhands for my gallery?

I would, but I’m missing two fingers.\m/

Like, July 8 sort of late.

Jason Hill – Jay to his friends, eyelinered-waist-coated-dapper-often-beardy singer in LouisXIV to his fans – had been off the grid for nearly a year.

San Diego rockers Louis XIV had decided to put the band on ice precisely at the time when their currency was increasing. They’d been opening up to thousands on a world tour with The Killers, gaining some critical attention for their last album Slick Dogs and Ponies (one of BSR’s most played) and gaining a new fanbase.

Then it all went tits up.

The band – which included longtime friends Brian Karscig and Hill – split. Karscig immediately poured himself into a new venture, The Nervous Wreckords, which he’d recorded bits and pieces of with Anthony from Cornershop and Mark from the Killers. The Nervous Wreckords are now a four-piece and they tour. Do videos. Proper catchy songs, too. The debut full-lengther, Valuminium, drops on August 31.

But Jay?

He seemed….quiet. Which was strange for someone so prolific and driven. He was on Facebook, well, sorta, but wouldn’t reply to people. His photo hasn’t changed for about a year. There was no sign of gigs, or new music. No SoundCloud or BandCamp or MySpace. There was no sign of Jay, really.

Then, just this month, came a flurry of photos. Of a new studio he’d built, out the back of his new, reclusive hideaway. He called the studio “Ulysses” because that was the name that came to him when he walked in to the stone room. Suddenly, Jason Hill was back. And to be honest, the Backstage Rider is a little f*cking excited about this fact.

But where was he?

In his own words and based on a conversation between us over a few days last week, HERE’S WHAT JASON HILL DID NEXT:

“It’s been an amazing year for me, actually. I’ve spent all my life since I was 14 being in a band with the exception of a month or two when I was 19, so I was in need of not having to travel or think in a pack. I was in a dark place before we went on our last tour and then just after. Not so much because of the band, but now I’m actually doing quite good.

A dark place? In what way?
“Just feeling a bit claustrophobic and trapped from my life. I guess, the band, some business associates we were having issues with, and my girlfriend of several years and I had just broken up in Spain. The last tour we did was about two-and-a-half months in Europe and Australia, and although it was a great and huge tour, playing to enormous crowds of 15-25,000 people a night, I just wanted to step away and stop having to run in a pack.

There was a darkness around and I wanted to leave it in the shadows.

It’s very liberating being able to completely wake up and have absolutely nothing planned for the rest of your life. Being able to be my own man for the first time since I was 14, because it was the first time I didn’t really have a band. I didn’t have to make decisions about where I lived…or anything really.

I also wanted to work with other people, Brian, Mark (Maigaard), Jimmy (Armbrust) and I had been playing with each other a long time and we were all just in need of some time apart. It was getting to that point of not really helping each other bring about new music, not working together, we were really only recording separately at that point, and not really leaving room for each other. It was just time.

So I split town.

I moved to Laurel Canyon in Tinsletown, built a studio out of this 100-year-old house tucked high into the canyon, and been writing with people and producing for their albums. Really busy but it’s been a wonderful time mostly. Been writing and recording like crazy, my own stuff as well. A number of songs with the old bass player of Jamiroquai, Nick Fyffe, and Alex Carapetis who played with Phoenix but now plays with The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas. But mostly just been producing. It’s been nice to just be in the studio creating music.

Ah yes, Ulysses. Tell us more about the studio.
I have this wonderful old Spanish house in the hills originally built in 1916. It’s very isolated and a place where I see deer several times a week on my deck. Yet it’s just about a half-mile from Sunset, so I don’t get too bored.

First night I moved up here I found myself sleeping on a wood floor in front of a roaring old fireplace after having dinner with Nick Rhodes from Duran Duran, Matt Bellamy from Muse and Mark from The Killers and it’s been pretty much eventful ever since.

Woah. Rewind. Nick Rhodes?
We had a mutual friend, and he actually asked all of us for dinner. Only Mark and I knew each other at the table. Pete Katsis is a big manager who manages lots of big acts like Jane’s Addiction and Korn and many others were there as well. I actually hang with him a lot. Nick was really cool, very funny guy. We were laughing a lot. I remember a big discussion on how once any great artist gets a beard, they stop making good music, at least while they have the beard. This was mostly funny because Mark and I both had the makings of beards at that moment…which was a bit of the joke. Nick referenced Bowie with a beard in Tin Machine.

Okay, back to the studio.
So I built a studio out of the old house and immediately just starting to get all sorts of requests to produce other people’s records. The Virgins, Sky Ferriera, Mark Stoermer from the Killers, all sorts.

Seemed like it would be fun and I needed a change. I just wrote and produced a song with a boyfriend and girlfriend from Seattle called Thomas and Lonnie that I absolutely love. Been asked to write for and with a lot of people, and that sort of thing.

What about the LouisXIV lads? Are you in touch?
I do keep up with Brian, Mark as well, we send messages back and forth a lot lately. We decided to do a show in October with our band prior to Louis XIV called Convoy, mostly to get the other guitar player Robbie Dodds back on a stage – he’s an incredible player, it will be good to play with him again. We all thought it would be fun to do all the early stuff of that band. We all weren’t very happy with our last record, similar to how we felt in some ways to our last Louis XIV record, so we wanted to sort of get back to those basics. Just for a laugh really.

When will see you play live again?
I’ve gotten to that point where I’m thinking of playing live again. It’s been a year and some months since I’ve been on a stage and I’m starting to get the itch to play. I can feel the twitch in my legs creeping in, my fingers getting a little jittery, my walk gets a little more upright and swaggered, it’s like a magnet to a refrigerator.

So how is your own music sounding? What shape are the songs forming?
Songs have just been pouring out, all sorts. Hard to explain what they sound like. Just very different, I think, unlike anyone else I can think of. Some are very dancey, some of the ones with Nick Fyffe are sounding like nothing anyone else has heard from me. Some very  ‘70s French disco sounding and others are very stripped down rock numbers with saxes and Serge Gainsbourg Melody Nelson-era string sections. Some just a vocal and a horn. All over the place, really, I’m now at the point of assembling the year of recording.

Not sure exactly yet what I’m going to do with all them, what will make a record and what not. Been just trying to get my head around that at the moment. But it’s been amazing to listen to music again. For a while I was feeling very isolated and wasn’t listening. When a musician stops listening, it’s like a runner wearing cement shoes. Right now I feel more like I’m wearing clouds for socks. \m/

NEW YORK DOLLS UPDATE: AUGUST 2: The Convoy reunion show slated for October has now been postponed until at least December because Hill is going to be producing some new music from The New York Dolls, starting in September, in Newcastle, UK. Jason had met the band over the past few years – apparently David Johansen’s girlfriend and daughter came to a few LouisXIV shows in NYC. And the band contacted hill. “I instantly said yes and there you have it.” said Hill. “I fly out aug 21-25 to write with them in ny and then Ill be in Newcastle Aug 29-sept 21.” Now, THIS should be interesting.

Every once and a while, the BackstageRider likes to crawl out from under the piles of  twitchy and dirty alt-somethin’-somethin’ music and swat at the light.

And while the interior of the Snow Patrol-early U2-Editors triangularium isn’t a place in which we typically dwell for too long, sometimes it’s good to get clean. Factor in swoony vocals, earnest love songs and anthemy choruses rooted somewhere near the good parts of the late 1980s, and you’ve got July’s Rockands heroes: introducing The Republic of Letters.

Made out of bits of Chris Venti (lovely vocals),  brother Nick Venti (drummer and chap with excellent chain below), Martin Niwinski (bass guitar) and Adrian Thorstensen (guitar), Republic of Letters are derived from San Diego, CA. Their first full-lengther is due out this autumn, produced by good friend to BSR, Louis XIV/Nervous Wreckords’ Brian Karscig. For a taster now, however, they’ve got an EP called Painted Hour (also the name of the best song on there). Have a listen to them on MySpace. They might be pretty, but they’re also cheeky devils’ (horns). \m/

Those of you with memories that stretch way back to about last year will recall Karscig’s previous band, Louis XIV and how they sorta split after a monumental tour opening for that Vegas show(lderpad) band, The Killers. The tour involved countless Air Miles, wine and backstage ligging with all sorts of famous people. See?

So what are you gonna do after you meet the Lizard King, sorry, Tom Cruise? Oh, you know, break up your band. Leave on a high. Take that long road to Hiatusville.

Karscig’s now rocking his own thing and by all accounts (and judging by the drunk texts we tend to exchange) enjoying himself.

“Doin’ it to do it” is the second video – and motto – of the band. And it debuted today. Have a peek and be on the listen for Valuminium – which will be winging its way into the ears of the discerning in mere months.

Check out San Diego’s Nervous Wreckords on MySpazz or on Twitter. Thanks to Brian K. for the photos. Please don’t kill me.

Brian Karscig, LouisXIV/Nervous Wreckords, MikalaT Photo

Always sucks when one of your fave bands kinda breaks up and then one goes off and forms another band and you’re all, like, ‘Should I stay with dad or with mum? Who’s got the better bedroom?’

It’s kinda how I feel about the Nervous Wreckords, the new band from Louis XIV’s Brian Karscig.

Louis XIV
I have a huge, squidgy soft spot for 70s alt-rockers Louis XIV, who hail from San Diego, though I’m not really sure why. I met and saw them for the first time back in Feb 2008 when Louis XIV opened up for The Editors here in Vancouver. Fell in love with their cheeky rock, scruffy beards and stylin’ waistcoats. They’re great live, too.

Ended up bumping into guitarist/vocalist Brian at the back by the bar that night. He was hammered and blathering and told me that he’d wanted everything to be perfect but had to apparently tear a strip off singer Jason Hill for some imperceptible on-stage minor blunder…then he asked me out. I declined, (though I do adore him) but I dug his hat. When he grows the beard, Brian Karscig always does rock a mean Hasidic Jew look.

Jason Hill, LouisXIV, MikalaT

Hill was moping around the back of the Commodore following the show and looked like he needed a hug. He got one. I promised that the next time they were in town we’d sked a proper interview, and we did, last April, when we chatted about their newest album, Slick Dogs and Ponies.

Shagging in the Toilets
The night after the April interview and their headline show at Richards, the band were sick as dogs (Sick Dogs and Ponies?) and had been trading the same virulent strain of tourbus rot for days. Hill invited me to the bus to hang out and drink whiskey. Umm, alcohol kills bacteria right?

Post-gig, tour-bus hanging with a bunch of sick rockers is more civilized than one might expect. (Though I do recall that when one of the bandmembers came back onto the bus after a backstage/bathroom shag – can’t say who because what goes on on the road, stays on the road, but it was the bassist – KIDDING HA HA – he did get a round of applause. Then he complained that the girl’s boyfriend had rung mid-hump.

Sick Blogs and Ponies
I teased Brian about their crap blog writing on their MySpace page and offered to write them one from the night’s show to illustrate how it was done. So I did.

And it ended up on the LouisXIV MySpace page. Got the most comments, too. See if you spot the wee white lie we inserted in there.

To this day, I still help Brian navigate through the social media minefield. A few weeks ago, Brian, via his @nrvouswreckords Twitter account, said I was his “Obi-Wan” of Twitter. I use my powers for good, oh yes.

The Nervous Wreckords
Fast forward to this year, and Brian’s started his own band, The Nervous Wreckords, which came about as a side project with Anthony Saffery from Cornershop and Mark Stoermer from The Killers, whom Louis had been touring with, and some other former XIVers. Now it’s a band on its own. With other people. And a girl in it. And stuff.

Nervous Wreckords

The Music: a kind of 70s Elton John/Bob Dylan/Rolling Stones alt-rock pastiche and one of the songs is called “I Don’t Feel Tardy”, which earns them a medal for the use of the word “Tardy”. “Doin’ it to do it” is a enormously fun little rock song.

The EP: Nailbighter, is now available on the iTunes thing or hispeedsoul.com. Check it out on myspace.com/thenervouswreckords

The Tour: a coupla San Diego shows before Xmas but the newly formed band has been on what seems like a riotous tour, if this text message I got from Brian is anything to go by:

Shit! I’m wasted…in Seattle…this has to be my last martini”

I did a great little phone interview with Brian from the tour van a few weeks back and will link to that when it’s done. Jason Hill is apparently fine and has been gigging and producing.

Like I said, I don’t like it when mum and dad fight. But for now, I think I’m gonna stay with mum. She’s got a better beard. \m/