Clipped Wings

The premise behind Brekfest was starting to build an accessible but high-quality music scene to all of the local acts you grew up with. Will this continue on in tandem with Liily’s growth as a band?

Max: Absolutely. We hope to expand it and get other bands that we think are cool and treat them with the respect they deserve. There will be another Brekfest next year and hopefully another one after that. Charlie: As we grow our asking range kind of grows. The more credible we become, the more we can reach out to a lot of the bands that we love. We just want to be able to have bands that are not the same ones that are dominating festival lineups. It defies genre because we just want to have bands that have something genuinely cool about them and treat them well.

You’ve mentioned in the past that with your last EP you tracked everything, but with your upcoming music you’re recording it all live. What does this difference bring to the table when it comes to the sound/energy of your newer tracks?

Max: I think it also has to do with how we're writing songs now. We were writing the songs for our last EP when we were 15 and didn't record them until we were 18. We've grown in our musical taste in those 3 years and listen to a lot more things, which affects what we write. Everything is more drastic and expanded so I think that with a lot of stuff we listen to, we like when there's a feeling. When it's played live there's an intention and feeling that you can't always get when it's tracked. When we play certain things live there's a certain reaction and something specific comes through so we really want to capture that. In general though, I think that all of our songs are a lot different in the way we go about them. Charlie: I think that the stuff we've been doing translates better live, and in turn, loses something when we track vocals and stuff. The whole point of it gets lost in the tracking process. Max: We're trying not to overthink things in that way now because you can lose track of how things were in the beginning. We're letting ourselves do what comes naturally.

‘Wash’ is your most recent release, and it’s accompanying music video seems to stray a bit from the past visuals you’ve utilized. Is this something you were conscious of while creating the video, or are you not as concerned with linking visual media to music?

Charlie: Sam started dabbling in stop motion and claymation and we thought it looked super cool. Almost every music video we had done up to that point we hated, so we put a lot more attention into this one as opposed to less. The visual aspect of things is cared for a lot more now and it's looked at as an additive instead of something that has to be done. Sam's really stepped up in terms of creating a visual dialogue to go along with the musical aspect. Max: I think we also just now know what we want to make as opposed to just saying "Well, here are some songs!". Now we're more focused on the visual aspect and how we can morph it into one thing with the music.

Your debut EP was titled ‘I Can Fool Anybody In This Town’ after a Charles Bukowski quote. The direct reference was to your upbringing in the LA area, but do you draw any inspiration from literature? Are there any elements of novels you’ve read or writers that you love that have seeped into your writing style as a band?

Charlie: Dylan writes all of the lyrics, so I can't speak on his behalf, but I personally get inspired by a lot of writers but not in the text setting. I think that Bukowski is a very interesting person because of who he is and how he says what he thinks. I like Hunter Thompson and Chuck Palahniuk a lot- just people that have creative minds as opposed to if they share the same discipline as me. Max: Yeah, I get all my literature from him (Charlie).

The last stop of your 6-week run with Bad Suns and Ultra Q is tonight in Pomona. Although the city is considered far from your LA upbringing, do you feel like this show is going to be a bit of a homecoming? How do SoCal shows differ from playing on stages across the country?

Charlie: Definitely! We actually spent a lot of time in Claremont, so it does feel like we're home. This has been an interesting tour because the bands we've been playing with a very different from us. Last night in Phoenix felt like more of a LA show. Max: It all depends on who you play with because that dictates who comes. Bad Suns is more of a pop band so you don't get people looking to mosh. If we were playing with a band with a different style, it'd be different. In Phoenix there were definitely some moshpits starting- and at other shows if people tried to start, other people would be like 'DON'T DO THAT'-but there was a huge pit last night. At one show some dude put a guy dancing around in a headlock and told him to calm down. But here it's more of people we know. Hopefully. Charlie: Last night it felt like one of our shows in LA.

https://www.liilytheband.com/

The 'Chameleon' EP was more of a collection of songs, and now 'IDKHIGH' is a full body of work. How did the process of this EP's creation differ from the last?

Jay: With this EP it felt like we were writing /for/ the record. Even though we had ideas that lived before 'Chameleon', we were getting together now to actually hash it out. It felt like we were an actual band. We had a timeline for this EP because we booked a session for a single with Jesse Barrera then as soon as we finished it, he booked the EP recording session for the next year. David: We finished 'Foreign Exchange' in July and he booked the session for March. We were like, "Uhhhh we don't have any ideas really, but ok!". He wanted us to do the EP with him so we did! We had come up with these songs all together with him as well.

You guys tweeted "Pay attention to the transition between 'Dangerous' and 'Division'", so are you also going to focus on transitions in your new live set?

David: I really want to! We have one for 'Afterglow' but we don't do that for all of them. We want to think about it, and it would definitely be cool if we could do it for every song. Jay: That stuff is a cool idea that we would definitely want to do. With the album and stuff it'd be exactly how you heard it recorded in the live show. We love transitions, if we can make it sound cool, we're all about it.

For everything starting with '909', the VHS tape, the music video, the album art, etc. is extremely different from your past visuals. Did you pick the shift for a specific reason?

David: For the '909' music video, that mostly came from our love of the 80s/90s. We just love that time period because everything seemed happier and we wanted to make people feel happy. We also went back to that time period because there are so many great things to get inspiration from like music, dancing, and styles. We really wanted to channel that but in our own Royaljag way.

Are we going to get a neon Royaljag sign for the stage next?

Jay: That would be so tight!! We would love that! David: Or a TV! We should put 'Space Jam' behind us!

Going on nostalgia, if you could describe this EP as one of your favorite 90s snacks, what would it be?

Roland: Bugles! David: Fruit Roll Ups! Jay: Nilla Wafers!

Is there anything specific about 'IDKHIGH' that you don't want fans to miss?

Roland: I think it's important that people see that this whole EP was based around our struggle of having to drive everywhere from San Bernardino. '909' was the perfect single because it talks about our experience of driving out then going back home then driving back out and so forth. A lot of the songs are about experiences we had while doing that so it all got tied together. We want people to kind of live that experience a little bit. David: You can see through the EP art that this is kind of a record you're meant to listen to in the car. For the long trip to wherever you're going. Like he said, for us it's for nights like tonight where we're in LA but going back to San Bernardino. Jay: We didn't really think of this as a concept record, but it kind of is? We want people to remember this EP as the one where we cut in and made something very different from what we had been. David: To us, the title 'I Dont Know How I Got Here' is that feeling of when you zone out on your way home when you're so used to that commute that you don't even realize how you got home. Jay: When David said that title, it all just made sense to us.

https://www.royaljagband.com/