An Interview with Jesse Laz of Locksley

We moved to New York three years ago in August – in 2003 – and that was basically the beginning of the band. I was already out here; I had already gone to NYU for two years. Sam had been in college, Kai was out in San Francisco, Aaron was in Wisconsin – we’d played together before in high school, and college wasn’t working for us, so we decided to all move out to New York and try life out as a band.
You met in high school?
We all met in high school. We all went to high school in Madison, Wisconsin. Sam was originally from Alaska – he grew up in Anchorage. I grew up in Milwaukee, Kai and Aaron grew up in Madison. We all ended up at the same high school, and even though we weren’t in the same cliques or the same social groups, through various happenstances we ended up playing together.
Aaron and I met, irony of ironies, in weight training class. And then we somehow got a show booked, but we didn’t have any songs. Aaron put it to me to find a drummer. Sam had been playing in all sorts of groups; he ran sound, he didn’t go to high school but was doing music everywhere. I think he owed me a favor – I’d given him a ride home, he’d been like “I owe ya’ one.” So I used that to rope him in. Not quite a ride home, but still.
A favor's a favor.
Right. I think the first thing we ever did was a battle of the bands. We didn’t really have songs, so we did a lot of sketches and skits, kind of goofy stuff. But it was fun; people seemed to respond. And when we did well in the battle of the bands we kept going.
It was all just a lot of fun. Aaron had a bass around so he played bass. I had a guitar from my cousin, so I played guitar. Kai could play fast so we put him on lead guitar – it was that kind of thing. None of us were incredible musicians, we just played in a band because why not. I didn’t really have designs on rock stardom – I always figured I’d be a heart surgeon or a movie star. [Laughs]. I’m still looking into the heart surgeon option.
So you headed out to New York to give the band a try. And how was that transition -- from the heartland to the Big Apple?
For the first year and a half, when we all lived together in a one-room loft, it was frustrating. Kai and I eventually moved out and it felt like the band wasn’t going anywhere. We started getting some fans, but after a year that wasn't really enough – we'd gotten evicted after spending thousands on building a practice space, we'd had all our equipment stolen and were having trouble getting insurance money for it – it felt like the band was in its last throes. It’s never the way you imagined.
The midwest made you too optimistic?
You think you’ll just go out and be the biggest rock stars you’ve ever heard of. But it just wasn’t happening for us. We were trying to think what out next step would be. Move to France and be a vagabond band? Drag a gypsy caravan from town to town? Go home?
And then we thought, why not give it one more try. I had some extra money from my day job and I wanted to produce an EP. I had no idea, but I had that egotistical lead singer impulse, “I know how to do things.” It was clear I had no idea what I was doing, but Guy Benny, who’s now our manager, he was helping out and offered to produce the EP – and all for no charge. That was quite an opportunity. He just started acting as our manager – that was a year and a half ago, and once he started working with us things just started happening. We’ve all become good friends. And now we can’t imagine the band without him.
He's the fifth Locksley?
Definitely.
Since then, things have looked up: TV spots, MTV rotation, and now a debut full-lenth?
Yeah, someone had found our EP online and liked the songs, and he’d contacted the Stars channel. They wanted to use one of our songs for a promotion – they were doing an “On Demand” thing and we had the song “Don’t Make Me Wait.” On Demand – Don’t Make Me Wait. It was like… duh. They loved it. Somehow it ended up that they didn’t just use it in a commercial, but the commercial became basically just a music video of us performing the song.
One day we’re about to give it all up, the next, they fly their whole crew out to New York and we end up doing a $200,000 budget music video shoot – a music video that they paid for entirely. This was 2005, that could be called our first "big break.”
Not a shabby break.
No, not at all.
And then from there, it was on to MTV? All the while, the band is unsigned and independent?
Well, yeah. Later that year we played the Dewey Beach music festival – we’d never heard of it. But when we were there we met a guy from MTV licensing. He was doing the college circuit. He liked the songs and wanted to license some of them – for the background music for shows. But we fostered a relationship with him and every time they were looking for something, they would keep us in mind. And then when MTV was doing that show, “Why Can’t I Be You,” they wanted the Cure song, but it was gonna’ cost them an arm and a leg. So he suggested us – since we have a similar aesthetic. And we wrote the song for them.
From what we understood it wasn’t a reality show, but a sitcom. Whoops. So we wrote the song [“Why Not Me?”] with an total misunderstanding of what we were writing about. But it turned out well anyway. And they actually paid for a video -- our second for free -- and the show was on MTV every night for a year or so.
And now you've got a full-length record, "Don't Make Me Wait." What's the next step, touring and support?
The record comes out January 16th. We’ll be touring nationally. For an unsigned band, we don’t have tour support built into our budget – it’s just a lot of what we can afford. We’re doing a lot of college radio promotions, college shows, that helps pay for it.
We’ve recently done an overhaul on our live show. We’ve cut the matching outfits – they seemed to bother everyone. We’ve tightened up the transitions, hopefully made everything a lot more energetic. We really hope our fans are into it and we hope to bring out a bunch of new fans because of it.