Under the banner of pulsating motorik rhythms, delicate shoegaze, prominent soundscapes and dreamy vocals, Outside (Briefly) is an early contender for album of the year. Froth’s third LP is the sound of a band finding its voice in what is a refined studio effort and the group’s most unified work to date. Gone are the days of the catchy psych-pop, to be replaced by far more experimental arrangements which bring the intricate melodies and compositions to the core.

With the band this week announcing a UK tour, which kicks off at The Great Escape festival in May, I had a chat with frontman/guitarist JooJoo Ashworth and bassist Jeremy Katz about the new record and what the future holds for the LA-based four-piece.

Can you give us a brief history of the band and how it was formed?
Jeremy: Joojoo started writing some songs in 2011/2012 and toying with the idea of having a band called froth. Our friend Jeff, who was an original member of the band, was having a show in his backyard and one of the bands cancelled, so Froth stepped in and that was the first official show. After that I met Joojoo at a show and invited him to come and record some songs at this little studio space I had. They showed up and told me that their bass player was leaving for college in San Francisco the next week so I joined the band on bass and we recorded the first ‘Gas Money Demo’ in that practice space. About six months later we met Cameron and invited him to play drums and at that point we started to be serious about it because he brought the sound together with his drumming.

How would you describe your music?
We like to call it noise pop.

The new album sounds brilliant with more of a focus placed on melody and experimentation, was that a conscious decision?
JooJoo : Part of this maybe is just maturing as a band but also part of it could be attributed to having so much time in the studio with Thomas (Dolas) to flush out some ideas and having instruments that we don't have at home. I don't know if it was a conscious decision, it just felt like the natural way things were starting to go.

Jeremy: Thank you. I think so, it was a conscious decision to make prettier songs with more melody for sure, I think also pulling more influence from bands like The Beatles and Elliot Smith will do that. A lot of the experimentation we did with instruments on this album happened in the moment because of the studio we were in (studio 22/ LA) and all the gear that was around us at the time.

There are elements of krautrock continuing on from the second LP, with the likes of ‘Passing Thing’, ‘Contact’ and ‘New machine’ exhibiting motorik repetition. Does that effect how you perform the tracks live? With the songs naturally giving you a licence to extend and explore.
Yes, those songs are always fun to play live and sometimes take different forms because of how open they are. ‘Contact’ has a jam at the end that isn’t on the record, ‘Passing Thing’ is always a little bit different every time we play it. That’s one of the reasons we love krautrock, it’s very open to improvise live.

Can you pinpoint the influences behind your music?
We all have very different taste in music but The Beatles and Elliot Smith were heavy influences on this record. Richard Brautigan’s book The Abortion influenced the title and some of the lyrics.

Tell us about the LA guitar music scene, if there is one?
There is definitely a guitar scene here. There’s usually a show going on every night, mostly around the venues The Echo, or Non Plus Ultra, which is a DIY warehouse spot. There are always new bands popping up doing cool things.

Is there a particular process that your songwriting goes through when crafting the tracks?
It used to vary from song to song, but lately JooJoo will write chords and a melody, and maybe a riff or a chorus, and then we will build the song together and demo it.

What does the next year have in store for the band?
I think we have three US tours and two European tours already booked for 2017 so I think a lot of touring and hopefully some time to start working on the next record.

If you could work with any artist, who would it be and what would they bring to?Froth??
Probably Brian Eno, because it seems like his process would be extremely interesting and he seems to produce really cool stuff when he collaborates with other artists.

What music are you listening to at the moment? Any UK bands that have taken your fancy?
Jeremy: Beak is one of our favourite UK bands, we recently met The KVB in South Africa and they were amazing. Besides that I have been listening to Drab Majesty, Vinyl Williams, No Joy, Belong, Tim Hecker, Black Marble, Ariel Pink, Gold Celeste to name a few.

Is there a particular ethos that drives you as a band?
I think were just mostly driven by the fact that this band is the most important thing to all of us and we want to keep it going for as long as we can.

What is your relationship with the city of Brighton and do you have plans to play the city?
We played Brighton once in 2015, from what I remember, we had one of the best sound guys we ever had and a good time. We’ll be back for The Great Escape!
Paul Hill
 

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