Shortly after parting ways with their labels, LA based alt rock band YARD OF BLONDES are back to being 100% independent again, proudly presenting their new album “Feed the Moon”, which we’re stoked to give you in its full glory for the first listen below, along with a huge feature with lots of insights about their project, their local independent music scene, other artists worth a check, and special track by track rundown!
For Fans of: Royal Blood, Queens of the Stone Age, Sonic Youth, Placebo, Highly Suspect, Silversun Pickup, Royal Blood, Muse, Nirvana
The record is the result of the bandβs collaboration with Billy Graziadei (legendary founder of NYC hardcore band Biohazard), who produced the album, Mike Patterson (Nine Inch Nails, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Beck..), who took care of the mix, and Maor Applebaum (Faith No More), who mastered it!
“Feed the moon” marks the band’s debut album and it took them seven years to make it and release it.
“A succession of line up changes, financial and personal struggles occurred and forced us to delay it, problem after problem, year after year.” – comments the band. “Of course, the pandemic didnβt help and we were force to delay it again for another yearβ¦ But we canβt wait any longer, thatβs why we have decided to release it on May 19th 2021.”
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“We came with a naive ideas of the US and this is the diary of our realization.” – they continue.”Itβs a journey in world getting darker, day after day. Itβs our most intimate record but itβs also the first time we are addressing political issues without losing focus for our love for poetry and metaphorical stands.”
On Nov.1st 2019, Yard Of Blondes released the 1st single off upcoming album Feed The moon. Both the song and the video were well received, especially in USA, France and Latin America.
“Heavy, dark, edgy and reminiscent of the 90βs rock : with its detuned guitars, haunting vocals and thumping rhythm section, Yard Of Blondes βYou and I & Iβ is the new alternative rock from the land of grunge.”
The song was plugged into 74 Spotify playlists in the first month following its release, including editorial playlist Β« French Noise Β», FM radios, Sirius XM, and internet radios in USA, UK, Germany, France, Norway, New Zealand and Canada. The song reached #6 of USA College Radios charts on February 1st 2020.
On Feb.14th 2019 Yard of Blondes released the 2nd single “Lowland” and continues its ascension : The song reached #1 of USA College Radios charts in May 2020 and has been played on 200+ radios all over the world, acceding new territories with major stations airplays in Japan.
In April 2020, Yard Of Blondes signed with the labels DIE LAUGHING RECORDS (California) and GOLDEN ROBOTS (Australia).
On July 3rd, the band released an unexpected EP: “Close to Home” – a live session recorded during the quarantine ; Vincent, Fanny, Forrest and Burak all recorded and filmed themselves from their homes in Los Angeles playing the songs “Murderology”, “You and I & I” and “Lowland” that will be featured in their upcoming album + the song “Pyramid of bones” a cover from the band The Voidz.
The 3rd single of the album followed on October 16, 2020 : “Do you need more? “.
The single got the attention from Spotify and landed on major editorial playlists such as All New Rock along with Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, AC/DC, Nothing but Thieves and many more giants of the rock nβroll industry. It earned +50k streams in a few months.
But this was going to be their last release with Die laughing records and Golden Robotβ¦. Almost a year after the beginning of the pandemic the band had to part ways with the labels.
Comments Vincent: “With the pandemic hitting harder than anybody could expect, they couldnβt offer us what we needed from them, which was, at this pont, financial support and more exposure. And the album was being delayed again and again, we couldnβt stand it anymore. It was heartbreaking but we decided to reclaim our freedom. Fanny learned how to promote the band along the way. She is now a seasoned and experienced PR and she is really the one getting our music heard around the world. Itβs a hard decision, but we canβt keep waiting on others and we need to really take our destiny in our hands.”
100 % independent again, Fanny and Vincent decided to release their upcoming single “Hummingbird”, all by themselves.
The song was written in 2016 after the Ferguson unrest and the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. Unfortunately, the last year showed us with George Floyd and Breonna Taylor that the song was still accurate and the deadly pandemic gave it an unsuspected new meaning.
The video, directed by Fanny and Vincent, shows a menace coming at people who donβt have time to react. It spreads like a deadly virus among the populationβ¦ Sounds familiar ? Well, the DIY video was shot in 2018, way before the pandemic.
Asked about their take on their local music “scene” and community, the band says that actually it’s interesting, because last year, they realized they were not part of any musical community or scene and they decided to do something about it!
Comments Vincent Jacob: “Fanny and I came to the US with an idealized idea of what was the music scene in LA. We dreamed about the Sunset Strip and Laurel Canyon, hoped to find a community that would welcome us. In a way, we first found it 2 hours away from LA, in the Joshua Tree community. The people we met there gave us our first opportunities. We played the best place on earth, “Pappy and Harrietβs” several times, a legendary place in Yucca Valley. Then, Ted Quinn, who was really involved in this community offered us to participate in a local compilation along with Eric Burdon and Victoria Willams, people we admired.”
“We thought that was it, that our dream was just starting and we came back to LA but we never found the same sense of community. Of course, we met other musicians that became our friends but our local shows were booked by people who didnβt care about the music we played, they only cared about filling up spots.”
πβπππ πππ π π ππππ¦ πππππ ππ πΏπ΄ πππ ππππ ππ πππ‘ π‘βπ ππππ πππππ ππ ππ’π ππ πππ¦ππππ.
“The Sunset strip has gradually transformed into a touristy destination and venues are not the tastemakers they used to be in the β60s, β70s and β80s.
Back in the day, those venues were in synch with label executives and studio owners, it was a real ecosystem that benefited the local musicians. When the pandemic hit, we decided it was time we took this time off to start thinking about how we could improve these things.’
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“We talked to a few friends about our idea and one of them, David Gitlis, told us he was thinking of reviving the old collective he had twenty years ago in France. We decided to use the name of his former collective and re-launched “Team Nowhere“. He created Team Nowhere in France at the end of the nineties. There were about 6 bands that united and soon took France by storm and became very successful. We started communicating in France on our networks and called old fans to help us relaunch Team Nowhere as a new international network. Itβs crazy because, a week after this, we were 1000 people coordinating new actions on Discord. We started doing a weekly playlist to give new bands a spotlight and here, in the US, we started “Hanging on Sunset“, a podcast in which we talk to artists and we try to unite and give them a voice. We also invite and interview people involved in the music business. Our motto is that we ask all ours guests “what have you done to save rockβn roll?”. We also talk with them about their relationship with the history of the LA scene. Billy Graziadei is part of the collective in the USA, and he was our guest a few weeks ago. Like us, Billy is very involved and by doing so, we hope to create a new movement in LA.”
Track by track commentary:
1.Do you need more
“Do you need more?” addresses the sensitive theme of gaslighting and abuse against women inside of a household. Fanny and I are interpreting the woman and the man involved in this story, that were inspired by the characters of the French movie “My king” by MaΓ―wen. The girl is obviously in denial and persuades herself she wants more of this relationship while heβs playing the victim and abusing her mentally. Itβs a bit of a Stockholm syndrome song and itβs inevitably building up to a tragic ending. Musically, we wanted to reflect this sense of urgency and we really played with our vocals to create a bit of an evolving dialogue.
2. Murderology
Murderology was first released on our 2013 EP and we really wanted to revisit it for our debut album because itβs a fan favorite. We made a slower, darker version on the record. This song was first inspired by the Murder Ballads of the XIXth century and those of Nick Cave. Again, in this song, the point of view is one of the assassins, not one of the victims, which is troubling. Itβs an anti-love song because the murderer is obsessed with death. Itβs really a romantic song, in the sense of the art period. From a metaphorical point of view, this song really tries to deal with the fact that one can feel a really dark side inside of themselves, feeling that thereβs another”you ” inside of you, capable of things you wouldnβt normally do. You know itβs there, inside everybody, you hear all the creepy stories about normal becoming suddenly crazy and you wish it never happens to you. I guess it was my way to exorcise this fear of someday “losing it”.
3. Lowland
Lowland deals with my struggles with agoraphobia. This mental issue is accompanying me since Iβm 20 years old. Itβs always here in the back of my mind, but sometimes it just hits harder. I live through cycles of various intensities. In the song, I try to depict the upside-down world of those moments of crisis. Itβs really like in Stranger Things. When those panic attacks hit, youβre in the same world but everything just looks darker, filled with monsters. Lowland is that dark place. But thereβs hope in the song because, in the end, itβs really a love song. Love can help those who suffer from general anxiety. It helps you stay afloat. When your loved one is supporting you through dark times, it really can take you out of the blue and force you back in the “highland”.
4. You and I & I
You and I & I addresses also the same thematic developed in Murderology and Lowland. In this song, I try to draw the portrait of that other person inside of me that sees everything in dark, the part of me that sometimes brings me down. Like in “Do you need more”, Fanny and I played with our vocals to make this transparent in the music. I portrayed the normal and sane self while sheβs on the dark side, trying to bring the other one down. Itβs really a song about the battle within the self.
5. Monomoria
Monomoria was also on our 2013 EP (Murderology). We made a newer and richer version. This song is, like Murderology, a murder ballad. This time it tries to portray what is an obsessive idea, something that stays in your mind for an unreasonable time, that accompanies you at all time. Again, this was a metaphor for what it is to live with agoraphobia. You wake up in the morning and the stress is here, you can feel it. You wish it disappeared but itβs always here, not just when you have a crisis. Thatβs what Monomoria is really about. I took inspiration from the “Symphonie Fantastique” by Hector Berlioz. In this original story, a man falls madly in love with a singer he sees on a stage. He will try everything to be with her, this will become his obsessive idea but in the end, he actually kills the girl. Whatβs interesting is that Hector Berlioz himself fell in love with a singer but instead of killing her he ended up marrying her; a way better ending for a real-life story.
6. U drive me crazy
Way more positive, this song deals with the people who help you cope with your struggles in your daily life. In my case, Iβm talking about the woman I love. Her energy, a craziness balance with my darker side, and together we accomplish something beautiful.
7. 1994
1994 is a travel in time to my childhood. Itβs a song that addresses loss from the point of view of a kid. But most of all, itβs a song that tries to define many aspects of what “love” can be. Itβs mostly an ode to the single women raising their kids, doing their best besides the financial struggles, the daily challenges.
8. Hummingbird
Hummingbird was written after the Ferguson protests and the assassination of Michael Brown. It came also after another school mass shooting. Being in the US for only a few years at this time, thatβs when we came to realize America was dealing with a lot of things that were unresolved for decades and centuries. The growing appeal for conspiracies and alternative narratives took also a great part in writing this song. Ironically, we tried to picture an invisible threat coming at people, something like a virus, destroying our community. Now that we are in an actual pandemic the song takes another meaning.
9. Evil Twins
This song is also a very political song that tries to show that domestic terrorism is really like any other form of terrorism. We invited our friends from Sinner Sinners, another French band based in LA. They are very punk and they were the perfect featuring for a song dealing with conspiracy theories and the way the internet has allowed many people to get brainwashed to the point they think they are defending America while they are actually turning into real terrorists. The attack on the capitol just exemplified that in a way we could not have predicted and this is scary.
10. Teenage Dreams
This song is a statement we made to ourselves. When youβre in a rock band and you are in your thirties, it means that you havenβt given up on your teenage dreams. In my case, it means that I keep writing songs that resonate with my true self and that Iβm trying to accomplish what David Lynch calls “The Art Life”, the ability to live a life only driven by art. Writing and performing songs that comes from the heart, was my teenage dream and thatβs what we are keep doing. In a way, thatβs also a way to not become an “adult”, to keep the magic of a time ruled by innocence and poetry.
11. Whispers
“Whispers” is the new version of a bluesy song we made at the beginning of our band. Itβs a song where Fanny takes the lead vocals. It really reflects the moment when our American dream started to crackle. The song is like a lonely road trip in the desert. Itβs about the beauty and the violence of these deserted landscapes. In the song, Fanny hears voices while driving on the dusty road. She recalls the story of Billy who also heard those voices and ended up killing someone. I guess it was also about the fear of losing it when I think about it. Thereβs definitely a theme on this record.
12. Because youβre the river
We end the album with an acoustic song, just like we did at the very beginning of the band. Itβs really a love song. I wanted to end the record on a positive note. Itβs like the night is over and the day is starting to rise in the horizon. Itβs a hopeful way to end the journey.
