A guitar, some drums, and a deep appreciation of Viva La Bam. These things fuse together to form Lana Lana. Trash talkin’ and hard rockin’, Lana Lana is Alex McCarthy of FigureHead and Joe Pelegano of Paper Jymys. They recently released their first two song demo. Here’s my favorite song off the demo and an interview with drummer bro Alex.
Review
“Minghags Point”
Sweet chords. Epic drums. Screaming vocals. The song rushes forward with screaming and such for a while until a super-ridiculously-catchy sweet breakdown. Then it gets back into the sweet driving rhythms. Good stuff. Emo? Maybe. Dancey? Surprisingly yes. Sick? Oh yeah.
Interview with Alex McCarthy
How did Lana Lana form?
We got together about a year ago. Joe has been my best friend since senior year, and we’ve always liked the same music. I had a bunch of songs written and I told him, “Dude, we’re starting a band. It’s gonna be heavy as shit, fun to play, and every show in between songs we’re gonna make awkward jokes.” So last summer we started jamming. We were called “Milo”, but had to change the name since that’s already a band. But we played one show with a bunch of songs we don’t even play anymore. There were like a bunch of beach rock songs that sucked, hahahaha. But there was one song we kept, and that was “Minghags Point” (which is on our demo). I love that song to death, it’s the first real song I had ever written. And after that “first show as Milo”, people were like, “Yeah I didn’t really like the songs dude, but that one song you had was heavy as fuck and great”. So I started writing more songs like that over the course of the winter. We were dormant for a while, and then I showed Joe all the new songs, and he loved them. So we decided to go full force as a band. We changed our name to Lana Lana (spell it backwards) and the ball is still rolling from there!
How do you guys write songs?
I wrote most of the stuff in Lana, and it’s pretty simple. But Joe does a lot of work in it as well as far as making shit even cooler. The songs are usually written at like 2 in the morning when I’m in either a great mood or bummed out mood. If I’m in a great mood, I’ll writing something catchy and groovy, and if I’m in a bummed mood I’ll write something really heavy I like that will go great with screaming our balls off. It’s all fun music to be honest, just that the lyrics usually have either a serious situation we’ve gone through behind them, or it’s about us and our friends going out in public and making an ass of ourselves.
Where’d the name come from?
It’s a secret story that can only be shared at shows or if you buy us beer. You should do both…
What’s your fascination with Viva La Bam?
Viva La Bam… Let me tell you sir, the best show that has ever graced television. I don’t know what it is about it hahah, we just love it. Watching it makes me feel like I’m in 6th grade again screaming Don Vito quotes during lunch. Hell, I still do that and I’m 19. What a shame. But to answer your question, it’s just funny stuff we find hilarious. We seriously quote Don Vito about 400 times a day. And I wonder why my ex hates me…
What are your influences?
We have a ton of influences, but we both have different ones as well. I’d say the bands we both mutually love are Algernon Cadwallader, Black Churches, The Front Bottoms, Chalk Talk, Two Humans, and Snowing. I mean we have a ton of others we both love, but those are mutual ones that stick out. I know that Joe’s favorite bands have to The Front Bottoms, Pianos Become The Teeth, and Districts. That’s all he ever talks about, when he’s not talking about the dump he took at work. My favorite artists have to be Algernon Cadwallader, Glocca Morra, and Death From Above 1979. Those are the bands I can listen to all day without getting sick of them.
What are your future plans?
Well we plan on releasing a split tape with our friends, Paper Jymys (Joe’s other band), it’s gonna be sweet. Our good friend Bryce (he is also in Pachangacha/Chalk Talk) will be playing bass on that and will be playing shows with us for a little while as well. Then this summer we plan on doing a good deal of weekend tours, try our best to schedule a college radio show set, and then start working on a new EP. It’s gonna be sweet. We’re super pumped!!
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