Sometimes a band is just a band. Like, say, The Organ Beats.
That’s the takeaway from speaking with Noelle LeBlanc, the Waltham-based band’s lead singer, who also plays guitar and keys, on the phone on a Wednesday evening as she finishes up some midweek grocery shopping. That’s not to say the Beats don’t have a clear artistic vision (more on that later), but, with LeBlanc having already experienced the pressurized world of major-label contracts and domestic tours as part of mid-aughts punk-pop outfit Damone, taking the understated route feels like a good fit.
“We don’t sit down and have band meetings,” says LeBlanc, who started Organ Beats shortly after Damone’s dissolution in 2008. “We get together and just throw on some guitar, throw on some vocals. We challenge ourselves a little bit, but it just feels good to do something and hear it back.”
It’s not an approach that yields a high volume of material the band just last week dropped the video for “GOLDENHEART,” the title track from their most recent album, released in November 2012—but the results have been worth the wait. Between GOLDENHEART and the band’s 2009 debut Sleep When We Are Dead, LeBlanc, her brother Danny (drums), Mikey C. (bass), and Alex Fiorentino (guitars/keys) have built their rep on power-pop guitars, sweeping hooks and Noelle’s versatile vocals, all parts fitting together with a natural chemistry despite the fact that much of their individual work is done alone.
“It was a pretty easy process actually,” say LeBlanc. “We kind of record in our own homes, then send stuff out to be mixed. I like doing it at home because you have more time to play with melodies and different instruments.”
But their upcoming project—an album tentatively titled Dynasty of Millions that’s inspired by hours of watching “Cosmos” and “inter-space conspiracy type stuff,” according to LeBlanc—will take them in a slightly different creative direction, not to mention back into the studio to actually work together in vivo.
“The music is still pretty much rock and roll, but with some space sounds I guess?” LeBlanc laughs. “The songs are kind of about looking up and wishing you were out there or something. It will still have a huge pop influence. But we are going to try and experiment a bit with tape and weird experimental sounds, to have fun with it.”
THE ORGAN BEATS W/ SIDEWALK DRIVER + LEO*LEO + WORSHIPPER. THE SINCLAIR, 52 CHURCH ST., CAMBRIDGE. SAT 1.17. 8PM/$12/18+. THEORGANBEATS.BANDCAMP.COM
