INTRODUCING: WHITE RABBITS
WORDS: JOULENE ST.CATHERINE
IMAGES: AUDREE LAU

White Rabbits, a six-piece “honky-tonk, calypso” band originating from Colombia, Missouri now living in a loft in Bushwick, Brooklyn are making their debut at Club NME, a party house at LA’s hipster-filled Spaceland. Noticeably missing from the line-up are the Mystery Jets, who were stopped just before the US border due to visa issues. However, White Rabbits’ Stephen Patterson (the band leader, vocals and piano), Gregory Roberts (guitar, vocals), Alexander Even (guitar, backing vocals), Adam Russell (bass), Matthew Clark (drums) and Jamie Levinson (drums, backing vocals) carried on and took the stage surfacing from behind tacky, metallic blue and silvery curtains.

The performance is a mix between Ben Folds and Cold War Kids. From far away the band’s angulations and gyrations might look like a bunch of kids struggling with mushrooms gone wrong, but if you look closer each band member has taken to a steady beat to match his individual groove supported by the tight rhythm section. Their songs are practically centered around their percussion section, consisting of two drummers and one bass player. Which will now take us back fours hours, when I spoke with the White Rabbits at a local Thai restaurant and talked about the Afro-Caribbean influence that is laced throughout their debut album, Fort Nightly.

Tell us about use of two drummers and your Honky-tonk, calypso style?
Stephen: The [rhythmic section] all came about during the recording. Having another drummer was not the original plan, but our producer Chris Zane is a drummer and wanted to use two drummers on the recording. Then, it only made sense to have another drummer with us to carry off the sound live, and Jamie fit in so nicely it would not be the same without him.

What influenced the use of styles of music not generally found in songs today?
Jamie: We all listen to different styles of music. I use to work at record store, Dustygroove, and by working there got exposed to all kinds of music.
[The band gave away one of the influences during their set. They did a cover of Bob Dylan’s Maggie’s Farm. Stephen, mostly situated behind his piano, got into the action and jumped across the stage over to Alex to grab the lone snare drum and join the percussion section for a spirited version of the song. The White Rabbits are a very focused unit, so much so they are unaware of other bands with like names such as the White Rabbit from Cape Town or Italian band Mr. White Rabbit. They are also unaware of their album reviews done by puppets, which seems at first to be a purposeful attempt to get exposure on the new release. However, they are driven to a higher calling…food. We are briefly interrupted by the food being served.]

You’ve just gone 24 hours without sustenance due to a broken down van, which left you stuck in the dessert for over three hours, which led you to drive hurriedly over 200 hundred miles in two hours in notoriously bad Los Angeles traffic, giving you 20 minutes to park, load out the van, set up the stage and play Cinespace last night…
Jamie: It was a strange venue to play. We’ve never actually played a club before…

And it’s also a movie theater.
Jamie: Yeah, it was an odd place, but it was a good show [considering].

Who is Mrs. Doyle and how did her 8th grade class get involved with reviewing your album?
Stephen: Oh, Mrs. Doyle is my aunt and she’s always been a great supporter of ours. She got her class involved and made it into a class project.

How did you take the feedback?
Stephen: Some of them were harsh. It was eye opening.
Jamie: Right away we went back into the studio and changed the album.
Stephen: We rethought our whole strategy [laughs].

What was it like recording Fort Nightly? Were the songs written before going in the studio?
Stephen: The recording took place over six months in NY at Gigantic Studios.
Greg: Some of it was recorded in upstate NY.
Stephen: Most of the songs were written during the recording although a lot of the ideas were flushed out before we went into the recording studio.

What led you to music, as a career? Why not become bankers or something?
Jamie: We all have kinship with music. When our van was broken down and we were sitting in the desert for three hours Greg looked at all of us and said ‘To think we could all be sitting at a desk right now.’ So becoming a banker isn’t an option.

Website: whiterabbitsmusic.com