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Interviews

Interview with Joseph Ledoux of The Amygdaloids

I didn't conduct this interview (it's by Jonathan Cott of About.com), but it's just so different that I couldn't resist posting it......check it out, and be sure to watch the videos too!

Interview: http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2007/07/25/joseph_ledoux
Video Interview About Music and Brain Research (NYU):
http://www.nyu.edu/public.affairs/videos/qtime/J_LeDoux.mov
Performance at Madison Square Garden (NYU graduation):
http://www.cns.nyu.edu/ledoux/amygdaloids/07msg_play.htm

The Amygdaloids on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/amygdaloids

An interview with Elizabeth of Devola
 

NYCMUSIC.NET: What is Devola?

Elizabeth: Devola, the name alone, is a small section of a town called Marietta, Ohio where Chuck and I grew up. After finding each other kind of randomly in NYC, we decided to start making music together and to call it Devola since that's where we both met and share a common history. Devola now represents to us the music we make together. We don't categorize it in a genre unless we're forced to. We don't adhere to any expectations other than our own. We don't strive for the same things other bands do. All that Chuck and I have ever wanted to do is make music that is free and pure and meaningful. When we started writing songs together over three years ago; we found what we had been looking for and Devola is just that -- it's music that demonstrates our own tastes, however quickly they may change. We also take a lot of pride in our lyrics and we hope that our fans take the time to seek out the writings that accompany our songs and consider them just as crucial of an element to "Devola" as the music is. And aside from the music and lyrics, I feel like Devola represents a broad support of musical integrity and truth in art. We don't compete with other bands and we don't need to be on MTV or the radio to consider ourselves successful. All that we do is try to make each new song challenge us more than the last and we hope some of the songs can speak to people on as many different levels as our influences have spoken to us.

NYCMUSIC.NET: Tell me more about the lyrics.

Elizabeth: Lyrics are actually the main reason why I started playing music. I have always written so much poetry that it kind of frightened my friends. They'd walk into my room and see stacks of loose leaf paper at the foot of the bed, boxes of it in the closet...I mean, I have 3 different online journals all filled with different poems. I don't really separate my poetry from Devola lyrics at all. When there's a guitar riff or a melody that seems to fit well with certain lines I have, then that poem evolves into a song.

A lot of the lyrics are about emotional events. They come across as angry and bitter to a lot of people and that really acts as a paradox for my friends-because I'm pretty happy-go-lucky in person. But the thing is, I write when I need to. And it's hardly ever when I am

happy. Writing seems to always be instigated by something at least moderately tragic for me. I've also been challenging myself a lot lately with different types of puzzles, in a sense, in my poems. All of the lyrics for our next album are part of this strange, somewhat mathematical approach, that I have been using for my poetry lately. But that's sorta under wraps still.

One thing I know about lyrics is that they should be so raw and true that they make the singer choke up while singing. They should come from a place that's totally private and maybe even disturbing because I think that anything else is just generic. And it's a shame what an overflow of generic lyrics there are out there that kids are singing along to -- primarily because they just don't know any better. I was fed lyrics from Fiona Apple and Ani Difranco mostly growing up, so I suppose I'm biased. But I really believe there's a certain craftsmanship involved in writing a good song and lyrics are absolutely included in that.

NYCMUSIC.NET: OK, that's the lyrics side of it, now tell me about the musical side of Devola, because what you guys are doing there is definitely not ordinary either...

Elizabeth: The golden rule for us concerning our music is to just do whatever we want. On our first record, we wanted to experiment a lot with crazy timing and funky guitar parts, and so we did. The second record was a little bit more thought out and better developed. We have a 12 minute long jam song, but also a really short punk kind of song. Currently, we're writing a record that has been so far comprised of acoustic blues songs that we'll electrify for the record. Nonetheless, we feel like so many musicians limit themselves and that leads to their demise later because they feel trapped. Chuck and I have always believed in being open-minded about it. If you look at either one of our Ipods, we've got everything

from Frank Sinatra to Lamb Of God to PJ Harvey. Music, as a whole, is what we do. We don't care if people call us progressive, or post hardcore, or punk or anything else we've been called because it's all always evolving anyway. The key idea here is freedom. If we release a blues record and then a metal record; I really wouldn't be surprised. If our fans want to be open minded with us and take whatever we put out there for them, then that's great. If not, well, there are thousands of bands out there who release the same record multiple times who they can go listen to.

NYCMUSIC.NET: Is Devola really going to kill me?

Elizabeth: Haha. When we started the band, everyone thought of Ebola from the name. Eventually, we started making really cheesy jokes like "Oh hey guys, we're called the devola virus, we're gonna kill you..." and even went as far as to make our first official website www.thedevolavirus.com We haven't threatened to kill anyone with our virus in a long time, but people still seem to like the catch phrase. Some people actually think we're called The Devola Virus. It's great! But I guess the answer is yes. We will probably kill you. I mean, c'mon, we were on the soundtrack to a slasher film and all...

---

For more information, email Devola at devolawillkillyou@yahoo.com
or visit their MySpace page at
http://www.myspace.com/devola.

Coming Soon: Interview with Jae Monroe of (A).P.P.L.(E).



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