Family Photo is a fresh-faced freshman band straight out of the suburbs of Sacramento who play a jazzy form of indie pop. They have dubbed their style ‘dismantled pop’ due to their tendency to play havoc with popular song structures. The band started in the summer of 2011 after going to high school together and spending a year apart at college. “Everyone had a different experience, and a different way of reflecting on and expressing the ups and downs of our first year away from home. So we came together in an attempt to do that as a band.” guitarist Zach Giberson informs me. “Dirty Projectors and RX Bandits are probably [our] biggest influences. We take a lot of vocal ideas from Grizzly Bear. The Beatles, too, though we try to distill what we take from them.” There isn’t much of a genesis story behind their name [a nameless band, a phone call, and a bassist staring at a family portrait] but Family Photo consists of a pretty impressive array of talent: Giberson, Derek Sup, Nathan Swedlow, Zach Darf, and Jarrett Tracy all of whom play a large and surprising range of instruments.
The band is quite productive having already released two EPs; the most recent, being Nude Celebz, represents a more cohesive writing style and the band’s collective experience. “Everyone added their own voice to the composition and lyrics, so as a result, the focal point of each song isn’t based on one person’s perspective… Similarly, we try not to delve too deep into lyrical specificity on the album; we left it a bit open-ended.” The aforementioned experience was a month-long trip to Los Angeles where the band wrote, performed, and recorded the foundation for the album. “We tried to give an unbiased impression of a city where natural beauty and excess materialism coexist. By the end, the title Nude Celebz seemed to encapsulate that feeling the most.”
Although this will be their third summer together, the band has found it difficult to do much during most of the year as they are spread out around the country for college. But don’t worry, like most college students they have plans for the summer, though unlike most college students their plans don’t include lazing around. “We’ll be playing several shows on the West Coast in May, and then shipping off to Boston for the remainder of the summer and going on an East Coast tour. We’ll also be finishing our first full-length LP. Lots of other stuff, too. Music videos, radio interviews, etc. It’ll be busy.”
If you liked Nude Celebz and/or want to support the potential this band has, you can help them make their rather ambitious summer plans happen. Family Photo has a crowd fund campaign on indiegogo.com that ends this Thursday, so go to http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/family-photo-summer-tour-lp and give these crazy kids some money!