Amidst their hectic tour schedule, LA LOM dropped by KALW to chat with Marcus Rosario about their musical journey. The trio discussed how their sound evolved from playing several nights a week at the Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles to headlining sold out shows across the country. With their evocative rhythms and enthralling performances, they've enchanted listeners and have swiftly amassed a loyal fanbase.
For more information about LA LOM, check out their website and their Instagram.
TRANSCRIPT
MARCUS: How are you guys doing?
LA LOM: Yeah, doing good.
MARCUS: So we've got, uh, if you guys wanna introduce yourselves.
ZAC: Sure.
NICK: Yeah. I'm Nick and I play drums in LA LOM.
ZAC: I'm Zac and I'm the guitar player.
JAKE: And I'm Jake and I'm the bass player.
MARCUS: Awesome. Thank you so much for coming by KALW today. I know you guys have a show. Like less than an hour at Union Square for the SF live event. You've been in town, you played Bimbo’s 365 last night and tonight you're also there. And then you've been on a big tour. How's the tour been so far?
ZAC: Tour has been great. It's been a lot of fun. Yeah. This whole run, that’s just been in California, since we've pretty much been on the road since February, non-stop going all over the country.
MARCUS: So, can you tell us a little bit about the origins of LA LOM for those of you that are, like, folks that are listening right now and might not know how you guys got started and the origins of everything?
NICK: Yeah, I, uh, so basically I got a gig for us at this, uh, historic hotel in LA called the Roosevelt and um, you know, I needed some guys to, to play with.
NICK: Jake and I went to college together and um, I kinda called him and I, I wanted to do something that wasn't jazz and uh, Jake and Zac have a background in uh, a lot of uh, Americana uh, rockabilly stuff and, and I wanted to combine that with the Latin sound. And that's kind of how we came across our sound in a short version.
MARCUS: Did you guys have experience playing, like, or just kind of experimented as you went with the new music that you wanted to get into?
NICK: Yeah, we just experimented with, uh, like, cause we were playing four nights a week, so we really just had a lot of time to experiment with our sounds. Uh, and, and different songs and covers and old school boleros and, uh, cumbia. And then we kind of just kind of spiraled. Yeah.
ZAC: And the, the first music that I started when I met Nick and we started playing together, the first thing I realized we kind of had in common was we were interested in a lot of the classic boleros, like the Mexican kind of stuff. Like, uh, I, I had kind of worked out a lot of instrumental versions of classic boleros by Los Ponchos.
ZAC: Um, and we, we would do stuff like that just. As a trio and um, and we started kind of learning covers of um, a lot more uptempo kind of stuff too. It was danceable a lot like 60s soul kind of tunes and then eventually like cumbia and chicha and then we started making up stuff too. It was sort of blending a lot of those different styles.
NICK: And then as soon as we started seeing people dance up at the shows then we started to do more ticketed shows and people just kept coming and it was kind of this L.A. scene that kind of happened, you know, that's really cool.
MARCUS: How long did it take? I mean from the origin of it to the journey like, I think dancers and stuff, like what's the journey been like for y'all?
JAKE: So, uh, like Nick was saying, we had a while there where we were working the hotel, working four or five nights a week. And, uh, around 2021 is when, uh, right after the pandemic, they called us back in to start up again.
JAKE: And Nick said, you know, we have something special here. We should take it more seriously. So we started putting together videos and started playing, uh, you know, showcase performances as opposed to three hours a night. Uh, and to our delight, people immediately started showing up and dancing and that really made a difference for us.
MARCUS: Awesome. I want to learn actually a little bit more about the name. I know LA LOM also is the the abbreviation of the title of your album, your self-titled. How did you guys come up with that name?
NICK: Yeah, I lived right next to a street that was called La Loma and then I kind of just like thought of, I always liked just how it sounded and, um. I just kind of came up with, uh, you know, I took the "A" off and I was like, oh, it could stand for the Los Angeles League of Musicians and we're all from LA.
ZAC: I was going to say, like early on, uh, it was sort of a bigger group. It was kind of a rotating group of whoever was available for that, for that gig we had at the Roosevelt Hotel. There was maybe, I don't know, like six or seven people that would kind of come in and out. Um, and then, yeah, I guess when they met me, we all started playing as a trio. It just kind of worked really well and it kind of narrowed down. The gig kind of just became mostly us when, when we were all around, you know?
MARCUS: That's really cool. Yeah. I think just the natural progression of things. In terms of when you're performing, you put out the record. How do you approach performing now after putting the record out? Like is it like the way you like approaching it? I think especially because there's a lot of songs that I know we were just talking before this about how you decide what songs you want to play and things like that. I'm talking about the dancers.
ZAC: Yeah, I don't think it's pretty particularly different after having put out the record because I think we're sort of always looking to play like the newest things we have possible, we look to play those as much as we can so we were playing a lot of those songs that were on the record before we recorded it like playing them live in front of people and we still play a lot of those and we also play new things we're working on, you know, and we'll mix together, like we'll take a piece from something and throw it in with something. We're just always mixing it up, you know,
JAKE: Coming from the three hours of night that we were playing, part of our practice is to be improvising the entire show. So we have our set list which is a series of recommendations and each night will be a little bit different or a lot different depending on where music kind of takes us.
ZAC: Yeah, so if you're coming to the the show of Bimbo’s tonight and you were at the one last night, it'll probably be an entirely different set.
MARCUS: You there you've heard it first right here on KALW. They're playing tonight at Bimbo’s in San Francisco, Bimbo’s 365, legendary venue. So if you went last night and you've got tickets for tonight, it will be different.
MARCUS: When songwriting, how do you guys come up with ideas? Like I know, I'm sure you all have different ideas. Like what's the process like?
ZAC: Yeah, I think uh early on when we were playing together like three hours a night, we were doing a lot of, like, really serious improvising, uh, in the middle of playing, you know, like while we were playing at a hotel or in front of dancers or whatever it was. Um, and a lot of ideas would come out of that. You know, especially when there's just really good energy in the room, people are dancing, and that's when a lot of the best ideas happen. Um, also, you know, I spend a lot of time, like these days, if I'm just in a hotel room or green room or whatever, just kind of have a little bit of time off. I'll try to record little bits of ideas, and when we have a soundcheck, we'll, we'll run them and, uh, yeah, that's kind of how it's working though.
MARCUS: That's great. That's how you do it. I think making most of your time with just the soundcheck, it is like a really awesome and organic way of getting ideas out.
MARCUS: In terms of, I know you just put out this record, you're touring, is there anybody, I like to ask this question - is there anybody on your wish list of collaborators for the future, somebody you want to collaborate in the future? It's a loaded question.
JAKE: My number one would for this question is always Rosalia. Yeah we'd love to work with Rosalia.
ZAC: Uh, there's a group called Grupo Kual that we've covered a few of their songs and it'd be really cool to do something with them.
MARCUS: What other cities do you have coming up, I know you’re on tour, and those of you, those of us, that are listening right now would love to know where you guys are going to be playing in the future.
ZAC: Uh, I think the next thing after this whole California run is, uh, we go to Mexico city. And then Miami, and then we're all over Europe for a couple of weeks, and then, I don't remember after.
JAKE: Then we do a Nashville to New York run in December.
JAKE: Oh, yeah. Okay, cool, cool. Awesome, thank you. And, uh, I guess a last question, or second to last question is, what is, if there's any, releases or anything on the horizon, I know you're touring right now. You're obviously working on music. Any forthcoming projects or anything like that you can let the world know about maybe, or if you're, if you're able to share.
JAKE: We, uh, we, we've written a bunch of new songs. Uh, we have basically a whole album's worth, uh, and we'll be recording it in the months to come. And these things will keep coming, uh, watch out for Record Store Day. There's something coming.
MARCUS: Awesome. Awesome. And where can folks find you on the interwebs and social media?
NICK: Pretty much everywhere, at the LA LOM, usually @the_LALOM.
MARCUS: Cool. And so they'll be at Union Square in a bit, performing at SF Live with a huge lineup of amazing artists. And they’ll be at Bimbo's 365 tonight in San Francisco. Is there anything else you'd like to share with KALW and the listeners in San Francisco, the greater Bay Area?
JAKE: Just how grateful we are that you're listening to us and enjoying the wonderful airwaves.
MARCUS: Awesome. Thank you so much again for coming by KALW. I'm going to get into one of your songs from your last record, but you are listening to KALW. We just got into conversation with LA LOM. This is KALW.
