Interview: LA Based Rock Band Adventures In The Underground

Adventures In The Underground is a Los Angeles based rock duo who just dropped their second single "Streetlight", a song about a toxic relationship, driven by substance and emotional abuse. We connected with the bandmates (Kevin, Luke) to find out more about the new single, how they came together to form the band, when they know a song's creative process is complete and much more.

After reading our exclusive Q&A with Kevin and Luke, be sure to follow them on their social media streams and check out their website to stay up to date on all things Adventures In The Underground. 

Tell us about the name " Adventures In The Underground". Does it have a special meaning to you guys?

Kevin: We spent a lot of time in other projects thinking up band names, this one actually came to Luke pretty quickly and it gave the feeling we wanted for this project. “Adventures in the Underground.”  Sounds cool.

Luke: Yeah it’s iambic, it rolls off the tongue, and it speaks to what our thoughts and feelings have really been about in the last few years.  In our own lives, in the past, and out in the world now. When I suggested it I was thinking of Notes from Underground by Dostoyevsky—and it’s not a similar name, but also of Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, which is more or less about him as a young man trying to eke out a living and seeing the sadder side of society along the way. We wanted to explore stuff like that with our music so the name just seemed right.

How did you guys meet and how are your personal experiences and events of today personified through your music?

L: We met in film school.

K: Senior year we worked closely on our thesis projects and around that time Luke started learning how to play guitar. I started showing him some things. And I can’t sing.

L: I can sing though. (laughs)

K: And from there we started writing songs together.

L: Yeah it was one of those like “Ah! You like James Taylor? I like James Taylor! Let’s make music!” That seems like an out of left field thing to mention, but James Taylor’s nice—everyone likes some James Taylor here and there, right?

K: (laughs)

L: Then we started writing songs and over time just kind of grew in this direction. Streetlight is about someone I was in love with when I first started college. She was brilliant, we had this on again, off again thing, but she moved progressively into a pretty dark lifestyle that really changed her. Then she moved far away, and the last text I ever got from her—which must have been to the wrong person, because I was 2000 miles away—was “Hey, so and so’s coming over tonight.  Do you have any crystal?”  And I was just, like… whoa.  I thought about that for a long time, and kept wanting to write a song about it. Streetlight is it.

Describe your creative process for us in relation to the development of a new song. Also, how do you two know when a song is finished?

K: Luke will come up with a vocal idea or riff and we’ll go from there. Or I’ll come up with a progression or very small vocal idea and we’ll bounce it off each other. We work pretty organically together.

L: Yeah. Kevin brings most of the music and I bring a lot of the lyrical content.

K: It just works out. We have a similar artistic sense. It’s weird how that works sometimes. Same wavelengths, different skills.

L: Yeah.

K: When is a song finished? I don’t know if a song’s ever finished

L: Yeah one of my favorite quotes about creative work is something like: “You’re never done with a piece of art, you just eventually have to stop working on it.” You could go on forever but there’s a certain point when you’re telling the story you want to tell and it’s making you feel the way you want it to, and you know it’s time to put it out there.

We really dig your latest single "Streetlight". Where does the song fit with your upcoming debut EP and is it reflective of what we can expect from it sonically and from a production standpoint? 

K: It is, though there’s definitely some sonic diversity in the EP. All of our tracks are very guitar-driven synth.  We wanted similar sonic feels, while also having each track stand on it’s own and be unique.  And we really wanted to challenge ourselves musically.

L: “Streetlight” is thematically in the same space as the rest of the EP for sure. Not to get all into Faulkner and everything but it’s all that “man’s inhumanity to man” stuff.  It’s about dark things, but also about some glimmer of hope, positivity, a way out. “There’s a chance if you want it.”

Speaking of the EP, can you tell us what it will be titled and when you expect to release it?

K: The EP will be self titled.

L: We’ll be releasing it in October.

K: We’re about to record the last song actually. The producers for our project, Mario and Steve from the band thanks., are two really righteous dudes who we became real quick friends with. We ended up shooting a music video for their project in exchange for recording another track. So we’re in the process of doing that.

L: Which is very much in the same vein as the other songs. The band’s name tells you what this project is about and what the EP is about thematically and musically. It’s dark, but fun. Really fun, we hope.

K: Also check out that thanks. video “Your World.” You’ll never guess who’s dancing under that fox costume.

L: (laughs)

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