Locksley hits Madison for a Halloween homecoming

About a month ago, Madison band Locksley began a nationwide tour with a show at the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro, N.C.

The tour -- which included gigs in Austin, Seattle, Scottsdale, West Hollywood and various points between -- was designed to promote the band's new 7-inch single, "Darling, It's True," which was released on E Street Band guitarist Steve Van Zandt's Wicked Cool label, and create a buzz for the upcoming CD, "Be in Love," which is due in January.

When we talked to lead vocalist Jesse Laz hours before the tour kickoff, we found there was a hidden motive for the dates: 22 elaborate rehearsals for the band's homecoming performance at Freakfest, which is slated for Halloween night in Madison.

"That's exactly what it is," said Laz, who grew up (along with younger brother / bassist Jordan) in Whitefish Bay before moving to Madison for high school and forming the band in 2003.

"We have exactly a month to figure out what we're going to play and to work on our costumes and gags for Freakfest. One year, we were all dressed as pops and our drummer went as Jesus. It should be a great show."

We talked to Laz about the tour, the band's new video and other topics.

OnMilwaukee.com: What is the feeling like at the beginning of a tour? Are there nerves involved? Is it a feeling of excitement or one of "Man, we have to live on the road for a couple of months."

Jesse Laz: It's been a while since we've done a tour this long. We've done some shows here and there, but we were holed up in the studio for the first part of this year, so it's good to get out and play. It's a little like being on a sports team. You get into game mode.

OMC: Congratulations on the video for "Darling, It's True." We recently recommended it to our readers. I think the concept was unique and it came off as spontaneous and fun. Was it hard to execute? It seems like you had to put a lot of trust in the director. I kind of envisioned Jason Lee's character, Jeff Bebe, in "Almost Famous" asking, "Is it that hard to make us look cool?"

JL: It's a fine line. Obviously, we want to be cool. But, we also want to have fun. We don't want to be one of those bands that looks like they're trying to be cool. I don't want to name any names, but we've seen bands that do things and it looks like they're trying so hard to look cool. We didn't want to do that.

OMC: You're doing a tour with a new album in the pipeline, but it won't be out for a couple months. How does that impact the set list each night? How much new stuff will you do?

JL: We're definitely ready to play the new stuff. For these shows, it will be half new and half old.

OMC: A lot of bands go out on the road with new CDs and realize that the songs change a lot when they play them live. Arrangements change. Time signatures and keys can change. Did you find that to be the case with your last record ("Don't Make Me Wait")? Do you expect it to happen this time?

JL: It's interesting, because we've been playing the songs from the last record for two years now and for a while we kept getting better at arranging it and tightening things up. But, you can get bored playing the same thing. You have to challenge yourself. I think of Bob Dylan -- when you go see him in concert he plays things so differently that sometimes you don't even recognize the song until he sings "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall."

We try not to stray too far away from the original melody, but things change. We have a song called "All of the Time," from the last record and it's totally rearranged. It's probably one of my favorite songs from the album, it was kind of swampy sounding, like an early Beatles song and I really like it on the record but it's a little waltzy and it never really translated well live. Now, it's an up-tempo, stomping kind of thing.

OMC: You've been described as a British Invasion / garage-rock band, which makes you a natural for Wicked Cool. How did that relationship come about? Aren't you still considered "the best unsigned band in America."

JL: We are still unsigned. Just ask all the labels that passed on our record. As we got closer to putting out the new record, we wanted to have something to get some momentum going. We thought about doing something on vinyl and that's something (Wicked Cool) had been doing. The deal is just for that song. It's more of a licensing deal than anything else. But, our real purpose for it is to promote the upcoming record.

OMC: You're often described as being from Brooklyn. Do you still consider yourselves a Wisconsin band?

JL: Absolutely. We don't hide from that. We go out of our way to tell people that we're from Wisconsin -- and from Madison. It's funny. A lot of people in New York aren't really sure where that is, but it can change the way they think about you. In a way, I think people think of us as being more honest and sincere -- and maybe less cynical -- because of where we're from. We view Wisconsin as our home.

OMC: Being in New York had to have an impact on the music and songwriting, right?

JL: I think so. If you think about the Beatles, they were from Liverpool but they really developed their sound and matured as a band by playing in Hamburg. But, they were always from Liverpool. We're from Madison.

OMC: The Beatles are an obvious influence on your music, along with The Kinks and other ‘60s bands. What is it that drew you to that music?

JL: When we were forming the band, people our age were listening to things like Blink-182 and Good Charlotte and some other bands that were 39 (years old) and pretending to be 17. We weren't really into that. At that time, I didn't know a lot of the punk stuff like the Ramones and Richard Hell or The Clash. But, the ‘60s stuff was written by young guys like us and there were uptempo songs about girls. When we formed the band, that stuff seemed to make a lot of sense.

OMC: What is it like to have your brother, Jordan, in the band? Is adding him an homage to the Ray and Dave Davies (The Kinks) or the Gallaghers (Oasis)?

JL: It's been good. I think in our case, it was so convenient. He was around the band when we formed and he learned to play drums on Sam's kit. He knew all our songs, but he didn't play bass. We sent him a bass and he learned it. We were such a close band and the Wisconsin thing is so important to us that it sort of made sense.

OMC: A lot of times, family members have a special sense for singing harmony parts. Do you guys have that?

JL: We sound the same, so it's pretty easy for us to blend. The other thing is that Jordan came in what a good batch of catchy songs. I think it helps to have more than one singer and songwriter in the band. One of the reasons the Beatles put out so much good music in such a short time is that they had three songwriters.

OMC: Jordan is a little younger. Are you teaching him any lessons?

JL: I've already had vocal cord surgery, so I tell him "Don't drink and smoke and scream." It wasn't good for me.

OMC: How would you describe the new record?

JL: I don't think it's going to be too jarring. It's uptempo. It still sounds like us. The arrangements are tighter than the last record, but it's kind of all over the place -- in a good way. It's more American influenced. You may hear some Motown, Stax and ‘50s doo-wop. In a way, it sounds like a mixtape. There are three songs from Jordan and three from Kai. I think listeners will like that.

OMC: What about lyrically?

JL: Most of the songs are progressing. The first record was really built on young love kind of stuff. The new record has a couple of those, but it also has more "love as a concept" stuff. I think people will like it.