Q&A: Alan Palomo (AKA Neon Indian) Takes Us to Night School

Riding on the wave of his hot off the press new album, VEGA INTL Night SchoolAlan Palomo's Neon Indian project hits Beijing on November 19 at Yugong Yishan. He was kind enough to answer some of our silly questions about singing in the shower, the new album, and his musical lineage. 

What was the last song you sang in the shower? Is this something you do often or is there another place you prefer to belt out a few verses in privacy?
I believe the last song I sang in the shower was Sam Cooke’s ‘You Send me’. The only tunes I manage to sing then are typically so universally known that I manage to know the lyrics without ever having willfully tried. The bathroom shares a wall with my roommate’s room so I have to save the private concerts for when no ones home.

Your new record came out on October 16. What’s your creative process like? Do you usually write up your ideas on paper before you head into your home studio or is it just a start anywhere kind of method?
Definitely start anywhere. My studio is at home so it’s not hard to wander in there when the moment strikes. Anywhere else I’m just babbling incohesive vocal improvisations into my phone and doing my best decipher them in the studio later.

Can you tell us about some of the gear you use on the new record? What’s the most inspiring device you are playing around with at the moment?
After having briefly delved into building DIY electronics on the second record, I became more obsessed with tracking down and obtaining era-specific pieces for this new one. The keyboard on the cover of the record is the Korg PS3100. A sprawlingly dense, polyphonic version of the MS-20. It sounds like instant krautrock. It certainly proved to be the centerpiece pad sound of the record. Most of the other sounds were performed on a tremendously finicky Memorymoog. It was notoriously known for having bankrupted Moog in the 80s and out of the factory, presented some gaping in congruencies in practicality. It changes parameters on you arbitrarily and slowly mutates the presets over time. When it worked however, it was NEXT LEVEL.

Your father was a pop star in Mexico, and you state him as an influence. How would you describe his music? Are there similarities stylistically with your own?
He put out two records: one in the late 70s and the second in the early 80s. The first one was mostly the kind of orchestral ballads you would have expected to be coming out of Mexico at that time. The Second he went all Hall & Oates Electro rock and started throwing down guitar solos and epic Linndrum rhythms. I love them both for different reasons. Some of the things my music references definitely touch on those sensibilities. Although, the more obvious correlation would be when I sampled his music on ‘6669’ and ‘7000’ reprise.

It is known that you had a bunch of material recorded for your third release, but it was swiped under unfortunate circumstances. What would you do if it was somehow recovered? Would you salvage the songs or have they lost their relevance since the theft?
They were so skeletal I feel like the relevance wouldn’t be so much the issue as much if they’d still speak to me in any sort of meaningful way. I was mostly housing them on my laptop as midi files and Ableton sessions. I guess I’d be curious to hear what I missed but I get the vibe that my songwriting sensibilities have mutated pretty dramatically since then. Not really aiming at or listening to the same things some half a decade later.

I remember Denton, TX having a great music scene with wild house parties featuring some out there electronic acts. Was this a cool place to cultivate your talents, and what would your dream bill be if you could go back in time and play a house show in your old stomping grounds?
There was something really special about being in Denton or really TX in general at that time. The Americana thread was so prominent, it made synthesizers and electronic music a niche curiosity amongst a small thread of weirdos. There was an intimate sense of community that spawned from that alienation. We shared music and traded production tricks. Definitely my most formative years. The dream bill we actually played with my first band Ghosthustler. The Undoing, Eat Avery’s Bones, and CBA. The only bands missing that night were Zoms Zoms and Skullening. 

The “Slumlord” single we heard from the new album VEGA INTL. Night School, is deliciously sleazy. Can you tell us the sleaziest thing you have experienced in your musical career?
I’m not one to kiss and tell. ; )

Photo: Split Works