A Night at Rumba Cafe - Befriend Strange Creatures
An interview with Noah Louys, the progenitor of Befriend Strange Creatures
This is Part 3/4 of our mini-series interviewing all the bands from our night out at Rumba Cafe! If you missed the first two interviews with the members of Space Kid and Golomb, you can check them out right here!
Now onto the third act…
Befriend Strange Creatures
Oh man. Where do I even begin with Befriend Strange Creatures.
In phrases: Really cool. Creative. Organic, Impressive. But you’re not here for phrases. You’re here for my epic journalism skills. Befriend Strange Creatures is a band of four, fronted by Noah Louys, one of the best young talents in the Columbus music scene. A gifted singer and guitarist.
The bass player, Jake Woods (not interviewed), excels at what he does, filling the pocket perfectly. Throughout all of their music you can hear his pungent metronomic talent squeezing through the bright, flashy, shiny, notes played by Noah, Dylan (Drums), and Ben (Guitar).
If you’re looking for somewhere to start with these guys, I recommend their newest album: Adverse Beauty (review coming soon, keep ‘em peeled). Listen to these guys, you’ll like them!
As always, you can find links to their work here!
And here’s our exclusive interview with Noah- enjoy!
Background / Origins
So, how did you get into performing live music?
Noah: When I was a senior in high school my original band “Lead Poisoning” didn't really work out- we only played two shows because we all bickered and bitched about everything. So we kind of fell apart, but also it's high school bands. And so I just started releasing music under “Befriend Strange Creatures” by myself.
Essentially Befriend Strange Creatures is a solo project, but I have a live band. And I'll give them some creative liberty, like I let Ben choose the solos or a lick as long as it sticks to the main riff generally. But he's allowed to do any solos- Dylan is allowed to fuck around on the drums and like, do any actual stuff.
Who was your bassist tonight?
Noah: Jake Woods
Ian: Tell him that he did an excellent job, from one bassist to another
Noah: Yeah, for sure.
So, how do you tow the line between genres- because it doesn't feel like I can really classify you as anything. How would you classify yourself?
Noah: I’m always listening to new stuff and I gain direct inspiration from that. Essentially, I categorize us as an indie psychedelic band. But there's a lot of punk influence and there's some shoegaze influence, which kind of falls into the psychedelic.
So it's just kind of alternative rock- I guess it's indie psych punk. That’s what I would call it, because we have some songs that are like, “Yeah, that's definitely more of a punk song”. A lot of my songs are high BPM, something about that beat.
The way you create like an open soundscape in your music is really awesome
Noah: Thank you, I appreciate that. I've had some people come up to me and tell me with a lot of my songs, the way I produce them, that it sounds like- if you have headphones on- like you're spinning. It's just really cool.
Musical Experience
So, have you guys studied music theory or do you just fiddle around?
Noah: Yeah, no- tell me to name a D chord and I couldn’t tell you. I've been fucking around, yeah.
Caleb: You can feel the music though.
Noah: Yeah, yeah. I'd say I’ve got good feel.
Caleb: This is what I'm trying to tell him (Ian).
Ian: See, he’s really by the books.
Caleb: I'm not- I know chords and I know some scales, but I don’t know music theory really.
Ian: He’s a little bit by the books. You’re just fiddling?
Noah: Essentially, yeah- I’m fiddling until it works well.
Caleb: That's fair. You’re (Ian) doing too much- like all of his bass strings are tuned to B.
Ian: One of them is between B and C, so I can play a lot of different ranges of the B.
Noah: I mean, that's cool. Are you having fun?
Ian: I'm having a lot of fun
Noah: So yeah, keep doing the same thing.
Your song, “It's Too Late”- I'm a big fan of that. How did you create that- like the intro to it?
Noah: An octave pedal. I don't have an octave pedal, but it was an octave pedal in GarageBand and I was fucking around and played that and I was like, “Okay!”. But then I was like, “I don't want this to sound metal”, so I added the verse which is kind of that shoe-gazy (imitates sound) sound.
I feel like it differentiates it- because that's inherently a metal riff. I didn't want to make it a metal song so I put some chorus, reverb, and delay on that and added some very soft lead guitar. And yeah, with the reverb on it, it definitely makes it sound kind of like a synth because I’ve got the modulation going.
Then I used some really, really intense delay and spring reverb and used my jazz master on it, so it has that big bold hollowness that the jazz master has. And it all came together to make that sound.
Creative Motivation
What's it really about for you? Like, music.
Noah: I've always had this sort of connection to music. I feel like music's a part of me- can't have me without music. It's a vehicle for me to express myself more. I like expressing myself a lot and it kind of helps further that. And it's like, everybody struggles with shit in their brain, no?
No doubt.
Noah: We all live in a society, man. We're all fucked. So, basically, it's therapy- it helps my life run smooth.
That's awesome, man. I'm glad you have an outlet for that.
Noah: [And] I just like bringing people together- I think that’s really cool. Humans are social animals and I think it's cool that we all just kind of connect. So if I can express myself, give myself therapy, and bring people together, it's all good. We're all just having a good time.
That’s all, folks! We’re very grateful for Noah taking the time to talk with us during what was a really hectic night. Make sure to come back to catch our final interview and our closing thoughts on the night as a whole!