Just a few minutes of conversation with La Sera frontwoman and bassist, Katy Goodman, is all you need to know that she’s one of the few people who’s had a successful, and (for the most part) drama-free career in music. There’s no hint of “tortured soul” to this New Jersey native. If it weren’t for her tattoos, at first glimpse you would think she was a school teacher, and not a bonafide rockstar with an impressive resume. Starting out playing bass for Brooklyn punks Vivian Girls, her main focus is now La Sera, which has found her moving across the country to Los Angeles, garnishing a cult following of supporters, and even finding love within the band (she recently married guitarist Todd Wisenbaker).
The band’s latest release, Music for Listening to Music to, was recorded at the legendary PAX AM studio by Ryan Adams. It’s the most meticulously detailed set of songs the band has put out, and the hard work shows. Music for Listening… is a spectacular album made possible only by Katy and Todd locking into an unmatchable creative chemistry.
The band recently headlined the opening night of the beloved Neon Reverb Festival at The Bunkhouse, and I had an opportunity to chat with one of my favorite musicians.
La Sera is going on the road with Titus Andronicus in May. Aren’t you guys from the same city in New Jersey?
Me and Pat [Patrick Stickles], the singer of Titus Andronicus, go way back. We essentially went to highschool together in New Jersey. Well, he went to the high school next door to the town I went to high school in, but I would go to house shows at his house, and his band would always be playing in my town. We used to drive around as teenagers and go to 7-11 and loiter. So it does actually make a lot of sense that we’re finally touring together, because we’ve been friends for over a decade.
Have you kept up with a lot of the musicians you were friends with back in New York?
Yeah, of course! A lot of the musicians I was friends with in New York back then all moved to LA, so they all live there now too.
Was adjusting to the way LA’s music scene works as compared to New York’s an easy thing?
Well, I will say that when I was living in New York, that was when Vivian Girls was first starting, and we would literally play like three nights a week. LA doesn’t really work that same way. In New York, you can play Manhattan and then drive to Brooklyn and play that same night somewhere else. But in LA, I feel like there’s a vibe that if you play more than once a month, that’s too much. So, LA is a lot more chill with shows than in New York.
What initially made you want to make the move?
The weather. I love the weather. The first time that Vivian Girls went to LA on tour I was like, “Wow, people get to live here? I’m gonna move here,” and my bandmates we’re like, “No, you’re not” and then I did. And then our old drummer, Ali (Koehler, Upset), also moved to LA so she lives there too now.
One of the things I noticed and enjoyed was that Todd [Wisenbaker, La Sera guitarist] joining the band really seemed to change the style of the band. It went from a dream pop kind of sound to more rock ‘n’ roll.
I feel like a lot of music reviewers in general don’t like when we change. So every album that I put out as La Sera someone’s like, “This isn’t La Sera.” And that is La Sera, it’s us making whatever music we want to and people have to come around to knowing that. A lot of people think a band name means a sound, but to me and Todd, a band name is just people. It’s just me and Todd now and it has been for four years. So, yes it’s changed a lot stylistically, but at the root of it, it’s still me writing songs and singing. On this record there are songs that Todd just wrote and sings, but I mean, it hasn’t really changed that much. I feel like a lot of other bands, they change their band name and then change dramatically. That’s different than what we’re doing.
So you would say La Sera is just you and Todd?
Well, we have a drummer, Brendan, he’s amazing.
He didn’t record on this record, right?
Not this record. Nate Lotz, he recorded, he went to Europe with us on tour before that. Basically, we just play with our friends. Like, we’re putting out an album, let’s go on tour, which of our friends can do it? Right now, the guy playing with us [Brendan] is amazing. We had our first show with him about a month ago. I would say that I’m not the only member of La Sera anymore. Even though it did start out as a solo project, it’s not that way now. It’s a band, and Todd and I are even partners.
A question I really wanted to ask…Greta Morgan…
Best friends!
I loved Books of Love [Goodman/Morgan side project]. Any interest in doing more of that?
[Laughs] Well, you’re going to be very excited because we actually recorded a record of covers. We have a bigger announcement coming later but let’s just say that we’re in the studio and more info will be coming soon.
Would you like to tour with that, or is that more of something you just wanna record and let it be out there?
Well, it’s always a little strange. It’s a covers record. I don’t know. Greta’s one of my best friends in the world, which is why we made this record together. It was like, “Hey, let’s do something this fall, let’s hang out, what can we do? Well, we’re both musicians let’s make music!” The guy who recorded it is also a very good friend, so it was buddies hanging out.
Do you ever feel the need to play heavier music again, like the Vivian Girls days?
Well, with the new La Sera album, a lot of the songs we’re playing are very fast, like Vivian Girls fast. I will say that, when Vivian Girls kinda scaled back and stopped touring as much, it did leave a void in my life of playing very fast aggressive music. Which is why Hour of the Dawn ended up that way, because me and Todd were like, “Let’s make a fucking crazy record that’s so fun to play live, and that’s fast and furious.” The records before that one, I was still playing in Vivian Girls, so this was kinda my mellower side project, and now that Vivian Girls isn’t a band, La Sera is where I get out all my sides. I get to play aggressive and soft and I like that.
La Sera doesn’t do very long tours, are you done with the days of going months on the road?
We’re adults now. I’m not saying that we’re burnt out at all, we’re just…we have cats, we have a dog, we have a life. I have plants that I like to keep alive! I would say that we keep about a three week max on tour and they’re not back-to-back, but I still like going on tour. I mean, even this weekend thing. It’s just a weekend and it’s really fun, but we still have to find someone to watch the cats. It’s not as easy to just pick up and go.
Finally, I wanna touch on the recording of Music for Listening to Music to. Did you guys have to come extra prepared to record with someone as notable as Ryan Adams?
We came very prepared. I would say honestly that the songs did not really change when we went in. It was more just the sound of the record was dictated by PAX AM, Ryan, and the engineer Charlie [Stavish]. They took our songs and made them sound amazing. Me and Todd really arranged those songs. Todd personally spent, I don’t know, eight hours a day for like three months working out every single part on the record, crafting songs to be as good as possible, so that when we went into the studio with limited time, we could just nail it.
Was recording to tape easy to adjust to?
It was definitely a unique experience. Usually you get to run through the songs a couple of times, it’s no big deal. But with tape, it’s expensive, so you don’t wanna waste too much time. I would say that was why we over prepared so much before hand. I feel a lot of the reviews on the record have been like, “I can’t believe they only did this in five days. Why would they do that?” But it wasn’t like we went in there going “I wonder what these songs are gonna be like? Let’s write them.” They were done, all the parts down to every note was figured out ahead of time so that we could focus solely on the production aspect. Although, Ryan did have a lot of ideas about like little guitar twangs. I feel like some of the cool moments on the record are last minute Ryan add-ins. He’s the reason why there’s synth on “Nineties,” and he also played the harmonica at the end of “High Notes.” There were a lot of little flourishes that he put in that made it great. It was a really fun week and it was amazing.
-Alan Madrigal
Katy Goodman photos by Hunter Wallace
You can purchase La Sera’s latest full length, ‘Music for Listening to Music To,’ right now via Polyvinyl Music Co.
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