Popping Up: Little Daylight

Carl Williott | April 24, 2014 6:00 am

Little Daylight charmed us at the end of last year with their song “Overdose,” a bright and tumbling gem of post-Passion Pit synth-pop. Before that, the Brooklyn trio spent 2013 opening for Charli XCX and churning out solid remixes of St. Lucia, The Neighbourhood and more, which resulted in a slow build of buzz — and now the band is at the point where they’re the ones being remixed.

Currently touring and putting the finishing touches on their debut album Hello Memory, Little Daylight took a break to step out from behind the boards and get in front of the cameras at our NYC studio, where we got to talking about their journey from scrappy indie remixers to major label act. Up top, watch Nikki Taylor, Eric Zeiler and Matt Lewkowicz discuss the importance of self-production, hair flips and stans (yes, even new bands have them), and head below for everything else you need to know about Little Daylight.

HOMETOWN: Brooklyn, NY

INFLUENCES: In addition to landmark ’80s synth-pop albums like The Hurting, their influences run the gamut. Robyn, Paul Simon‘s Graceland, Steve Reich, Tom Petty, Phil Collins, and Bloodshy & Avant were all mentioned as influences and inspirations during our chat.

DARLING NIKKI: “I’ve never really like tried to sing like anyone else, except for I remember being a little kid trying to sing like Gwen Stefani,” Nikki explained. “That was like the first person I really wanted to sound like. Actually someone once compared my voice to Gwen Stefani meets Stevie Nicks so who knows, maybe some of that is left over?”

CONCEPT ALBUMS: While the guys were hesitant to call Hello Memory a concept album, it definitely has a throughline involving a story told from the point-of-view of several different characters. “We went into this wanting to make an ‘Album’ album that has this sort of ride and sort of continuous idea that takes you through different moods… It’s not something you have to get, hopefully, to enjoy the album. It’s there if you want to go deeper and if you want to think more about how all these songs relate to each other.”

LOGO: Thus far, the simple LD logo has been prominent in all the releases and bits of media the band has presented. (You might even notice Eric’s LD pendant in the interview.)  That’s no accident. “We designed the logo. For the whole beginning of the band and up through even now, we are very involved in the graphic elements,” Eric told us. “So the logo is something we were kind of working on and sketching out for a while and ended up with this and really liked it. We have a few pages of LD written many, many, many different ways, which was pretty fun.” Not surprisingly, this collaborative process is also how most of their songs come together.

WHAT’S NEXT: The band is focusing on touring and remixing as much as possible ahead of this summer’s LP release. This includes a gig at Central Park’s SummerStage on May 20, a dream come true for the three New Yorkers. Outside the album cycle, they may try their hand at producing other artists. “If we have time,” they’re quick to add.

Get an eyeful of even more pop music coverage, from artist interviews to exclusive performances, on Idolator’s YouTube channel.