Funeral Party 'Bootleg EP' album

Funeral Party is a five-piece electro-rock band from Whittier, CA carving their way into the Los Angeles music scene. Described by the LA Times as "a quintet of electro-charged youngsters," Funeral Party have been making a name for themselves during the post-punk dance revival, drawing crowds of more than 800 at backyard gigs across L.A. The band's universal appeal to dance, funk, disco and punk fans alike has contributed to their rising popularity and led to appearances on Indie 103.1, Southern California's largest commercial indie music station, as well as support from college radio.

Funeral Party’s “Bootleg EP” has been released digitally on Dec. 2, 2008. A debut full length album, being recorded in December / January at The Mars Volta studio in Los Angeles, is expected to be released on April 21, 2009. Lars Stalfors, the engineer on the most recent Mars Volta album, will be producing/engineering the full length. Funeral Party recently finished up their first Full US tour as direct support for the French band Yelle (Astralwerks), in October/November 2008.

Track-by-track description
“CARWARS”

“Carwars,” is a song about forbidden love, specifically, the love that occurs in the back seat of your car with your best friend’s girlfriend while he’s passed out drunk in the front seat, no less!

“CHALICE”

Chad Elliot claims that “Chalice” is about the most Death-Metal title Funeral Party could think of. When Funeral Party first started playing shows, they were sharing bills with hardcore bands. “The song is about self-loathing… I guess we framed it for kids that gravitated to, like, wizards and warlocks and shit. It is sort of an inside joke, like drinking from the cup of Satan. In the context of the song, I guess we are like the ‘Spawns of Destruction’ or something. We recorded it using Omar’s gear at Volta’s studio. Lars Stalfors recorded it. We recorded it on Volta’s off days. At the time, we didn’t even have our own gear!”

“NEW YORK CITY MOVES TO THE SOUND OF L.A.”

“NYC” started as a challenge to NYC bands: “Come on mother fucker, bring it!” The song, however, has evolved. Like all texts, its significance is transient.

“That song used to be like a call to arms for L.A. bands, but now it’s more like I’m just trying to tell everyone, WAKE UP," said lead vocalist Chad Elliot. "So much is going on, the choice is ours, but it is easier for people to sit back and have someone else tell them what to do. It’s so annoying because it seems like people don’t want to think for themselves anymore. That song is political. It used to be about scene politics, but it’s more global now,” said Elliot.

Funeral Party biography
Funeral Party is a five-piece band that formed late one night in a park. Hardcore bands and metal bands dominated the local music scene at the time, in Whittier, California, an East Los Angeles suburb comprised of mostly working-class enclaves. In the East Los Angeles neighborhoods adjacent to Whittier however, a post-punk dancecraze revival was emerging and Funeral Party began gigging every weekend. The band quickly developed a following and D.I.Y. ethos that emulated the one established through East Los Angeles’ rich musical history, specifically the 1977-1980 punk-rock scene, which yielded bands like The Brat, Alice and the Bags, X, and most notably, Los Lobos. The members of Funeral Party themselves were oblivious to the rich musical history and tradition that they were adding to; Funeral Party was just showing up and playing shows. Initially, the band didn’t even own equipment and had to barrow it from the other bands they played with at East Los Angeles backyard parties and warehouses.

As the DJ scene experienced a revitalization through the postpunk/ indie dance movement, Funeral Party exploded locally, embraced by the hundreds of dance-starved teenagers that came out to “jungle-juice” parties every weekend. Funeral Party’s original bass player decided that he preferred being a DJ and parlayed his local notoriety into a burgeoning career as a dance DJ. That’s when took a turn for the better as far as Funeral Party is concerned.

Funeral Party recruited bass player Kimo Kauhola. The band still had no instruments, but they had songs; their only opportunity to write and practice came on the stage every weekend at various events. Within less than three months, the band was drawing more than 800 kids every weekend at random backyards across East Los Angeles, which did not go unnoticed by law enforcement. It became an inevitable reality that Funeral Party gigs would be shut down, usually before the band played the first note of their set. This only fueled interest in the band and Funeral Party quickly achieved a mythic status, yet elusive aura in the Los Angeles underground. Lars Stalfors, engineer for Mars Volta, invited the band to record in Volta’s studio in East L.A. The sessions yielded “Chalice”, which immediately became East L.A.’s theme song and could be heard bumping on iPods throughout the summer of 2006, but 2007 would prove to be the year that Funeral Party’s emergence would be undeniable.

As the band recruited yet another member, 17-year old percussionist and keyboard player Daniel Santillan, they were asked into the studio with French record-producer David Corcos (Franz Ferdinand, The Cribs, Scenario Rock, Seu George). The band wrote and gigged continuously, playing festival dates with Moving Units, The Faint, Cut Copy, Spank Rock, Mickey Avalon, and Kid Sister, and club dates with Crystal Castles, The Teenagers, Steve Aoki, Health, and Flosstradamus, just to name a few. The band also worked the corporate circuit, playing multiple private events for such companies as Paul Frank and Red Bull. The response to Funeral Party was always the same: they tore the house down and stole the night, unequivocally. Los Angeles Times writer, Kevin Bronson had this to say in an article titled, The Teenagers upstaged by… Teenagers: The atmosphere “at times seemed about two energy drinks short of bedlam…but on Tuesday the night belonged to Funeral Party, a quintet of electro-charged youngsters from East L.A./Whittier. At moments recalling the dance-punk revivalism of early Moving Units and The Rapture and at others bouncing along to a skittish cowbell like LCD Soundsystem, Funeral Party and singer Chad Elliot worked hard to charm the early arrivals, and did. They didn’t even need the cute accents,” referring to a show that was headlined by The Teenagers, a French band.

Funeral Party has achieved airplay on commercial and college radio alike, an admirable achievement for such a young, unsigned band. Their momentum continues to grow as the band plays one-offs across North America and has received invitations from Modular to play festivals in Europe, Australia, and Japan. What is unique about Funeral Party is the band’s universal appeal; some hear dance,others hear funk, some hear disco, and still more hear punk. This band is critical, as they have created a visceral music that encapsulates the experiences of contemporary youth, but their sound is solely dictated by the realities and experiences of the members themselves, Chad Elliot (Vocals/Keys), James Lawrence Torres (Guitar), Tim Madrid (Drums), Kimo Kauhola (Bass), and Daniel Santillan(Percussion/Keyboards).

Do you also would like to share your opinion? If so, please register or login here.

Details

Popular Songs

New Songs

Tracklisting

Funeral Party - Bootleg EP