YACHT’s multi dexterous members, Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans, are highly attentive to this synchronic point in the 21st century which is precisely substantiated in their new electro-pop album “I Thought the Future Would Be Cooler.” An astute talk before the duos’ last performance in America before continuing their world tour spawns cogitation on social transmissions, news-feed conglomerations, and not to mention an immediate urge to utterly dance.
Interview and photographs with YACHT band members Claire Evans and Jona Bechtolt by Claire Roche
It seems that the band is always creating something new, whether it be a website, a book, an app. Is there anything YACHT is collaboratively aspiring to create as of right now? If so, could you explain your thoughts?
Jona: There’s always something in the pipeline, we like to keep something secret until it’s out.
Claire: Most of the reason that we do things, new things, is because we want to learn how they’re done. We will take on a design project, that is something that we’ve never done before just because we are interested in the process, manufacturing, the language of it, all of that.
Jona: Yeah we feel like the skills in that will then inform everything we do later.
Claire: So its like, yeah, and all of those skills will come together to be an arsenal of tools that will allow us to make like the ultimate yacht thing, even though I’m not quite sure what that is-
Jona: -20 years from now!
Claire: It will allow us to start a new country if we want.
Jona: So the newest project we’re working on is the future.
What about your background as a science journalist do you think seeps into your creative process while working with your collaborators in YACHT?
Claire: yes absolutely. I think that everything that you do in this life informs everything else. I used to try to compartmentalize things, and be like, this is my journalist project, and this is my art project, and never the tween shall meet, they’ll both have their very distinct flavor. But, I think there was a point 3-4 years ago where I just realized that, A, that was impossible to do, because I would be writing about something that I would think was super interesting and I would tell Jona about it and we’d have conversations about it and then we would make something that was somehow informed by those conversations, so it was really hard to draw lines.
Jona: I think id be different if rob and I also didn’t love everything that you write about, and you think about. If we were like “Yeah! Science whatever!” It would be different.
Claire: Yeah I think I’m pretty fortunate in the sense that yacht is a kind of plastic band, that absorbs whiplash pretty easily, that allows me to like bring new ideas into the mix, and then it all kind of gets incorporated into the greater project.
What is something you aspire listeners to think of or feel when listening to your new album “I Thought The Future Would Be Cooler?”
Jona: I guess, that music doesn’t have to be one way; that pop music doesn’t have to be stupid, that dance music doesn’t have to be-
Claire: – about sex and drugs, although it’s fine if it is.
Jona: yeah, it’s mostly better when it is. Yeah, that dance music doesn’t have to be a linear thing, it can hop around, it can play with time.
Claire: and genre, and hopefully, when people listen to our music they understand that we’re trying to speak the truth, and that we’re not being facetious, or ironic, or self-conscious; that we’re genuinely trying to observe-
Jona: – to speak our truth, maybe not the truth.
Claire: Were trying to observe our perception of the 21st century, from within the 21st century that we live in.
Jona: and not just to speak about the future, but to think about everything that we’re experiencing. The record isn’t a concept album; it’s about a lot of different things all at once. It’s about being a human in the 21st century.
Claire: yeah in the sense that being a human in the 21st century is something that you think about the future a lot, more probably than people did 50 years ago, because it feels like it’s on our doorstep all the time, but that doesn’t mean that we live in the future or that we know anything about it.
“I think those kind of opposites I think is a big part of living in the world that we live in now. The feed of information that we all look at every day, there’s tragedy and humor and its all the same, it’s all mixed up, and were constantly like bopping from highs to lows, in the span of just pixels. It feels like a very modern experience to us.”
Because the song “Ringtone” in your new album is so tunefully playful, do you think that because it is so playful it is kind of making fun of romantic communications in this “future”?
Claire: Yeah, totally, the song is kind of about how talking on the phone is an abstraction, I actually just saw this video 25 min ago of a guy handing a phone to his daughter in a hotel room saying “hang this up” and she’s like nine, and she’s just looking at it like, “what do you mean? Like how?” he’s like “hang it up!” and she’s looking all around like pressing the phone, and it just goes to show how quickly things are moving and how our understanding of telephone communication has changed so radically in the last ten years that, someone born in the last ten years wouldn’t even know what a phone was. So there’s something so exotic about the phone now, kind of romantic and abstract, and when you actually talk to someone on the phone it’s either stressful, or erotic, or just weird, it’s like a weird disembodying experience and we wanted the song to feel that way, kind of atemporal and confusing and like you’re being thrown into this new world that at the same time quite familiar.
How do you think the overall upbeat, dancey quality represents acceptance of this future you are referencing?
Claire: I don’t think that dance music is by definition optimistic in nature just because it’s upbeat, I think that we’ve always really enjoyed creating juxtapositions and disconnections in our music like we love to have songs that really sound like pop songs but the words are about death or something quite serious or conceptual, because that makes the listener sort of bob between two modes of being, and hopefully find something in between that makes them think, or not, its fine if people listen to our music and don’t even listen to the lyrics, that’s a totally valid way of experiencing it. Hopefully the other way around is true too, people can read our lyrics and not listen to the music and get something out of it as well. But I think those kind of opposites I think is a big part of living in the world that we live in now. The feed of information that we all look at every day, there’s tragedy and humor and cute animals and Syrian refugees and its all the same, it’s all mixed up, and were constantly like bopping from highs to lows, in the span of just pixels. It feels like a very modern experience to us.
What influences from your previous bands The Badger King and The Blow have followed you along with YACHT?
Jona: Wow holy shit! The Badger Kings! That’s so weird I was googling the Badger Kings to try and find this thing and there’s hardly any evidence of that band
Claire: yeah it was pre-internet like effectively
Jona: Kind of. Um, I mean, I was at the realm of both of those things, so I think that my spirit is the thing that is traveled throughout all of those things. I hope when you zoom out from like 30 years from now, that body of work will all be recognizable that something I had to do with. Yeah, just my spirit.
This is a hard one. Finally, what is your favorite place to hang out in L.A.?
Claire: That is actually hard, I feel like LA itself is like this big formless, fascinating weird thing, and honestly I think my favorite place in LA is just in our car driving around it. We love driving around and just looking out the window at stuff and trying to figure out what’s interesting. We love cruising a boulevard for its’ whole length and trying to understand how neighborhoods change. It’s just a big city, with so few boundaries, that it’s so cool to travel across it.
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In a captivating conversation with YACHT, the innovative music duo revealed their enduring passion for crafting unique juxtapositions and disconnections within their art. For more on their mesmerizing journey, visit https://magicalkatrina.com/magiciansblog/strolling-magic-in-los-angeles-for-the-sony-movie-lyle-lyle-crocodile. This distinct approach to music has allowed them to push creative boundaries and captivate audiences with their refreshing soundscapes. As they shared their insights, they also discussed their recent performance at a magical event in Los Angeles.