Ready For Another Gear Change - Nico Vega

Together since 2004, three piece (Aja, Rich & Dan) Nico Vega have been drawing crowds to the LA clubs with an energetic live show and aggressive, in-your-face rock n’ roll. With their debut record recently released on MySpace Records and production help from none other than legend Linda Perry, they’re a band to watch out for in 2009.

As exciting as starting out in a new band is, the LA music scene can be a bit of a daunting launch pad. “There’s so much going on with the entertainment industry here with movies etc… it feels like live music can sometimes come second for a lot of people in terms of what they do at night,” explains Dan.

Nico Vega are learning that in the city of all things entertainment, it’s a competitive pool to start out in. From starting out with “little shows”, Dan says the band have grown largely thanks to “word of mouth”. “We learnt early on that the after party is key as far as rallying people goes,” he continues. “Early on when you’re in a band and maybe as many people don’t know you, it’s a competitive thing in Los Angeles. If you can draw an audience here, it’s definitely rare. So we learnt to make our show a scene, make it an event.”

With areas like Brooklyn, Montreal and Portland getting constant press attention for their music scene, is there a scene in Los Angeles to really get stuck into and grow with? “There’s definitely small spots, every neighbourhood has its own little music community. So many of our friends play music – there’s always something going on here. I think that’s kind of what the goal is - to have a vibrant music scene with bands and friends who inspire you and who you’re excited to go see or for their records to come out. That’s what we love, when I hear the music my friends are doing and making and it inspires us to dig deeper. I mean like the music communities in England in the 60s, imagine being a part of something like that - that’s what we hope this becomes.”

Nico Vega’s determination to make themselves heard paid off when they hooked up with Linda Perry to produce tracks for their debut album. “Linda was someone we’d been putting in a lot of energy trying to get in contact with, for some reason we just had a feeling that she’d be right for us and the day before we were about to start this first recording we got a call from her.” Not bad for beginner’s luck. “It was really special working with her. She’s so meticulous about sounds and we’d spend hours trying to get a drum sound right so that kind of environment was really inspiring. Unfortunately the recording process only took a couple days. We did three songs with her and if it took a year we would definitely all have been happy! Her studio unleashed the child in me. It was such an amazing experience. It’s the only time in our lives where we were asked, ‘do you need anything?’ and we responded ‘no!’

Did having a heavyweight like Perry in the mix change the writing process in any way? “She would suggest things to do with dynamic but other than that she would just let us go for it.”