Q&A: Levitation Room Talks Evolving Sound, Band Origins, New Music & More
THERE’S NOTHING LIKE THE WEIGHT OF LOS ANGELES PRESSURES — that range from societal standards to its fast-paced culture. The hazy smog sets over the City of Angels and the summer heat makes the sidewalks sizzle. Palm trees loom over the sunsets, making you feel like you’re in a dream. It’s the home of the psychedelic quartet, Levitation Room. The band is composed of singer Julian Porte, guitarist Gabriel Fernandez, drummer Jonathan Martin, and bassist Kevin Perez. The four musicians break the bonds of gravity with their cosmic wall of sound and thought-provoking lyrics.
Levitation Room was formed around the band members’ mutual love of ’60s garage rock played with a psychedelic twist. Initially, they sought to re-create the sounds they love. Their own sound is described to be a perfect mix of lo-fi and fuzzy pedals. The wavy and atmospheric songs echo their influences: summers of love, sunny days at the park, life, society, and self-awareness.
Today, Levitation Room is broadening their soundscape and dipping into the world of genres through intoxicating guitar tones while maintaining their dreamy melodies.
Luna had the chance to talk to lead singer Porte about their latest single, “Scene for an Exit,” and the band’s upcoming record. Read the interview below.
LUNA: Before we get into the meat of the questions, did you happen to participate in Barbenheimer? It’s when you watch Barbie and Oppenheimer on the same day.
PORTE: No, but I did see Barbie. My girlfriend dragged me to see it. Well, actually, I was persuaded to see it. A friend of ours was in town from up north, and my girlfriend and I were both kind of detesting it a little bit. We ended up trying it, and it’s really good. It's really funny — really hilarious. Once I put my guard down, I realized the movie was pretty good. I was trying to get everyone to go see Oppenheimer, but they were like, “We'll walk out of the theater sad.” I still have yet to see Oppenheimer.
LUNA: If a big movie studio decided to make a biopic on your life, who would you want to be cast as yourself?
PORTE: I think it’s gotta be someone who has my complexion, so that kind of narrows it down. I watch a lot of films, but trying to recollect actors' names is always tricky. Who's young enough to play me but also has my vibe? Who’s the guy who played Freddie Mercury… Oh! Rami Malek! Yeah, I would go with Rami Malek. I liked what he did with Mr. Robot.
LUNA: Rami Malik. Solid choice, dude. He's phenomenal. To set the scene, how would you describe the beginning moments in forming Levitation Room?
PORTE: Well, it goes back to me and Gabriel, the lead guitar player. We were friends a long time ago and we were in a band called The Hits. At that time, I was just a singer. I wasn't a guitar player. We were starting with this band, but my involvement was short-lived because I ended up leaving due to conflicting musical interests with other band members. I went off to start learning how to play guitar and I was becoming, like, a folk musician, and I was a street busker — that's how I kind of built my chops. At some point, I was doing open mics and trying to get gigs as a folk musician, but no one ever seemed to pay attention to it. I thought, “I think I need a bigger platform; I think I need to expand my sound here.” I'm a big fan of psychedelic rock ’n’ roll. I like all kinds of music, but that was my favorite. That's what I really honed in [on].
One day I made a Facebook post asking if anyone wanted to start a band, and Gabriel responded and was like, “Yo, I'm thinking about leaving The Hits,” because at that time they were gigging. They’d found another singer, and he was down to jam and meet up with me. So we started hanging out in his garage and going over covers of songs that we liked. We were dreaming up this idea of starting a band together. I think it really all came together when I met John at a party — our drummer, Jonathan Martin — and we started jamming together at our friend Isaac's studio.
We realized that we needed our own studio, and I found this ad on Craigslist for a big warehouse space that was being rented out. John and I ended up moving in and living there.
LUNA: That’s really cool.
PORTE: In front of the warehouse was a music retailer space, and the owners had told us they were shutting the retail space down because they couldn’t afford it anymore. Eventually, the owners hit us up and offered to take it over and have some kind of business endeavor installed in there. And so a bunch of our friends helped and we all came together to start a music collective. That’s when things started to take off.
LUNA: Wow, I didn't know anything about the warehouse. I think that's really cool, that a lot of the things that propelled you guys forward were community, having those shows and other people coming together.
PORTE: It was in east LA. In the front, we sold guitars, music equipment, vintage clothes, records, and antiques. Our friend was a tattoo artist, so he was doing tattoos. We had another friend who was a video editor, so we built an office space for him. Then in the back, we had our studios, which we rented out to bands to rehearse. The thing that made the bulk of our income was throwing a big blowout party once a month. A lot of bands like Cherry Glazerr and the Mild High Club played and were doing some of their first shows there.
LUNA: That’s sick. It’s been about three years since you guys last released music — how do you think you’ve changed as a person over that period of time?
PORTE: The pandemic changed me quite a bit, I guess you could say. I feel like I'm socially inept now. I don't really go out as much. I get nervous in big crowds when I never really used to, and my interest in a lot of things has changed. I've gotten interested in history, and I've been trying to educate myself on how the financial system works and stupid things like that. Everyone else on this planet is constantly evolving, right? We're always changing. It's forever changing. That's one consistent thing that we're always doing. I used to be so attached to my ideals, and what I've come to learn is that I shouldn't do that because I'm always going to change my mind about certain things, interests, convictions, everything.
I remember when I was younger, in high school — and even after high school — I thought I was going to be a punk rocker forever, but I changed. As far as the music, we're trying to expand our sound because between the four of us, there's a culmination of interest, and we all like different things and we all like a lot of the same things. We're trying to bring every element of what we like into our music. There’s jazz, folk, and world music — and also trying not to pigeonhole ourselves into being just a psych-rock band because we want to make good pop music. We want to make music that we want to listen to and that spans all genres of music.
LUNA: Yeah, absolutely. Speaking of which, how do you think the writing process for “Scene for an Exit” has differed from the rest of your discography or past songs you guys have written?
PORTE: I think, at least for us, there are two types of ways to approach writing songs. One comes very naturally, where we're just kind of jamming in the studio. Someone's like, “Oh, that sounds really cool. Let's keep doing that,” and then it just evolves into a song, or sometimes it goes nowhere.
Other times, it's a thing where someone has been really working on a song. Perhaps it came quickly, or perhaps it developed over a period of time. I'm thinking back to our song “Warmth of the Sun,” which is one of our top five [listened-to] songs — and that took me … two, almost three years, to write. It just started with a little riff.
“Scene for an Exit” was a particular song that came about in the studio from comfortably jamming with each other and thinking, “That sounds cool.” The song came very naturally, very organic. We didn't really sit and throw our heads at the wall or scratch our heads. It was a cool song that came quickly.
LUNA: Being held as staples to festivals such as Levitation Fest and Desert Daze is a testimony to how your recorded music translates exceptionally well into live music. What’s your favorite part about performing live?
PORTE: It’s an exhilarating experience. I think, especially the moments before you hit the stage, your nerves are just cross-wired. As soon as you get on stage and … feel the reception of the crowd — especially if it's a warm reception — then it's on. You're floating in this space. It's almost like a dream, because it happens really fast.
Then when you reflect back on it, it’s like, “Whoa, what just happened?” Sometimes when you're having a bad show it can feel excruciatingly long. You're just like, “Oh my god, I can't wait for this to be done.” A majority of our experiences have been very positive. It's almost like a religious experience. You're up there in the act of receiving God or something.
I think we have to, a lot of times, realize that the music is bigger than us and kind of remove our egos from that experience. People are there for the music, and it's a total exchange between the band and the crowd. There's a conduit, almost — what the crowd gives us, we give back.
LUNA: Absolutely, yeah. To close everything off, the last question I have is: What aspect of your upcoming music are you most excited for your audience to experience?
PORTE: The way that the fidelity of how the songs sound on this record is much different than the lo-fi sound that we usually do, so I'm excited to present that to them. I'm also just excited to show people how much we've evolved in our sound and in our songwriting. I'm not trying to be too boastful, but I'm very proud of this body of work. For one, it took a long time to do because we kept re-recording it and trying to find the right home for it… This time we made an album that I would want to listen to, whereas before, I think a lot of the music that we've made… I don't think I would bump it in my car. I hope that people like it.
