The dust has settled for another year in Indio as Coachella 2014 wrapped its second and final weekend of festivities on Sunday, April 20. In total, about 90,000 people attended each of the two three-day weekends that featured about 20 singers and bands with Los Angeles roots.
Westside Today caught up with three of those bands – The Glitch Mob, Dum Dum Girls, and The Bots – to talk about their Coachella experience and their latest music news.
The three members of electronic music group The Glitch Mob – edIT (Edward Ma), Boreta (Justin Boreta), and Ooah (Josh Mayer) – all live in Silverlake within five minutes of each other.
The group said they loved LA and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.
“Los Angeles is in The Glitch Mob’s DNA,” Ma said. “Our very first shows were here at Low End Theory, underground Burning Man parties downtown, and Lightning in a Bottle.”
The Glitch Mob performed on one of Coachella’s main stages in 2010, but had previously played The Do Lab stage three times before that starting in 2007.
Ma described their Coachella set in the Sahara tent as “absolutely surreal.”
“We started at 7:30 pm which was right before sunset, so it was a very beautiful moment out there in the desert,” he said. “It’s also the first time that a lot of our hometown fans have seen our new production and heard our new album live.”
He said the highlight was the moment that the three walked on stage and felt the love of the crowd.
“There was so much excitement from everyone who’s been waiting to see us play that tent for years now,” he said.
The Glitch Mob’s new album “Love Death Immortality” dropped in February, and Coachella is dead center in the middle of their international tour.
The trio will be back in Los Angeles to play at Club Nokia on May 10.
Meanwhile, vocalist Dee Dee Penny from rock band Dum Dum Girls said she was fascinated with Los Angeles from a very young age, adding it was the old Hollywood glamour that initially attracted her.
“I convinced my parents to take me there from northern California for my 13th birthday and just spent the day dressed as a summer goth, wearing a pink feather boa, putting my hands in Marilyn Monroe’s, running around the Observatory, vintage shopping, etc.,” she said. “It solidified my love but years later, I changed my mind and went to the mountains for college at UCSC instead of UCLA, but it never really had the same hold on me.”
Dee Dee said her three band members Jules, Sandy, and Malia all live in Los Angeles, and that she is bi-coastal to a large degree.
She said this was Dum Dum Girls’ debut at Coachella.
“We just came off the high of a long but incredible North American tour – the sort of thing that, as it was happening, felt significant,” she said. “The Coachella-as-cherry-on-top was exciting but also nerve-racking. To go from scenarios we fully control to a frantic 20 minutes to set up, line-check, and then play situation – I was anxious. We had an entire guitar pedal board go out on the first song and just tried to rally and power through. That is the nature of the beast though. I’m grateful we had the second weekend!”
She said she loved seeing the Coachella crowd singing along, which she described as “so cool and humbling.”
Dum Dum Girls’ last album, “Too True,” was just released at the end of January, and the music video for one of the singles “Rimbaud Eyes” is about to be released this week.
Finally, brothers Mikaiah Lei (lead vocal, guitar, bass) and Anaiah Lei (drums, percussions, backing vocal) make up The Bots.
Growing up in Los Angeles, they recorded their first album together when they were just 15 and 12, respectively.
Anaiah said he went to Coachella in 2013 as a festivalgoer, and was thrilled to perform this year.
“It was awesome,” Anaiah said. “Aside from my personal inhibitions, it was definitely one of the best feelings getting to play up there. The crowd was amazing too; all of them coming out that early to see us meant a lot. Everything was awesome about it, playing some of the new music was a highlight in my book though.”
The Bots are about to drop their next single “No One Knows” with a new album set to release toward the end of summer.
Other 2014 Coachella performers with Los Angeles roots include Banks, Beck, Broken Bells, Capital Cities, Classixx, Crosses, Dillon Francis, Fishbone, Foster the People, Grouplove, Haim, Jhene Aiko, Poolside, RL Grime, Warpaint, and Young and Old, among others.
