Logan Metz is a songwriter, singer, and player of many instruments for the Los Angeles-based band, The Reflectacles. On August 6th, he met up with me at one of his favorite spots, Rae’s Restaurant in Santa Monica, to chat about touring, the band’s upcoming album, and why too much sun goes to the head.
AB: You’ve said that Shakespeare influences your music. Was that the focus of your studies in college?
LM: No, because I found out that I had a passion for Shakespeare too late. I started school as a Film major with a Spanish minor. I switched around quite a bit, and I ended up graduating with a Screenwriting major and a Philosophy minor. I realize now that I should have studied Musical Composition and Classic Literature. That should have been the combination, but I found out too late. So, that’s going to be a graduate school thing, I think.
AB: You have been working on a variety of interesting projects including a soundtrack for an independent film called “Turn Me On Dead Man”.
LM: Yeah. That was before we were “The Reflectacles”, technically. It was a really fun project because the movie was about a fictional band that was supposed to be based on The Beatles. We were assigned to write Beatles-esque songs from various points in their career. We had to do a cheesy, bubble-gum pop, “I Want To Hold Your Hand” type song and a “Revolver” era, starting to get psychedelic, Paul McCartney, screamy kind of rock, a “Lucy in the Sky”, all out acidy, non-sense song, and a “Hey Jude” piano ballad. The movie never really went anywhere, but I think we nailed the music. Lincoln, the keyboard player of The Reflectacles, and I wrote it and then we played it with Lukas Nelson, who we just got off tour with. More recently, Lincoln and I have kind of developed a passion for converting classic works of literature into rock and roll music. A touch of that is going to be on the new Reflectacles’ album.
AB: Adapting classical works into a modern-day format is definitely a trend that’s been present in the arts for a while now. When it’s done well, it is a wonderful way to bring pivotal works of literature into popular culture in an accessible way.
LM: Yeah, that’s the idea, to make music a little more literate and literature a little more musical, without producing Andrew Lloyd Weber bullshit. The songs have to serve as good songs in and of themselves, even if you haven’t read the book.
AB: So, where are you from originally?
LM: I grew up in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, and I came out here for college when I was 18 because I wanted to be in the pictures. Well, I wanted to make the pictures, but I soon found out that’s not at all what I wanted to do.
AB: I visited Wisconsin once.
LM: Well, it’s a lovely place. It’s nice in the summer. Five months of winter was a little too much. So I came out here where it’s summer all the time and I dislike that equally as much, probably more. Partly because I just enjoy disliking things, but I really do miss seasons. One needs seasons. I have a theory about LA and seasons and the people. There’s a surplus of stuck up, self-entitled assholes in LA, and, I think it might arise from people experiencing summer non-stop and not having to watch the whole world die around them in Autumn and stay dead for three or four or five months in Winter, and then come back to life in the Spring. You don’t get that. You don’t get to earn your summer here, and so eventually people just think, “I deserve 70 degrees and sunny all the time and when it’s not like that I’m pissed. I’m going to cut somebody off!” It’s happening to me, too! When it drops to fifty, I think “I didn’t agree to this!” Anyway, that’s my theory.
AB: So, people have described The Reflectacles’ sound as “Folk Rock”.
LM: Yeah, that’s how we simplify it. We’ve gone in many directions in describing it. We’ve called it “Psychedelic Soul” and “Americana”. Sometimes I just say “Rock and Roll with a banjo” because we are folksy, but it’s heavier than most Folk Rock. And, I think “Rock and Roll” conjures a “good old days of music” kind of sound. We do a bit of everything, though.
AB: So, how has the touring life been treating you?
LM: It’s been fine. It’s been great, but it’s six grown men living in a small RV.
AB: If you didn’t know each other really well before, I’m sure you’ve gotten to know all the little ins and outs of each others personalities and habits.
LM: Oh yeah. It gets a little claustrophobic and we get a little grumpy when we’re out there for five weeks at a time. This last tour we did was from California to Utah, then through Colorado and on to Texas for the 4th of July in Fort Worth with Willie [Nelson] and then we made our way back. Mostly desert driving with no air conditioning and it was triple digits almost the whole way.
AB: Wow, that sounds almost dangerous. Does the RV have a name?
LM: Yes, “Clementine K. Stanley the Moneysucker Hose”. Our RV actually might have more fans than we do. We had folks vote for names on Facebook, and then of course we all argued over which one we liked better. The top three were: “Clementine”, “Karen”, and “Stanley”, so we put those all together. Willie Nelson’s tour bus was famously called the “Honeysuckle Rose”, and Lukas ended up with that bus. So, we were traveling around in our darling RV, following Lukas on the famous “Honeysuckle Rose” bus, and that’s where the “Moneysucker Hose” comes from.
AB: You’re also a teacher at a school in Los Angeles, and I heard that you continued teaching while you were on tour.
LM: Yeah, I did a little. I was teaching Music, Shakespeare, Literature, and Story Telling to kids from kindergarten through eighth grade. The principal is the coolest woman in the world and we made a deal where I would continue teaching while I was touring. We set it up so that I could teach classes while I was in the RV in southeast Idaho via my iPhone supplying internet to the laptop. It’s just crazy, the things that technology has allowed us to do.
AB: The Reflectacles are currently in the studio working on an album. Is there anything you can tell us about it?
LM: Yeah, it’s going be our first full-length album and it’s going be good. We’ve got a lot of new stuff on it that’s very unlike us, I think. Our first EP reflects a slightly different sound; it’s very sunshiney and the production is very clean and precise. When we play live we’re quite a bit dirtier, so the album is definitely going to be a good mix of both.
AB: So, on a personal level, who would you say are your top musical influences?
LM: Tom Waits. I think he demonstrates the height of what one can do with a musical career. He is the absolute model of what I would like to do, which is: make exactly the kind of music that you want to make with zero compromises, regardless of what pop-music is doing. To be able to sell records, and yet somehow remain somewhat underground. For forty years he’s been doing this. From the early 70s, doing this kind of dirty, gutter, LA Jazz thing, and then adaptations of Alice in Wonderland and skeleton pirate rock songs. He does exactly what he wants! But also, musically, he’s a genius. So, he’s # 1. The Beatles. Bob Dylan. I think Queen is really good. Bruce Springsteen is my guilty pleasure. I wince when I say I love Bruce Springsteen, but by God, he’s the boss. I’ve also been really liking The Kinks lately. Elvis, of course. Elvis is a big influence for me. He was my first CD and that’s what got me into music. I could go on.
AB: I’ve noticed that, when you perform, this whole other energy comes over you.
LM: Yeah, that’s true. I have no idea what really happens. I hear that I close my eyes a lot when I am up there. I don’t remember much as it’s happening. I just kind of close my eyes and get through it and hope I remember the words and whatever else happens is instinct.
AB: Well, it seems pretty clear that you are all having an amazing time when you perform.
LM: I mean it’s tough to get 6 boys and their schedules together, much less, all playing, all making noise all at the right time, interlocking with each other. It is definitely a magical thing.
The Reflectacles
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