Arizona indie-rock band Lydia has been making huge waves in the music world recently. The Bite got to chat with members Leighton Antelman, Justin Camacho and Matt Keller before their sold-out show at The Social on March 26 about touring, the music industry and hidden talents.
What’s been your favorite part of the tour so far?
LA: The shows have been crazy. Every show has been so good. We can’t even put a finger on it. So many people have been coming out and singing along and buying [merchandise]. It’s been great.
Starting out so long ago, how did the music industry impact your growing up?
JC: I mean, it’s let me kind of be a hooligan and get away with it. It’s amazing. I don’t have to go to a 9-to-5 job.
What’s a typical tour day like for you guys?
MK: We wake up in the morning, try to decide what T-shirt to put on.
JC: Fight over the shower.
MK: Saunter slowly out.
LA: We’re giving you a lot of detail. No, we just wake up at the hotel, drive however many hours, soundcheck, play, go back to the hotel, and repeat.
What advice would you give to someone trying to make it in the music industry?
MK: Go to college. For serious though, if you’re trying to make it in the music industry and stuff, still go to college.
LA: Write hit songs and don’t tour because it’s really hard sometimes.
How do you go about writing your music?
JC: We’ll have like a rough outline of a song, or just a part of a verse or chorus. I’ll just sing gibberish over it, and then I’ll turn that melody into a version with the lyrics.
Do you have any hidden talents or fun facts that none of your fans know about?
JC: [Leighton] thinks he’s good at basketball.
MK: I’m a lot better than both of them at basketball.
LA: Absolutely not.
JC: Some of the fans probably don’t know this—I played four years of lacrosse in high school.
LA: I played college soccer for a little bit.
MK: I didn’t do those things.
What’s been on your iPods recently?
MK: There’s always The Beatles, Coldplay, John Mayer, a lot of country lately.
JC: We’re big country fans.
Do you think that subconsciously makes its way into your music?
LA: For sure. Absolutely.
MK: In music selection, we just try not to listen to music that sounds anything like us whatsoever. It’s not like “we do not listen to bands like us.” It’s just that we play it every night, and we want to listen to something different.
If you had to choose one, which one of your tours has been your favorite?
JC: This tour is up there for sure. This is the biggest tour we’ve done so far to date, headlining. MK: The Anberlin tour was awesome, The Devil Tour, the tour we did a year ago was awesome. I was consistently surprised that people knew our songs.
Would you rather headline?
LA: Headlining’s fun. I don’t think we have necessarily a preference. It just depends on if you’re going out with a band that you really enjoy or whatnot. Both of them are cool. You have to do both of them as an artist, if you actually want to be a real, legit artist.
What about venues? Do you prefer small, intimate venues like this one or on the bigger side?
JC: Either way.
MK:The cool thing about bigger venues is they give you crazy love and treat you super nice, but in small venues like this we walk out and people are right there. It’s an instant connection. It’s harder to grasp at when it’s a bigger venue.
