Photos and feature by Lola Pistola
Reptaliens most recent album, VALIS, is a little (if not the only) taste of what the band is all about. Just like reading a book and creating a world guided by words, listening to a Reptaliens track allows you a voyage all your own. It’s pretty much an invitation to escape reality and immerse in a happy trip around the sun or even the moon – or both. This trip feels particularly contagious, and in an instant — just like a very promising and well-spoken cult leader — sort of life-changing. How does this happen? Well, easy. First, listen to the record a couple of times. Then find yourself repeating the words, imagining who’s doing what in the band, and going, “Wow, that’s actually such a sick bass line.” Or at least, that was me. I’m just being honest. Reptaliens have a unique… not sound, but energy, that transforms dull faces into “why the fuck can’t I stop smiling right now?” moments. Again, at least that was me when I first caught them at Brooklyn Steel and was blown away by the simplicity and infectious atmosphere that grew there as soon as the Portland-based band started playing. Bambi Browning and Cole Browning, aka the mother and father (not literally, but maybe) of Reptaliens play next to each other, conjuring harmonious compositions that you either sing along to or want to sing along to. It was one of those things were the recordings of the album are greatly produced, but live (and not to sound corny) they are alive and make you feel so.
Alright, let’s just start with what’s going on and what you guys – what this tour – is all about? You’re going out with Turnover and…
Bambi Browning: Turnover and Turnstile. Yeah and we’ve just been supporting them every night and it’s been like a whole new family situation. And they’re all just like super nice and we look up to the band so much. It’s cool to like to be side stage, every single night, watching both sets and going, well we weren’t familiar with them before and now we’re all just mega fans. And it’s always really cool to love them as people and individuals and then their music, it’s unreal.
Cole Browning: We’ve been calling it a variety show tour, cause it’s just that the three bands are so different. Turnover is like post emo, Turnstile is just straight hardcore, and then we’re kinda indie/synth/pop. It’s all different genre-wise and we’re making this traveling circus go down the road together.
That sounds fun. I feel like that’s very much the future of touring for a lot of bands. To not put together the same type of sound, but to either build it up or have something that’s a bit more mellow or dance-y, and then have your super-fast band, and then your big complex band. Like you go to a show as a musician, a spectator, you’re like “oh this fucking rules.”
Cole: Yeah because no one wants to hear like the same band for 3 hours.
How did you feel getting picked up by this other band? How did the opportunity come up?
Bambi: They had sent us an email out of the blue. And they were like, “Hey will you come on this tour?” And it was before we had a release date for the album yet so it worked out that it released on this tour. It was released the day after we played our hometown so we had a soft release in Portland, Oregon which was insane timing.
How was it like playing back home? How is the community and scene there?
Cole: Yeah, we’ve all lived there for a while. We loved playing in Portland. It’s good and it’s growing a lot. I think a lot more styles are becoming more accepted. I think for a while, there was kind of just a streamline of style that was promoted and accepted in this town. But I think it’s becoming a little more diverse now.
Diverse?
Cole: Yeah, I think so.
I’ve read a few things that say you guys are the main writers, how does that translate when you’re showing to other people? Since you guys are partners, do you feel it’s a completely different situation?
Cole: Yeah. Well it’s kinda like together we do a rough outline and then once that’s said, then Julian and Tyler come in and add their own flair and uniqueness to it – add their own little parts. So we set up the basic structure and then these guys come and they just knock it out of the park with their own thing.
What was the inspiration for VALIS? I felt like there was so many things happening. There’s trippy shit, but there’s a harmony to everything. What was the background behind?
Bambi: I feel like on this record we had a little more foothold with our confidence. I think it was that we were really experimenting with the first record and with the second one it was more of a feeling that we were a little more open and honest with understanding ourselves and translating it into songs. So, I think it was a little more confident and I’m a little more personal as far as lyrical content. I try to explore equally my own thoughts and feelings and situations that I was going through as well as – so I’m always like just reading about weird shit that’s not normal ways of thinking that people like, and to anything that’s just not a normal thing to think about or talk about, that’s not accepted. Oh… just anything that I really gravitate towards and hone in on: other people’s obsessions, being obsessed with one person or one way of thinking. The Echo Park song is all about Stockholm syndrome. It’s about a guy that kidnaps somebody or just a person kidnapping someone and then trying to make them fall in love with you. And just things that are not really talked about, and definitely not… okay. Just like being hyper-aware of those things.
https://open.spotify.com/album/7eCEpBacwN3keXoxAHKbHi
So you’re going into personal experiences of your own and personal experiences of other people – this is like other people’s life too, there’s people that actually exist like that.
Bambi: Right, and it’s a lot of things that happen to me in one way or another or that I get from reading about what other people go through. Things that are studied… Stockholm syndrome is a psychology term for that specific song in that situation, but I feel like it happens in a broader sense in people’s lives – not necessarily to the point that it’s like, as intense as where the term came from. There was like bank robber that held 4 people hostage and they all like, the whole reason that theory and the term came up was because nobody wanted to press charges against the captor and they more identified with them but they think it’s through the process of what they went through with that person that like connected them. And so it’s all about weird connections that people have and I don’t know, I kind of just wanna talk about it in more like it kinda doesn’t have to be like that intense of a connection to like have something similar happen and have a way to talk about it I guess.
Yeah, that makes sense. Are you guys into some other sort of readings or themes? I was reading that you guys are into sci-fi. Like dystopian or robots?
Bambi: Yeah, just everything. I feel like it’s those terms are supposed to be like delegated to something that’s fictional, that’s not real, and I think it’s all happening around us all the time. And so yeah.
Cole: It’s also cool like, I mean not cool, that all that dystopian stuff is feeling so much more real, which is actually terrifying, but it makes it more exciting to read. Cause you’re just like, “holy shit.” This is kind of like; this is stuff that was written in like the 60s, you know? And it’s wild off or so far off. It’s like you kinda see it going towards it and you’re like, “oh wait is this becoming nonfiction now?”
True. I just started reading Neuromancer recently.
Cole: Oh, that’s a good one!
But I was like, fuck this it’s written in like, you know…
Reptaliens (in unison): It’s the news!
And you’re like, “this is happening”.
Bambi: I just read something that said there’s something like 125 months before we pass the point of how they’ve been saying for years that if we don’t change our behavior as a society, global warming will be irreversible. And now there’s actually a countdown and it’s under 150 months before it’s just reality and there’s like… no going back.
Cole: Yeah even with something like 1984 or Brave New World – the double speak stuff… you know? Where they tell you and lie to your face and then they tell you it’s the truth. Then you realize that’s clearly what they’re doing right now. It’s a strange time to be alive.
Bambi: They try to pass it like this isn’t – or that’s not – reality, but it totally is, and it’s not a mysterious thing anymore. It’s happening right now. And it’s like, so alarming.
How do you feel making music now with what is happening socially?
Bambi: I just feel like I can’t really help but to talk about it. It’s pretty much all that I’m thinking about and I feel like there’s so many distractions, and music can’t… or like any sort of art or entertainment – I mean, in the 20’s it was like people would go to theaters and watch films to escape the reality of the depressing state of everything, and now it’s like they’re using it as a distraction. A lot of like mass media is trying to distract you from reality, not because you need an escape but to keep you from knowing that that is reality. I feel like they’re using it in a different way now.
Cole: But I don’t feel like we’re a political band, and I don’t think we talk about it in our music like that. It influences ideas and themes and stuff, but that stuff doesn’t openly come out in lyrics or anything. Maybe subtly, but yea we don’t like, use the band as a vehicle to change minds.
Bambi: It’s a source of thoughts behind things, but it’s not trying to influence anything in any way.
Right. How have the shows been so far, playing the new songs?
Bambi: It’s been awesome. Yeah, they’re a little different. We only learned how to play half and half.
Cole: We only learned how to play 4 of them, so we don’t really know how to play a lot, maybe half the album.
Bambi: Because we have a 30-minute set on this tour, which is short, and we get cut off early almost every night.
Because you’re always going a little bit extra?
Bambi: We always try.
Cole: But yeah, I feel like my favorite, my favorite song to play off the new album is “Baby Come Home.” I didn’t really know how that one was going to translate, and I’d say that’s my favorite new album song to play. That’s also Austin, we added a second guitar player for this tour and that’s one he plays guitar on too. So, it’s kind of cool for the first time ever we had two guitars. We can kinda feel that out and get closer to the recording’s sound.
Do you feel weird that you only play a few songs off the new album? Do you think to yourself, ‘fuck I should have just learned the whole thing’?
Bambi: It was also just because we still want to play “the hits” that people like. You know when you get excited to see a band and they only play the new album and you don’t know the new album? And you’re just like, “shit they didn’t play any of my favorite songs… I’m not that familiar with those.” So we had to pick, so basically, we have 8 or so songs. So, we’re like 4 old, 4 new.
Austin: It’s a nice balance.
Bambi: It’s just a short set.
Cole: Yeah because I see bands – especially older bands – that have been around forever with like 10 albums, and I just want to see their early stuff and they only tour the new album. And I go there and I’m just like “oh I really wanted to hear…” like, you know, the old bangers, and I’m sure they probably hate that shit and they’re like, “we’re trying to put out the new songs.” But you find that mix.
Bambi: And we’re also like, I feel like our first record is so new for us also, so it’s definitely that we want to play some of the old songs, they feel really good still to play. But there’s like new songs also. There’s also old songs and unreleased songs that I really want to play. And then there’s the rest of the new album. I want to play for 3 hours every night! It’s a hard choice.
Put it back to back like both albums. Like if you were a theater show. You’d go outside and have a cigarette, and then you’d play the second album. What’s your favorite?
Cole: Off Valis? “Baby Come Home,” “Echo Park,” “Venetian Blinds.” We were playing “Give Me Your Love” for a little bit but now we don’t really play it. Am I forgetting one? Oh, “Shuggy II.”
How was making that video?
Cole: Oh yeah, that was my first video that I’ve ever tried to make and my first time ever green-screening. I was learning as I was going. By the time I was done, I wish I knew what I knew then at the beginning. But we wanted it to be kind of corny and we wanted it to just feel fun and cheeky. So, it wasn’t trying to be a perfectionist video. It was fun. We all just hung out in my living room and we had no idea… we were just like let’s do this and I would be like let’s try this thing, and let’s do this and what about this angle. We had just like, we were totally just winging it and I think it totally just comes off as that. It was supposed to be fun.
Yeah it came across as like yeah, they’re just putting shit in.
Bambi: I just woke up one day and he was like I don’t know how to make this happen, but I just want to see Julian as a cowboy.
Cole: The whole thing started, yeah exactly it all started with I was like, “Julian needs to dress up as a cowboy” and so that was the first and the rest is history. That was the first idea before anything else with Julian. I just saw it so perfectly in my head and I was like Julian needs to be a cowboy.
Bambi: I just spotted our dog in a video also. No, he’s just you can’t contain that young man.
Cole: Honestly, although he just kept getting into shots when we trying to film because he…Bambi: Anytime you like ask our – his name is Hambone. Anytime you ask Hambone a question with an inflection at the end like, “do you want to do?” or like “do you want to be a postman for Halloween?” He’ll just like, his head goes sideways so fast and like the more questions you ask him the more sideways his head goes in either direction.
I feel like when I was reading, and this is like something that was, you know what press releases do, they just write shit about bands, and you’re like “oh, I wonder how much the band wrote into this?” For example, it said this wife and husband duo they started making music not intending to make music. Was that real and if so, how does that feel now? Do you feel now like you just want to make music with friends and tour rather than we were experimenting and this came out…
Bambi: It’s kinda both. We were just friends in Portland and he asked me to like, we just started hanging out and he was starting this band that was more punk rock and I was like, “I love this music, do you have a band?” And then he was like, “No it’s just me”. So, I started playing in that band and that lasted for about a year and in that time, we started dating and then we moved in together. And then one day all we really did was listen to music together and make out and stuff. We just started writing a different sound of songs. And he just encouraged me to do a lot more songwriting, which no one has ever done before and we just put a song up on SoundCloud that we had written and it got a lot of… it was just well-received and I was like dude I love writing music, can we keep doing this? And it just kind of kept forming until we had 4 songs. Then we grabbed some of these members slowly and it kept continuing. And music is all either of us want to do. It just gave us that opportunity to explore it further and further to where now we’re on tour and have a second album out.
Yeah, that’s great. Fuck yea.
VALIS is out via Captured Tracks. Follow Reptaliens on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.