scott schultz

Download: Shiloe “By The Daggers In Your Eyes”

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(from the And Now The Screaming Starts EP available now from Shiloe)

Shiloe is the scariest shoegaze band in Los Angeles and also one of the noisiest. They recently released a single, ‘Daggers In Your Eyes’ that suddenly got them airplay in a dozen cities. When they’re not playing gigs around town, they’re seeking out the paranormal. Guitarist/vocalist Ken Ramos and bassist Melissa Pleckham met with L.A. RECORD to discuss ghost hunting, the Beatles, and how to a handle a zombie invasion. This interview by Scott Schultz.

How long have you two been ghost-hunting?
Ken Ramos (guitar/lead vocals): Maybe six months.
Melissa Pleckham (bass): But we’ve been watching Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures for years now.
Ken Ramos: It was something that we had always wanted to do, but didn’t have any clue as to how to join a group or do anything with it.
Melissa Pleckham: We figured out how to Google it on that Internet machine.
What will you do if you actually catch a ghost?
Ken Ramos: I don’t know. We’re not really trying to catch them. I’d be happy to let them go on their merry way. I’d just like to see stuff.
What if they wanted to hang out with you for a couple days? Where would you take them to show them living Los Angeles?
Melissa Pleckham: We can’t take them to Nova Express anymore because it’s gone. We always used to like the Nova Express but it’s gone.
Ken Ramos: Her mom has a good ghost story, which is what ‘Lady In The Attic’ is about. That’s probably our favorite ghost—since I wrote about it.
Melissa Pleckham: She lived in a haunted house when she was seven or eight and she and her sister used to share a room and at night, they used to hear a lady calling the name William. The next morning, she asked her mom, ‘Who’s William?’ Her mom would go ‘Uh….’ and wouldn’t tell her. One day, her mother told her they weren’t allowed to play in the attic anymore. ‘Don’t go in the attic.’ No explanation. They thought that was weird. After they moved out of the house, her mom told her there had been a little boy who had died in the house and that his name was William. One day my grandma had been in the attic and there was an old lady in there wearing old-fashioned clothes and she said something to my grandmother which made her tell everybody to not go up in the attic. But my grandmother wouldn’t say what it was.
‘Daggers in Your Eyes’ is a radical shift in direction for you guys in terms of raised vocals, melodies and accessibility—is this a new direction for the band or are you still exploring the boundaries of your style?
Ken Ramos: I don’t really think of it as a direction. I don’t think I have a direction when it comes to that stuff—which I like. I always try to think of the Beatles and their whole catalogue of stuff. They have pretty much everything from ‘Rocky Raccoon’ to ‘Helter Skelter.’ Listening to that stuff, I never get the feeling that they are knowingly experimenting with a sound. With ‘Daggers,’ I just wrote the lyrics and the vocal melody one day, and that was the first time that I had written a song that way. It sat around for a while and one day I just started strumming guitar and trying to find chords that fit it. I never really started thinking about where it was going until it was done.
Were you guys surprised that your song was being played in multiple radio markets? how did you find out?
Melissa Pleckham: I wasn’t suprised. It sounds like a radio song to me. It sounds like a prom song—like what they would play at a really good prom. If John Hughes had made a modern prom movie.
Ken Ramos: The old Google device yields all kinds of results. Look up your song, and you could find it. A couple of times we were driving around and heard ‘Daggers’ on KCRW, which is pretty amazing.
If you could be in a movie playing yourselves, which movie would it be?
Melissa Pleckham: We could be in Almost Famous. We could be playing when he dropped acid and said he was a golden god. It would be jarring and not really in line with the movie, but I would really like that.
Ken Ramos: I would want to be in any eighties movie featuring Oingo Boingo. What’s the one with Rodney Dangerfield? Back to School? I love that one.
Ken, you had a college roommate who was a prince in his native land. Where was he a prince? And what kind of music was he into?
Ken Ramos: I do not know what kind of music he listened to? I think he was from Thailand.
Melissa Pleckham: Did you have to bow when he came in the room?
Ken Ramos: No.
Did other people bow to him in front of you?
Ken Ramos: No. He didn’t really tell anybody. It would sometimes come out in conversation sometimes. It was friends who knew them. He was really casual about it. He was a really weird guy. He was studying computer science, and he was just sitting in front of a computer all day and all night. I never heard any music.
Did he have a manservant?
Ken Ramos: No, but at home he did.
Melissa Pleckham: When I was at Berkeley, I had a roommate who would look at porn on the computer while I was in the room, and she would always listen to MIDI versions of Celine Dion songs. ‘My Heart Will Go On.’
At your Halloween show last year, Melissa’s father dressed as a pimp and joined the band onstage playing guitar.
Melissa Pleckham: I kind of expect such theatricality from him at this point. (laughs) My dad’s pretty wild, so it’s not like if your dad’s an accountant and he shows up dressed as a pimp to play guitar with you. Then it would be awkward.
Your parents are the only ones I always walk up to and say ‘hi’ to at shows. What’s your favorite band to play full blast in your apartment?
Melissa Pleckham: Black Sabbath. Paranoid.
Ken Ramos: We have the vinyl Paranoid.
Melissa Pleckham: One time, I was listening to it alone while in the apartment getting dressed. ‘Iron Man’ came on, and I was kind of afraid to leave the room. It was kind of a creepy moment. What if ‘Iron Man’ is out there?
What’s the best music to play while speeding on the highway?
Melissa Pleckham: I like Dig Me Out by Sleater Kinney. There are several really fast songs that make me feel frantic.
You played Mexico City early on. How did you get that gig?
Ken Ramos: It was the craziest most magnificent weekend. It was an Internet radio station from Mexico City. One of the DJs contacted us. We did an interview and he kept in contact with us. One day my phone rang, and it was this guy asking us if we wanted to play Mexico City. Of course I said yes. Not even asking anyone if they can do it—just, ‘Yes, we’ll do it!’ We got down there and they took us to the pyramids and everything.
Melissa Pleckham: We sent to Xochimilco, canals and a haunted island called Doll Island.
Ken Ramos: This guy hung dolls all over it to ward the island of the spirit of this little girl who had drowned on the island. You’re supposed to bring a doll and hang it up.
Melissa Pleckham: We didn’t know that, so we’re probably cursed. They were really scary. We would love to go back.
Ken Ramos: We just spoke to that guy again. He’s not a DJ anymore. He’s writing for a magazine, but I hope to go back there again.
Are you going to ever record anything in Spanish?
Melissa Pleckham: Ken knows an embarrassing amount of Spanish for a person whose last name is Ramos and whose father is a native Spanish speaker.
Ken Ramos: My Swedish mom speaks fluent Spanish, and my sister who lived in Argentina for a year can speak it, and I don’t really speak it.
Melissa Pleckham: I think I speak more Spanish than you, and that isn’t saying much.
You played the Troubadour in November for the first time. What were your expectations?
Melissa Pleckham: I expected to find out what’s in the room upstairs to the left of the stage, with the curtain. Because we’ve been up in the loft, and I’ve heard from other people that it’s similar. It’s a lounge with a bathroom. But I want to see it with my eyes. Because that where you see the bands come down from, and I always wonder—‘What’s up there?’ I remember we saw Sonic Youth when they played a secret show in like 2004 and we got backstage passes, but we only got in the loft—not the secret artists room. So we were all psyched for backstage passes, but the only person we saw was Steve Shelley—which was still cool, but I wouldn’t know what to do with Thurston Moore if I ever encountered him. Which I have done several times. I love Kim Gordon.
Did you contact them to let them know you were playing at their vinyl release at Origami Records?
Melissa Pleckham: They posted bulletins about it on Myspace and Facebook, and they mentioned us.
Ken Ramos: I think their manager or someone like that was at our show.
Melissa Pleckham: They mentioned the Origami release party and it said ‘With our friends Pocahaunted and Shiloe,’ and we were like, ‘Now we’re friends with Sonic Youth. It’s officially official. They said it, so that means we’re friends. So that means the next time we’re in Northampton we can look them up and crash at their place and we can put the quote “Our Friends” — Sonic Youth in all of our promotional materials.’ [laughs]
You guys have two great drummers, but you’ve continued advertising for drummers since forever. Is there a chance that someday Shiloe will perform live with three drummers?
Melissa Pleckham: We would switch them out.
Ken Ramos: Hopefully we could bring all of them out at one time. That would be good.
Do you ever have Dan and Daniel fight each other just for your personal amusement?
Ken Ramos: No, but we should make a little chicken-wire ring.
You guys play a lot of warehouse shows along with the clubs and gallery gigs. What’s the most endearing feature of each?
Ken Ramos: Some places have less of a PA and less of a stage than other places. I like the art gallery shows because it’s real cool to be part of the mix between the visual arts and the music. I like that a lot. Clubs are always cool because they have a nice, loud P.A. system where the sound carries. Warehouses are cool because you never know what to expect. We played in one that was a metal shop, and there were these crazy machines everywhere that looked like they could kill you.
Melissa Pleckham: Sometimes I fear that we’re too loud for galleries, but I guess it depends on the bill. We’ve played at L’Keg with Nocturnes but that was a really good bill and people liked it. I think that in bars it can be hard because in bars people favor bands that are conducive to drinking beers and talking and I don’t think we are sometimes because we’re loud. So depending on the crowd, we can put people off. The good thing about a warehouse like Silver Factory is that there isn’t always a big crowd, but when there is they’re almost always there to listen to music and the bar is incidental. I just don’t think that people go to Silver Factory to drink.
Are you going to make a video for ‘Daggers?’
Ken Ramos: We were talking to Alexis from Kissing Cousins who made their video.
Melissa Pleckham: She works in television professionally. We’re talking to her, but it’s hard—she’s busy, but hopefully soon. We had a video in the works for ‘Gone.’ A friend was doing it for us. But it’s been like a year in the making, so I don’t know if it’s still happening.
Are you noticing the ‘radio song’ effect in the crowd yet?
Ken Ramos: I guess at our last Spaceland show, we heard people tell us it’s the song they like. It’s too new though, and it’s not like it’s in heavy rotation anywhere.
Melissa Pleckham: Over the last month or two, we’ve noticed the people have been actually gathering closer to the stage than they used to, but I think it may be because we’re actually making an effort to engage the audience more. Before we were never quite sure what to do because we were focusing on our roles. Now we are focusing on the reasons why we want to be a band. I think a lot of bands will look at the local successful bands and model themselves after that. I think it’s better to model yourself after a band you admire and not worry about getting a Spaceland residency.
Who would be your blueprint bands?
Melissa Pleckham: Well, songwriting-wise Ken’s would be the Beatles, which can sound pretentious—but why wouldn’t you want to model yourself after the best?
Ken Ramos: Why would you choose any other band but the best-ever to model songwriting after? As far as songwriting band, they’re my favorite band. I like to pick apart their songs and try to figure out what they were doing.
Melissa Pleckham: When the Beatles started, they were modeling themselves after Elvis and Little Richard. They weren’t comparing themselves to Herman’s Hermits and trying to figure out how to top that.
Ken Ramos: I would say I’d like to be AC/DC meets Led Zeppelin live with a giant bell and a flaming gong!
What is the best scary song ever?
Melissa Pleckham: I would say the best scary song ever was ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead.’ It was in a vampire B-flick, so that gives it extra credibility.
What is your favorite story by Stephen King?
Ken Ramos: Movie is definitely The Shining. The original. The song from that is pretty creepy It plays when the blood comes out of the elevator. I read more Dean Koontz. I guess he’s the Southern California Stephen King. He’s pretty good.
Melissa Pleckham: My favorite scary stories are Scary Stories Told In The Dark. They are regional stories—simplified for children—and the art work is really disturbing. I found all three books on a bargain table for like five dollars a few years ago, and the pictures really hold up. It’s really scary!
What is your favorite horror movie?
Melissa Pleckham: Halloween. I just like the way they constructed the movie. It seems like every shot moves the movie forward, and nothing is wasted. It’s really evocative of the fall, but I only recently found out it was actually shot in Pasadena. I always thought it was filmed in the mid-west. Then when you know it’s in Pasadena, you notice palm trees in the background that you never noticed before. It’s not a slasher flick, but it really started it all. That and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is also one of my favorites. What I also like about Halloween is nobody actually makes stupid choices—Michael Myers finds them. There’s a whole school of thought with horror movies and the final girl theory. Women learning to fend for themselves.
Would you like to write or play a part in a horror movie?
Melissa Pleckham: Yes I would, and I have quite the horror movie scream.
Ken Ramos: We recorded two Halloween songs, and one of them she screams at the end. The first time she did it the distortion was so loud.
Melissa Pleckham: If I could just do one movie where I could be covered in blood, I would be so proud. A zombie movie would be awesome.
Do you prefer the old school zombies where they were rigor-mortised and stiff or the new school zombies where they’re super fast with super strength?
Melissa Pleckham: I prefer the old ones. I like the new Dawn of the Dead as well. It makes sense that in the original, they had been dead a while, so they would be slow and stiff, but in the new one they were freshly dead, so it makes sense that they would still be able to run. But I really like both versions, I just happen to prefer the original zombies.
Ken Ramos: I like when they mix the two, because that seems more real. Like in the new one, they had some zombies who were dead a while and they are slow, but the new zombies are off and running.
Melissa Pleckham: My favorite zombies are the ones who are still in their funeral clothing like the ones in Thriller or the original Night of the Living Dead zombie.
I met the original zombie once at a horror convention in Florida. He looks the same, but he spoke with a Shakespearean voice. If you safely made it to the mall during the zombie attacks, how long would you stay before making a run for freedom?
Ken Ramos: I would hang forever.
Melissa Pleckham: When the Hot Dog On a Stick ran out, we’d run.

SHILOE WITH CAT PARTY, MELLOWDRONE AND THE START ON SAT., DEC. 12, AT THE TROUBADOUR, 9081 SANTA MONICA BLVD., WEST HOLLYWOOD. 8 PM / $12 / ALL AGES. TROUBADOUR.COM. SHILOE’S AND NOW THE SCREAMING STARTS EP IS AVAILABLE NOW FROM SHILOE. VISIT SHILOE AT SHILOE.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/SHILOEMUSIC.