Dunes is a living room project conceived by three roommates who were currently without bands. Stephanie Chan played in Finally Punk, Katelyn Hall recently left Mika Miko, and Mark Greshowak left Seattle’s Talbot Tagora. Beers and karaoke led them to pick up instruments and write gritty garage pop songs which were soon snatched up by the sticky hands of Mexican Summer. You join an interview already in progress. This interview by Daiana Feuer.

Stephanie Chan (vocals, guitar): A lot of people still think midwifery is weird.
Katelyn Hall (drums, backing vocals): I know, right.
SC: Jesus, what happened? The Business of Being Born with Ricki Lake, did you see it? There’s a lot of live births in it.
Do they show women pooping?
KH: Pooping?
SC: Yeah, women sometimes poop when they give birth vaginally. Because of all the pushing.
SC: Our friend Jesse pooped on her mom when she was born.
Being in school, how are you juggling the band?
KH: Oh it’s easy. It makes sense. It’s sort of like having a job. I’m a genius and a renaissance woman. We can just play in clusters.
Mark Greshowak (guitar): It makes it easy that we all live together.
How long have you lived together?
MG: Maybe a year.
What’s with your record?
KH: It was supposed to come out already but all the vinyl got warped so they had to re-press it. It should be coming out this summer. We wanted to get the warped ones and sell them for cheaper. We could maybe make them into different things.
MG: Or sell them with the good ones. I’m interested to know more about pressing plants. Supposedly it didn’t cool long enough and they packaged them too soon.
SC: What would they do with them anyway?
KH: Probably melt them down and they’ll become someone else’s music. [Server brings a pitcher of beer with basketball-themed cups.]
KH: This is going to make the interview so much better. You better drink. [Stephanie lines up the cups and attempts to pour beer into all of them at once. Meanwhile Kate describes a scene from “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” about a beer that turns people into pre-historical cavedwellers. Buffy becomes cave-Buffy.]
How does living together turn into making music together?
MG: We all play music so the idea seemed a natural thing.
KH: It’s so much fun. It’s such a nice outlet. You have to use this part of your brain that you don’t get to use for much else. You get to be creative and memorize things. And our neighbors like our music so they let us keep it up.
If your band did a restaurant tour, what kind of cuisine would you book?
KH: Japanese or Mexican. I love Oolong and I love sake.
SC: What about soul food places? A lot of towns have unexpected soul food greats. I’m vegetarian so I only eat the sides. Mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, collard greens.
MG: I want to do pizza and Ethiopian.
KH: I imagine some of the Japanese places having karaoke. We’re pretty good at that.
What are your individual bests?
SC: Meredith Brooks’ ‘Bitch.’
KH: ‘California Love.’
MG: ‘The Night Shift’ by the Commodores.
KH: What about you? ‘Wuthering Heights.’
SC: Have you been to Hamburger Mary’s?
KH: It’s a tranny-themed bar. They play ABBA on a loop in the bathroom.
Is there a lot of pee on the floor?
KH: Probably, among other things. We drank martinis there.
SC: We also do karaoke at home. We do it on YouTube. We have a pitch-shifter so we do it in a man’s voice. It’s really fun with vocal effects. Mark figured it out. He just started doing it in the living room. He’d just do many songs in a row and then we got into it.
What can karaoke do for your soul?
SC: It’s all about letting go.
KH: And getting real. And getting real wasted.
What musician of our time would you send back to alter the evolution of music?
KH: I want to send Dr. Dre to produce the Beatles.
MG: The BEAT-ILLS.
SC: I’d send Lil’ Kim to the 1920s.
KH: She’d totally dominate the flapper scene.
Lil’ Kim dated Biggie and Brandy’s little brother, Ray J.
KH: I like Nicki Minaj. She’s the new female rapper. Do you like Rye Rye?
KH: Does she sing the ‘Lip Gloss’ song? Oh, I heard a song of hers.
Do you think the end of the world is going to happen? I’m into civilization collapsing.
KH: Yeah—I always think about it. I have this game plan if it happens—what I’m going to do if I survive. I’d start hiking up north, probably end up in Canada. Then I’d find some land and start growing things. I’d find seeds along the way and make my own little farm world and get animals.
Do you think the rise of organic living habits and making your own cheese is preparation for the end of the world?
KH: [Points at Mark to make sure he’s noting this] I want to start doing that. Probably is. I hope it doesn’t hurt too bad. But I’m a fighter. I think I’d make it to my land.
What else? You only have a bag.
SC: Snyder’s honey mustard pretzels. Those are very important.
KH: I want a nice knife that I always have with me. I’d get stuck in these situations where I need my knife.
MG: Why not just have a Chinese war sword? Our other roommate showed me a video online of this sword company’s demo—it’s called Cold Steel.
SC: It’s supposed to be the manliest swords.
MG: And they’re like ‘Arrrrrr’ and cut through stuff. They cut through a boot and the back of a jean jacket. Then they pose.
KH: They look like they’re part of a cult. Is forming a friend-family particular to your culture?
SC: It’s a natural gravitation. We just want to hang out at home. We’re past the whole partying thing. We’re old souls.
KH: People love our house. We’re all really happy so it comes off. It’s a nice spot to chit chat, play some games, smoke some pot, do karaoke, drink wine. It’s cozy. Some cultures people sleep in the same bed as their parents until they’re teenagers. I was really good at partying. I was the best. But you just realize it doesn’t age you very well.
Do you think L.A. is a good place for you creatively?
MG: I feel good here. People with ideas can make things and find their own world. Things are accessible.
KH: It’s a place where you can live and play and it can be a pit-stop for people. Everyone comes to L.A. Always a show to go to, always new people to meet and play with.
How important is it to stick to your principles as far as where your band goes and how you handle the business?
KH: I’ve done that before with a band. I saw the tip of the iceberg of that stuff and it’s not fun. With music, where happiness comes from—with it is writing music that you love and challenging yourself and feeling happy; this is fun. Hanging with your friends, play- ing music, writing, playing shows, traveling. The whole seeing things through your music is really cool but I don’t want to create some- thing that’s for sale. It’s better thinking of it as something for fun than for sale. I feel this.
SC: Hype Machine—what is that? I don’t want to worry about that.
KH: I’ve been making posters for our shows—a physical poster. I want the tangible reality. People don’t have to go to shows. A show is a social thing now where they drink and smoke and see their friends and maybe half the people want to see the band. Going to a show should be like going to see art in a museum. You go because you want to have the live experience, something that you want to have in your memory as what you’ve done. I’ll make twenty posters for every show.

DUNES’ SELF-TITLED 12” IS AVAILABLE NOW ON MEXICAN SUMMER. VIST DUNES AT MYSPACE.COM/DUNESTHEBAND.