Kevin Bronson on February 19th, 2015

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It’d be so much easier if Milo Greene were a real person. You know, a guy with good taste in sweaters and books, just the right amount of chin hair, dark-eyed and slightly chiseled but with a crooked smile, bemused but not in a condescending way, with a quirky, engaging point of view.

No, Milo Greene is a pop quintet, with four songwriters — Robbie Arnett, Graham Fink, Marlana Sheetz and Andrew Heringer, all of whom sing as well — and a drummer, Curtis Marrero, who ostensibly also referees. A “democracy,” they call it, often adding “for better or for worse,” a qualifier you often hear tossed around about relationships.

The band emerged with a self-titled album in 2012 featuring the lush harmonies and acoustic bent of folk bands before returning with the strikingly different “Control,” released last month. If the new album’s dark, beat-driven pop — featuring dire titles like “White Lies,” “Heartless,” “When It’s Done,” “Lie to Me” and “Lonely Eyes” — suggest unrest in the democratic process, the band explains that, no, “Control” just reflects life experiences, and its electro-pop sonic direction merely is a product of Milo Greene’s environment.

“Our first record was recorded in a cabin — this is our ‘street’ record,” Arnett says. He’s kidding, of course, but there’s a measure of truth there: The first album was conceived in remote locales; “Control,” made after the band had sunk roots in L.A., “in some ways reflects the drive and angst and competitive spirit of the city,” Arnett says.

On a recent night in Hollywood, KCRW host Anne Litt was assigned the unenviable task of a conducting a group Q&A. She adroitly directed her queries to specific band members. Sheetz, on the tenor of the album: “It’s super uptempo and lots of fun, but if you listen closely the songs are really sad.” Heringer, on the album’s title: “‘Control’ means bringing everybody on the team in as part of the creative process.” Fink, on the songwriting process: “We all write separately as well as together, but we’re not really that band that sits in the bar and passes the guitar around singing ‘Tiny Dancer.'”

After the KCRW session, Fink (onetime singer-guitarist in the rock quartet the Outline, whose members included Ryan Rabin of Grouplove and Max St. John of Superhumanoids) consented to a quick one-on-one.

Buzz Bands LA: What should the Lakers do about Kobe?

Graham Fink: Should have dropped him a long time ago. … Wait, is that the first question? That game that they won when he first got hurt was a testament to team basketball …

See how I tie the Lakers question into the democracy of Milo Greene?

Oh, I was answering without thinking about that parallel. And also, I’m a Clippers fan.

What are the three best things that happened since the first album came out?

I think in our own ways we all grew a lot. We’re very different people, but touring for two years and coming down off all of that, and having our own time in Los Angeles, we changed in a lot of ways, for better and for worse. We figured a lot of things out — how to make everything work as a collective.

What else? … The Shake Weight was invented since the first album came out, I think.

[At this point, KCRW’s Litt cruises past the interview] The third best thing to happen since the first record came out was Anne Litt. [Inside jokes ensue.]

So what are the three worst things happened?

Oh, the dark side. I think the first album was very organic — it was a group of people who barely knew each other, or knew each other from different walks of life, and just made a batch of songs and an album happened. So I think self-awareness is the first bad thing that happened. Inevitably, after putting out an album and touring and developing a fan base, you have to think more about what it is you’re doing. It’s no longer just a bunch of songs that happened. That kind of meta-text, over-thinking what you’re doing, can be dangerous.

I think the Lumineers were probably the second-worst thing that happened to us, considering the “sound” we were thrust into. That’s a terrible thing to say in an interview, but … we never set out to be a folk band. We were a group of singers that happened to write songs on acoustic guitars and it felt good. Our voices felt good together. So we got put into this accidental folk movement that, with or without our intention, defined us for the first part of our career. It would be a lie to say that this record isn’t partially a reaction to that.

And the third worst thing that happened to us is that we got $500 worth of free Taco Bell gift cards. And I think we all crapped our pants and gained 10 pounds when we were on that tour. Sorry, Taco Bell — it tasted good going in.

Robbie said the album was an ode to Los Angeles?

I think Robbie just had a few drinks and it was a nice thing to say.

But it is in a lot of ways a Los Angeles record — it’s impossible for bands to operate in a creative vacuum in this town, right? There’s a lot of external noise.

The answer is pretty simple: The beginning of this band came before we all lived in Los Angeles. I mean, Curtis and I are from here, but Robbie was a transplant playing a band and growing up around the country, and Andrew and Marlena are from Northern California. A lot of the first album was written without L.A. even being relevant. The new record was written entirely after we had created a home base in Los Angeles, being enmeshed in the music scene and the culture.

Unless you shut yourself away in your bedroom and never leave, how do you maintain some ensue of creative self?

I think we still have that. It’s inevitable that [the city and the scene] are going to be an influence — your peers and everything. This album was still something that came out of us organically. We are four writers who all developed material and bounced things off one another until we found something that worked.

Is it like playing a game of tag? You know, like “Tag, your song’s it” …

Absolutely. It takes four people to sign off on something. You can make something you think is really great, but the response won’t be what you think. It takes a committee. But that’s what makes us unique — it’s not just one person saying, “I think this is cool, let’s run with it.” It’s four people asking, “Is this as good as it can really be?” And the new record is different sonically, but it still went through the same process, where some things got cut because not everybody was jazzed about them.

So after the inevitable third-album hiatus, there’s going to be four solo records?

[Laughing] You’re joking, but that’s something that’s been talked about. “The Four EPs.” … But it’s what makes this band special — any of the four of us could make an album of our own that could be one distinct thing. And Milo Greene the cross-section of those four identities.

I imagine Milo Greene as the invisible being who sits on all your shoulders while you’re writing. Because you’re not writing the song just for you, you’re writing for the little guy on your shoulder too, right?

That’s true — although I will say that some of the songs we were writing just for ourselves are ones that the band loved and made it onto the record. One of the songs I wrote with the band in mind was dismissed; another made it onto the record. But after four years together we are all aware of one another’s tastes, one another’s reactions, the way we all relate to stuff.

For better or for worse, we are now a partnership. And whatever sees the light of day as the Milo Greene machine is what the four of us are willing to sign off on. I don’t know exactly what that’s saying, but it’s saying something.

||| Live: Milo Greene headline the El Rey Theatre tonight.