Jaws of Love: Kelcey Ayer, on balladry, solo projects and things guys say to their dogs

Kevin Bronson on September 14th, 2017

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Jaws of Love at the Moroccan Lounge (Photo by Kevin Bronson)

Kelcey Ayer feels so … so … alone.

“I’m not used to this,” says the singer-songwriter, who for more than a decade has been part of the braintrust of Los Angeles indie-rockers Local Natives. “I hate being by myself. I love being around people. I love being with my wife and my dog and my friends, and any time I’m alone I’m calling people wanting to hang out.”

Ayer is speaking just minutes before his first performance as Jaws of Love, the solo project he unveiled earlier this summer. “Thirteen years I’ve been with [Local Natives], and tonight will be the first time I’ve ever played a show without them,” he says, adding with a laugh, “unless you count shitty high school bands.” We don’t.

Jaws of Love’s debut album “Tasha Sits Close to the Piano” (so named by Ayer’s wife Mel, in honor of the family dog Tasha) comes out Sept. 22. It is a collection of piano ballads about love, yet neither as sad or possibly mawkish as “piano ballads about love” sounds, on the surface. Made with engineer Michael Harris at Electro-Vox Studios (where the Natives worked on part of “Sunlit Youth”), the album is more exploration and celebration than lamentation. Amid subtle but important electronic production flourishes, Ayer’s voice soars.

Our conversation covers dogs, music and cheating on your band:

Buzz Bands LA: First, tell me about Tasha.

Kelcey Ayer: She’s a Husky, two and a half years old. We rescued her from a shelter in Culver City.

And I reckon she does, in fact, sit close to the piano?

We have an upright in the house and I play it every day, either something I’ve written or something I know or something I’m writing. After about three months, she just started laying down there. She found it soothing. She just sprawls out on her back with her legs in the air, totally relaxed. I mean, I will sit down to play the piano and she’ll be nowhere around. I won’t even notice, but five minutes later she’ll be there. Now she won’t even eat her food unless I play the piano. … When I’m on the road, sometimes Mel has to play Local Natives songs so she’ll eat. It really sounds ridiculous, I know.

Sound perfectly understandable to me. Let’s play a game of “Things Guys Say to Their Dogs When Nobody Else is Around.”

Oh, you’re a dog person too?

Newby, 4-year-old Jack Russell mix … I’ll start … (Affecting baby talk) “You’re my best buddy for ever and ever in the whole wide world and the universe …”

(Laughing) I get it. When Tasha is being super cute and I just can’t stand it, I’ll just say (with overwhelming affection) “I’m gonna killlllllllll you …” Because there’s no way anything should be that cute.

And when Tasha is bad?

She’s never bad. She was a mangy street dog before they put her in the shelter. After a couple months, she was cool. I’m sure everyone says this about their pets, or their kids, but she’s a perfect angel. And she is an angel.

||| Stream: “Love Me Like I’m Gone”

And she likes piano ballads. When did you hatch the idea you would make a solo record?

It’s always been in the nether regions of my mind, as long as I’ve been playing music. I’ve dreamed of doing something completely my own. But when Local Natives started, it totally felt appropriate for me to be fully invested in this band, with these guys. Soon after we finished “Sunlit Youth,” somebody went on a camping trip and I had some days free. So I booked three days at Electro-Vox Studios. I’d never done anything like that before, so I talked to a couple people about it, including Richard Reed Parry from Arcade Fire. I remember telling him that it sounded hard to do, and he said, “It’s not hard, you just find a record you really like and you find out where they did it and you just go there.” I thought, that sounds pretty simple.

So had the songs been in the closet a while?

Yeah, it’s basically a mix of songs that didn’t make the cut for Local Natives and songs that were never intended for Local Natives because they felt too different. So when I had those days in the studio, I basically had 12 songs, chords lyrics and melodies, that could be played on a piano. I’d been thinking about them in my head — about how they would eventually sound, or what I would want to happen. They all started to get produced in my head. Then when I got in the studio with Michael Harris, we just clicked immediately. All these thoughts and ideas I had for the songs, I was able to express them fully with Michael. I would talk about a bass tone, and he’d grab a synth I’d never seen before, and 10 minutes later it was, “Holy shit, that’s it.” And we kept going like that. After those three days, it dawned on m that, 1) I could to a solo record, and 2) I had to do it. I had to figure it out.

You’re not the first dude to do a side project or a solo record, you know …

(Laughing) Well, that’s true. That’s why I love Damon Albarn, he’s the king of that. But it’s been a roller-coaster of emotions. One second I’ll be stoked about how the record came out, and to be doing things on my own. And the next I’m terrified that it’s going to fall flat on its face. I’m learning a lot about myself by being by myself. … I mean, I hate being by myself. I love being around people. I love being with my wife and my dog and my friends, and any time I’m alone I’m calling people wanting to hang out.

Now, I’ve put myself in a situation forcing me to feel alone. I’m challenging myself, in that I’m forcing me to work on myself. The opposite of self-sabotaging. It’s self-constructive. I guess I feel lucky that’s the case. … It’s a lot about fear, fear of not being able to do something on my own. I dabbled in that many years ago and it turned out to be total dogshit.

||| Stream: “Hawaiian License Plates”

Have your bandmates been supportive?

Yeah they have …

But in the back of your head, do you feel like you’re cheating on them?

Yeah. We’ve talked about it a bunch, especially now that the album is gonna be released. We wanted to start work on the fourth Local Natives album right away, so logistically we had to talk about it lot — just to see when I could play shows for Jaws of Love. So I’ll be doing little stints between Local Natives writing and recording time. But, yeah, it is a really strange feeling for me to be working on music without them. For me and for them. Thirteen years I’ve been with them, and this tonight will be the first time I’ve ever played a show without them … (laughing) unless you count shitty high school bands.

It’s complex. It’s funny. It’s like one of these great TV shows that gets nominated for an award they don’t have a category for. It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s dramatic, and it’s much truer to life than TV shows were in the past. It’s emblematic of what I’m going through.

Somehow on a record of piano ballads, you’ve managed to be sentimental and earnest but not too drippy.

Not too sappy, you mean? Yeah, there’s a lot of production elements that create textures that help that happen. I mean, the lyrics talk about love the whole record, but everyone has their sap limit. I think it’s within my acceptable range of saying love enough.

I’ve always been attracted to piano music, especially sad music. But when you start getting into the adult alternative vibe, that’s where you lose me. I guess Sufjan Stevens is the most saccharine I’ll get, so emotional but emotion music done in a way that doesn’t give you that sick feeling in your stomach.

||| Stream: “Jaws of Love”