Cage The Elephant Sell Out Three Shows In So-Cal

Cage The Elephant

Cage The Elephant play Observatory Feb. 4, Tower Theater Feb. 5 and Feb. 6; Photo by James Christopher

Concert Guide Live chatted with the Grammy nominated Cage the Elephant prior to their three sold out shows in L.A. and Orange County, beginning with The Observatory on Feb. 4, followed by Tower Theatre on Feb. 5 and Feb. 6. The band is performing on the Conan O’Brien Show Feb. 4, airing the same night as their performance at The Observatory.

Their hit single, “Cigarette Daydreams” is currently No.1 on the alternative radio charts, making this their fifth No.1 song to date. It’s no wonder, considering the song is on constant rotation on all the major radio stations.

Coming out of Bowling Green, Kentucky, Cage the Elephant manage to bring a frenetic energy to their live shows with songs such as “Ain’t No Rest For the Wicked,” “Come A Little Closer” and “Teeth.”

If you can’t make it to an upcoming show, a Cage The Elephant concert was filmed live in Santa Barbara, CA, and will air Feb. 13 on the Emmy-nominated PBS series Live From The Artists Den.

Now let’s hear from the band as they discuss some background into their song writing and music making process:

CGL: Could you briefly describe the band’s music-making process?
CTE: We don’t have any certain formula we hold fast to. We generally allow our creative works to become realized however they naturally develop. Someone might have a chord progression or a melody, or maybe something close to completion, but after we bring it to the band as a collective, we finish the song. Pretty much all the songs we write are collaborative.

CGL: Cage the Elephant had the opportunity to perform with Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters. How was that experience?
CTE: It was incredible. Almost to the point of being comical. The entire band just stared at Dave Grohl, grinning like a bunch of second graders all the way through the show.

CGL: Do you have a set time each week when you practice? Or are rehearsals more spontaneous?
CTE: As far as making records it’s more spontaneous. There’s no set time we get together and start working. You can never put your finger on when an idea is going to start to unfold, so that remains spontaneous. As for rehearsing for a tour, we have six hour practices five times a week leading up to the first show.

CGL: All three albums you have put out thus far have been different from one another. What would you attribute the differences to? Is it changes in musical taste or something else?
CTE: There has most certainly been an evolution in our musical taste as well as applying some learning we’ve picked up along the way. With each record we try to breakout of fear based writing, and that definitely changes the way our band sounds. Human beings are prone to projecting false premeditated images of self. All our lives we work tirelessly creating these images of how we would like to be perceived, rather than being comfortable with our actual identity. So with each of our records we try to break away from that. Hopefully that is the biggest reason the sound of our band changes between records.

CGL: What’s something new we can expect from the next album?
CTE: I don’t even know what to expect from the next album. Every time we finish a record it’s like music becomes Chinese to me for a time, I don’t understand it. We never know what it is we’re looking for until we find it. We just kind of have to wait for the discovery to come to fruition.

CGL: What’s the ultimate direction for your band? What is your main goal?
CTE: If fame and fortune were our ultimate objective, we would have quit a long time ago. Our main goal as a group is to dive deeper and deeper into the inner workings of creativity via naked honesty.

CGL: What are your thoughts on today’s Indie Music scene? Is it becoming trendy again?
CTE: Trends are all relative to the time period in which they live. I try not to look at music that way. Even with stuff that is perceived to be super commercialized pop, it’s all relative. Yesterday’s cheese is today’s hipster playbook, so on and so forth. So history will probably tell things way differently than we perceive them now. Our view is locked into what we see around us skewing the big picture. If you really think about it, it’s amazing that on a rock, a planet, traveling thousands of miles an hour around a star, in the middle of the Milky Way galaxy, human beings are able make sounds that are pleasing to the ear. I think that’s an anomaly in itself. So I try not to think of music under those constructs.

Look for Cage the Elephant to bring their high-octane performance to the southern California area in the coming weeks.