Despite being around for a little over a year, Mansions On The Moon have already made some huge steps. Made up of The Pnuma Trio’s Lane Shaw and Ben Hazlegrove as well as lead vocalist/guitarist Ted Wendler, Mansions On The Moon specializes in electronic downtempo and ambient rock. Recently, Mansions On The Moon came out with an album of remixes that was produced by Benzi and Diplo, a project that has gotten them support from a wide range of artists outside the jam scene, including N*E*R*D and Chiddy Bang’s Xaphoon Jones. Lane Shaw and Ted Wendler sit down with Jambands.com to discuss the recording process, the art of the mixtape and experiences on their recent tour with rappers Wiz Khalifa and Mac Miller.
Justin: To start off, how did you guys form Mansions On The Moon?
TW: Well Ben [Hazlegrove] and Lane were in a band called Pnuma Trio that was around long before I got involved with it, and I met Ben in Northern Michigan when we were kids, and then we met when we were all adults when I was still in college and I’d been writing songs and I showed them those songs, and he dug them and said that we should continue to write music, and eventually I moved in with him in Virginia Beach and we started just writing songs for the fun of it. He was still in his other band with Lane and we moved to Colorado which is where I met Lane, and then all three of us then started making music. We got a call from Shay Haley Asking us to come show him some music, and that happened and we all kind of vibed with Shay and ended up moving there and really focusing in on the music that we had all created as a serious project and as a band.
Justin: And Lane, what made you decide to go for a more downtempo ambient sound with Mansions On The Moon compared to the electronic dance music of Pnuma Trio?
LS: I mean we still have that type of sound in this group, for me there’s an interest in getting to test different boundaries and getting to do a lot more. For instance when Pnuma played all the time I would just like go hard on the drums, that was the thing to do every night, just go hard as you could energy wise and with Mansions there’s a lot more on the table…there’s folk songs, there’s singing, there’s volume control on stage, and that’s something that is a lot more of a challenge. It’s been great to have both and infuse everything, and just like I said, this is a whole other baby, it’s something I always wanted to do. I always wanted to be in a band that had albums and songs that people can relate to.
Justin: So I saw you guys were in the process of recording Lightyears which is due out later in the year. Can you tell me more about the recording process, how do you guys decide who writes what in the studio?
TW: It’s a process, there’s no real plan to it. It’s sort of based around stream of consciousness writing. These songs, especially the ones that are going to go on the Lightyears EP have been written and recorded over a span of two years, some even longer and recorded in so many different studios throughout their existence. Some of them, the vocals were recorded in a closet and then others were recorded in a multi-million dollar studio, so we kind of kept them and kept adding elements with different environments and different ideas in mind and different instrumentation and things we had access to so that kind of produced maybe some of the uniqueness that people can hear in our music because of the amount of time and effort and different places we’ve been to write these songs. As far as who writes what, it’s like I said, there’s no real intentional science behind it, we just go with the inspiration as it comes and we keep the ideas that we like.
Justin: Are all three of you guys in the studio at the same time mostly, or Ted, do you record vocals and have it layered over Lane and Ben’s music?
TW: I don’t think it’s like that, like I do the production as well and sometimes I’ll record vocals alone, sometimes Ben will be on the vocals with me as well. So just like I said, no one song is the same as the last and just because we do one song this way doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to do all the songs that same way. At the end of each process, if we’re all feeling it that’s what comes out.
Justin: Speaking of doing songs a different way, you guys recently came out with the mixtape Paradise Falls which was remixed by Benzi and Diplo. How did that come to be?
LS: About a year and a half ago we were on Virginia Beach and we didn’t have a full studio to work with to get the full Mansions sound out on, we were kind of working in our own basement in Virginia Beach and we came up with this idea to just kind of put ourselves on the map by letting people know what we were into, what music we listen to as far as bands like Washed Out, Junior Boys and Deadmau5, stuff like that. What we had as Mansions at the time as far as songwriting and stuff like that, putting Ted’s lyrics and Ben’s lyrics over songs and stuff we were listening to at the time. As far as Diplo and Benzi, Shay Haley helped out with that and that was awesome, it was a great experience for us. That was about a year and a half ago, I think, right Ted?
TW: That came out right when we got out of here I feel like, and now it’s a year and a half later and we’re getting to do another one with them. I’m stoked. This one is probably going to be a lot longer and have a lot more features on it but it’s been a fun process all around.
Justin: You’re talking about another mixtape that you’re coming out with, right?
TW: Yeah, we already started working on it.
Justin: Is the reason you guys decided to make your first full length album a remix album because you guys couldn’t get into the studio and you guys were working on a lot of stuff at home?
TW: I think that’s kind of the long and the short of it I guess. We had these songs and we had recorded them and we had the production we had made behind them and we really liked them, but we had a bigger vision for them. We wanted to release music and we wanted to get it out there and I forgot who came up with the idea originally for the mixtape but it was a creative way to take the songwriting that we had done and not maybe the production behind it, although some of them we kept the production behind them as well I guess. But it was just a creative way to work around that and now that we’re in L.A. we have access to a lot more instrumentation, a lot more tools at our disposal as far the production goes. We’re really excited about the E.P. in that regard. It’s a bold project and it’s very cool, at least I hope people think it’s cool, and it’s a creative way to get people to hear these songs.
Justin: How does playing the songs live differ from playing them in the studio? Are there moments of improv or is it exactly how it’ll sound on the studio album?
TW: There are moments of improv, but we’re probably going to end up incorporating more than that. We’ve got a mixtape out and we can play some of those songs live and people like to get down to them and they know them and are familiar with them but we’ve got so much stuff that is unreleased that we love to play live as well. So I think a lot of people are sort of “Whoa, what is this song, I had no idea!” and those tracks are going to be on the EP but then some of them aren’t even going to be on there, so it’s a way for people who know our music to hear a little more of it, songs that are unreleased and stuff like that, but then we’ll do our electronic instrumental tracks where it’s grooves that go on for a while, and it’s sort of an eclectic mix.
Justin: Are there songs that you made or had remixed that stand out the most to you guys?
LS: We’re about to come out with a Foster The People remix, we wanted to pick a song off the album that nobody had really touched, so we chose a song called “Life on the Nickel” and we kind of put our whole spin on it. So that’s been the one lately that we’ve been pumped about.
Justin: How did you guys get involved with N.E.R.D? You guys have been around for a little over a year and you already have collaborations and support of some of the biggest names around.
TW: Well, that was like enigmatic. I’d say if we were to chase back the connection long enough it started with an artist friend that we living with who did the majority of the cool art you see attached to our releases, his name is Charley Feher and he worked at the time for a company called Elusive Media with Shomi Patwary, who directed the “She Makes Me Feel” video and then did a lot of in studio documenting with us at an early stage. He had worked with N*E*R*D before on similar audio/video projects and artists like The Clipse and stuff like that. He was a fan of the music and he happened to be in The Neptunes studio and showed them what we were working on, and they really liked it. Out of the blue we got a call from Shay when we were in Boulder and just said “Yo, I think this stuff is really cool, I’d love to meet you guys and rap.” So that’s how it went down.
Justin: Speaking of artistic visions and how it ties into your music, your videos have an almost old school, home-movie-esque vibe to them. How involved were you guys in making the videos, or was that all your friends work?
TW: We’re pretty closely involved in making the videos.
LS: Yeah, the “She Makes Me Feel” video was our first music video, and Ted and I helped Shomi with ideas, we were all helping eachother. We didn’t have a big budget and in the end we wanted to make a video that a lot of people could relate to and wasn’t over the top looking. It definitely complemented the song well. Not to say we wouldn’t want to make some epic videos pretty soon but we’re still figuring it out. We’ve got a bunch of videos that we still gotta come up with right now for the E.P. release.
TW: And with those in-studio videos, we’re fortunate enough to have people that are good at not making us look like idiots and picking the right stuff to take. Those in-studio things done by Shomi in Virginia Beach and some of the earlier ones, he’s just the guy in the corner who always has the camera on, and he ends up clipping it together and making something pretty awesome, so we’re fortunate in that regard. Then the in-studio shots at Red Bull was done by Jason Beattie and he really took the reins on that and made it pretty awesome I think. That was a really cool experience to have him and that was the first time we had a lot of professional cameras on us recording tracks and we didn’t really have anything as far as making changes or stuff like that because they were really good at it and were really talented.
Justin: It seems you guys have been focusing a lot on promoting your band through social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and Soundcloud, to name a few. Is there a reason for that? How do you guys feel the internet has affected your band or the way your band is promoted?
LS: It’s been huge. We’re not signed to a label or anything like that, so we’re still grassroots, we do all of our promotion ourselves. It’s been cool, we get really excited when we’re able to release music, especially with the fact that there’s a big selection of bands and stuff on Twitter, and we’re fortunate to have a good relationship with the blogs, so we love it. Whenever we have a day where we blog about a bunch of stuff we call it “Kenny Bloggins” day. It’s so crazy in the early stages because we would just put up this song and then randomly it would be on this blog that we all like that we didn’t even have contact with and all of a sudden it will just appear there and it’s like “How did they find this?” It’s so cool. So it’s really exciting that social media and all those outlets are great tools for starting bands to get out there, so yeah. Kenny Bloggins day is our favorite day of the week for sure. [laughs]
Justin: Speaking of Kenny Bloggins day, I was reading on your Twitter account about your DJ set on Halloween. How does your DJ set differ from your live shows, are you guys playing different remixes or other artists music or is it primarily your music?
LS: I’d say it kind of factors in to our whole little mixtape angle. We just play music that we’re currently listening to and then we play some remixes that we did. This DJ set we’ll definitely play some remixes that are coming out on our upcoming mixtape as well as the one that we already released, as well as cool remixes of other people that we like.
TW: Then obviously I think it goes without saying that I’m not singing during the DJ set so that’s a big difference as well.
LS: Yeah, there’s no live instruments or acoustic instruments, it’s just a straight up DJ set. But I think as we progress I think we would like to elaborate on that DJ set a little more and maybe bring the instruments in. It’s a fun aspect that we have, we can pretty much come to a live show with three different angles: we can have a DJ set, an acoustic set or a live set.
Justin: Is there a chance that Alex Botwin is going to be included in this project? Is collaboration possible for that?
LS: Alex did a remix and helped with the remix that we’ll be putting out on the mixtape that we’re releasing in December. He’s still a good friend and we’re all homies.
Justin: Is the Pnuma Trio going to reunite, or is this pretty much your main focus right now?
LS: I’m not sure, Mansions has a lot on our plate right now, I’m not ruling anything out but like I said, Mansions has so much stuff coming out so it’s hard to think about anything else.
Justin: How was it touring with Mac Miller and Wiz Khalifa on the Green Carpet tour? Were there any performances or memories that stood out?
LS: Well before that tour we played one show at Snowball Music Festival in Colorado, and then a small show at The Mint that was a practice show, we were so new to the live scene at that point, and it was awesome. We were on the way back from our first show in Colorado on our way back to L.A. and found out that we were going to get to go on tour with those guys, and it started two weeks after that. It was definitely a learning experience, it was a lot of fun. It was our first tour to be playing in front of crowds that reached up to eight thousand people every night, it was a nice kick in the ass to get it going. Mac and Wiz’s people are all awesome people and it was a fun time.
TW: It was my first time ever on tour and really playing in front of that many people live, so to go from some really small acoustic gigs to playing in front of five thousand people was pretty incredible and crazy. I loved it, and it was an interesting, unique scene as well.
Justin: Yeah, I’m sure the backstage scene at a Wiz Khalifa concert could get pretty crazy.
TW: For sure.
Justin: What are your goals for the future, are there venues you want to play or people you want to collaborate with?
TW: I’d like to play a show on the moon, that would be cool.
Justin: A mansion would probably be the perfect venue for you guys.
TW: My whole thing is that I think music is written so people can hear it. I’d like as many people to hear my music or our music as possible, so whatever that means. I’d also love to travel Europe and travel the world playing music. That’s a lot of musicians dreams, but that would be pretty awesome.
LS: There’s no doubt about it, we want to get out there and see as many places and perform music for as many people as possible. That’s the mission statement.
