Artist Spotlight: Karma Wears White Ties (+ Interview)
Written by Julia Ong on February 11, 2015
Whilst streaming through the millions of songs on SoundCloud, I found the group Karma Wears White Ties. Intrigued by the name, I decided to click on it and found a certain sound that I could only describe as fresh and dance-y. Something between the lines of Two Door Cinema Club and Walk the Moon. I knew I had found some new indie rock music that was going to stay stuck in my head for weeks. Certain favorites of mine off their SoundCloud are “Aquarium,” “Shitfaced,” “You Were Never Cool,” “Limitless,” “Cancer Dancer,” and “Umbrella.” The tracks they have created so far are below so give it a listen!
683 listens later…I decided to message them and see if I could find out more about their band and music. Luckily enough, they responded more than willing to answer my questions. Below is the mini interview I conducted with Karma Wears White Ties.
1) First, let us get to know y’all! Who is in the band and what do y’all each play?
The people in the band are me (Brian Flores), I play the rhythm guitar, my brother (Jesse Flores) plays the bass and sings live, Jonathan Damian plays the lead guitar, and Saul Dorado plays keys and synth. We don’t have an official drummer yet. Since we are always changing the drummer, we decided not to include him (whoever it is at the time) in the main line up.
2) When and why did the band get started?
After trying different failed music projects out with different people, me and my brother decided to form a serious band in the summer of 2012. We wrote and recorded our very first song, “Cancer Dancer” as a two piece in our garage. That’s why Karma Wears White Ties began. We fell in love with the song and how fun it was to play it, we wanted to make more songs like it and play them live. We started looking for members to play with. We went through a lot of members because we would clash with them. It wasn’t until recently that we found a lineup that made us happy and fit perfectly with what we were trying to do.
3) Why the name Karma Wears White Ties? It’s an interesting band name, certainly caught my attention when I first discovered your SoundCloud.
That’s a question we get a lot, and it’s hard to answer because the story behind it is so random. The name Karma Wears White Ties was a name I [Brian Flores] came up with the last day of my freshman year of high school. I was sitting in the cafeteria with a couple of friends, and I don’t know why but I used to be into the whole karma thing. I thought it sounded cool, but of course I didn’t want to name the band just “Karma.” It wasn’t original enough. So I just added “Wears White Ties” because my favorite band at the time would always dress up and wear ties. That’s the real story behind the name.
4) If you could describe your music in 3 words to someone who has never heard it, what would it be?
If we could describe our music in three words they would probably be chill, dance, catchy.
5) What artists have influenced you?
Some artist that influenced us would be Interpol, Two Door Cinema Club, Satellite Stories, and Tokyo Police Club.
6) Are you all working on anything at the moment that we should keep a look out for?
We are currently in the process of recording our EP professionally. We are trying to get money together to do that. We are setting up a kick starter so hopefully people can donate to it, so we can make the EP happen. I am also currently writing some songs that won’t be on the EP, but they probably won’t be released until we have recorded and released the EP.
7) Any last comments to make to us down in Houston?
Just keep listening to our music, we have more on the way, keep supporting us, and spreading the word about Karma Wears White Ties, and hopefully we can build an awesome fan base down there, because we know there are some awesome people in Houston!(:
Make sure to like Karma Wears White Ties on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, and Instagram!
