Sounding More Human

Photographs By Rick Perez

Interview By Ethan Cowell

Buddha Trixie is a San Diego born, Los Angeles based indie pop band who recently played a sold-out show at the Moroccan Lounge in celebration of their new single, “7-ELEVEn”. Before their set, members Daniel Cole, Dennis Moon, Kenzo Mann, and Kevin Avery pre-gamed with Reckless Correspondent Ethan Cowell and opened up about eating food at gas stations, the hardest song to play live, and sounding more human on their latest single, “7-ELEVn”.

Los Angeles, USA

Reckless Ethan: I understand you guys have known each other since elementary school and started with a cover of "Gravity"?

Dennis: That's when we played at eighth-grade graduation, and I didn't even play bass yet. It was just Andrew and I on guitar, trading solos and playing blues songs. We learned a lot of Jimi Hendrix. We were basically just a Jimi Hendrix cover band with a few variations.

Andrew: We still had a few Jimi Hendrix songs in our set when we were like seventeen as well, so...

Reckless Ethan: When did you decide to make it an official band with a name? Was Buddha Trixie the first name?

Daniel: On the record, yes.

Reckless Ethan: So when did that happen?

Daniel: Probably like middle school. I think it was maybe early high school when we started writing our own songs, and that's when it maybe felt a little more like we weren’t just playing other people's songs.

Reckless Ethan: But there still wasn't any idea that you guys could monetize or make a career out of it yet?

Daniel: That's still barely happening now.

Reckless Ethan: When did Kevin come on board?

Kevin: I came on the scene recently. This is like show number 5 or number 6. Whenever we did that run with Love Joy in May.

Dennis: Kevin and I used to teach together at School of Rock.

Kevin: The cool part of the job is after hours you can rehearse and stuff, and I heard these guys rehearsing and had no idea what they sounded like. It was one of those things where they were like two rooms over, so everything was kind of muffled, but I just thought they sounded really fucking good. Like really tight, like very practiced, and you could tell that they really knew how to play. It sounded like music coming out of a stereo. Then I looked at them and didn't believe it was them.

Daniel: Before, I was the drummer/singer, and we, at times, would have other people play drums for us, and it was fun because I like being a madman.

Andrew: It's really natural to his persona somehow.

Daniel: We thought we should just make the leap and get someone to play drums for these shows so that I can shake my ass, and it also helps my vocals because I don't have to be doing both at once. Everyone can just fire on all cylinders.

Reckless Ethan: Kenzo when did you appear on the scene?

Kenzo: Like the first year of college, 2015 or something like that probably.

Dennis: Kenzo and I went to school together and lived together for three years. We were all in different colleges during that period like 2014 to 2018 I guess.

Daniel: They were kinda Bay Area, I was Southern California and then at some point we were like, “let’s record music.” I didn’t realize that getting no sleep, driving a lot, and eating food at gas stations doesn’t help your voice or make recording easy.

Andrew: And you were also not trying to miss out on regular college lifestyle so you’d like go to a party and then the next morning drive up like eight hours.

Kenzo: You were like Batman.

Reckless Ethan: What’s the writing process like?

Daniel: It’s become a lot more of people bringing in their own ideas and workshopping from different sources.

Andrew: I just try to get as stoned as possible and write as many things as I can then we all work on it together. That happens a fair amount.

Daniel: Sometimes if there’s an instrumental lying around I’ll just be stoned alone just thinking about how I can get some good vocals on this.

Andrew: Sometimes the vocals leads us to the next part, sometimes the instrumental part makes it obvious what needs to happen in the next part

Dennis: We also haven’t as many opportunities to just flat out jam and finish our newest batch of songs. Now we just moved into a new rehearsal space so it should be easier to do that.

Reckless Ethan: I noticed that you guys have been trickling singles out over the last couple of years. Is this a part of some strategy to release something bigger in the near future, like an album?

Andrew: We’re writing so many things that are so different right now I feel like an album would not make sense. I feel like we’ll do double singles at some point in the future, also I still like EP’s but, I feel like singles are a good strategy.

Daniel: You have to be at like Doja Cat level before people want an album and also it’s nice to not fully commit to an album that only sounds like one thing. We’re doing whatever the fuck we want because it’s fun to make

Reckless Ethan: How is your newest single, “7- ELEVEn”, different from what you’ve released so far?

Dennis: It’s definitely got a different feel. It’s a unique song in our catalog just in terms of the energy and the vibe and the structure of it.

Andrew: I feel like it’s similar to things we’ve already released like, it’s not totally out of left field. We have some that are totally gonna be out of left field.

Daniel: I feel like specifically for this song I got inspired. The lyrics feel like a different version of me. In the past I was sometimes trying to be more grandiose and talk about space and the cosmos. I feel like I’m trying to sound more human these days and analyze interpersonal stupid stuff. I really like these verses, these are kind of like my favorite verses so far.

Reckless Ethan: What’s the hardest song to play in your set?

Andrew: Shmoopie for sure.

Dennis: Yeah I think it’s Shmoopie probably. Kev what would you say as a newcomer?

Kevin: Whatever song has the most parts. Maybe Flub or Inside Out.

Daniel: Flub is intentionally weird section wise and also changes tempos like three or four times.

Reckless Ethan: Are you guys hitting the road any time soon?

Daniel: We are. It’s not announced yet but we might be playing our first out of state show in November.

Reckless Ethan: FIRST out of state show?!

Kenzo: It’s kinda crazy that we haven’t done that.

Daniel: We’ve spent so much time tracking and trying to write bangers that while some of our colleagues are on the road doing nation wide tours and always on go go go, we’ve barely hit San Francisco.

Kenzo: We try to play a good amount of shows though