This post was submitted by Zack Rosen

I first met Sam Simkoff, mastermind behind current D.C. “it band” Le Loup, when we were both freshmen in college. We shared an intro psych class, but the real cause for our initial meeting was the fact that Sam had no problems showing up for a 11 a.m lecture in a white fur coat. I really wanted to dislike the “look at me ” attitude conveyed by such an article, but a couple seconds of actually talking to him removed any trace of annoyance.

Le Loup’s music is sort of like that coat. I’m inclined to talk shit on any peer of mine that started out writing music in their bedroom and parlays it into a 7 piece band, a national tour and a ridiculously dense, but ultimately approving, Pitchfork review. But Sam and co’s debut album, “The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly,” (named after a piece of art in the Portrait Gallery) is actually pretty good. I could bore you with more pitchfork-style gobbledygook, but you’d just be better served to hit up their MySpace and take a listen.

Sam’s opinions on sudden fame, the D.C. music scene and those endless Arcade Fire comparisons can be found beneath the fold.

The New Gay Zack: Hi Sam. Is it weird being interviewed by someone you know? Has that ever happened before?

Sam Simkoff: This has never happened before, this is a first. Its pretty weird being interviewed period. I didn’t really expect to be in a position to be saying anything about anything, so to be interviewed is strange and its definitely strange while talking to someone you know. You have to change the timbre of how you answer questions.

TNG: How does it feel for you to have so much media coverage? Did you expect to get this big, this quickly?

SS: Not really. The media coverage we all try to take with a grain of salt. I feel like, purely by virtue of being a new band, there’s going to be a certain amount of coverage right off the bat, but I expect that to die down sometime soon. Its a fantastic commercial for the CD and everyone seems to be pretty positive, but its best to take it lightly because its a here today, gone tomorrow situation. That said, we’re happy to be getting any air time we can.

TNG: There’s a lot of bands out there that would kill to have the high profile that you have. What’s the difference between you and all the other D.C. bands that aren’t garnering media attention?

SS: Part of it was pure brute force. We’re seven people in a band. If every band member has a few friends to take to a show, then you could rely on the power of having an audience that knows you already. We were lucky to get a lot of momentum right off the bat and when you do start generating publicity you have a foundation to work off of. And we focus on putting on a good, energetic show.

TNG: How many Le Loup members actually grew up locally?

SS: Our bassist and drummer are local , they grew up in Bethesda and knew each other in high school. That’s it, the rest of us are from different areas.

TNG: You’re from Portland. Given how laid back that city is supposed to be, how was your adjustment to the D.C. area?

SS: It was a little rough at first, I should talk more about the West coast to East coast adjustment. East coast everyone is professional and fast-paced, which I’m not used to. But once I got to know the D.C. area, its actually a cool place to be as a young person. It gets a bad rap as a bad place to live, which might be true once your middle aged, but as a younger adult I think its pretty awesome.

TNG: That said, you actually live in Baltimore. How do you like it? Do you ever wish you were in D.C.?

SS: I wish sometimes, a lot of my friends are there. But Baltimore is a pretty cool city, I’m pretty excited to be [in Baltimore]. First off, its so much fucking cheaper. There’s a bar on every corner and you can get a beer for a buck. And everybody here is really proud of the city, the neighborhoods are very friendly, very close. It has more of a southern feel then D.C., also in terms of the fact that people don’t take themselves quite as seriously.

TNG: Since punk is out, there’s been much talk of the new D.C. music scene. Does anyone even know what the new D.C music scene is?

SS: I’m loathe to use a term as nebulous as “new D.C. music scene,” it attaches a certain amount of self importance, of weight, to what everybody is doing now and we’re one of the most public faces of that. I think there’s a thriving D.C. music scene, but in terms of a capitalized “D.C. MUSIC SCENE” there’s no longer a nationally recognized one. There’s more of a scene still than people give credit for, but its very locally recognized as opposed to nationally, which is nice because once its national it makes people jaded and it draws people that might be a little more focused on making a scene than making good music.

TNG: Le Loup has seven members in it. Why such a big band?

SS: It started as a matter of necessity. Most of [my songs] have anywhere from 16 different vocal lines in them and god knows how may instruments. Once I realized there was going to be a live show, I realized that to get those patterns, to create some cohesive songs, I would need a bunch of people playing a bunch of things. Its also a matter of theatricality. A live show, by virtue of being on a stage, should be theater. There should be a lot of energy and a lot visually going on additionally at the same time as the music, so getting seven people up there really helps. If you have a lot of kinetic energy you can create something more visually stimulating.

TNG: Then what was the journey from Le Loup just being you to it being a whole band?

SS: I’ve recorded music for a long time, but its really just for myself or for my friends or whoever is involved. I did the same thing after graduation, holed myself up in my room, recorded a bunch of ideas, and at some point I posted them on MySpace. It was received well and a couple weeks later a band called the Helio Sequence from Sub Pop Records, contacted me. They said ‘we really like this,’ and sent it to a friend at Sub Pop who was the head of A&R. He contacted me that day, saying he liked the stuff. We had an informal correspondence for the next two months while I pulled shit together. At that point I realized that this was all well and good, but wouldn’t go anywhere without a live show.

TNG: Le Loup gets compared to Arcade Fire all the time. Are they as much of an influence as everyone seems to think they are?

SS: No. I think the reference is from people who have seen the live show and thought that a bunch of people on stage going apeshit equals Arcade Fire, which is not true. We’re not as talented as them and we don’t sound like them.I love them but there was no eyes toward them. I was really surprised when that comparison started cropping up.

TNG: This is an abrupt subject shift, but is there any tasteful questions for me to ask you about being a fire crotch?

SS: There is no tasteful way, but if you have one fire away.

TNG: One of the New Pornographers told me that Neko Case’s carpet doesn’t actually match her drapes. Are you dyeing or are you all natural?

SS: I’m all natural, I’ve got the fiery Irish blood in me. Neko’s not natural, is she?

TNG: Apparently not.

SS: I didn’t think so.

TNG: So, finally, what’s next for Le Loup?

SS: We’ll be touring for a while. We were France in the spring. The album just got released in the UK and abroad, so there’s been talk, very tentative, about doing a larger European tour. But finances do not permit that right now, so we’re focusing on the next couple tours. We’re going to come back for South by Southwest, and then record more stuff as a band. We’re definitely looking into the long term goals.

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