I'm here with Pillowprince.

Yeah. This is Olivia Lee. I sing and play guitar in Pillowprince.

My name is Silas Snyder. I play the drums. Liza Steagall, play the bass.

You guys are well, you guys started in Oakland. Right? And then you moved to LA. How was that move?

Yeah. So we're really long term besties, and we had a we were long distance friends. And then Silas moved to the bay, and we immediately started the band. And then we drafted Liza long distance, so we went up and down for over a year. Okay.

We both just moved down to be all together with Liza. So now we're in LA. We moved, like, two months ago. Mhmm. I was

reading you guys met in the guitar shop. Right? Like, two of you were working there, and then one of you logged in, you just scouted them. Was that, like, a very, like, upfront process, or were you, like, low key, like, stepping in and doing it?

Yeah. Silas and I worked at a music store, and we were just, like, besties for the resties right away. Awesome. We just really vibe. And then Liza was a customer that came in, and I was just, like, who's this hot, cool, queer looking person?

I don't even know if I was out yet, but I just was like, for some reason, I'm drawn to that person. And I basically drafted them as a friend. Yeah. And actually, Silas and Liza We've been on TikTok. Oh my god.

Yeah. Ten years ago. Is the best success. Yeah. Best success story.

Yeah.

Are the streets okay? We talked about it a little before we started recording. Lyrics are absolute gold. How much fun was it filming that

music video? Oh god. It was so fun. It's so fun to just, like, film our hot, cool friends doing kinky stuff. It was just a delight.

Yeah. Oh, actually, just totally crushed directing it, which is Oh, okay. Cool.

Excuse me. No. You're fine.

It was That's right. Incredible, actually. We just watched the the magic. I didn't realize how much of it was going to be totally honest. Mhmm.

We staged a party for a part of it, and it was so fun that people were like, well, can we just party now? We're like, okay. So we got gear everywhere. Like, let's send you guys to the bedroom, and, like, just you can sit on this king-size bed, and they're like, okay. Like, they're just, like, down to, like, hang.

It was so fun. Awesome.

I I fully met one of my partners

on set. Oh my gosh. Sponsored today.

That's so cute. My follow-up question to that is, like, how do you find all these really cool bulk? Did you, like, already know all these

people? Were you really

already really close to them? Do have a casting call? Like, what happened?

Yeah. We know a lot of people in the kink scene, and we also had a friend that runs hot goth girlfriend, Christina Villanueva, helped us cast as well because we wanted to make sure to represent a broad spectrum the queer and kink community in the bay, and there's just it's endless to to represent. So that was awesome to pull in people we also didn't know and made fast friends with. And also everybody was super down, like so many people wanted to show whole or show way more than they could. Everyone was offering to pee and we were like, I'm we can't do that and not be banned.

Yeah. We were trying to like not be able to not screen it anywhere, so we we had some certain rules.

Can I pitch you my next music video, like story line for you? Okay. So have you guys like watched or read Twilight?

Yes.

Okay. Okay. Your song Baby Bird, beautiful song. It is the perfect song for like Bella and Alice's like love story. Like Edward was there but I was, okay but Alice like that, like girl mance, like that needs to happen.

That movie, your song needs to be in it. So what do you think? What what is the verdict here?

Love. Let me just hit up KStu for the Twilight remake real quick. That's actually our prime demographic is queer vampires. We love to yearn. We love to learn.

And I actually have another band called There's Talk that somehow made it into, like, the Twilight, like, soundtrack circuit. Like, it's not really it's not in the movie, but but for some reason, it's, like, deeply embedded in the Twilight playlist, which I'm I'm down with.

Okay.

That's awesome.

Yeah. We also have a a song titled Buffy Mother that hasn't been released yet.

I wanted to talk your next projects because right now, you only have, like, four songs out. What is in the works? If you can tell me.

Yeah. We're working towards an LP. We're playing a bunch of new songs today. We're excited about everything that's coming along. We're excited to get recording.

We're releasing a song soon, a single of something we worked on with JSOM, if you know that artist, and we're excited about that. I think that's coming out soon. But otherwise, we're checking along and working on a full full length.

Okay. So what are your main influences? Like, do you have, like, influences as a group, or did you all, like, bring your own kind of separate take and then just put it together when you were making?

Yeah. We have a we have no shortage of inspiration and influences. It's like it's both non musical and musical, and we've been training playlists for over a decade of just extremely niche stuff. But we, you know, we read a lot. We we go to art shows, and we we go out and see bands a lot.

Yeah. Would say musically, slow dive, most shoegaze, you know, big fans of True Widow, Dive. Yeah.

We're pretty on the pulse with queer bands. I used to run a queer bike ride, and we would come up with a new playlist every month, and we would scour internationally for new queer music that'd be fun to bike to, and that's I I kind of dialed into, like, pop queer music when I was doing that. We did that for, like, over a year and a half.

Yeah. I feel like one of our biggest inspirations is just the community. So, like, we try and get out as a band and, like, be in the community together. We have our own little community, and, like, we're just constantly inspired. And we do all bring, like, kind of a different musical background, which I think does show up.

And sometimes it's like, can you

make that less jazzy or whatever?

But, you know, it's like we're really exploring a lot, which is fun. Yeah.

Talking about community and, like, house shows and small venues, what makes or breaks a show?

Lighting. Hot take. This is my subway hot take. Lighting. Lighting.

Lighting is huge. Obviously, sound needs to be correct. We all know. But lighting, like, it needs to feel like a nice cozy womb, and then people can free themselves, close their eyes, sway, like, not be over or understimulant. The right we're sensitive.

So we need it to be right when the vibe is right. It's like, basically, the the you know, the meme that's like, being queer is cool, but there sure are a lot of tiny lamps to turn off at the end of the night. It's basically that. Yeah. Yeah.

But, yeah, we need at least a couple of queers in

the audience for the vibe to be right.

Absolutely. Do you I don't I mean, there's like a lot of house show venues in LA and Oakland. Do you find a difference between house shows that are like run by predominantly straight people or like predominantly queer people? Do you guys experience that at all, or do you just, like, mostly stay within, like, your career community realm?

That's a great question. We we are definitely deeply in our own world, an alternative world and freak world and queer normative world, but we do venture out sometimes, and we often are pleasantly surprised by the allyship and, like, cis het white guys that do really support us, do really get it, and do want to tell us that they're safe. You know? So I don't think we we're opposed to branching out. I think it's actually important to build empathy in those outside of community as well.

What was your musical awakening?

That is so deep. It just keeps happening. It happens tomorrow. It happens yesterday. But if I think about, like, formative moments, like like, running to the TV when Celine Dion is playing, and my whole family just, like, shutting up for one second and and just being moved by beautiful Celine.

I mean, Sufjan Stevens is definitely influential for all of us. It just keeps the list goes on. Like, feist, you know, alternative, like, nineties alternative, February alternative, the good and the bad. Totally.

I think, yeah, to get more niche, probably, like, Steve Gad and his drumming was that was huge for me. What about you, Liza?

1996, the Troggs, Wild Thing, in my living room, was fully obsessed. I was six years old. It was probably, like, the first time I really connected with, like, distortion or rock and roll. I had a lot of, like, Joni Mitchell in my home or, like, Herbie Hancock, and I have a lot of different influences from my family, but that was my first, like, rock influence. And we sound nothing like the drugs, but, you know, it's in it's in there.

So with that said, is there one show that that you wanna go to? Like, it could be, like, something from 1966, but is there one show that you're like, god, what I would do to go to that show? Yeah. It's a hard question. It's a hard one.

I have to imagine.

I would go back in time and see Bjork earlier on. I have seen incredible. There was, like, a Tesla coil, and she's just a magical sprite fairy and yeah. Nineties Bjork. Mhmm.

I'm kind of I would love to see Frank Ocean live. That's, like, would be really special. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I agree with

that one.

Yeah. You got one? Damn.

It's hard to top York, honestly, like, in the nineties in in The UK, maybe, like, when she was living over there and, like, yeah, I feel like that's that's what it would be. Yeah.

For new listeners, what song would you want them to start with?

Baby bird, I think. It's just we're obsessed with the tone and the fuzz. And if you can rock with that and you can rock with how freaky the lyrics are, then you get us. You know what I mean? Uh-huh.

Yeah.

If you were to pick any musician to, like, either open for or just collaborate with, who would it be?

Since you have me imagining, like, cock two twins. I mean, come on. That'd be awesome. Oh, cool.

Mannequin pussy right now, honestly. Yeah.

I feel like it would be cool to go to, like, deep into some guitar collabs with Beach House. Yeah. That would be insane.

We also love Pillowhound and Bachelor.

Who is your favorite, like, other local band that, like, you kind of, like, fangirl over sometimes? Because I have those, and I'm sure you guys do too. Know it's so cold. I'm so

Favorites are hard. We have heard cryo guys are rehearsing in our practice space, and we just stop and listen. It's just awesome. We hear a lot of bands that we know and love, like, when we walk down those halls. We love this band called Drag, d r a a g.

They sound like dive but different. They're incredible.

In in the bay, Sour Widows, for sure.

LA bands, I'm a

huge long time Sex Tale fan, so I feel like I kind of fanboy over them, for sure.

And we see them constantly.

What is your biggest pet peeve about performing in small venues?

Sound. No one can ever hear my vocals, and that hard. It's hard to connect when you can't hear that. And we also do some live looping. It's very difficult to do when we can't hear properly.

Yeah.

I think when the sound person literally leaves the sound box, tea. No tea. But that didn't happen last night. No. I don't know.

No. Yeah.

I would say that's that's the toughest part. And, like, you know, a lot of the sound people are really on your and doing their best, but it just comes down to equipment and the space sometimes. What's the worst show you've been to? You don't have to say the

name, but you can tell me the experience. I'm really curious.

We've we've, like, really truly bombed once, and it was recently. And we were just playing, like, to to the band that we were touring with, and it was it was a very strange environment with it was the kind of place that has, like, lots of, like, decapitated mannequins everywhere, eclectic bar, like and I I think we, like, just we tried to just, like, throw in a shoegaze cover of Enrique Iglesias' hero, which we have done and nailed before, but we hadn't been practicing it. So I started in the wrong key, and we were just a hot mess. We were just could not stop giggling, and we I mean, we had fun, but it was trash.

Yeah. It was it was the best and worst experience simultaneously because it was so funny and joyful and Yeah. You know, low stakes. But glad we we reached rock bottom, you know?

I mean, I was saying as an audience member, but I'm so that story's really funny. That story's really funny. Yeah. Okay. Well, do you have enough story about audience member?

Like, anything they've ever walked out on?

Yeah. I walk out a lot, actually. And I all I mean, I have good etiquette. I I will stay in support. But at this day and age, with having done this much therapy about people pleasing, like, I won't stay and endure something I don't enjoy.

I wouldn't want other people to do that either.

Yeah. Yeah. I can't really think of a show that recently that was so bad. I

think the worst shows are the ones you can't remember. Like, even if I see a show that I don't really vibe with, if there's something that I remember about it, I'm I'm noting that and appreciating that, and it's just how, you know, it's art. It's, like, the good, the bad, all of it.

Sometimes it's not the band, it's the environment. It's like too hot. You're about to pass out. There's no water. They're charging $20 for a bottle of water, you know, that kind of vibe.

Anyways, my next fun question is, in middle school, I feel like anybody, everybody had, like, weird taste in middle school because we're, like, developing and things are going on in our minds. Do you have an artist for middle school that you just still listen to, can't let go?

I stand behind Avril Lavigne. Skater boy radicalized me. And I remember playing that CD in the car, and my dad was like, who are you? It was so much shame because it was, like, so loud and abrasive, and we mostly were listening to, like, world music and piano music in the car. And I was like, don't talk you don't understand me, dad.

Honestly, my mom listened to a lot of Enya, and I still stan.

Yeah. Enya just laughs. Definitely a part of our rotation. Middle

school. Right? Definitely Paramore, like, crush on Hailey Williams. Still do. I think she's incredible.

Also, the Lord of the Rings soundtrack. That was my jam.

Okay. Yeah. No. Those are all really great takes. Is there any new musician on the scene, does not have to be local, that you're like, this person could be like the next somebody?

You could say yourselves. I'm cool with that too.

Honestly, my my partner is almost done.

Okay. Yeah.

Nice. It's like hot potato.

We love Mimi Gilbert. It's an an incredible show. They're amazing people as well, but it's, you know, you watch it and you're just floored by the musicianship and the emotionality of it. Yeah.

Mean, I have to second both of those. Yeah. Absolutely.

If you could describe your music in three words, what would it be?

Gay, freak, crush. The last word

was crush? Perfect. How if you could pick a color to, like, just be your band, what would it be? Would it be the blue, like a color for your sound?

Yeah. I think that what is that shade of blue? Klein.

Klein blue.

Oh. There's a name for it in everything. What is your favorite part about California?

Driving down the PCH is is a whole experience. And as a suburban nerd kid, like, now that I get to do that somewhat frequently, I I just trip out every time. I'm like, look. I'm in the movies. Like, I I will be saying that to myself.

Yeah.

Big Sur is exceptional. Yeah.

Yeah. All the nature, desert, mountains, ocean. We're so lucky to be yeah.

I do my plan is to die and reincarnate in Big Sur as a bird. That's what baby bird is about. What bird? I you know, I I want I wanna like, I'm, like, carnivorous bird rising, but I'm kinda like blue bird sun.

New projects, new shows coming up. What can you tell the people? Yeah.

We're excited to put on some, like, fusion community event shows when we get kinda, like, lock into the LA scene a bit more. I we wanna kinda throw in some more elements and vendors from our community, maybe some massages, like, you know, the chairs and, like, that kind of stuff. We've done we've thrown stuff like that before, and we just wanna integrate and pull together our people just to, like I mean, we're all stronger when we commune together. But, yeah, we have a show coming up in LA on March 11. We'll be playing in LA pretty regularly.

Same with The Bay. We'd love to come back to New York someday. It's been so fun to be here. I get it. The long coats are serving.

Yeah. Keep an eye out for a pride show probably in The Bay in June. And yeah. I will

say Portland went really hard for us. We are gonna get back there as soon as we can.

Wait. Where did you play in Portland?

Six Below Midnight. It was very dungeon vibes.

Olivia, each we took our shirts off in Portland.

Yeah. It was great. They were

very crazy. I don't know why it became a thing in the car that we just kept threatening to go tits out for Portland, and so I said it, and then they were so supportive. So I was like, okay. Let's do it.

Yeah. No, Portland's a great place to just do what you want because people, like, will not bother you about it at all. Okay. Well, hopefully we get to see you the Pacific Northwest soon, possibly, please. Before we end, can I get a legal ID?

It's you just have to say for Pillowprince that you're listening to KBVR Corvallis. Can you do that?

You're listening to Pillowprince on KBVR Corvallis. Yes.