The Baltimore based indie rock band The Last Year is like a musical buffet for your senses. If you want a dish of catchy hooks, they have it. If you want a bowl of some 80s flavored new wave, they have it. If you want a dish of 90s influenced crunchy guitar riffs, they have that as well. They’re one part Pixies, one part Garbage with a touch of Siouxsie and The Banshees thrown in as well. The band brings quite a lot to the table with a sound that is at times familiar, yet totally unique as well. If you’re tired of being force fed all this cookie cutter, flavor of the week crap that seems to dominate the airwaves, then The Last Year will definitely satisfy your musical hunger.
The band is led by lead singer and founder Niki Barr, who is somewhat of an enigma herself. She’s comes from the creative school of Slipknot’s Corey Taylor train of thought where multiple music projects don’t dilute the musician’s output, but it manages to push them further creatively as artists. She’s also fronts the Niki Barr Band as well as Mayday Mayday alongside fellow musical partners Scott Ensign (bass/synth) and BJ Kerwin (drums). They also recruited Scott Griffith into the fold to play guitar and thus, The Last Year was formed. They released their self-titled EP in the second half of 2013 and released the single “Sugar” which is started to turn quite a few heads. If you listen to SiriusXM Alt Nation, you’re probably already familiar with the song.
I caught up with the entire band after a show recently in a back stage room where the atmosphere sounded more like that of an improve group than a bunch of musicians who had just put on a killer show. It all started with jokes about wooden bow-ties and it escalated from there. I quickly knew that I was in for quite an interesting interview. Little did they know that they had been nominated as RockRevolt’s INDIE BAND OF THE WEEK!
INTERVIEW WITH THE LAST YEAR
BJ: The sooner you take control of this, the sooner we’ll stop this nonsense (laughs).
No, I kind of like how this is going. It’s more of a conversation that just a regular old interview. Yet, I must tighten the reigns and go into professional mode and ask some of the questions that you may already be tired of answering.
Niki: We’re kind of a new band, so we haven’t done a whole lot of interviews yet.
BJ: Actually, I think this is the first of this grouping.
Niki: Maybe we could do something like spin the bottle and whoever it lands on has to answer the question.
Ok, let’s start with an easy question. Is there a story behind the band’s name?
Niki: There was definitely a long list of names and I think that bands now have to go through all these names. You have to do the search on-line and make sure that it’s not trademarked. You really have to do the business side of it to see if it’s available or not. We went through a long list and it was really frustrating and Scott (Ensign) is actually the one who came up with the name. It was 2012 and you had the whole 2012 Mayan thing going on.
Scott Ensign: The last year as in it could actually be the last year ever.
Niki: We went on-line and looked and holy crap, there wasn’t a band with that name!
Scott E.: We also made the record in that year, so it just seemed like it really pertained to that project.
BJ: That year was also a kind of transitioning periods for all the parties involved as well.
Niki: You never know where you’re going to end up. We just thought the name was very fitting because we had just written all of this music in the last year and who knows where it will take us. I mean, it could be the last year that we’re even putting out music, you can’t possibly know. I think it really has a lot of meanings.
Niki, I know you’ve had a couple of other projects the last several years with the Niki Barr Band as well as Mayday Mayday. How did this band come into existence?
Niki: We were kind of quiet with it for a while because we didn’t know what to do with the music at that point. Scott (Ensign) and I had written all these songs, but we were still playing in the Niki Barr Band at the time, along with BJ. We had no idea what to do with these songs and it was really scary because we felt that all of them were really personal. You know, that happens a lot to writers and you don’t want anyone to hear them because you don’t want anyone to criticize them.
Wow, so the songs actually created the band?
Niki: Yeah, in a way it did. The songs are what’s driving this forward, but we’re realizing now that we can take it even further now than we initially imagined. We have these songs now and we’re creating this amazing live show that’s always been very important to us.
BJ: The writing environment is really great in this band. I’ve been working with Niki for eight years now and the previous writing environments were very weird, but it’s completely different now. All of a sudden, all of these things that I didn’t know she was capable of are starting to escape from her brain. It’s like the creativity just started to explode inside of her head.
Scott E.: I think one of the things we wanted to do with this band is be more cinematic than what we have been before, really tie the music in with visuals. I’m a movie and video game type of person and I love epic scenes in movies where they tie music in. You know, some of our songs aren’t just like pop music format music, but Niki can write hooks on top of them that make them exactly that. It’s like adding all these different sounds in that aren’t necessarily bass, drums and guitars to create an escape that gives you a visual picture in your mind more so than we’ve ever done before.
So, we know BJ was with you in the Niki Barr Band, but how did you find Scott (Ensign)?
BJ: Scott and I were actually playing in another band together.
Niki: Scotty was the perfect player for us and again, Scott (Ensign) was the brains behind that decision. He’s not saying much right now, but he came to me and said that he knew exactly who we needed in the band. We were going to go through the tedious task of auditioning people and I really didn’t want to have to do that again.
Scott Griffith: I remember Scott (Ensign) hitting me up on Facebook and telling me that he had a couple of songs that he wanted me to hear. As soon as I heard them, I knew it was the right fit, but he didn’t know that I was in another band. It’s actually really funny how if all worked out.
Fate kind of has a way of doing that you know? All it takes is one song to get you on the radar and I’m thinking that your song “Sugar” may just be that song. It has to be one of the most infectious songs that I have heard in years.
Niki: “Sugar” really is starting to get radio love and for the first time ever, it’s not just in the Maryland/DC/Virginia area that we’re based out of. We’re kind of waiting to see what happens next. It’s fun to see where people start paying attention and start listening.
You also released it in an amazing acoustic version. How did that originate?
Niki: Again, it was Scott’s idea; we wanted to do more videos with this new band because we kind of missed out on that before with our other band. It’s very important that we have things to give back to our fans, so we recorded a few songs acoustically including one that hasn’t even been released yet. We have a ton of songs in the vault, so you can expect a lot more to come.
Scott Ensign: Yeah, we have at least another album and a half’s worth of material.
Wow, it sounds like you definitely have tapped into something special. I’m thinking that we may need to wrap this up so that everyone can get in this room and get their stuff packed up. Two really hard questions before everybody takes off. First off, if you went into professional wrestling tomorrow, what would your name be?
Niki: Space Queen, especially after this Bowie influenced outfit that I wore tonight.
Scott E.: I used to play basketball and they always called me The Tree because I’m big and tall and they’d hit a trunk when they hit me.
BJ: I think mine would be, in a Russian accent, I Must Beat You, I Will Win.
Scott G.: Then mine would be, You Will Lose.
Watch Sugar [Official Video] – The Last Year
Last one, if you could have any super power, what would you wish for?
Niki: I think mine would have to be something earthy or acrobatic.
BJ: The ability to pay off everyone’s student loans. I am the payer of student loans.
Scott E.: Why not just be rich like Bruce Wayne and pay off all of those loans and then you could be Batman on the side.
Scott G.: I think I’d like to have infinite knowledge.
BJ: I would ask you so many things if you did. Where did Jesus come from? Was he cool?
I guess this interview will end on the same comical note that it started on. Thank you all for this interview, it has been a blast. Any last words Niki?
Niki: Thank you for wanting to talk to us Johnny. We hope everyone will check out our video for “Sugar” as well as our new EP. The single and EP are both available on iTunes.
