Last year, just six months after the release of their third studio album, Foxygen announced their farewell tour. Despite what you may have heard, the move was more symbolic than full-blown career suicide—a cheeky way of wiping the slate clean following 2014’s chaotic, 24-song opus … And Star Power. This January, the Los Angeles-based duo of Sam France and Jonathan Rado return with Hang. While the album lacks the cacophony (and breadth) of Star Power, its vision is just as ambitious. Over the course of just eight tracks, France and Rado go full vintage Hollywood musical mode, backed by a 40-piece orchestra, all recorded straight to tape. Touchstone wise, Hang bounces somewhere in between Steven Sondheim, ELO, and the 20th Century Fox Orchestra, and sounds a bit like what would happen if Foxygen was asked to score the synchronized swimming scene from A Great Muppet Caper. As screwball as this all sounds on paper, in practice Hang feels like Foxygen’s gloriously logical next step. Like their previous records, the album finds France and Rado tapping into a corner of America’s convoluted musical lexicon and coming away with something that is both eerily nostalgic and unmistakably contemporary. (Case in point, the poignantly nihilistic “America.”) Leading up to the release, we sat down with Rado and France in Los Angeles for a meal and a chat about Foxygen’s newest incarnation. Photos by Cara Robbins, Words by Aly Comingore I know you’ve both been playing music together since you were kids. How exactly did you two meet? JR: We met in Mrs. Height’s math class, first period in the first year of middle school. Sam France: And then my parents got divorced and I went to live with Rado. Really? SF: Not really, but I like that myth. Like, we’re not brothers, but we grew up in the same house. JR: Little House on the Prado. How did the idea for Hang first start to come together? JR: We had the idea for the record when we were making 21st Century… SF: But you started writing some of the more crazy orchestral ideas on the piano when we were finishing Star Power. JR: There was one night while we were recording Star Power that I wrote the basic parts for “Follow the Leader,” “Avila,” “Mrs. Adams,” “America,” and “Rise Up.” Those five came all in one night. What was it like to record with a 40-person orchestra? JR: It actually wasn’t as difficult as I thought it was going to be. I almost wish it was because it would make for a better story. SF: It was really serendipitous. Everything flowed into everything else very nicely, mostly because we worked with good people, like Trey Pollard and Matthew E. White, who helped translate a lot of our ideas and direct the orchestra. JR: They contracted the musicians and set it all up, so by the time we showed up there was no logistical stuff to take care of on our end, which was nice. Those guys were all pros, so you just sit ‘em down, show ‘em some music, they play through it once, get the idea, and go. When you’re a professional classical musician, reading sheet music is just like reading a book—it’s like reading English. All of them could just play something without ever hearing the music. I can’t do that. This is also the first album you’ve made in a legit pro studio. How did the experience compare to working at home? JR: We still kinda worked the way we would have at home. It was still exciting and easy to get stuff done, except this time we had help. There was an engineer and an assistant, so if we wanted to drums in one room and then some vibraphone thing in another room, they would go and set that stuff up for us while we were working on something else. It was a kind of a factory setup, and we had some very cool and very smart people helping up achieve the vision. Essentially, we didn’t have to plug anything in. We’d never had that before. How has the dynamic between you two changed over the years? SF: It never really changes. It’s like a well-oiled machine at this point. It’s such a developed process. Maybe we’ll sit down at the piano with each other for a few minutes… JR: …but, for the most part, we’ve always written ideas separately and then arranged stuff together. SF: We’ve just always communicated through music. That’s how we relate to each other. It’s what we’ve always done for fun, and what we continue to do for fun. What does the next incarnation of the live show look like? SF: There’s a whole new band. Rado: We have a new drummer. SF: And horn guys. It’s a whole new core group. Rado: Trey, who did the arrangements on the album, is going to be the MD of the live group. SF: Musical director. JR: Yes, musical director. He’s not a doctor. SF: It’s all very professional. I mean, what other bands have a musical director? Rado: Adele? Justin Timberlake and the Tennessee Kids? SF: Yeah. We’re on that level. We’re pop stars. Like Lana Del Rey. Rado: Lana Del Rado Shop Music
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