Interview with The Rare Occasions: ‘Alone talks about consumerism and how millennials like us are blamed for everything’

LA-based, New England bred indie rock band The Rare Occasions brought out their latest single, ‘Alone’, on Wednesday which takes a critical look at how millennials are blamed for everything in a consumer-driven society.

Lead singer Brian McLaughlin and drummer Luke Imbusch have been making music together since their teenage years. In college they met bassist Jeremy Cohen and guitarist Peter Stone (who has since left the group).

Although it could easily be taken for a lockdown song, ‘Alone’ actually predates that period, McLaughlin said. ‘It’s the first song we wrote as a three-piece, with the three of us deciding to move forward. It’s a high energy track. The song talks about consumerism and how millennials like us are blamed for everything, you know, the idea that we live in a different reality. We’re blamed for things like the real estate market but the real question is how could we even afford it? It’s a critical song. Lyrically, we generally write about what’s on our minds.’

As the lyrics go: ‘So I swing my shoulder through the thick of it and face tomorrow alone because you own me and I’m sick of it but you don’t own me no more. Where’ve we seen this before? The age was gilded; cronuts weren’t to blame, your world is purely transactional, why don’t you look around and think before you blurt out gems like jewelry is what you want,
a sterling piece that you can flaunt, if you don’t fall in line then you’re no son of mine.’

‘Alone’ is one of seven tracks that will make up their album that will likely be released next year. Still to come are ‘Control’, set for release in November, ‘Stay’, ‘Do Not Do Drugs’ and ‘Call Me When You Get There’ as well as ‘Sparrow’: ‘Sparrow is kind of about a sparrow in the window and the person imagining themself as the sparrow, it’s quite trippy,’ McLaughlin laughed.

Imbusch works as a film composer in LA, which filters through into their songs when he brings in a string quartet to do back up in their living room. ‘My work in film means that I listen to a lot of classical music and jazz,’ he said. He is a huge fan of Italian film composer, Ennio Morricone, who died in July. I tell him that Morricone’s home town of Rome has said they will dedicate one day to his music to commemorate him, playing it in all of the city’s subways. ‘I love him, oh, that’s amazing! I would ride the subway all day!’

Unlike many bands, the timing of lockdown actually worked out well for them: ‘We’d just finished those seven songs,’ McLaughlin said. ‘We actually recorded the string quartet the day before lockdown!’

They have ‘a huge back catalogue of riffs and lyrics’, according to McLaughlin: ‘If an idea sparks the interest of another of us, it normally turns into a song, like Jeremy’s guitar lick in ‘Stay’.’

Their upcoming songs have ‘a nice ebb and flow’

Cohen describes their upcoming songs as having ‘a nice ebb and flow’: ”Stay’ is more on the flow side, it’s laid back. It was our first time in electronic music. We’ve got some emotive string arrangements.’ McLaughlin chips in: ‘It’s a different texture for us, we’ve used strings in a few songs, they have a cinematic sweeping element.’

The LA music scene is also producing some incredible artists, including The Wrecks, Velvet Starlings, DeathbyRomy and Atta Boy. ‘The past couple of years have been really prolific and super diverse here,’ McLaughlin said. ‘There are so many different kinds of music as well, you can deep dive into metal or indie rock or something completely different, it’s incredible.’

They’re big fans of LA-based singer-songwriter Conner Cherland, for whom they have worked as his backing band for the last few albums. ‘His voice is amazing, it’s almost gospel music,’ McLaughlin said. ‘The Illiminati Hotties (local indie pop band) are good, too, as is Kylie Rothfield (local pop/country singer). Sego is a great dance punk, shake your booty band. I saw them play a show at The Hi Hat in LA where they had a musician on four different stages!’

The Rare Occasions won the coveted John Lennon Songwriting Contest ‘Song of the Year’ for their original song ‘Dysphoric’ in 2015 and have played opening slots for major artists including Guster, Lupe Fiasco, and Smash Mouth, performing at venues and festivals such as SXSW, CMJ and NAMM. The band fully relocated to Los Angeles by 2016 – they all moved at different times – and began work on their full-length debut, Into The Shallows, which came out in 2018.

Growing up, McLaughlin describes the music his parents played as ‘the British invasion’ – namely band such as The Beatles and The Who. ‘In college, I got into garage rock. I liked bands like Arctic Monkeys and The Strokes and I dived more into the undeground scene. The Exploding in Sound record label was eye opening to me, I came across bands like Pile (an indie rock band in Boston). It was very DIY but the emotions of the music really came through.’

(Photo left to right: Brian, Luke and Jeremy)