Their album, Twistification, kicked off what has become quite the year in music so far. Having spent the past couple of years building momentum, The Last Royals (consisting of singer-songwriter-producer-guitarist Eric James and drummer Mason Ingram) finally released their debut record in January. And while the band’s material injects fresh energy into any playlist, with shamelessly danceable beats and shiny indie-pop sounds, some of their songs have actually been floating around for a while.
SiriusXM’s Alt Nation satellite radio channel added the band’s song “Crystal Vases” to its rotation back in 2011, much to the surprise of the band. Listeners loved it. And in the age of the Internet, this little-known Brooklyn-based outfit saw firsthand the perks of radio.
“I didn’t realize how powerful XM radio is,” admits James, speaking between tour stops. “The program director contacted me on my personal Facebook page. I was like, ‘Who is this guy?’ and my manager was like, ‘Call him!’ He just started playing it and other DJs picked it up, too...I felt like I was in the ‘50s for a minute, where DJs are choosing what they like. What a concept! I guess that’s how it used to be. I felt like I had peered into this little window of time—how [bands] could go from nobodies to suddenly someone taking a chance on them. That’s beautiful! From that point on we sort of determined that we wanted to be a radio band.”
Acknowledging perhaps the complexity of the music industry these days, the band has done its best to make smart, strategic decisions when it comes to promo methods and even tour options. Having been one of thousands of acts to perform this year at SXSW—in addition to festivals like Summerfest and Firefly, James believes those appearances are merely a small part of the equation.
“It’s more about having them be on your rap sheet,” he explains. “Like, ‘Yeah, we played SXSW.’ A lot of people are looking at where you’re playing. But I think a lot of bands walk away from [festivals] spending several thousand dollars, then going, ‘Crap, what did we gain?’ For us, it’s like, you say you want to be in a band and work hard? Then you work hard. Our agent actually signed us because of the Rachael Ray show at SXSW. So, you never know who’s going to be there. You play like it’s your last show.”
The Last Royals, however, aren’t anywhere near their last show. “We’re starting to write again,” reveals James. “We’re in that dangerous cycle where songs are now kind of old to us, but you can’t treat them that way. It’s actually a good thing, though, because it means we’re playing—touring. We hope to keep touring this fall.”
Read the interview here.