Katy “Kickball Katy” Goodman has had such an exciting career, from attending basement hardcore shows in New Brunswick to forming the all-girl punk band, Vivian Girls. For about six years now, she’s been doing her own indie rock project, La Sera, which Todd Wisenbaker joined before becoming her husband a year ago. Today the indie rockers live in a small apartment in Silver Lake Los Angeles that houses two cats, one dog and LOTS of guitars. La Sera just released a new EP, Queens, in September. They will be performing at the Brookline Teen Center on Oct. 25.
I understand that when you were a teenager, you and Cassie – your bandmate from Vivian Girls – drove two hours to see Warped Tour, but you didn’t have any tickets, and you ended up having a really great time. Could you tell me more about that, and what happened?
We were very bored teenagers. We didn’t have tickets to get in or anything, and we had no money to buy tickets. But I don’t know what we were even thinking. We snuck in. The guy watching the gate looked in another direction and we literally ran through. And then, we found a backstage pass laying on the ground inside the festival, which is like, really bizarre. And somehow, we both got backstage using that one pass. And then we just started interviewing bands for a fake magazine that we made up. We asked Lars [Frederiksen] from Rancid a bunch of questions. We never wrote them down into an actual interview or anything.
How old were you?
I was probably 18 or 19, and Cassie was probably 16 or 17. I probably had just graduated high school.
My next favorite vicarious memory is the Brian Jonestown Massacre incident at Coachella. Could you talk about what happened?
In 2009 Vivian Girls played Coachella and we were having a lot of fun, and we ran out of alcohol backstage. So we started going into other bands trailers to steal their alcohol and we went into the Brian Jonestown Massacre trailer, and they were all in there. And they were just like, “Who are you guys?” And we were like, “We’re Vivian Girls and we came here to steal your alcohol.” And they were like, “But we’re here drinking it.” And we were like, “Yup.” And they were like “Let’s go!” And so they joined us, and then we all ran around backstage together stealing alcohol from other people’s trailers.
I love these stories because you don’t worry if you have a ticket, you don’t worry if you’ve ran out of alcohol, you’re such a free spirit. Does anything stress you out?
I’m like number one stress case, so these stories are funny to me to, because I probably wouldn’t do any of those things now. We had fun.
Things in life stress you out?
I would consider myself a pretty anxious person.
How do you relax?
I watch TV. I go for walks. Nothing crazy.
I love the new EP Queens and I noticed that you and Todd brought back a couple songs from the album “Music for Listening to Music to,” which was produced by Ryan Adams. So you had the two tracks, “I Need an Angel” and “Shadow of Your Love” on that last LP. And Queens features very similar tracks. Instead of “I Need an Angel” it’s “I Really Need an Angel” and instead of “Shadow of Your Love” you have “Shadow of Your Love (Slight Return).”
Can you talk about why you decided to release new versions of these songs and how they’re produced differently?
We originally recorded the songs in spring 2015, before we had ever played them on tour. We wrote the songs, and then we recorded them, and that was that. By the time we were touring this past May, the songs had taken on a life of their own, and they sounded pretty different from the originals. So, when we got home from tour, we had these very high-energy versions of those two songs, that now included long solos and also the Led Zeppelin cover. We were having so much fun on tour that as soon as we got home I was like, “let’s record these versions like they are right now.” I didn’t know what they would be for, but I felt that they deserved to have a recording, so we went in with our friends and recorded them in one day. So we recorded those and the Led Zeppelin cover [Whole Lotta Love’] – we recorded those all in one session. Then later on in the summer, we had these two other songs, “Queens” and “Magic in Your Eyes,” and we were like, “Maybe we should record those too, and then release something before we go on tour in October.” That’s what we did.
Did you produce them differently? Who produced them?
Joel Jerome, who engineered Hour Of the Dawn, our third record, recorded the tracks for our older songs. But then we went in with Drew Fischer at COMP-NY Recording in Burbank. He recorded the other two new songs and mixed them all. I would say we all produced it.
On the title track “Queens,” Todd sings “Mulling over a paper I cannot stand to read / and I was changing my shirt spilling coffee on me / It was a typical day I think you’d have to agree.” That sounds pretty mundane. And then you sing, “Some women like kings and some men they like queens.” So what is this song about?
Todd wrote all the lyrics for it. His songs, like that one for example, are kinda just more like poetry. But I would say, what I think it is, is kind of about being important in your own life, like taking on an important role, and no matter how boring life gets, still being the best you can be. It’s open to interpretation.
Todd also sings, “It ain’t the same as it was in 1980, when you’re momma was a child and your dad just a baby…” So I was thinking, are they having children or are they thinking of having kids?
Oh no. I wouldn’t read into that interpretation. You’d have to ask him, but I don’t think he meant it to be literal.
You have your first wedding anniversary coming up. Are you doing anything special?
We’re gonna be in New York. It’s the 23rd. We’re playing a show that day, but it’s a matinee show. So I think me and Todd will probably go out for dinner after. It’s cool to have the night off in New York on your anniversary.
I love your apartment in Silver Lake. The white walls and minimalist furnishings make it clean and cosy. Do you collect anything on tour, or do you do most of your decorating in L.A.?
I’m the opposite of a tour collector. I’m like a compulsive – what’s the opposite of a hoarder? – a compulsive de-clutterer. I probably come back from tour with less stuff than when I left for tour. I just slowly lose stuff on tour, and so my suitcase is like half full, and I’m like, “I don’t know where all my clothes went.” I don’t buy things on tour at all.
And you decorated and organized the whole apartment?
Yeah. Well I mean a lot of that stuff is Todd’s… the guitars and stuff. So we built the guitars into the decorations. But I did go out and find everything else.
And 15 guitars. Do you guys still buy more instruments?
I think we have a few left. He gives them away sometimes. He’ll trade them for new guitars. It’s like a constant flow of guitars, in and out of our apartment. That’s like Todd’s main thing he likes to do, so I just decorate around it.
I love your red hair. When did you start dying it?
Probably when I was 20, like 12 years ago. Before that I had had like white hair and I also had black hair. My natural hair color is blonde. When I went red I just liked it and I just never stopped. I probably dyed it red right before Vivian Girls started.
Is there anything else that you want to tell me?
I’m real excited to come to Boston. I lived in Boston for a year when I was 18. I wanted to move away from New Jersey so I moved to Boston for a year. I moved to Boston and then I moved to Austin for a few months and then I moved to New Jersey and went to Rutgers. I just took a year off.
What did you do when you were in Boston?
I actually took a course at Harvard, but I dropped out after like, a month. I think I was taking an international politics course. I mean it’s so long ago I can’t really remember. Just non-matriculated. But then I didn’t finish that. I worked briefly at Harvard Co-Op in Central Square. I just kinda bounced around from small job to small job.
Was Cassie with you?
No. Cassie was still in high school. When I was living up there, she would come up and visit me. Me and Cassie would drive to Boston all the time together, because we had a big friend group that lived up in Boston and so we would go up there a lot. It was fun. I always like going back to Boston. Also my parents met in Boston. So I’ve been going there my whole life. It’s one of my favorite cities in the country.
How did they meet?
My dad went to MIT and my mom went to a college right next to MIT – I forget what it was called. They both lived in Cambridge and they met at a bar.
When you were a physics student at Rutgers in the early 2000s, did you ever imagine your life would turn out like this?
No. I thought that I was just going to be a physics teacher, which I might still be at some point. Sometimes life throws you opportunities and you kinda just have to do it.