by Sara Nuta
Foyer Red is a Brooklyn five-piece that makes sweetly sung, charmingly zany art rock. In 2022 they hit the ground running with several great singles — "Pollen City," "Pickles," and "Flipper." In December, the band celebrated signing to Carpark Records by releasing the delightfully spontaneous single, "Etc."
During the pandemic, Foyer Red started life as a trio comprised of singer and clarinetist Elana Riordan, drummer Marco Ocampo, and singer/guitarist Mitch Myers. It soon blossomed into a full-blown musical project outside the confines of their apartments. Together, the three released their debut EP Zigzag Wombat in 2021, which showcased catchy, off-kilter rock songs like "Slander." Their first release featured the band's signature crisscrossing instrumentation, bouncy vocals, and nimble math-rock dexterity.
Shortly after, they expanded their lineup to include two new talented members—guitarist Kristina Moore and bassist Eric Jaso, who previously played with Ocampo for several years in the band Hypoluxo. With Jaso and Moore aboard, their new songs sound even more inventive, conceptual, and fun. Whatever Foyer Red comes out with next will surely dazzle listeners as they sound unlike any other band playing within the Brooklyn circuit.
Having known Foyer Red's Elana Riordan since we were about eleven or twelve and pulling pranks on each other at summer camp, witnessing her band's style develop is inspiring. The wide-eyed, energetic fresh approach gives rise to a sense of closeness and intimacy and unexpected turns of phrase that draw in the listener. It's reminiscent of a feeling I've had in Elana's company before when staying up too late with a friend and everything feels funny and delirious. A stream-of-consciousness lyrical style inspired by fantasy realms (think: bugs, fuzz, and halos) coalesces into topsy-turvy soundscapes that are relentlessly exciting.
You get the sense this group of people knows each other's strengths well and, as a result, are free to experiment in any direction they'd like, pulling it all together with imaginative range. As the various voices float against the tailwind of the band's call-and-response assemblage, each member has a chance to let their creative individuality shine. Their latest single, "Etc," offers a vision of the band's right and left brain—Mitch Myers sings about the choice fatigue of calculating decisions, complementing Elana Riordan's thoughtful exploration of emotion and gender in relationships. Jaso's powerful bassline, which inspired the song's creation, paired with Ocampo's drumming, anchors the rhythm against Moore's swaying parts. These elements fold together organically to paint zany sketches of everyday life with a vividly creative gaze.
I chatted with Ocampo, Jaso, and Riordan over Zoom – to look at how the band's creative processes unfold, which made me think about how relationships and friendships can develop through different life phases and periods. As our friendship has grown through our coming of age, it's been a joy to interview this band through the eyes of a fan and a friend alike. We talk about how it feels to start new musical endeavors, the band's creative process, and the desire to feel challenged by trying something new.
SN: Hey, everyone. First of all, congratulations on signing to Carpark! How do you feel about this new phase?
ER: Firstly, just excited, really honestly quite honored. I feel challenged moving forward. We've been a band for almost two years, so meeting this milestone is wild. But every phase has been transitional in its own way. We've just been in motion this whole time and moving up, which has been fun.
MO: Yeah, I'd say over the past few months, after we solidified the signing to Carpark, it has been the calmest period for the band since it started. Eric and I have been making music our main priority for years. And I was like, okay, time to move on from that and pursue something else, and I was excited by that. Then, Foyer Red started as a pandemic project, Carpark came out to a show, and we got signed, which was really amazing. I was like; I have this opportunity to make this as big as possible, so we're just shooting for the stars here.
SN: Marco and Eric, you played together in Hypoluxo. How has it been starting a new project with people you've worked with in the past?
MO: It's really special how this band came to be. Elana and I together; this is our first time collaborating on music. I've been friends with Mitch for close to 8 years now, we're from the same town in Florida, but we didn't even know each other. With Eric, it's so special to have us as the backbone rhythm section just doing the thing, and I couldn't imagine being in a band with any other bass player. Eric and I met Kristina in Phoenix while recording an album in 2016. We asked Kristina to do vocals on the song, and she liked it a lot; then she came back, and we all talked with the five of us like, do we want to be a band? And then it worked. Many different parts of my life have come together to create Foyer Red which is why it feels so special. Even though we've only existed for about two years, the band feels so much like family and a big part of my heart, even though it's so new because of all of its long, very thick relationships.
SN: It sounds like it came together organically.
EJ: Yeah, it was a very smooth transition from playing in another band together in the rhythm section. Marco and I have been playing together for almost eight years now. Almost a third of my life.
SN: Elana, how has playing in your first musical project felt?
ER: I feel very lucky and constantly surprised. As this band was forming, I was worried that I wouldn't be enough because I'm not seasoned like the rest. They've all been doing this for like ten years, and pivoting my life towards this was just for fun at first, and then I realized I could do this. I feel lucky to jump in at this point in time and have so much fun doing it. To respond to your question, I don't feel limited by anything. When I write, I don't have specific expectations, and coming in with a fine art background makes me feel less tied to convention and excited to explore.
SN: Your style is so distinct, and I hear a lot of different influences. What albums or musicians have inspired you and your music?
ER: I'd say we all have distinct music tastes, but they all live in the same world; there's not much that we hugely disagree on. Some of the band's favorite releases of the year have been the Kristine Leschper album, Kolb's Tyrannical Vibes, and the newest Lawn album to name a few. Earlier this year around the time we recorded "Etc" the only thing I was listening to was Cibo Matto, obsessively. It's funny when you rediscover an album after so long and it's like your favorite thing all over again.
SN: How did you find your sound?
MO: We had Zigzag Wombat come out over the pandemic that was just written by myself, Elana, and Mitch. That EP was made over email when it wasn't safe to see others in person. So once we could be with people, we brought those songs into the practice room with all five of us. The songs evolved so quickly. Things just took a new life, and then when we decided to dig up old working demos and stuff, we brought them to the practice room with a fresh ear on them. Most of all our writing has been done super collaboratively, all five of us in a room but also with so much individual work as well. Everyone puts on every hat.
EJ: When I first joined, Marco showed me a bunch of guitar riffs he had worked on with Mitch and voice notes at a bar. I was like these are crazy; I want to get in on this!
SN: The response to ZigZag Wombat has been so positive. What do you feel you've learned about yourselves in creating the band?
MO: I, unfortunately, found myself being guilty of sometimes saying something couldn't work before this, playing in a more traditional rock band, limiting my mind, and limiting the options I could make as a drummer. In Foyer Red, very much anything can go. The silliest idea that could be a joke is suddenly part of a song. [...] Also, not involving music, I've been the most creative I've ever been in my life, just in my work and hobbies; it's complimented the way I play music.
ER: I've had to become more comfortable being vulnerable very quickly. That's true for everyone playing any instrument, doing anything together, leaving yourself vulnerable, and putting yourself out there. But as a new vocalist, it felt really hard to perform and play as a group at first. It has been a huge learning curve, but I have become much more comfortable performing in front of people, letting our jams go in whatever direction, and not feeling too self-conscious to participate.
EJ: These are definitely some of the most technical songs I've ever had the honor to contribute to. You have to rewire your brain sometimes. Everyone writes these crazy parts and these crazy timings. It's a very fun challenge, and I love it.
MO: And about rewiring your brain, I've spent so much time in the practice room just being frustrated by not being able to play a certain time signature or something and just challenging ourselves.
ER: Sometimes it takes time; there have been a few songs where, in the studio, we're all just trying to wrap our heads around something.
EJ: Sometimes, we use a whiteboard to break down a song part by part and structure; all these numbers are almost like a math person's writing.
MO: It looks like Pi, like 3.14…
ER: [Laughs] We fight about how to count it.
MO: But everyone's right!
SN: Elana, the clarinet is a unique instrument in this art-rock space. What is your history with the clarinet?
ER: I've been playing clarinet for over a decade, wow. I was in marching band, which was such an important part of my life, and actually, Marco was in marching band too, which we bonded over. I always liked the clarinet a lot; ever since I started playing it in 4th grade, I've loved the sound of it. It was my gateway into band stuff which is very special, and it's a tool in writing like when we are jamming in the studio, I'll go back to singing and playing clarinet, and often one influences the other no matter what. Sometimes it's easier to write on the clarinet, and sometimes it's easier to play with my voice, and then they inform each other in a constant loop.
SN: That's important. There's an interesting call-and-response in many of the songs with overlapping instrumentation. How would you describe the way you assemble these various structures?
ER: We all naturally find our own pocket. It's what I was describing before about how we'll write such complex parts, but somehow you can pick out each of the parts. They all pop in their own little ways. It's the way the five of us work together and write together. There's space for everyone somehow. Everyone has room to add what they want to a song.
SN: Were there any non-musical references that inspired the band or your lyrics? Any books or films that were important to the development of your style?
EJ: Most of my inspiration I get from my four other band members.
ER: I feel like all five of us are interested in fantasy. My lyrics and songwriting process come from imagined spaces and imagined realms. I watch Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind twice a year, at least as an anchor. I am such a visual person that things just come to mind when we're working on the instrumentation. So then I take cues from objects and colors and terrain in these spaces, and that's more so what informs what I'm writing about than a predetermined idea. I often don't know what I've written about until I've written it.
SN: Tell me about the single "Etc" and what you thought about when writing that song.
MO: It's the first song that we fully wrote collaboratively as a five-piece in the studio. Eric's been playing that bassline for six years, and every time he plays it, I'm like, this is so sick we should make it a song. We were at practice, and Eric played it the first time, and Mitch started putting in a guitar part, and it blew our minds. This song just came to life. We wrote this song and then played it shortly after our EP release. Some friends were there that had heard it played in the past six years, the bass line, they were like, what the heck!
EJ: Yeah, I was so excited to see their reaction.
MO: It was originally called The Eric Song.
SN: Could you tell me about the lyrics?
ER: Mitch and I, in terms of our vocal parts, have very different parts and where they are in the song. My part was about gender playing a role in relationships and hating that but also making it into a game. Mitch's part is super logical and mathematical, referencing algorithms like the chances of getting a good parking spot and how to maximize reward and minimize time wasted in the process.
SN: You put out a few songs last year, like "Pollen City" and "Flipper." What was it like writing those songs?
ER: When we expanded the group to a five-piece, we had these lingering riffs or like pieces of songs that Eric and Kristina collaborated with us on. These three songs helped solidify our creative process as a group and propelled us into the headspace to write a ton of new material in a super collaborative way. It was also our first experience recording in a studio together, and it was so much fun. We recorded these songs live because we feed off each other's energy so naturally. And it was my first time being a part of a recording process from top to bottom. We worked with Jonathan Schenke on these, who is truly a mastermind and now a great friend.
SN: Outside the band, what do you guys like to do? What inspires you creatively?
MO: I fell in love with vintage and modern furniture and woodworking and creating things. I never really did those things before.
ER: I started making rugs at the same time as making Zigzag Wombat. Also just writing in this band. And painting.
SN: Marco and Eric, what changes have you witnessed in the music scene?
EJ: There was a lot of pent-up energy at the end of quarantine. People were going out more. Especially during quarantine, we were playing weird shows on live-stream and things like that.
MO: I was anticipating to see what would happen when shows started coming back, and I feel like they began strong again. Every show you went to was huge, and there were a bunch of people there. Now, as shows have been back for a year or something, I feel like people have gotten burnt out. It's odd. I think we're missing —two places that come to mind are Palisades and The Glove. We really need spaces like that again. There are some great bars I'd say my favorite new venue is TV Eye.
SN: Since you're signing to Carpark, what are some of your other favorite labels that come to mind?
EJ: The first thing that comes to my mind is Captured Tracks.
MO: Same.
EJ: That was a significant moment in music, specifically in New York.
MO: Captured Tracks was the reason I moved to New York. DIIV, Wild Nothing, Beach Fossils, Mac DeMarco, Craftspells. All those bands started and got popular in the early 2010s. It was like I want to do that with my life. When I thought of these bands, I thought they were the most popular bands in the world.
SN: It was such a cultural moment when that all happened. It felt like a defined aesthetic and group of people.
MO: To this day, I talk about CT5, the Captured Tracks 5th-anniversary party at The Well. It happened three days before I moved to New York. There's a cool music video of DIIV playing "Dust" before it came out.
EJ: I was about to say that too. I just watched that video last night!
SN: What's next for Foyer Red? What are some of your goals? How do you feel about the future?
MO: We're doing South By, so that'll be fun.
EJ: That's the next big thing, get some cool showcases.
ER: At least for me, touring is all new to me. So being a part of a big tour will be so fun. I'm really excited about that!