One Eskimo, a four piece indie rock group from London, England consisting of Kristian Leontiou (vocals), Adam Falkner (drums), Pete Rinaldi (guitar), Jamie Sefton (bass and horns) is a freewheeling act with experimental roots and a desire to bring a soulful side to acoustic instrumentation. With songs like Kandi and Chocolate evincing a spirit born of boundless imagination and a long-standing collaborative relationship. One Eskimo is building a reputation for crafting classic, inward-looking Pop songs highlighted with psychedelic guitars, pastoral sound effects and intricate rhythms. On tunes from their debut, however, One Eskimo steps away from the norm with synthesizers that simultaneously sound brittle and blissful.
One Eskimo will be supporting Gomez at the Great American Music Hall on March 18th. You can win 2 tickets to the show if you comment here. Winner will be announced tomorrow.
This week (as we fly out to SXSW), drummer Adam Falkner answers the Kuestionnaire and shares some great tour locations.
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1. Could you state your name and what you do in the band?
Hello, I’m Adam from One eskimO. I play percussion.
2. How would you describe your sound?
Warm, woody, acoustic-based pop music wrapped in an ambient blanket.
3. What is your favorite local band?
‘Local’ is hard to ascertain as we’re London-based but have spent most of this and last year in America. The last album I bought was Them Crooked Vultures – looking forward to them at Coachella.
4. Any concerts that blew your mind recently?
It’s been a while but I thoroughly enjoyed Chris Cornell in London a couple of months ago – loads of old Soundgarden stuff and tracks from his first album, and a couple of Led Zep covers too.
5. Any non-musical influences you would like to mention?
As a lyricist, Kristian’s a big film and animation fan, as I think is evident. I think in general you tend to absorb and interpret so many non-musical experiences that go on around you. As jazz musicians used to say, you should ‘Play the day’.
6. What musician/artist would you like to collaborate with for a day?
I think we all have a range of varying people we’d like to collaborate with, but Joni Mitchell would be at the top of my list, along with Kelly Joe Phelps.
7. What is the album you listen to on a cold rainy day?
Donny Hathaway Live, or Largo by a pianist called Brad Mehldau are great rainy day albums for me.
8. List four songs you would listen to on a roadtrip?
In the last few weeks in the van, it’s been Regulate by Warren G, I Keep Forgetting by Michael Macdonald, Don’t Stop Believing by Journey, and an album by some friends of ours called Hempolics.
9. Where do you see yourselves in 7 years?
I couldn’t possibly answer that in a snappy sentence.
10. What is the last book you read?
Any Human Heart by William Boyd. I loved it to the point of that I’m missing it now. I finished it last week in a cafe in Chicago and was sobbing into my oatmeal.
11. Is image a factor in music or is it a waste of time?
It’s inescapable in such multimedia-driven times, so you might as well create something with integrity that you’re proud of, as we did with our animation, otherwise it’s a wasted opportunity to do something interesting.
12. Any embarrassing moments on stage you would like to share?
We played a show at the Fillmore Theatre in Miami supporting Tori Amos last year. I tend to play with my eyes closed but halfway through Kandi I heard several thousand people audibly gasp and opened my eyes to see my whole drumkit collapsing to the ground. Obviously there was no option other to stop, but to make things worse, as my sampler (that is attached to the kit) hit the ground, it randomly fired off a cheesy funk drum loop. It was awesome.
13. Any favorite tour locations?
We’ve seen so much of America recently and played in all sorts of fantastic venues. Some highlights that spring to mind are Humphrey’s in San Diego last year – it’s an outdoor gig on the edge of a harbour, so you see people rowing in on little boats to watch the gig then disappear as soon as it’s finished! Radio City in New York was great, just because of its long history, but I think I equally enjoyed The Living Room for different reasons.
Just last week we had a couple of great gigs in Madison, Wisconsin and in Minneapolis supporting Gomez that we really enjoyed. One of the great things about doing this is that you can never really plan when you’re going to have a great gig; they just happen, and it’s brilliant to be pleasantly surprised by that or to have your preconceptions of a place challenged. I’d barely heard of Spokane or Akron but we turned up and had fantastic gigs at both, so I guess always being open-minded is key.
14. Lastly, what is your present state of mind?
Yesterday we had a massive diversion and consequently a 15-hour drive to Aspen but we just had this morning off so we went skiing, which we’re still buzzing from. However, we are now in the middle of an 8-hour drive to Salt Lake City, so I have conflicting states-of-mind at present. I’ll settled with Contented.
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[mp3] One eskimO – Kandi from One eskimO (2009)