Portland, Ore., by way of Cleveland indie-pop band The Newspapers will land at Le Voyeur’s doorstep Saturday night. They read like a quartet well versed in idyllic melodies and catchy riffs with synthesizer quotes sprinkled about.

The Weekly Volcano caught up with The Newspapers’ bassist, Billy Webb, before the show.



WEEKLY VOLCANO: Are you black and white and read all over?



BILLY WEBB: Our band name is just easy to spell and easy to remember. A lot of bands try to fly off the wall with names you can’t spell or pronounce, we took the opposite approach. The music should speak for itself, not the name.



VOLCANO: How long have you been Newspapers?



WEBB: We have been a band for only six months, although three of us played together in high school many moons ago. In this short, six-month span, we have released an EP, started our own record label, Montgomery Records, and toured the Northwest.



VOLCANO: Is your band folded or rolled up?



WEBB: We have a reputation for ruckus and wild house shows. We like to mix up our live sets, going from straight up rock one song to extremely mellow the next. The goal is to touch on the different emotions of the listener and not become pigeonholed within one specific sound. Also, we switch up instruments during our live set. I go from bass to drums to keyboards.

We also have two principle vocalists (Jake and Josh) and a lot of our songs are loaded with harmonies.



VOLCANO: Do you have a personals section?



WEBB: We are all single except our drummer who’s in a serious relationship.

Contrary to what has been printed before, we are not all “nancy one woman men” and all the songs are not about love. Jake was blackout drunk when he said that. Basically we like to have fun and are not looking to get tied down, but if the right girl came along, you never know.



VOLCANO: Are you more Weekly Volcano or New York Times?



WEBB: I want people who have never heard our music to know that we take this project very seriously and put a lot of effort into each song, but at the same time we love to have fun and that shows in our live performances. I would advise people to listen to our EP from start to finish rather than by individual track because it’s an entire artistic statement and taking just one track isn’t really representative of the band as a whole. We try to touch on many different styles. This will become even more evident on the full length.



VOLCANO: Cool. We’ll subscribe.



[Le Voyeur, with Human Echo and The Slow Folks, Saturday, Sept. 29, 10 p.m., no cover, 404 E. Fourth Ave., Olympia, 360.943.5710]