Black Light Animals add their own ingredients to neo soul

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Black Light Animals add their own ingredients to neo soul

Another Q&A with Scott Belzer | July 9th, 2024

Kansas City’s Black Light Animals want you to dance. They want you to groove. They want you to feel. But ultimately, they want you to get down and shake that tush. The neo-soul five-piece take elements of R&B, soul, rock, movie scores (!) and psychedelia to provide a plethora of sounds that is guaranteed to do just that.

Don’t  believe me? See them live at Boggs Social & Supply on Friday, July 12.

In the meantime, see what vocalist Cole Bales has to say about sticking to your guns musically, the secret to Kansas City barbecue and blending inspiration from your favorite music into one cohesive artistic expression. 

  1. Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions! What is Black Light Animals? What’s the origin story?

The guitar player, Cody, and I (Cole) met in high school and formed a band called Instant Karma! for a talent show. We started off doing blues covers and gradually started writing our own stuff (heavily influenced by The Rolling Stones). As we grew into our own sound, we got tired of being confused for a John Lennon cover band (because of the song of the same name) so we decided to change our name before we recorded our first record.

  1. Black Light Animals. Black. Light. Animals. Black light? Animals in it? The name is very evocative! What does it mean?

The name comes from a line in a Last Shadow Puppets song “black light animal print boogie” written by Alex Turner, who we’re big fans of. As far as a particular meaning, your guess is as good as mine but I’m glad you find it evocative. I think we were probably drawn to the idea that it was a little enigmatic, and also to the imagery that it evoked.

  1. There’s a little bit of disco, a little bit of Scissor Sisters, and a little bit of Jackie Brown-esque ‘70s soul in Black Light Animals’ sound. What are your actual influences? Who helps inspire that style?

We are definitely huge soul music fans! Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye were huge vocal idols of mine, as well as a lot of deep cut Numero soul compilations. The first records that inspired Cody and I to make music were the 70s Rolling Stones records (particularly Exile on Main Street) and Beatles records (particularly the White album), but I think what’s cool is that we all have different influences we bring to the table.  Cody is much more of a rock guy, our bass player is into a lot of world music, and our upcoming record is incorporating a lot of influences from the 90s-2000s R&B I grew up listening to

  1. Does that vibe mesh well with y’all’s hometown of Kansas City? How so? Or why not?

KC is a great music city and there are plenty of excellent bands but I think we’ve always felt like outsiders stylistically. I think when people first hear us they are a bit confused as to what kind of band they’re listening to, but by the end of our set they’re usually into it.

  1. How does the city itself help keep you inspired? What elements of the city (or at least the music scene that created you) are present in the music?

I love KC as a whole and there have been several people that have been very supportive and given us opportunities when they didn’t have to.  We are primarily a blues/jazz city and most of the rock music we run into is on the heavier side so it has taken us some time to find our niche of musicians. But now that we have it’s been great to have this wealth of talent to draw on.

  1. Your LP and new single are great, but I find the collaborations with “Jass” and “Jass & The Boys” very interesting and surreal. Tell me about that collaboration – who is this Jass? Who are the boys? How did these singles come into being?

Jass is an incredibly talented singer from KC that I DMed on Instagram after hearing her self-produced record, At The Close of a Decade. I was very interested in producing other artists but after she came by our studio and jammed we realized that we had the start of something sort of unique from either of our sounds and we started a band. The Boys are most of Black Light Animals as well as Clarence Copridge, a talented keyboard player.  The singles were produced by Jass and myself at our studio and either came out of jams we had or ideas Jass had in GarageBand. I really like the immediate way she works without overthinking anything and I’m super proud of those singles. 

  1. There’s definitely a Spaghetti-western cinematic element to the soundscapes you guys generate – whether it be from soaring backing vocal choruses, layered orchestras or pin-point guitar solos (“Persephone” really stands out in my mind, but it’s present throughout your music). How did this become a part of your band’s repertoire? You guys cinephiles? Movie buffs?

You suspect correctly! We are big time movie nerds.  Our first record was heavily inspired by Ennio Morricone’s spaghetti Western soundtracks as well as Italian Giallo movies like Suspiria and Blood and Black Lace, and their soundtracks. We also got really into some dystopian sci-fi like Blade Runner and Brave New World. I really like sci-fi and horror because I feel like it’s a great way to mirror what’s going on in society and to bring up sensitive topics without directly hitting the nail on the head.

  1. If the answer is yes – and I suspect it is! – please give me one or two movie scores most people don’t consider but most definitely should.

Besides the obvious Morricone and Goblin influences, I would say Francois De Roubaix’s Daughters of Darkness was a huge influence, as was Marvin Gaye’s soundtrack to Trouble Man. It wasn’t as much of an influence but I also love the hell out of Johnny Greenwood’s score to Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread.

  1. How has that grown over the years? Was this wall of sound and style always the plan, or did it just evolve into something beyond your control?

We’ve always loved that style and admired producers like Brian Wilson, Phil Spector, and Lee Hazelwood, but I think discovering all of these older movies by Argento, Bava, Bergman, and Godard helped us find a language to express the kind of heavy ideas we were wanting to express on our first record. I think having access to a studio and being able to engineer this record ourselves gave us the freedom to sonically experiment in a way that we never had before when paying others to record us.

  1. In an industry landscape filled with bands taking more and more extreme turns into genres (the metal is metal-er, the punk is punk-er, the rock is.. rock-er!), it’s refreshing to see a band take on a psychedelic soul sound and stick to their guns. What advice do you have for younger bands just starting out who may feel pressure to go one way or another instead of staying true?

I think there’s certainly more and more of a pressure to fit into a neat box in order to market yourself than there used to be.  With so much music available instantly, people want the immediacy of knowing within 30 seconds what they’re listening to and how it fits into their gym playlist or chill study playlist, etc.  Don’t get me wrong, I love having so much music at my fingertips and there are bands I never would have discovered otherwise, but I think it discourages people from taking the time to get to know a record and growing into it. If it doesn’t capture their attention they just move on, and I think that causes labels and bands to be less likely to experiment and more likely to jump into genre and trends. That being said, at least these days you don’t have to rely on expensive studio time or some label to distribute your music, you can do it all at home relatively cheaply and put it out there for the world to hear with no limitations. So I would say to any bands starting out: make what’s interesting to you, make the record you want to hear that no one else is making.  Sure, you may not get thrown straight into the algorithm, but you’ll find people who appreciate you for your unique sound. 

  1. What’s next for Black Light Animals? Is there a second LP on the way? An EP, maybe?

We actually just finished our second LP and it should be coming out Feb 25! But we’ll have a few more singles this year to tease it and we’ll be playing some of those at Boggs on 7/12!

  1. What’s the secret to Kansas City barbecue? Why are there so many ardent defenders and pushers?

If I knew that I’d have quit music and set up shop.  But, speaking ignorantly…I think KC BBQ is about a good sauce just as much as it is the rub. I associate KC BBQ with a sweeter, more molasses like sauce, but there is debate even among us about who is the best.  KC Joe’s seems to be the usual victor but I’m a huge Q39 fan.

-Scott Belzer

Black Light Animals get saucy in Atlanta this Friday, July 12th at Boggs Social & Supply with Suede Cassidy, and The Normas. Tickets are on sale here.