In Conversation: late night drive home
In true Gen-Z fashion, late night drive home style the title of their new EP like their band name – all in lower case. ‘i’ll remember you for the same feeling you gave me as I slept’ is a collection of three very distinct tracks, illustrative of the band’s increasing focus on the darker, more experimental sides of their sound. With influences including Sonic Youth and Smashing Pumpkins, everything about the El Paso band’s demeanour and aesthetic evokes grungy nineties nostalgia.
late night drive home consists of Andre Portillo, Juan ‘Ockz’ Vargas, Freddy Baca and Brian Dolan. After forming in high school, the band took a 2020 hiatus, followed by their 2021 EP ‘Am I sinking or Am I swimming?’. Featuring breakout hit ‘Stress Relief’, the unprecedented success of this track in particular pushed the band towards a record deal and headline tour. Looking back on the song inspires a degree of nostalgia for both late night drive home’s singer and guitarist. It serves as a reminder of the enduring power of their songs’ vulnerability, even if their soundscape is shifting.
With their latest project out this week, Clash sat down with Andre and Ockz to discuss everything from teen movies to loving the simplicity of a home studio.
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What’s the backstory behind late night drive home?
Andre: The majority of us met in high school. I had been writing music since I was fourteen, fifteen and one day I just sent Ockz a demo of me playing a song… From then we started this little two-piece band and I remember vividly us sitting in a McDonald’s dining area and we were just thinking of a name for the band. One of the names that we were thinking of was ‘one way stop’, but we didn’t like that because we thought it sounded too boy-bandish. But then we just settled for ‘late night drive home’. It was a lo-fi, bedroom kind of sound at first, and then we took a break during 2020 in the Covid era. 2021 was when we came back and started playing shows. We released the EP and I think it was really good timing because everybody was very hungry for shows and to go out, so we just started playing shows and that was when Freddy and Brian joined the band. Surprisingly it was Freddy’s first time picking up the bass. Yeah, his first show with us he was a week-fresh into playing the bass. He took one for the team.
Each of the three tracks on the EP mark interesting shifts in tone and mood. Was the idea of a narrative journey important to you?
A: Initially there were more songs on the EP. But we took them out because they weren’t ready… We kept the core songs, yeah it was just the base of the EP. It was kind of like this narrative following death, like the process of not even physical death, but just a death in general. Like in a sense. The whole EP just kind of follows that little journey.
The ending of the EP really stands out in that journey.
A: We knew we needed an ending for the EP so initially we recorded that song in the studio. We got back the same day and we were listening to it and were like “no, we’re just gonna record it in our living room.” The base of the song I’d written maybe two months prior to that. So we just popped a mic in front of me and started playing. And the ending, all the cool effects and stuff, me and Ockz were manufacturing in our little studio chairs.
Ockz: It’s supposed to be leading into the other project. It’s supposed to be maybe, in a way, an opening for the new record that we’re making.
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Do you enjoy that DIY, bedroom-pop approach to producing your songs?
A: Sometimes I feel like the most creative ideas come out in our home studio and then once we transition it to the actual studio I feel like some of the initial magic is gone. It’s just more refined, but then it ends up sounding better so it’s not really that bad.
‘Stress Relief’ was undeniably your breakout hit back in 2021. What’s your relationship with that song and how do you reflect on it now that you’re releasing this latest EP?
O: I’m proud of us for making it. It is an older sound, because this new record is for sure going to sound different from ‘Stress Relief’. And even this EP – you can see there’s a different structure… It’s more different than the old EP. I feel like it’s a good testament of music that we did before and now it’s like it’s going to get bigger from here.
A: I also feel like it was a breakup song, so I look back on it and I feel so much growth… I was 19 at the time [of writing] and I was so silly. But I listen to the song now and I think about the emotions that I felt when I was going through that breakup and I’m a whole lot better now. It’s really cool to just tap back into the past.
Is evoking and reinventing nostalgia important to you?
O: When I hear music, I always take inspiration from what I hear, especially arrangement-wise. So, I was wanting to see how we could take on nineties alt-rock. Especially for ‘Feeling Grey’, the original demo sounds darker… We start[ed] adding these electronic, autotune bits and then the guitars were high drive. We kind of just try and implement our own ideas on top of a layer of what’s inspired us.
Were there any specific albums or bands you were listening to when you were making the EP?
A: I know for me I was listening to a lot of Pavement… and a lot of rap music too. I think in one of the songs I’m rapping a little bit. Not so much…
O: I was listening to ‘Dirty’ by Sonic Youth… ‘Siamese Dream’ by Smashing Pumpkins. Also Nirvana, but I’ve always listened to Nirvana… Just a bunch of nineties grungy bands.
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Along with that idea of nostalgia, there’s a real coming-of-age feel with your music that wouldn’t sound unusual in a teen movie. Are there any movies you think sum up the band?
A: Ah, that’s interesting. The one that comes to mind would probably be The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
I’m thinking of that iconic car scene.
A: Oh yeah! When I think about it, probably something from California, like a movie shot in California… Let me see, Mid90s would be a cool one. That one’s interesting. Spider-Man 2…
What significance does place play in your music?
O: I feel like growing up in El Paso, because we are such a small town and away from everything, you can’t really have that much community when it comes to music… It’s a very DIY, learn it yourself kind of town… Compared to Los Angeles, New York, or London or any other major city, there’s a lot more musicians there than here. For us, we kind of just had to learn from ourselves and viewing other artists online or right here in town… From the start of the first project we released, you can see the evolution of our music just growing and us just learning how to produce and write music because that’s really what it is.
Organic growth through vulnerability seems important to you. Is that the case?
A: What I always strive for is to be a lot more vulnerable in the lyrics and music in general. I think with this EP, it’s a nice introduction to how vulnerable our future projects are going to get… I feel like before I was afraid to be vulnerable, but I just realised most people are going to listen to it and appreciate how vulnerable the lyrics are and I guess just how open I am with everything.
Are there any lyrics that particularly stand out to you?
A: There’s the one, on the last track. It’s the Spanish lyrics. “Ella me habla lindo.” The whole Spanish part is just… I’m already dead on the floor. I like the idea that it represents the sense of death. It also just made me really proud to be able to wrap up a small project like that. I feel like once we finished recording that song I was very proud of the work that we did. I feel like there was a line in ‘Feeling Grey’ that I really enjoyed. I could not stop thinking about it for a while… “Greasy, crawling maggots creep through my bed,” that one was pretty interesting too because it just came out on a whim. Once I wrote that one down I was like “yeah, this has to be the ending” – it has to sound like a death.
You’re performing at Coachella this year. How are you feeling about translating some of these songs to the stage?
A: I’m excited. I know all of us are so stoked for it. It’s surreal and it doesn’t feel real until we’re probably on the stage at Coachella, and then is when I’ll process my emotions… We’re still in the process of figuring it out. Especially with a lot of stuff that we’re recording now, there’s a lot of electronic aspects to each song. Ockz was talking about maybe having a little sound pad on stage. I don’t know, we’ll figure it out I think.
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‘i’ll remember you for the same feeling you gave me as I slept‘ is out now.
Words: Charlotte Grimwade
Photo Credit: Jaydog and Bar
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