An Interview with Cary Brothers

Currently on tour with musician Ben Lee to promote his new album "Who You Are," singer-songwriter Cary Brothers take time out to talk about his humble beginnings at the Hotel Café.

By Amy Kaufman
The L.A. Pilot

Cary Brothers. PHOTO CREDIT: Laura Crosta
"Who You Are," Brothers latest record. PHOTO CREDIT: Brothers's MySpace.

Amy Kaufman: How did you first stumble upon the Hotel Café?

Cary Brothers: I had been playing open mics and having miserable times anywhere I played in Los Angeles. I heard Gary Jules’s song "Mad World" and I was like, I gotta see this guy play. I saw he was playing at the Hotel Café and just went there when Gary was doing his Tuesday night residency. It was just a dream, the energy of the room. I told Gary...I was like, "you don’t know me, you don’t know my stuff, but I have to play here." And he was like, "we’re doing open mics on Sunday." So I went down and he saw it, and asked me to open for him and I then I just never left.

AK: What was your first impression of the place?

CB: It immediately felt like…it’s hard to describe when something is happening. It just felt like something was happening in that room and it was a communal spirit. The audience that was there, the community of people that were on stage...everyone was walking around smiling. I had never experienced anything like that before. It was when the Hotel was half the size it is now…bodies were packed into this room and it was B.Y.O.B. and everyone’s got a bottle of wine and pack of cigarettes…sitting on the floors and packed against the walls but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Everyone wanted to get in that room. There was no press. They don’t advertise that place at all. People who know, know. And through that, I started building a fan base in L.A. solely out of that room.

AK: So it became a spot to hang out as well as perform?

CB: Mostly it was like a clubhouse to go and hangout after recording or after playing your show. It was more about the friendship than even the music. The music kind of came naturally. Inevitably, somebody would be playing and your name will just be called out and you’re in the back room and the next thing you know you’re on stage playing a song you’ve never heard before or a part you’ve never heard before. It was really the friendship first.

AK: Did you want to use the venue to network for your career?

CB: That stuff…the business side exists outside of that room. When you’re there, you’re there to hang out and have a drink and laugh and have a good time. And inevitably, music supervisors and label people and A&R people start showing up…but they had to come to our playing field. It wasn’t a whole lot of ass kissing. It was like, "we’re gonna do what we’re gonna do and if you don’t like it, fuck it, let’s go have a drink, I don’t care."

AK: Did you notice that more musicians wanted to play in the room?

CB: The room itself and the energy that [co-owners] Marko and Max put across in the room and the level of comfort makes people want to play there so inevitably, it becomes a really attractive place to play for anyone. There are couple of generations who have come up at Hotel now, it was a great place to get started and risk things. When I’d try new things out, I was never afraid. At other venues, there’d be a fear of "oh, I shouldn’t play this song because if I screw up, the wrong person might hear it?" Feeling that you can do anything lends itself to really creative people who want to take risks when they feel the comfort in a room like that it makes you pretty much just wanna play there all the time.

AK: Can you try to articulate the vibe that exists at Hotel?

CB: There were never any cheeseballs at the Hotel. It was like a douche bag free room, somehow. Anybody can get in, but it was never a place that was like a hot room. People weren't like, "you need to go the Hotel Café because it’s a cool place to go." It was just like a comfortable living room. You didn’t get L.A. hipsters; you just got people who play good music.

AK: After your song "Blue Eyes" was featured on the soundtrack to the film "Garden State," did your following at the Hotel Café change?

CB: After "Blue Eyes," I got a lot of media attention and it made my shows go from pretty good all the time to great. Because of the sense of friendship I had at Hotel, I did everything I could to share that success with everyone else. I would bring out music supervisors to other people’s shows. Good people who I thought would fit in there and they started licensing other people’s songs and realizing the potential of other people’s music. Song licensing on film and TV is a great way to pay your bills while you’re waiting for a record deal or if that’s just the choice you make just living off those checks.

AK: What quantifies success for a singer-songwriter?

CB: I think it's like...can you pay your bills and is what you’re doing getting some kind of national attention? And if you're doing those two things, then I think you’re doing alright. I don’t think that having a song on a big TV show or something like that...that doesn’t automatically bring you a career worthy of success. That’s the starting point and it’s about getting outside the comfort of the Hotel and going across the country and playing and taking it to the next level.

AK: What was it like going from playing at Hotel to performing in larger venues?

CB: It’s like playing in your living room for years and suddenly you leave your house. People started to slowly come out for me after "Blue Eyes," and I knew I wasn’t ready for it, I was comfortable as a songwriter but the vibe…I was so used to the comfort of that room and I knew I needed to go out and tour and tour and tour and get as comfortable with the live shows with the people who weren’t as immediately accepting of what I was doing. And that’s what the last three years have been for me.

AK: Why did you help to form the Hotel Café Tour?

CB: I just knew that I didn’t wanna have success alone. I wanted everybody I knew to have that kind of success. And that’s why I started the Hotel Café tour with Marko and Max, because I realized every time I tour I talk about the Hotel Café to help and bring attention to the room. And there’s so many great people playing here on a Friday or Saturday night...it was like, "what if we took that Friday or Saturday night out on the road?" I'd use whatever attention I was getting from "Garden State" stuff to help get a national draw. The tour was about people who could get a good draw first and then filling the bottom of the bill with people who hadn’t had that kind of success. We allowed them to share in that and build a bigger audience. To me, it’s like, listen, my career is in my hands. I’m writing my songs and doing my business and I have control of that. Once I felt comfortable with that, I want everybody to win and nobody’s out doing this on their own. At the end of the day, if we’re all part of this family, everyone will gradually succeed and fail over the course and time but if we’re all part of this family, then whoever has any kind of success, everyone ultimately shares in that together.

AK: Is there a clique that exists at the Hotel Café?

CB: I was never into cliques, much. Any time I see anybody new there playing, I go out of my way to grab them and hug them and buy them a drink and introduce them to everybody. Because that’s the way I felt when I first walked in there. Like, "who are these people? What is going on? They’re never gonna like my music." So it’s really important to me to make people feel comfortable in that room. When I’m not on tour, I’m usually hanging out in the back room at Hotel with my friends. You want everybody to feel comfortable in your house.