When LA LOM, The Los Angeles League of Musicians, began playing as a trio in the lobby of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel eight years ago, they could not have imagined how the band’s career would take off.
LA LOM is made up of Jake Faulkner on bass, guitarist Zac Sokolow and Nicholas Baker on percussion and between the three, there seems to be no limits to what they can play.
LA LOM will come to Houston as part of The Constellation Tour featuring The Womack Sisters and Thee Sacred Souls on Friday, September 11 at 713 Music Hall. The lineup puts together bands made up of trios with a range of sounds all rooted in the influences of California soul.
“The last leg was great,” says Sokolow of the tour. “It’s a really good lineup of groups and we all get along really well and there’s a lot of music that we really like in common. It’s been fun just hanging out with everybody and playing music and occasionally doing songs together on stage and getting to hear everyone every night has been really fun.”
Since they began LA LOM has somehow seamlessly been able to combine their love of cumbia, oldies, soul, jazz and more into powerful yet playful instrumentals that hit deep in the core of the listener.
The band knew each other from the Los Angeles music scene and had been friends playing in various projects around town before Nick, who had worked various jobs in the Roosevelt, convinced management to let them play in the lobby.
“We had that gig for a year and a half playing the hotel four to five nights a week for three hours a night,” says Sokolow. “We were playing a lot together not really rehearsing much outside of that, that was our only time playing together.”
The band built a following there before beginning to play bars around town. “Very quickly the word spread I think mostly through our videos online. It’s now been a couple of years we’ve been touring all over the US with this group. We’ve played in Mexico, South America, all over Europe. We just played Fuji Rock Festival in Japan. It’s been a lot of traveling in a very short time.”
It’s always unexpected when a band fully focused on instrumentals resonates globally but it’s the timeless sounds mixed with new energy that people cannot resist.
“When we first started doing this and seeing how engaged people were and paying attention to the music for such a long time, I was surprised,” says Sokolow. “I’ve always listened to a lot of instrumental music, especially dance music, and that’s a big part of what we do is try to get people dancing. When the music has a good rhythm and people are moving, we can just keep playing forever.”
To create their perfect blend of grooves LA LOM absorbed influences from all over the map and living in Los Angeles never had to go far to hear a variety of sounds. Sokolow still remembers the oldies and soul music coming from the radio constantly as well as cumbia and ‘90s songs, some of which they cover in the group.
“I think the radio is a cool way to connect with the culture locally,” says Sokolow. “Connecting with your community and hearing things that people want to listen to around you and that’s something that we’ve always been really interested in, playing for the people of LA.”
The band learned not only how to play these songs they loved well but also read the room and know when to keep the groove going or which covers hit listeners with unexpected joy.
“We cover a lot of those old tunes, especially from the ‘90s. We were exposed to a lot of that kind of music just through the radio and people playing it at parties, restaurants, all over. You hear those ‘90s cumbia hits coming out of the speakers everywhere, all over the city so when we started playing a lot of dances around LA we were covering a lot of those tunes,” explains Sokolow.
Sometimes, the long sets at the Roosevelt allowed the band to also improvise, experiment with lengthening songs and build medleys on the spot, gradually transforming covers into something uniquely their own.
“We’ve been writing songs and all the music we’ve put out on our full length records was original music which includes cumbia from all over the place. Me and Jake used to play a lot of rockabilly and country music, Nick and Jake play a lot of jazz. There’s a lot of things we really draw from.”
Sokolow can’t divulge much information yet but he says LA LOM has been working with a variety of vocalists for their next project and they are excited to share the work when the time comes.
“We’ve all gotten more into writing more recently. I think just playing together so much and being exposed to so many different styles of music, it’s a very special thing to come up with our own stuff that draws from these different things we like.”
The band has learned the importance of knowing how to hold it down in a variety of genres, initially to get more gigs but now to create their original music to be heard all over the globe.
“It still surprises me all the time just seeing how excited people are hearing the music that we make all over the world. I think our intention at first was to play for people in our hometown and get people dancing but it’s really cool to see how much our music resonates anywhere we go.”
LA LOM will perform with The Womack Sisters and Thee Sacred Souls at 7 p.m. Friday, September 11, at 713 Music Hall, 401 Franklin. For more information, visit 713musichall.com. $70.
