The Latenight Callers

The Latenight Callers are throwing a party to celebrate the premiere of the video for their song “The Tease,” which was produced and directed by videographer and songwriter Tony Ladesich.

The event will be Friday night at the Press, the upstairs venue at Crosstown Station, 1522 McGee St. It will include a performance by the Kansas City Society of Burlesque, a set from the Tony Ladesich Combo and, after the video premiere, a performance by the Latenight Callers. Showtime is 9 p.m. Doors open at 8.
The band comprises Krysztof Nemeth (baritone guitar), Julie Bernsden (vocals), Gavin Mac (bass), Ellen O’Hayer (guitar, vocals) and Nick Combs (keyboards, programming).

Combs this week answered questions about the relatively new band, which has already aroused a nice reputation for itself and its distinct sound and presentation.

Q. Give us a short history of the band: when it started and how it grew.

A. We formed in 2010, when Krysztof met Julie and they started working together on a few song ideas Krysztof had written. Julie grew up singing jazz standards; Krysztof comes from much more of a post-punk, retro-’50s and ’60s background. I met Krysztof shortly thereafter through our mutual love of vintage scooters, and we started working on the songs together.

I knew Gavin as a bass player through a previous band and thought his years of playing bass in a Motown band would make him a perfect fit. We rehearsed a few times and thought we were encouraged by what came out of it before we met Ellen, who is actually a classically trained cellist. It was the spring of 2010. We played our first show a few months later.

Why no drummer?

We decided early on that we didn’t want to have a live drummer. We do all the drum tracks beforehand, either by programming or live performance, then play them back live. That’s really become a defining feature of this band in many ways. Not having live drums allows us to alter the tone and mood of a song that much more.

As a drummer, I’m really encouraged when I see somebody like John Bersuch playing with loops and doing whatever he can to alter his drum sounds from song to song.

How did your sound arrive and evolve?

Initially from the mind of Krysztof and his love of vintage noir films and baritone guitar. He never intended to play any of these songs live, so he kind of approached the writing process as “anything goes” in terms of instrumentation and tone. When we started trying to re-create what he’d written in a live context, we allowed them to really evolve and change. If you see us live, the core idea and concept of our EP is there, but (the sound) has changed in a lot of ways.

Describe your sound.

Probably the best I’ve ever heard our sound described is as the house band at David Lynch’s pool party. We’ve got a noir, vintage vibe that relies on modern technology. We’re more likely to wear ties than T-shirts, more likely to drink scotch than beer, more likely to play minor than major. We’re the band playing during the seduction scene in black-and-white movies.

All original or do you do any covers?

At this point, we’re up to about 10 original songs and one Misfits cover, though we’re always writing more. We’re in the process of recording our second five-song EP, which should be out by the end of the summer. Much the same way our first EP was recorded, we’re doing the whole thing ourselves.

Talk about the video. Why that song?

Well, we chose "The Tease" for the video because it's a really great song to give somebody an introduction to what our sound is and what we're all about as a band. It's got a great beat and guitar hook, but still has the atmospheric qualities of the rest of our music.

Tony really came in a clear vision of what he wanted to achieve with the video and the shoot, but I think even he was surprised with what came out of it. He shot everything in high-def digitally, so it looks fantastic. We actually shot in the old Kansas City Stockyards building in the West Bottoms, which has been restored beautifully on the inside but still has the feeling it probably did when it was opened originally. It really worked as the perfect location for what Tony wanted to do and sold the whole look of the video beautifully.

Julie's male counterpart was a fellow named Damian Blake, also known as Artemus Vulgaris. Damian's a friend of ours we met through the burlesque scene of Kansas City who's a massively talented fellow. He works as a Charlie Chaplin impersonator and vaudeville entertainer and graciously agreed to be a part of the video. He really brought an authenticity to his role that I'm not sure anybody else could've pulled off. Just watching him and Julie interact on camera was an amazing thing to behold. - KC Star

Coed band The Latenight Callers is poised to cash in on the lavish praise that was heaped on this group, new to Kansas City’s music scene in 2010. Song titles like “Gypsy Moll” and “Red Bricks, White Ghosts” on the band’s recent EP reflect what the coed group calls its “retro electro noir” sound.

- InkKC

Keeping up with Kansas City’s burgeoning homegrown music scene can be hard work. Many dedicated lovers of local music pay the price of their devotion in the form of sleep deprivation and horrific bar bills. Thanks to the annual Crossroads Music Fest, there’s no need to invest countless late-night hours in music venues.

The Crossroads Music Fest allows curious music fans to squeeze the equivalent of a month’s worth of bar-hopping into a single night. On Saturday, 25 five acts will perform on six stages — Crosstown Station, Press Bar & Panini Grill (The Latenight Callers, pictured, perform there at 12:30 a.m.), Czar, The Brick and two in the alley behind Mercy Seat and Kansas City Cafe. Prominent names at the festival include New Riddim and The Grisly Hand, but half the fun is discovering lesser-known acts. Shows start at 6:30 p.m. and continue through 3 a.m. Tickets are $10-$12 in advance and $15 day of show. Details at cmfkc.com. - InkKC

If a band can be defined by its drink of choice, the Latenight Callers would be a 12-year scotch.

"The aesthetic of what we do is timeless," baritone guitarist Krysztof Nemeth says. "We're like the house band at David Lynch's pool party." Technically, the Latenight Callers occupy the electro-noir genre: a sexy blend of synths, reverb-heavy guitars and dancing bass riffs behind lusty female vocals. The band's live show is a vaudevillian take on the classic lounge act, sparkling at the edges with glittery, vintage rock and roll.

Originally formed as a DIY recording project in Nemeth's basement in 2009, the Latenight Callers share a story filled with plot twists and surprises. Nemeth and vocalist Julie Berndsen, who are old friends, recorded together on a whim last year. The output of those early sessions ultimately made up most of the songs that the full band now plays onstage. "We were bored and didn't have any friends," Nemeth says. He's joking: Friends urged the duo to press a few CDs in time for Christmas. When they decided to turn the project into a live act, they needed to flesh out the sound.

Enter the band, stage left. Berndsen was looking for a gig as a jazz singer. Guitarist Ellen O'Hayer joined the project. Bassist Gavin Mac also plays in the award-winning Motown cover band Atlantic Express. Nick Combs was brought in to play drums but opted to focus on keyboards in order to lend the band more mood. "We have a drummer — he plays keyboards," Nemeth says, then laughs.

Combs met Nemeth when they bonded over their love of vintage scooters. (After Nemeth moved to Lawrence from Seattle, he was riding his vintage scooter and spied a similar model parked in front of a store. He went inside and introduced himself to the owner of that other scooter, who turned out to be Combs.) Mac, a friend of Combs', was drafted to play bass, and O'Hayer came in on cello. At the band's first practice, though, she decided that playing the guitar was more fun, so she put down her bow.

And so a band, conceived to flesh some music into a recording to be given away as a Christmas gift, has fashioned itself into a showcase of film-noir-referencing lounge motifs, anchored by the absence of a drummer. "The nature of the drums as an instrument is to be loud and overpowering, but we can control the impact of our drum machine," Nemeth explains. "Julie's vocals deserve to be heard in a prominent way, like she's singing to the heavens."

Latenight Callers' shows are studies in Berndsen's powerful voice, which sounds like a cross between Patsy Cline and Portishead's Beth Gibbons. Donning fedoras and vests, the men of the band keep the rhythm, supporting Berndsen and O'Hayer as they croon at the front of the stage in tightfitting, brightly colored dresses. The band weaves a tapestry of vintage influences with veteran charisma, though it has been just eight months since the members started performing together.

On December 7, the band opened for the Pretty Things Peepshow at the Beaumont Club, and it also recently rocked the Press lounge at Crosstown Station with Thee Water MoccaSins, a local band that the Latenight Callers have developed a kinship with. "They're unique and trying out new things, which is what we're trying to do as well," Combs says.

The affinity for the MoccaSins makes sense. Though that band produces mostly guitar-heavy '60s-style rock, it also dabbles in atmospheric electronica. "Seeing the MoccaSins play in the alleyway during the Crossroads Music Fest was magical," Nemeth says. "It's all about mood, and they've got it."

Magical moments in dark alleyways could be a mission statement for a band that's best experienced through a filter of scotch and smoke. Nemeth punctuates the seductive sounds and pinstriped suits with his daily "Latenight Calls," pulpy asides he offers on the band's Facebook page. One such post: "'How could I ever forget you,' she spoke softly over the crackling, late night line. 'I've still got your heart hanging from my bedpost ...'" Others seem to hang in the air, heavy with regret: "He looked at his watch, noted the time, took a long drag from his last cigarette, and with an exhale of longing resignation, watched her walk away ... "

"It's like a little taste of evil you're slipping into somebody's pocket as you walk by them," he says of the posts. "I'm a huge fan of noir fiction — lust, danger, murder, betrayal. It's as American an art form as jazz."

So the Latenight Callers are a little more murder-minded and sultry than the average T-shirt-and-jeans rock band, but they're not grim. "We take what we do seriously, but we don't take ourselves seriously," Nemeth says. Compared with most bands, he adds, "What we do is just more swanky. And we smell better."

The band is anchored in Lawrence, but the Latenight Callers have yet to take a stage there. A hometown debut is set for Liberty Hall in January. Lawrence had best be prepared — the band approaches live shows the way they prefer their liquor. "If it doesn't sting a little bit going down, we don't want it," Nemeth says. - The Pitch