Katy Goodman is the bassist in Vivian Girls, the much-buzzed-about, Brooklyn-based girl-group who have delivered three charming albums, from their hyped 2008 debut to 2011's impressive Share the Joy. In 2011, Goodman also released a self-titled solo album as La Sera, which showcased her voice out front of soft, girl-group-styled pop-songs.

Interview: 14 March 2011

When did you first start making music?
"When I was growing up I played saxophone in the band, but the first time I every really wanted to make music on my own was when I was about 20.


All my friends were starting a band, and they needed a singer. That was the first time I felt I really wanted to do it. And I did it. It was kind of scary, but it was also fun."

You're not a naturally performative person?
"I guess not. I never really performed growing up. I wasn't that kid that wanted nothing more than to be up in front of people. That first band was pretty much my first experience of doing that. Joining Vivian Girls was one of the first bands I'd ever been in."

Do you still get scared about being on stage?
"Yeah, definitely. Depending on the show. Some crowds make me feel anxious. Some crowds are very welcoming and make me feel comfortable."

What was it like having one of your first bands blow up so big?
"It was surprising. I had been in a couple bands before Vivian Girls, but they'd never really done anything. This was the complete opposite. It was, mostly, a fun experience. Learning to live with that intense internet scrutiny was kinda hard at times. But I was never in a band before the internet, I never experienced what life making music without that kind of influence, interaction, and reaction was like."

Vivian Girls became a divisive figure in that blog discourse. Did you feel a sense of being judged by the world?
"Yes, but it wasn't the only thing I felt. For every mean thing we read or person who was kind of a dick to us, we encountered many more expressions of love. If we'd focused on reading comment threads maybe we would've felt scrutinized and criticized, but we were out playing shows in front of people who were really excited by us. There was, in general, warm receptions for us. We'd much rather focus on that than anything else."

Were you ever worried that by coming out of nowhere, so fast, that it would somehow work against the music? That you'd just be a hype band?
"Was that how it felt to people? That it was just super-fast? I mean, I guess that was the perception out there, but it's not something you can control. And it's not even something that's just limited to us. That's just the way things are now. Because of the very nature of the internet, things just become so much more popular so much faster. For sure. It felt pretty fast to us, I guess. Of course it was fast. But, then again, I've never experienced the opposite, so it's hard for me to know how different our experience was, really."

How did La Sera come into being?
"I bought a guitar a year ago and started to write songs with it. The band just came from that; it happened by accident, really."

By accident?
"Well, I wrote a lot of songs, and I sent demos of them to my friend Brady [Hall] in Seattle. And he liked them a lot, and wanted to re-record them in his home studio, playing all the music himself. I was happy with that; Brady was someone who I trusted completely, he'd made a couple of Vivian Girls videos. So, then, when I got off a Vivian Girls tour, I flew to Seattle, and did all the vocals and helped with the mixing. And that was it. We had an album. So, when I say accidentally, basically I mean: I didn't have this real yearning to make an album or put a band together or anything. It was a stranger process than that."

What did you want to do with your own project, writing your own songs?
"I wanted to make music that was kind of dreamy. More mid-tempo songs. Do something that was a lot lighter. Something with a lot of harmonies."

Things you don't get to do in Vivian Girls?
"No, not really. There's lots of harmonies in Vivian Girls. There's definitely parts of La Sera in Vivian Girls. They're not completely separate entities. Obviously I'm involved in both, but, what I mean is that I don't see them as being stylistically dissimilar, or that La Sera was a chance for me to make music that felt radically different. They're both informed by old pop music, they both have short songs. And, I like being in both bands."

What was it like turning this recording project into a live band?
"It's been difficult, because the songs weren't written to be played live. And every tour I go on I have a different line-up. That's been interesting; teaching a million different people how to play these songs I wrote."

How do you feel about being the band-leader?
"It's definitely a different experience. For sure. It's harder than just being a band member, mostly from an organizational standpoint. All the energy has to come from you. It's the same on stage. It's definitely scarier being, y'know, the 'lead singer.' And I think that’s where a lot of that nervousness I was talking about comes from. I’m still learning how with that. How to enjoy that sense of having everyone looking at me."

What did you want to do with this new Vivian Girls LP?
"We were aiming to make a more diverse album. More expansive. There's a wider range of songs on the new album. That was pretty much all we had in mind. We knew we were going to take more time making this one. We spent about a month recording it, on and off. The first album we recorded in three days. And, then, the second album we recorded in eight days. So, we definitely spent a lot more time on it. I'm really happy with it. I think it's good. We have a new drummer on it, she's amazing. I think that people will like it. Thumbs up from me."

Are you literally going from your La Sera tour straight onto a Vivian Girls tour?
"Yeah. There's pretty much no break. I'm literally in the middle of a four-month tour at the moment. It's weird not being at home, and being in a different place every day is definitely strange. It's something you never really adjust to, no matter how much you feel you do. It's not a normal way to live your life. But, that's okay: it's a pretty amazing way to get to see the world."