Photo shamelessly stolen from Eidolons facebook page

Eidolons, not to be confused with the 90’s box office failure “Idle Hands”, is not a band featuring Devon Sawa with a possessed hand (Idle Hands).  An up and coming Portland group with riffs like the Dodos and croons like Morrisey, they describe their sound as an attempt to “find a line between Sonic Youth and Harry Nilsson.” In their most recent album, ‘China’, Eidolons achieve that noisy-folk demeanor while maintaining a sound uniquely their own.
I spoke with Dan Byers, Kyle Moderhak, Sam Wenc and Ian Wollman about their new album, living in Portland and why the city of Phoenix sort of sucks.

Rip City Review: What’s in the works for Eidolons?

Ian Wollman: We have a show next week at the Holocene, which we’re really excited about. We’re working on three new songs, one that Sam wrote and two that Dan wrote. We also just recorded an album over the summer.
Dan Byers: We’re probably going to try and huddle down and start working on a new record.
Sam Wenc: We were talking about doing a little west coast tour in January, and doing the big tour in the summer.
Ian: Basically we’re all doing school and work, so we’re kind of busy.
Sam: I’m actually a car salesman right now.

RCR: How do you guys feel about the Portland music scene, considering you guys are all from different cities?

Ian: It’s really nice, it’s really small. We’ve met a lot of our friends and other musicians just by seeing people at shows and seeing people around. I like it because everyone supports each other and gets shows for each other. And shit, if we lived in Brooklyn we’d have to self-promote and climb assholes.
Sam: It’s nice to have a community of friends and bands.

RCR: Is your west coast tour in the works or is it still a distant goal?

Ian: It’s just a dream at the moment, but we have a van which is the important part.
Sam: We did a tour last summer, which was fun.
Ian: We went down to LA, over to New Mexico, we started in Canada. Phoenix sucked, it was really hot there. We shotgunned two natty ices in the morning and ended up seeing Predator, which was awesome. It was just too hot in that city, I just don’t think Phoenix should be an actual city.

RCR: Do you have any inspirations for your sound, or anything you’re really excited about?

Ian: We’re sort of in a transition, we’re trying to come up with new ways to write music. This is the first time I’ve ever played one of Sam’s songs, which is nice. There are some really good songs that we have that are really starting to flush out, we just need time to do that.
Dan: Yo La Tengo is a huge inspiration, we’ve also been adding pedal steel on to a few songs. We’re trying to find a line between Sonic Youth and Harry Nilsson. And Kareem Abdul Jabar.
Ian: We’ve been listening to Thee Oh Sees a lot. We’re inspired but a lot of kind of simple and aggressive stuff, but also really chill, low key stuff. I’m just reducing all our vocabulary to brocabulary.
Sam: I think that although a lot of us are listening to different things, we can all come together and tie something together that’s different. I think we share things with each other musically that are special. When we’re writing music, it’s really a communal effort to create our stuff which is great. A lot of bands don’t really have that.

RCR: If you guys had to make a love child with another band from Portland, who would it be?

Kyle Moderhak: Definitely not Everclear.
Ian: Like A Villain would be cool.
Dan: Probably Jeremy Lee Faulkner, whose name isn’t out there a lot. He’s a top dog.
Sam: Definitely Quasi.
Dan: Maybe we could have a Quasi-Jeremy Lee Faulkner baby
Ian: With Like A Villain playing clarinet

RCR: What’s your favorite thing about living in Portland?

Dan: I like eating a lot, and all the shows- being able to see a show every night is cool.
Ian: House shows are definitely awesome, especially for people who are underage considering that Portland isn’t great with all-ages venues.

LISTEN TO THEIR TRACK \’Xylem and Phloem\’ AND FALL IN LOVE

Catch EIDOLONS with Bear and Moose &  The We Shared Milk @ THE HOLOCENE this THURSDAY @ 8:30. Only $5 to listen to rad music and look cool in front of your friends!