The band Liily - Interview

Interview with Liily

Recently, I loved getting to online chat with Dylan and Charlie from the band Liily to talk about their new music, their new direction, and playing Miley Cyrus’ New Year’s Eve Party. The band heads out with FIDLAR later this month (dates below) but they promised to get back here to Denver soon. I was lucky enough to see them in 2019 with Glorious Sons, although dumbass me forgot to bring it up in the interview. 😳

The band is singer Dylan Nash, bassist Charlie Anastasis, guitarist Sam De La Torre, and drummer Maxx Morando. They formed in 2018, but as we discussed, they’ve hit a bit of a reset button in the last few years and changed up their sound. Also, Liily made a huge splash on the New Year’s Eve show, but it seems that NBC has removed the videos. I hope you got to catch it live!

The band Liily performed at Miley Cyrus' New Year's Eve Party 2022

Photo courtesy of NBC


Interview with The Band Liily


Aimee:
Okay. Thanks for taking the time to chat with me. Always my first question, if you don’t mind telling me a little bit of the history of the band?

Charlie:
Yeah, for sure. We’ve been playing in a band together since we were 15 or 16 now, and we all knew each other. Dylan and I played Little League together when we were kids.

Aimee:
You did? I love that.

Charlie:
We didn’t hang out, but we knew of each other. I say this all the time, I probably embarrass Dylan, but he was the skinniest kid I’d ever seen in my entire life. And then I met Maxx, the drummer, in our freshman year of high school. We went to a Catholic boys school. And then Dylan, Sam, and Maxx went to a music school together when they were kids, and that’s how they all knew each other.

Aimee:
The band is the four of you, right?

Charlie:
There’s four of us, yeah. So I guess the connection between me and the rest of them is through Little League and school, and I don’t want to speak for Dylan, but the three of them, the connection was this music school they went to when they were kids.

Dylan:
Yeah. I’d known Maxx since I was six or seven because we went to that music program together. And then him and Sam met each other later. I had left at that point, but yeah.

Aimee:
Awesome. So I watched your performance on Miley’s New Year’s Eve. Looks like it’s getting a lot of attention because it was amazing. And I want to talk about your new single, but I was wondering what made you pick covering “Sabotage” on the show?

Charlie:
Leading up to the actual performance, it was just this maelstrom of conflicting information. Look, we’ve never done anything like that. Network television, it’s an overflow of information.

Aimee:
Were there rules or, wait… Did they encourage you to do it?

Charlie:
Well, we got to play two songs and then somebody suggested, “It might be better if you guys don’t do two originals.” Which I, at first, was like, “Fuck that.” But then we started thinking about it and decided to have fun with it.

Aimee:
I have to say it’s my favorite Beasties song.

Charlie:
We love that band and we’ve always pulled a lot of inspiration from those guys. And then we were sifting through a pile of music that we all like and pretty unanimously was, “Okay, if we were going to do a cover, we could probably do that one and it could probably be pretty cool.”

Aimee:
I love covers, but I like it when it sounds like it’s the band playing it, or more like they are making the song their own.

Charlie:
Well, that’s always the biggest… Thank you, by the way. But that’s always the biggest deterrent for us in that stuff. Yeah, we’re down, but how can we do it in a way that doesn’t feel forced and feels like us? And that wouldn’t seem to just really go hand in hand with who we are as a band and what we sound like.

Aimee:
That’s cool. Tell me about the new single… “Applause.” I almost said “audience.” Sorry. Then I was, “No, it’s Applause.”

Charlie:
No, it’s cool. A lot of people say applesauce. (laughs) I know I’m talking a lot, Dylan. If you want to talk too, you can chime in. But that one, Maxx brought us that idea maybe six months ago. We were playing around with it in between tours, because we’ve been writing pretty much every day for over a year now, and that one really… My perspective on that song was that I was honestly indifferent towards it at first.

Aimee:
That’s refreshing to hear.

Charlie:
It happens a lot, honestly. What’s changed a lot for me recently is I just trust everybody in my band so much more than I ever did. And not that I didn’t trust them before, but I just get really paranoid really easily.

Aimee:
Well, it’s hard when you’re in the spotlight and you’re putting yourself out there artistically.

Charlie:
Yeah, totally. You just get insecure and you don’t know which way’s up and down. And with that song, I was just, “Fuck it. It’s cool if you guys really like this. Great.” And then it quickly turned into something that I was, “Oh, okay. They were right,” which happens a lot.

Aimee:
Well, how did you feel about it, Dylan?

Dylan:
I think I felt the same way. I was indifferent about it mostly just because I lean more towards the softer singing stuff, so I’m always partial to that stuff. But when it started materializing, I feel like I definitely really liked it. When I put the initial melody on it, I was, “Okay, this is dope.”

Aimee:
How does the songwriting work between you? Is it a group effort, or?

Dylan:
Yeah, it depends. A lot of the time, somebody will come with an idea and then we’ll all collaborate on it, but sometimes a couple people will write something. I think it always ends with me throwing melodies on it at the end. I’ve been trying to come a lot earlier in the process just because I feel like it’s organic that way. But who knows? We’ll see. It’ll continue to develop.

Aimee:
I read somewhere that you guys had taken a break and then regrouped. Does that feel like a rebirth of the band? Or has it given you more energy?

Charlie:
Yeah. It’s so interesting. But just coming back to the sometimes lack of enthusiasm, I guess I just have a couple more things to say on that and I’ll group it into your question, because it’s related. I feel like there is a really unspoken stigma about being any kind of artist, really, particularly a band dynamic where everything that you write you have to have this unbridled love for it. “This is the best shit I’ve ever done. And if it’s not, then it must be shit.” And I think there’s just, in this band in particular, at least for me, I don’t want to speak for Dylan, there’s been this revelation of… Because there’s a lot of stuff we’re doing now that it’s almost a little scary.

Aimee:
What do you mean by that?

Charlie:
What I mean by that is, I feel like before when we were younger, when we were teenagers, or even a couple of years ago when we were so gung-ho on a very specific sound that we were going for, that unbridled enthusiasm was a lot easier to achieve because you just knew exactly what sound you were trying to emulate. And we’re in this position now where that’s not there anymore, and I think for a significant amount of time, it terrified me because of that trope. I just concluded that we must not be doing anything that’s that great. And now, I feel like that’s the best place to be in.

Aimee:
Not to interrupt you, but I think it’s interesting because I feel like listening to your new songs, I got a list from your PR, and listening to things, and I feel like it’s really eclectic, even within the same song. And it sounds like it’s evolving too.

Charlie:
Yeah, exactly. Without coming off as too cheesy, the unknown aspect of what you’re doing ends up being so much more exciting than… For example, Maxx was playing me something the other day, the song that we’re working on now, and when I first heard it, it was genuinely, “I don’t even know what this is.” That was scary at first. And the more we’ve plucked away at it, the more I’m, “Oh, yeah.” There’s something really exciting in that fear, which I know is a little cheesy. Any time we start writing a song that feels like something we’ve already done before, you almost naturally start finishing that old song that you already wrote. And it’s the worst kind of music. It just gets so boring and our attention spans are so terrible that… You know what I mean? You leave rehearsal that day, “That sucked.” So I think for better or worse, this band’s trajectory will continue to just radically change in terms of the songs that we’re writing. And I think being honest about that has helped a lot too. Some of the stuff that we’re working on now, fucking all of it honestly, it doesn’t sound anything like what we’ve done before.

Aimee:
That’s good. Well, so to change topics a little bit, I know that you’re headed out with FIDLAR in the spring. First of all, tell me about that tour a little bit. And then are you going to do any other dates this year besides that?

Charlie:
Yeah. We played six shows with FIDLAR in September and October of last year, which were some of the best shows we’ve ever played, and so we couldn’t be more stoked to go back out there with them. And then we will definitely be playing more shows this year. There’s a few things in the works right now, but they’re not… So yes, but I don’t know exactly. By the way, They were the first real show I ever went to.

Aimee:
FIDLAR was? That’s awesome.

Charlie:
Yes! They’ve been one of my favorite bands since I was… Then, I was 13, so they’ve been my favorite band for 11 years now, one of them. And being at those shows and seeing how much people absolutely love them is such a heartwarming thing to see.

Aimee:
And then how crazy that you got to open for them?

Charlie:
Yeah. Oh my God, yeah.

Aimee:
That’s how I feel. I’m a lot older than you guys, but I’ve photographed some of my teen favorites and I’ve just been standing there with my camera. “I don’t know what to do right now. I’m hyperventilating.”

Charlie:
Yeah, and honestly too, just the mere fact that they’re genuinely kind and nice guys, and the whole crew they have around them are wonderful people. It just makes it that much better.

Aimee:
That’s awesome. Speaking of, I think Dylan can speak on, what are some of your favorite bands? Old or new?

Dylan:
We always like the Fugazis of the world and stuff like that. Fontaines DC for the last four years, five years, has just been my favorite newer band. But yeah, when that first record came out, I had that thing-

Aimee:
Fontaines DC is literally in the music recs on the side of my site right now.

Dylan:
Yeah? I also like this artist Sasami. I think she used to be in Cherry Glazerr, but she’s now a solo artist. She’s really good, has a really nice voice. Just it’s very reminiscent of that… I don’t know. It gives me just the good songwriting of the ’70s and ’80s. Not glam rock or anything like that, just good songwriting and she, I think, has perfected it better than most of the people that have that flare. I’m very interested in more stuff that she’s going to put out.

Aimee:
Anyway, okay, so I know we’ve got to wrap it up. I always ask this question because I know music is a huge part of all of our lives, but do you have any fun hobbies or things you do outside of music?

Charlie:
No. (laughs)

Aimee:
That answer is okay. I don’t really either, to be honest. (laughs)

Dylan:
At least when we’re on tour, I try and take photos a lot to just-

Charlie:
Dylan’s a really good photographer.

Dylan:
… keep myself busy and have another outlet. I watch a lot of sports. I can probably speak for all of us on this, we all play video games pretty occasionally, or more than occasionally.

Aimee:
Right. What a great time-filler when you’re on the road and stuff.

Dylan:
Yeah. But I do have a little photo account. I haven’t been posting on it recently just because I’ve been failing to get my photos developed, but it’s called Truck Stop Bathroom. I originally was going to try and make it a page of literally bathrooms that I take photos of, because there was a week where I was just seeing all these crazy bathrooms and I was, “What if I just made it-”

Aimee:
I often have bathroom graffiti in my Instagram stories. I just think what people write in bathrooms, it’s so funny.

Charlie:
Yes! Oh, dude, we were in Albany one time. It was the first time we ever left California. I was in a stall and somebody wrote Tony Hawk’s phone number on the wall –

Aimee:
What?

Charlie:
… on the bathroom stall. “Tony Hawk’s phone number.” It wasn’t his, though.

Aimee:
Oh my God. That’s my favorite thing.

Charlie:
Yeah, I love that shit.

Aimee:
And besides tour and calling Tony Hawk, what’s on the horizon for you guys?

Dylan:
Look out for new music soon. We’re trying to put them out as much as we can.

Liily Band Interview

Photo by Athena Merry @goldrosecrown


Connect with Liily


Liily 2023 Tour with FIDLAR

Fri Feb 17 – Santa Cruz, CA – Catalyst
Sat Feb 18 – Sacramento, CA – Ace Of Spades
Mon Feb 20 – San Francisco, CA – Bottom Of the Hill
Tues Feb 21 – San Luis Obispo, CA – Fremont Theater
Wed Feb 22 – San Diego, CA – The Observatory North Park
Fri Feb 24 – Ventura, CA – Ventura Music Hall
Sat Feb 25 – Santa Ana, CA – Observatory
Fri Mar 3 – Vancouver, BC – Rickshaw Theatre
Sat Mar 4 – Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom


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