Johann Carbajal of Furcast. Photo by Jasmine Maurie.
There’s an element of mystery that surrounds most great bands. For Furcast—the up-and-coming experimental group that seamlessly blends psychedelia, hip hop, jazz and R&B—being off-grid had never been intentional.
“We only just got ‘social’ this past year,” said Johann Carbajal, the group’s multi-instrumental mastermind. “We were like, ‘Man, how do you even do that?'”
That could be why although Furcast’s four-piece ensemble has been creating music together since 2009, the group has only recently started sounding the radar here in Long Beach, its adopted home base. They’ve taken over this month’s Monday night residency at 4th Street Vine following a hyped performance on Beach Streets’ main stage in downtown promenade last month.
They’re performing more than ever before, in anticipation of several new releases this year: Tall Robot is reissuing the group’s 2010 EP Together on vinyl before summer, and the group will be self-releasing its debut album, A Walk Through Hell, (partially mixed by the late Ikey Owens) later this fall.
With a growing cast of fervent supporters across Long Beach and beyond, Furcast is rising to the top of the local music scene in spite of its members’ admittedly introverted nature.
“You know how there’s always that quiet one in the band that’s not social but they’re all about the instrument?” Carbajal said with a laugh. “It’s almost like four of those guys attracted each other and now is a band. Like at school, the four loners get together and are like, ‘Hey, you guys wanna hang out?’”
Carbajal, who was born and raised in Carson, grew up listening to West Coast hip hop and R&B—“pretty much anything on Death Row,” he said, referring to Dr. Dre’s now-defunct record label. His first CDs included Tupac, Boys II Men, Outkast and DJ Quik.
He began taking classical piano lessons in middle school, by his own volition. Today, he can’t put a finger on why he wanted to—it was partially to set a good example for his three younger siblings and make his mom happy.
“I think I was doing it to try to I guess do what good kids do,” he said after a pause.
Carbajal stuck with the piano lessons all throughout high school, where he kept it a secret—he had seen people get beat up for listening to certain types of music. It wasn’t until his senior year that he gained the confidence to admit that he played keys. That led to one friend inviting him over to a garage where a group of older guys regularly got together to jam.
The following year or two spent in that garage was pivotal to Carbajal’s development as a musician. He learned to play the guitar and the bass (which all came pretty naturally to him, thanks to his years-long foundation in piano), and the guys introduced him to everything from Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins to Radiohead and Oingo Boingo. They formed a band called Astrochimp, a power-pop “Weezer type” outfit. It was during this time, in the months after high school, that Carbajal realized he wanted to play music for life.
“I always wanted to go to the garage,” he said. “I was like, I’d rather do that than anything else.”
During his time at El Camino College as a classical piano major, Carbajal was approached to join an LA-based indie pop band called China Room as a bass player. There, he met two of his current Furcast family members—guitarist Vincent Mazza and drummer Gary Bramlett.
When the group split some time later, the three of them continued collaborating, laying the foundations of an experimental project that, with the addition of trumpet player Kael Sharp around 2009, would become Furcast.
“With every band I’d been in, we would hear a lot of ‘No, we shouldn’t do that,’” he said. “Say there was a cool idea but it didn’t match the theme, we’d just cut it out. I knew I wanted a band like Furcast. I wanted to throw out the rules—if it’s a good idea, let’s do that. It’s gonna work. I didn’t want to ever feel as a band that we should stick to these lines.”
Since the start, a foundational element of the group has been the consummate incorporation of samples and beats in a live band setting. Carbajal, who has been producing hip hop—and R&B—inspired beats since after high school, was keen on finding a way to marry his two passions.
“I didn’t want it to sound like we were playing over an mp3,” he said. “That was the hardest part in the beginning.”
In 2010, the band recorded and released the Together EP but ceased the project almost immediately thereafter, when performance artist Sheila Vand approached Carbajal about scoring for an interactive theater experiment that would become “Sneaky Nietzsche,” which for several years took over an old basement space on skid row in downtown Los Angeles. It involved some 50 artists and musicians, with Carbajal at the helm of a full ensemble including a horn section, string section and percussionists.
“Sneaky Nietzsche,” which simulated a wild, reality-bending fictional underworld, was lauded by both LA Times and LA Weekly, finishing its run with a final show at LACMA for Tim Burton’s exhibit. The hype from the production, which was all-consuming for Carbajal and his bandmates, lit a fire under them to revisit Furcast.
“After all that blew up, we were all on that high and we were like, ‘Do you guys wanna do Furcast again?’” Carbajal recalled.
Furcast 4th St: Art by Janelle Carbajal.
They’ve been back at it for about two years now, and the foursome’s chemistry is stronger than ever. On his own, Carbajal stays inspired and challenged, spending most nights in his home studio getting down fresh ideas. Whether it’s a quick beat or loop, he says he tries to create something new every night. His most productive time is between 10:00PM and 7:00AM.
“Night time is when you have no excuse,” Carbajal said. “I’m not gonna go out because everywhere’s closed. I can’t go hang out because everyone’s sleeping. Music—that’s all you can do.”
Furcast is performing every Monday at 8:00PM this month at 4th Street Vine. On April 14, Carbajal will perform a solo set at GRN+GLD’s beat-infused event at Que Sera. To preorder Furcast’s Together EP on vinyl, visit https://gumroad.com/l/TRR001. For more information, visit Facebook.com/furcastmusic.