{"id":1270,"date":"2015-03-02T03:17:17","date_gmt":"2015-03-02T03:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.notofu.com\/site\/?p=1270"},"modified":"2015-03-02T03:17:17","modified_gmt":"2015-03-02T03:17:17","slug":"gothic-tropic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/gothic-tropic\/","title":{"rendered":"Gothic Tropic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photos: Thomas Slack<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

When I walk into Cecilia Della Peruti\u2019s home, she apologizes for the mess. Empty antique frames and tattered boxes litter the floor. There are loose papers and mate-less shoes under the multi-colored ceiling, where white clouds have been strategically painted to cover patch jobs. The \u201cMona Lisa\u201d hangs in her living room, courtesy of her artist landlord who specializes in replicas. She explains that she is redecorating, and after moments of awkward conversation, wonders aloud if she should have refrained from smoking a bowl a few minutes prior.<\/p>\n

We head up to her rooftop to catch the last hour of sunlight. She haphazardly applies some foundation and mascara in a neighboring window\u2019s reflection before starting our photo shoot. She is tall and thin, with the remnants of blonde dye clinging to the tips of her brown, banged locks. Pretty in her own right, she exudes a sort of confidence that makes it irrelevant. Yet, leaning against the edge of the roof witha wall of palm trees and the Hollywood sign behind her, she seems uncomfortable in front of the camera. Della Peruti is the brains and voice behind the three-recently-turned-four-piece band, Gothic Tropic, which began as a solo project in 2011 while she was singing in folk band, Rumspringa. \u201cI wasn\u2019t trying to start a band,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I had fun playing my own stuff, so I did\u201d. Since then she has released one EP, Awesome Problems<\/em>, and seen relative success playing shows around her native Los Angeles. They are a mainstay at The Echo\u2019s residency nights, located in Della Peruti\u2019s Echo Park home, and played Calgary\u2019s Sled Island Festival in 2012. She recently announced her new lineup, adding a second guitar for the first time, and has been contacted by several labels that want to produce her first full-length album.<\/p>\n

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Cecilia Della Peruti, Gothic Tropic’s frontwoman, at her home in LA. Right, the Mona Lisa painting as it hangs in Della Peruti’s home.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Her voice is low and rhythmic as she speaks to me about her success, and at times I wonder if she will doze off, be it from the weed, the heat, or a combination. Coming from two musical parents \u2013 \u201cmy mom is an opera diva and [my dad], he\u2019s a jazz guy\u201d \u2013 Della Peruti\u2019s teenage rebellion manifested, as many do, by straying from the family business. Though she\u2019d had bouts of piano and guitar playing, she kept her music relatively hidden, and at 17, dropped out of high school, quit her apprenticeship with artist Greg Mansi, and moved to New York. \u201cIt was a lot of sex and weed and cartoons,\u201d she says of the year spent living with her boyfriend. Soon enough, though, New York lost its luster \u2013 \u201cit was like a prison within our minds. Just cold awfulness\u201d – and she returned to Lala Land with a guitar in hand. She had her first show at Crane\u2019s, a Hollywood tavern which has since closed, under the moniker Spring Queen. The name seems like a parody spoken in her stoner\u2019s lilt. \u201cThat\u2019s like the gauntlet. Like the first thing I decided to do was be by myself with my guitar, and it was terrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since then, Della Peruti has been constantly evolving. She plays with a revolving door of drummers, though she maintains a creatively symbiotic relationship with her bassist, Daniel Denton. \u201cHe\u2019s really good to jam with because he can do something that\u2019s countering my part that is his own.\u201d Their sound maintains a garage-punk feel with hints of 70\u2019s pop (Della Peruti names Yes\u2019s \u201cFragile\u201d as a major influence and has been compared to Can). Heavy percussion and distorted vocals, courtesy of a slap back, create the foundation for their last-minute lyrics. \u201cI hate writing lyrics,\u201d she says, explaining that she often waits until recording, which creates a spontaneous throwaway feel.<\/p>\n

\"gothic1\"<\/p>\n

While she loves the LA music scene, she is continually frustrated by the constraints inherent in being an up-and-coming band. \u201c[I have] 50 songs backed up in [my] brain and on [my] computer and it\u2019s just like, well, until I learn how to use pro tools and buy an interface, I don\u2019t know, dude, I\u2019m just writing songs.\u201d Though without a full-length record to speak of, and major transitions still on the way, Gothic Tropic has already created an impressive amount of buzz. Della Peruti, however, is in no rush towards stardom. \u201cIt basically feels like I\u2019m like festering with songs, but I don\u2019t mind waiting.\u201d She wants to maintain the integrity of the album with funding that can do justice to their songs, which is why they have withheld releasing it themselves. And so we have no choice but to wait alongside them, eagerly anticipating what Della Peruti and her new band have in store.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photos: Thomas Slack When I walk into Cecilia Della Peruti\u2019s home, she apologizes for the mess. Empty antique frames and tattered boxes litter the floor. There are loose papers and mate-less shoes under the multi-colored ceiling, where white clouds have been strategically painted to cover patch jobs. The \u201cMona Lisa\u201d hangs in her living room, courtesy of her artist landlord […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2402,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[49],"tags":[72,73,74],"class_list":["post-1270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-gothic-tropic","tag-la","tag-music"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paoQFa-ku","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}