Summer is just on the horizon and no Houston band evokes the season of beach trips, free time, and cold beers more than Young Girls. The trio’s reverb-drenched sound and upbeat songs like “Six Pack Back Stab” just beg for rolled-down windows, a cooler, and beach towels. Even though they have only been around for about a year, the band has made a huge splash on the scene garnering a lot of buzz from music fans, blogs, and local press. That’s not surprising given the full-steam-ahead attitude of this band. Slackers they are not – this is a band with places to be and things to do. They’ve got one 7” under their belts already and the band will be releasing a CD on Homeskool Records as well as a second 7” shortly. If that is not enough, the band is preparing for their first tour of the EU this summer. We caught up with Luis, Pete, and Charlie on a cool night over on the Rudyard’s porch last month to talk with them about their music, the band, and their plans.

FPH – How did you guys meet?

Carlos – I’ve known Luis since high school and we were in The Factory Party together. Pete has Program and later Springfield Riots.

Pete – This was originally Charlie’s solo project and I was just going to record it for him but I kind of weaseled my way into writing some songs.

Charlie – Nah, I needed some help writing the songs. Luis came along because he’s always been a real good writing partner of mine; it wouldn’t feel right if he weren’t along.

Pete – We asked Luis to join just as a guitar player but he turned us down.

Charlie – Later, we were doing a Kinks cover set and we had fired our last drummer but we waited until the last week to learn the songs. When we realized that, we were thinking what are we gonna do? So, we got Luis and he became our drummer by default.

Pete – We told him to just play a few shows with us and that became a few months and now it’s permanent.

FPH – How do you guys feel about the tour?

Charlie - We’re both stoked and scared. Now that I realize it, this is Luis’ first tour out of Texas and it’s gonna be Europe.

Luis – For this tour, we got a buddy in Austin from Sky Jet Black who sent us some contacts in England and we also e-mailed a bunch of promoters and they were all very responsive - they really liked the music.

Charlie – The thing is I’ve book shows before and always asked for money but on this tour, I wasn’t even going to try to ask for money - just let us play at your venue - but the funny thing is they would always offer us money anyhow. But we’ve gotten great responses on the road - Austin was probably the first place outside of Houston that really embraced us and we’ve made some great friends there.

FPH - How was recording at a studio?

Pete – I generally don’t like recording in studios. The sound seems dull to me and there is so much pressure. I get nervous and tend to fuck-up but recording with Bubba and Steve was the most comfortable recording experience outside of my house I’ve ever had.

FPH –Who brings what elements to the band?

Pete – These guys are more minimalists but right now I’m really into girl groups – you know that Phil Spector wall-of-sound. I also bring in a lot of melodic ideas as well as the sound.

Charlie – We [Luis and Charlie] bring in the rawness…

Luis (laughs) - …and the skinny jeans.

Charlie - I also like my shit fast but Pete tends to want to slow things down. I think Luis tends to mediate between us. He can find a way to explain my ideas to Pete or Pete’s ideas to me and we can move forward.

FPH – You guys have done a lot in a very short time period – things your other bands never even seemed to get close to doing. What’s different with this band?

Charlie - When we were working on the tracks for the 7” we decided right away that we weren’t going to procrastinate. In every aspect of our life we were going to procrastinate but not with music. We just wanted to hit the ground running. Whatever we did wrong in the previous bands, we wanted to correct in this one.

FPH – What do you mean wrong?

Charlie - We had people who weren’t pushing as hard as we were for various reasons - not wanting or able to tour, put down money…things like that – but all three of us are ready to drop everything. If I need to quit my job, I’ll do it tomorrow. We’ve always laid it all out on the table and done whatever was needed to be done. So, when the three of us got together, we all had the same mind set that we needed to push forward no matter what. We put everything we have into this band.

Luis – Like in Factory Party you had people who couldn’t leave their job because they needed the money.

Charlie – Now it’s like I really don’t have money but I’ll deal with that when we get back from tour. But I say if people want to hear you in other places, why not just go out and do it?

Look, when we talk about former band members that weren’t able to quit their jobs, we don’t mean that as an insult. It just means that, for them, there is life outside of music and that’s good. But for us there is nothing else - music all we want to do.

Catch Young Girls in Houston…
May 8th at Warehouse Live - Studio
May 26th at Fitzgeralds
May 27th at Rudyards
June 4th at Warehouse Live Stage
June 4th - 5th at FPH SummerFest

…or on the tour of the EU

June 8th at Le Motel (Paris)
June 10th at The Waterhole (Amsterdam)
June 11th at The Silver Bullet (London)
June 13th at Boilerooms Assembly Present (Guildford)
June 16 at 93 Feet East (London)
June 18 at Hobgoblin (Staines)