Milo Greene Aren't Just Hopeful; They're Working Their Asses Off

Robbie Arnett, Marlana Sheetz, Curtis Marrero, Andrew Herringer, and Graham Fink of Milo Greene

For a newly-signed band criss-crossing the U.S. touring, maintaining exuberance shouldn't be hard for Milo Greene to do. But the Silver Lake dream pop quintet, having just started their biggest tour, is already a bit road worn.

We spoke with them recently in Tucson, Arizona, where multi-instrumentalist Graham Fink is already feeling tired. "We've had like 48 hours to rest up at home," he says. They're just back from Big Sur for a photo shoot and they're using this stop to kick off their first headlining tour, supporting the self-titled debut that peaked at number one on the Billboard Heatseekers chart over the summer. In conjunction, the band has also released a 35-minute short film, Moddison (above), a visually stimulating supplement to the album that's more a companion piece than a marketing tactic.

Milo Greene's members linked up while attending UC Irvine and USC. The band's tight, focused sound is the result of simply having other projects fall short. Fink says that he wanted to "do this band right," and their precision has paid off. "We went through that process of 'being a band in L.A.' and seeing what worked and what didn't work," he says. "From day one, we tried to do things the right way, not just playing to play and figuring out sonically and aesthetically who we wanted to be."

Guitarist and vocalist Robbie Arnett had an idea of Milo Greene's sound before the band's inception, leaning on his love of film scores and early '90s R&B. "We focus on trying to get a rhythm out of the vocal melody, and we try not to put ego in the way," says Arnett. Milo Greene's members are all multi-instrumentalists, but it's the band's layered vocal melodies and harmonies that are key to their sound. The choral vocals are dense enough to stand on their own, almost making instrumentation an afterthought at times.