Practically a zygote in band years, the duo We Are/She Is formed exactly 12 months ago, years after Jessie Meehan and Merilou Salazar met in a Savanna High School (Anaheim) physics class. The Buena Park residents have been in in several bands together since (“some lasting about 30 seconds and others lasting well more than a couple of years”) and have honed their Matt & Kim meet the Go-Go's sound to produce the EP Young and Pretty Clean. The songs “Barlights” and “Puzzles” off that album have already aired on Showtime's The Real L Word. (Must be all the positive vibes.)
OC Weekly: How did you two meet?
Merilou Salazar: I went up to Jessie in the middle of physics class, while our teacher was lecturing, and asked her if, one, she played bass and, two, if she wanted to be in a band. Seventeen days later, we had our first show, and things just took off from there!
Where's the name We Are/She Is from?
We thought of the name while we were in our last project, He's Not Gay! Often, when we would tell people our band name, they would laugh and respond with, “And she is?” After He's Not Gay! broke up, we decided to roll with She Is for this new project, which gradually turned into We Are/She Is.
What's the funniest thing that has happened to you since forming the band?
We went on a West Coast tour at the end of June. The day before we left, we lost our drummer, but we decided to go anyway. From there, it was basically an epic drum-karaoke for 10 days. In Portland, three different people jumped onto the backline drum set for us while we were performing. In fact, they all played our songs perfectly. In Seattle, the crowd kept time by clapping like a metronome. By the end of the show, we had a drunk guy onstage singing along and playing tambourine!
How did you get your songs on The Real L Word?
We have a publisher that distributes our music for us. We knew a song was gonna be on [the show], but we didn't know it was going to be both of them—and in pretty good slots, too.
How do you get the word out about your music?
We've done a lot of self-promotion. We go to the different gay-pride festivals. And we pick up a pair of headphones and put them on people's heads, so that way, hopefully, they'll buy a CD. We sold 500 or 600 copies of our EP like that.
By grabbing people and putting headphones on them?
Basically. Random people at the beach or, like, at other concerts or festivals.
No one was like, “Oh, my god, crazy lady coming at me with headphones!”?
[Laughs] Sometimes, it was a little awkward. But if we approach them kindly and not attack, they'll be like, “Yeah, let me check out your music,” and it takes 10 or 15 seconds. We sell our CD for $5. Like, we went on tour in June and doing that basically funded our whole tour.
This column appeared in print as “We Are/She Is Spread Good Vibes.”
