Nataly Dawn started dabbling with music at an early age through singing. She was so engrossed with music that she had to pick up an instrument to accompany her vocal talent, and that instrument was piano. She did not enjoy playing the piano as much as she had hoped during her short-lived affair with it. At age fourteen, she totally gave up on the piano and started learning guitar on her own. She started writing songs using her trusty new guitar but eventually found herself focused on the bassline rather than the chords of the songs. She then moved on to a new instrument, one that she really fell in love with, the bass guitar and started becoming more and more productive with her songwriting skill.

Meanwhile, Nataly's eventual partner, Jack Conte got started in music by taking piano lessons with his dad when he was six years old. Coming from a musical family, Jack became interested in playing blues and jazz, which is evident to this day in his songwriting. Unlike Nataly, Jack went the formal music education route and became an accomplished singer-songwriter / multi-instrumentalist.

Now that we've gotten their individual backgrounds out of the way, let's talk about the band. Nataly and Jack both attended Stanford University, where Nataly majored in Art and French Literature and Jack in Music Science and Technology. Even though they did not attend the same classes, fate would get them together. They found each other through playing solo gigs at their University's Coffee House. According to Jack, it was "definitely love at first sight." It didn't take long for them to get into a relationship and subsequently collaborate musically, which led to the birth of Pomplamoose in the summer of 2008.. But what is a pomplamoose? Apparently, they got the name Pomplamoose from Nataly's friend in Paris who told her of the french word "pamplemousse," which means grapefruit.

So what's this thing about creativity and YouTube? If you're already a fan of Pomplamoose, you already know what a VideoSong is. VideoSongs is how Pomplamoose, or specifically Jack Conte who first used of the format for his solo material, release their songs to the public via YouTube and it's quite effective. If you're not yet familiar with VideoSongs, let's enumerate the two basic rules: 1) What you see is what you hear (no lip-synching) 2) If you hear it, at some point you see it (no hidden sounds).

They first started doing VideoSongs of their originals, Pas Encore and Hail Mary, but later did covers to get people to watch their videos. Their most popular cover was of Beyonce's Single Girls which multiplied the number of their subscribers on YouTube fivefold. As of this writing, their channel has earned 76,000 subscribers and a rank of #83 most subscribed channel of all time for musicians on YouTube.

Currently, the band is making money selling MP3s without interference from any label. Pomplamoose enjoys being totally independent and why wouldn't they? They're getting 100% of the revenue from the sale of their MP3s (minus the digital store fees). VideoSongs Vol. 1 was released in 2009 in digital-only format. This 8-track album was included on our Best Albums Of 2009 list in the EP section. Both Jack and Nataly are involved with the recording of another YouTube sensation, Julia Nunes. They also recently collaborated with Allee Willis (co-writer of the song September by Earth, Wind & Fire) to write six new songs that will be released as a DVD video this 2010.

KGRL is very proud to present our February 2010 Flower-Powered Artist, Pomplamoose. Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn of Pomplamoose joined KGRL in the studio for an exclusive live performance shot in high-definition video and audio. Check out our CD review of VideoSongs Vol. 1 and splendid shots of Jack & Nataly courtesy of our amazing friend Jeff Koga. There's also a comprehensive interview with Pomplamoose in video, audio, & transcribed form.

Don't forget that you can request a FREE copy of the FPA live session DVDs!

Jack and Nataly's first appearance as Pomplamoose was through Nataly's own song titled Pas Encore. There is no denying the perfect chemistry between these two artists. Something about the beats and the bass line makes this song irresistible. The melody is simple and yet it is made to sound more complex through the layers of instruments added. The presence of French lines in the lyric also adds to its beauty.

Pomplamoose's first collaboration in terms of songwriting was the song Hail Mary. Before the band's accelerated internet fame through doing covers, Hail Mary became their first big hit after the song was featured on the main page of YouTube. It's easy to see, or hear rather, how this song became a hit for Pomplamoose. Without the video, they might have been mistaken for a full band with its sound. The melody is quirky enough to attract indie alternative music lovers and yet it doesn't alienate pop music aficionados.

Another exotic dish is served up with the eccentric tune, Be Still. It's less fluffy and poppy than their newer songs. Odd songs get our attention right away, not that there's anything wrong with poppy. Be Still is one of the Pomplamoose songs that I can't help coming back to, again and again. The melody and lush instrumentation draw me in although if there is any criticism for this song, it's in the vocals. Being that VideoSongs is organic by keeping all of its little imperfect nuances, a bit of shakiness in the vocals is more exposed this way as it is in Be Still.

It's time to bring the sun-shiney merry-happy upbeat tunes, and they deliver a high dosage with Centrifuge. From the time Jack hits the toy xylophone to the last notes played on a toy saxophone, there's no escaping the intense and catchy melody of Centrifuge. You can tell how much fun Jack and Nataly are having even without seeing the video of the song. I had some qualms about the vocals on Be Still but on Centrifuge, the main vocals as well as the background vocals are just plain gorgeous. It's also fun to hear the headphone malfunction conversation that made its way to the final mix as it adds a sense of realism and "live"-ness to the recording process of Pomplamoose. It is painful to classify this one under pop, but if it is pop, then it is pop on the highest level.

Drumbeats and bass line take center-stage on the song Beat The Horse. This was actually the first video song I saw from Pomplamoose and it literally swept me off my feet. There's something special about it that reminds me of the fun of listening to a Frente! record or The Cardigans' Emmerdale and First Band On The Moon. Beat The Horse is a fun, upbeat, and uberly-addictive song. No rehab can ever take away my Pomplamoose addiction.

Twice As Nice brings us the same offbeat upbeat as we heard on Centrifuge and Beat The Horse. I'm really hooked on the sound of Jack's effects-processed acoustic-electric guitar. It perfectly fits this song. There's an awful lot of "La"s on this song but that's alright. We love Las too! It's great to hear their final conversation in the mix regarding Las, as once again it brings us the feeling of a live performance.

Little Things is perhaps the most romantic song on the album. So far I have not mentioned the videos on YouTube, but I'm going to have to mention the video of Little Things. Every time I hear Little Things, it never fails to remind me of the cheesy-but-romantic scene with Nataly kissing Jack while he's playing the accordion. Sometimes I do like a slice of cheese. The only thing I really miss on the audio version of the song is their conversation about diamonds at the end.

If Little Things was the most romantic, Expiration Date is the break-up song on the album. It's not about Jack and Nataly's break up as they are still madly in love with each other, although they make breaking up sound fun with Expiration Date. The song has a classic retro feel and yet is discernibly modern. I love it when Nataly does layered background vocals such as in Centrifuge and now this track. It's hilarious seeing Jack and Nataly recite lines from His Girl Friday that they included in the mix from live performances of this song, as you can witness yourself from the FPA live session below. I've heard a lot of great music on VideoSongs already, but Expiration Date is one of those that has been stuck in my head for months, alongside Centrifuge and Be Still.

VideoSongs revels in its imperfections. It's a DIY project that easily trounces a lot of big-label albums by staying true to the songs and not relying on big budgets and ultra-polished productions. The videos serve as a great companion, albeit not necessarily a requirement, to fall in love with Pomplamoose's music. Whether it be Jack's incredible multi-instrument mastery, Nataly's fascinating bass line and charming vocals, their instantly addicting upbeat melodies, or even their insanely wacky-yet-clever arrangements, there's more than enough fire in VideoSongs to keep you warm from start to finish.

Beat The Horse 80.03Mb

Expiration Date 86.37Mb

*WMV-HD videos require WMV codec for Mac and Linux.

WMV Codecs:
For Mac - Flip4Mac
For Linux - http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/download/

Listen to Pomplamoose's responses in High Quality MP3 Stream using the player below:




Transcription excerpt from the interview:

KGRL: How did the two of you meet?

Nataly: Good question. We met through music. We both went to the same college but he was a senior when I was a freshman. We were both playing a show the same night at The Coffee House, also known as The CoHo. He walked in and saw me playing.

Jack: Love at first sight.

Nataly: Sort of.

Jack: Big time.

Nataly: [It was] a sort of mutual thing.

Jack: It was definitely love at first sight.

Nataly: Yeah. And then that’s it.

Jack: Yeah. Two years later we started playing music together.

Nataly: Yeah.


KGRL: How much does your musical education affect the way you write music?

Jack: Tremendously. Probably not so much from a theoretical standpoint, because most of the writing, I think, comes from the earlier days before college when I was learning jazz theory and jazz piano. I think that’s where most of my writing comes from. For instance I took orchestration classes at school. We would never have been able to do this last song had I not taken these classes and had the confidence to write for trombone and violin and cello and all that. If I hadn’t taken orchestra classes I just wouldn’t have done that. I’d have said “I don’t know how to do this” and I wouldn’t have done it.

Nataly: It was so crazy watching you do that. I had never seen him orchestrate anything, and he [was] just on there and figuring out all these parts and then he’d print them out....It sounds really simple but it was just crazy seeing it all come together like that. I had no formal education in music really to speak of, especially not in school, so we just write music completely differently and somehow it always works together. I guess...our strong suits completement each other and our weaknesses we sort of make up for mutually.

Jack: I don’t have any weaknesses. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Nataly: I was only talking about you, so that’s weird that you’d think that. No, I haven’t got any weaknesses.


KGRL: Is music a full-time career for both of you?

Nataly: Oh yeah.

Jack: Yes. Thankfully so.

Nataly: Full time.

Jack: About eight months [ago we] quit the day jobs and are going full force into music. It’s very exciting.

Nataly: Yeah.

Jack: We’re both pretty excited about that.

Nataly: Yeah. No jobs. I quit my job. I was in marketing. Jack was doing corporate videos and stuff, and we’ve both been making a living via the internet, selling MP3s now.


KGRL: Can you tell us who influenced you guys the most in your songwriting style?

Nataly: You go first.

Jack: So many...musicians, and a lot of filmmakers too I think, as strange as that sounds....I have to admit Radiohead is a huge influence to me, and Brad Balmeow[‘s] piano playing and phrasing and particulary his chords [and] his harmony, and The Beatles recently. My mom, about six months ago, bought me the entire [The] Beatles catalog, because I had never listened to The Beatles. I’ve listened to the whole catalog and I’m loving it. I’m getting really into it, and they have been really affecting me a lot recently [with] the form of the song, not necessarily their melodies, but the way they organize melodies and the way they organize the structure of a song. The filmmakers that I think have influenced my songwriting have been Jean-Pierre Genais and Tim Burton. Your turn.

Nataly: My turn. I guess I once again [have] no real formal training. I grew up in a christian home with a lot of gospel music and christian music, and when I see my songwriting...I’ve always recognized elements—not so much people but elements like the hymn. The whole catatonic scale is there a lot, and also, as weird as this sounds, musicals. I have a very musical way of—

Jack: Disney movies [are] so big.

Nataly: Yeah. Disney movies are back in my subconscious telling me what to write.

Jack: I can’t believe I forgot that one.

Nataly: As far as people who I listen to: Kings Of Convenience. Elliot Smith is a big one.

Jack: Oh, Elliot Smith is huge. So key.

Nataly: Yeah. Really big influence. The first female artist who I ever really latched onto was actually Norah Jones. I heard her style when she first came out and it was a really great, great quality of voice.


-> READ the full transcript along with high/low quality mp3 of the Interview by Clicking Here! <-