When the world wanted to shutter and boycott Arizona during the SB 1062 waiting-for-a-veto debacle, Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans of YACHT decided to stand with us in our darkest hour. On Wednesday, Feb. 26 the Los Angeles based band tweeted a bad ass baby blue image with white letters that read “FREE ARIZONA” with an infinite chain link around the state. The electropop group recently wrote a song with Remix Artist Collective called 405 for Strangers, Pt. II album that’s set to release on April 1. You can catch YACHT at the ambitious March Radness fest on Saturday, March 8 at stage two in Club Congress, 311 E. Congress St.
What was the first concert you attended?
Jona: Let's go with the first concert I chose to attend, which was Nirvana, The Melvins, and The Breeders in Salem, Oregon in 1993.
What are you listening to these days?
Claire: Neighborhood dogs howling along to LAPD police sirens.
What was the first album you owned?
Jona: My older brother performed "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" by the Beatles at a high school lip-synching contest and my friend and I became obsessed with it. We found a copy of Abbey Road in one of our parents' dusty record collections, and we listened to it on repeat.
What artist, genre or musical trend does everyone seem to love, but you just don't get?
Claire: Big Bang Theory. That show is a piece of garbage.
What musical act, current or defunct, would you most like to see perform live?
Jona: Straight-up J.S. Bach, Leipzig, high on caffeine and the fear of pneumonia, the year 1730.
What is your favorite guilty pleasure?
Claire: There is no such thing as a guilty pleasure ... Life is too short.
What song would you like to have played at your funeral?
Claire: My mom has this very sincere desire to have "I'll Be Watching You" by The Police play at her funeral. I don't think she realizes how perfectly creepy that request is.
What band or artist changed your life, and how?
Claire: I grew up in a house full of books, and what was on the shelves molded my brain ... I don't think I'd be the same person if I hadn't haphazardly picked up Labyrinths.
Figurative gun to your head, what is your favorite album of all time?
Jona: In terms of repeat listening, Charanjit Singh's Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat.
Claire: Literally impossible to say. Maybe Spiritualized, Lazer Guided Melodies.
