Tag: The Values

PET POLITICS: Two Lovebirds and a Little Honey Form the Core of Synthpop Band The Values

This month, I got to hear from Evan Zwisler and Mason Taub, founders of Brooklyn’s electro-indie-pop group The Values. Mason and Evan take the forefront as a duo—Mason working her deep and vibrant vocals along with the keys and Evan grooving on guitar and backing vocals—to pay homage to timeless R&B vibes and the dance punch of ’80s hits. In 2018 they released their EP Civil and are about to release a new music video for their song “Imposter” (keep your ears and eyes peeled). The Values also share some family values as a band; Mason and Evan recently got engaged (congratulations guys!) and they co-parent a sweet-as-can be pitbull named Honey who joins them on their tours and at photo shoots, and always has an ear-to-ear grin for fans of her family’s band. Is that a rock pup or what?!

AF: Please introduce us to your pup!

MT: Honey is a three-year-old blue nose pitbull, but most people think she’s a puppy when they meet her because she only grew to be about 40 pounds and she loves to be picked up (which is probably our fault honestly). She’s the most physically affectionate and emotionally connected dog I’ve ever had – she needs to be in constant physical contact. She also rarely barks but instead makes the weirdest sounds. Some of our friends have described them as an aggressively cooing dove, an angry baby, and an alien.

EZ: Honey is a hilarious and farty cuddle monster. She’s pretty much my best friend. Sometimes I’ll put on cute dog videos for us to watch together. She loves watching puppies crying! She also loves to be the center of attention, so we’ve actually brought her to a bunch of our photo shoots!

Mason, Honey, and Evan embarking on tour!

AF: How did you two meet, Mason and Evan?

MT: We met a few years ago when we were both nannying for kids who went to the same school in Brooklyn. We struck up a conversation in the schoolyard at pickup and the rest is history!

EZ: Yeah, I saw Mason and pretty much thought she was the most beautiful person ever. I didn’t have anything to say by the time I walked over to her, so I just asked, “Is this where pick up is?” I had been picking up the kids for three months at that point, but it was the best I could come up with!

AF: When did your fur baby come into your lives?

MT: We got Honey a little under three years ago when she was nine months old. A former bandmate of ours was her dogwalker, and the family that had bred her and her siblings couldn’t take care of her and her brother anymore in their tiny apartment. The two pups had been mostly living together in a shared crate, which is partly why I think she’s so aggressively affectionate. They needed a new home for her ASAP, so we met her, fell in love and took her home all in the same day.

AF: What is each of your musical backgrounds like?

EZ: I did the school musical from 6th grade to 8th grade; however, I wasn’t very good. They actually took away my one singing line in Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat and asked me to “Just say it with conviction.”  I grew up in Shanghai so I was lucky enough to play in local bars with my various punk bands throughout high school.  I never went to school for music or anything like that.

MT: I asked for piano lessons when I was six, so everything started there. I studied classical piano privately for 12 years, and have done a fair amount of teaching myself now. I did a lot of musicals in middle school and high school, but I really started singing around 11 years old when I started teaching myself my favorite songs by ear and would wait until my parents were out to sing my heart out to an empty house. I also dabbled in oboe, guitar, and double bass, but none of those really stuck!

Family Values: Evan, Mason, and Honey.

AF: How did you start playing together?

MT: We started dating when Evan was just starting to play shows out in NYC and I was doing a lot of writing on my own. I would help him sometimes when we hung out, just little things like sounding out a melody or recording a harmony on a demo. Eventually he reluctantly let me be a part of it, and it’s evolved into what we’re doing now.

EZ: Mason is being overly modest. Very quickly into working together I realized how talented Mason was – she blows me out of the water. Not only is she amazing at everything she does but she also helps me articulate my ideas in a way that makes sense. I truly feel like I’ve found my partner in everything with her.

AF: Do either of you play in other projects?

MT: I would honestly love to, but we’re too busy to do much outside of our stuff. We have started doing little collabs here and there or helping people with Ableton, but that’s about it.

EZ: We’ve begun to produce for a few other songwriters around New York and Philly and we have a few collaborations planned. We’ve always dreamed of starting a Bikini Kill cover band, so if anyone is into that, call us.

AF: Where did you grow up, and did you have any pets then?

MT: I was born in California but I don’t remember living there because we moved to the suburbs of New York when I was really small. When I was 12 we moved to the Bronx, and I’ve been here in the city ever since! My family got a dog when I was 14. She was a Shetland Sheep Dog (think Lassie). I loved her so much, she was much more austere than Honey is. She was very Downton Abby, while Honey is very much Frank from It’s Always Sunny.

EZ: First, I feel like Honey is way more Charlie than Frank. And yeah I grew up with a bunch of dogs – when I was really young we had a big yellow lab named Bradley and a doberman mutt named Bowie, then a string of Chesapeake Bay Retrievers up through high school. I was born in Taiwan in ’90 and moved to Shanghai when I was 2. I then lived in Shanghai, China from 92-2008. It was a great place to play music because the scene was so small, but so supportive. No one really knew what we were doing – most people haven’t even been to America so it was a lot of earnest intimation.

Honey and Evan enjoying a snuggle session.

AF: What are your spirit animals?

EZ: I really like elephants, but I think Cookie Monster shares my love of life.

MT: Honestly sometimes I feel like Honey and I are each other’s spirit animals. We’re cut from the same anxious cloth.

AF: What instrument do you think Honey would play if she was a human?

MT: She’d be a punk drummer, for sure. She has a lot of upper body strength and looks like a tiny body builder.

EZ: Yeah, that’s absolutely brilliant. I also could picture her playing upright bass, wearing cool sunglasses and a backwards Kangol hat.

Honey reluctantly rocking out on keys.

AF: Tell us a little about your writing process.

MT: We live together so we spend almost every night we’re free writing at home. We tend to write in Ableton and have a bunch of different things going at once. A lot of what we focus on is just establishing groove. Honey often curls up in Evan’s lap or in our gear cases while we work.

EZ: She always wants to be in the middle of the action!  We usually sit down and write something from a fun drum beat or some cool sound we find on one of our synths. Sometimes, Mason will write something on the piano and bring that in.  I feel that we’ve written some of our best songs like that.

AF: How did you decide to take Honey on tour?

MT: Out of necessity, honestly. Dog sitters can be expensive and Honey is just small and cute enough for us to get away with taking her places we wouldn’t normally.

Honey and Mason chilling in the trunk of the tour van.

AF: Can you tell us some funny family tour stories?

MT: We play in Philly a lot, and one time we were playing at this bar where the only place to park the car (with Honey inside) was either far away or illegally right in front. The bouncer, this big beautiful man named Bear, immediately took to her and let us park in front and looked after her while we played. Other times when we’ve played house parties, she likes to curl up in our suitcase on stage with us and sleep.

EZ: Yeah!  She loves to come up on stage and sleep at our feet as we’re playing! She also likes to knock over beer cans and red cups at house shows so she can drink the beer! She’s kinda like Jim Belushi from Animal House in dog form.

AF: Do you have any favorite songs about (non-human) animals?

MT: Ha, no, but when I was little my dad used to tease me and tell me I should write songs about our Chesapeake Bay Retrievers Meg and Annie, but refer to them as my sisters. He was also always telling me to write songs about how much I loved my dad. I never took either of those pieces of advice.

EZ: Does “Werewolves of London” count?

AF: Have you ever written a song about or inspired by animals?

MT: We don’t have any songs just about animals, but I do mention Honey in a line in our song “Civil,” which is a breakup song, that goes, “Tell the dog I love her everyday,” which I think is kind of sweet and silly.

EZ: When I first moved to the city I wrote this song about putting my first dog down that I played at open mics. It was very sappy. I think it was probably an alright song, but it always felt emotionally manipulative playing it.

AF: When is your next show?

MT: March 2nd at the Knitting Factory!

AF: Any other tour dates on the horizon?

MT: We have a few things lined up in Philly (March 1st at Tralfamadore!) and a show in Western Massachusetts on March 15th, so follow us for more news on that!

AF: Do you have any more exciting news to share about your project?

MT: We just recorded a new EP with Holy Fang Studios so keep a look out for those singles to drop!

AF: When and where can we expect to find the “Imposter” video?

MT: It will be coming out next month. We are just finishing up editing it and then it’s ready to go!  We has so much fun filming this one.  We recreated a bunch of our favorite album covers and filmed a video around that.

EZ: I dress up as Lady Gaga and a banana.  Let’s just say we hold nothing back on this one!

MORNING AFTER: Peaches and Sausage with The Values

Though it feels like it happened 40 years ago, I remember clearly when I first saw The Values. It was in the backyard during Putnam-o-Rama, and three girls passed in matching, spangly sunset-gradient dresses, golds and silvers bleeding into deep orchid. And Sean Jones said, “That’s The Values. You’ll like them, they’re really different.” But I was uprepared. Woefully unprepared.

Because The Values proceeded to pounce on the muddy, murky night with a glitter bomb of soulful voices. While impossible to pin down as one genre – the synth spine of Ladytron, the wardrobe of The Supremes… who even is on this extended family tree? idefk – they never, not for a fucking second, lacked coordination or the ability to dazzle a collection of completely different people in the crowd. Playful lines like “I do my online window shopping, pretend that I have money,” reminded the audience that despite the unrelenting sparkle, they aren’t untouchably manicured. They just try harder, work harder, and play pretty hard as well. It shows.

Different. But inclusive.

So post-set, I ran up to Mason Taub to say “Hi, I’m Mary Grace from the Internet, your band is amazing and we are totally getting breakfast together!” She was all, “That’s great, but also I need to get out of this dress. Do you want to help me warn the crowd that the cops are coming?” “I would be insulted if you DIDN’T invite me,” was my response, and I followed her around the establishment, being generally useless and unpacking whatever That Guy drama I had while she undressed in one of the bedrooms.

Basically.

That was, not 40 years ago, but July. And now it’s a sunny August afternoon and the cork just hit the ceiling. Won’t you join us?

The Scene: Aside from Mason, who just opened the prosecco, the band is streamlined to a core group: Evan Zwisler (frying up french toast), sisters Nathalie and Mel Escudero, and a drum machine called Little Nicky (after former drummer Nick Ciccantelli from The Lounge Act).

So that’s why we’re in Mason and Evan’s kitchen in Flatbush, their precious pitbull Honey at our feet. “Mel, Mason and I went to a party last night and we got home at 2:30 and we were like, ‘Oh, let’s play some tunes…’” Evan says, before we cheers.

“So did you make sweet tunes?” I ask. No, they just stayed up and watched The Great British Baking Show. Through the chaos and hastily downed mimosas (me, that’s all me) Nat mentions that she had the best key lime pie the other day and that Mason makes a boss lemon curd and hummus (maybe not paired together).

“You guys, like, make food and that’s so strange to me, because I’ve fucked up mac and cheese before,” I observe.

“Macaroni and cheese can be hard because cheese is like, delicate,” Mel offers sympathetically.

“I mean, it was literally a box,” I admit.

Laughter abounds, but clearly I’m a trash human being who’s gonna get the deluxe treatment here.

2:06 TOUR STORIES!

“Do you remember that terrible bar in Long Island?” asks Evan, in the midst of food discussions. “There were just people in the bathroom doing cocaine…”

“There was a dude in the woman’s bathroom,” Nat adds.

Mason remembers. “That’s when we saw Misogyny The Band.” (Not their real name. I asked, don’t bother Googling).

“The guy was wearing this t-shirt that said ‘Fuck your sensitivity,” Evan remembers.

“And then,” Nat adds, “he would just say in between songs, ‘penis.'”

The kicker, I’m told, was their signature song – something about this dude choking his girlfriend and coming on her neck. Suffice to say nobody was impressed and the kitchen filled with a lot of “ews” and groans.

“Half of the people weren’t even listening,” Mel recalls. “But the ones that were, everyone was looking at each other. They had to look at someone.”

“And then we went up there and we have this song ‘Zombie’ and it’s about abortion, and so the way I always start it is, ‘This song is about an abortion,'” Mason says. “And there were audible groans when I said that.”

“That says everything about this scene and how weirdly sexist it is,” I chime in. “You can choke a bitch and cum on her neck but you mention a song about an abortion and suddenly it’s ‘Oh, god, NOT THAT.'”


There’s often some kind of audible response, but it’s not always negative. The band is playing a lot of out-of-town shows and their college gigs are filled with impressionable youths (I’m only 26 but I’m condescending) wearing glitter highlights (which the band has adopted in their look). And from them, Mason and the band get appreciation.

“I have a lot of girls come up to me, and it’s always younger girls, and they’re like, ‘We don’t ever see bands at our college with women in there, thanks for coming.’” she says.

Hmm…

2:24 We move into Evan and Mason’s room/practice space, hence the wall of guitars and literal piano near the window. The girls and I waste no time devouring Evan’s breakfast: chicken sausage, sliced peaches, French toast and eggs on the way. “You know what’s really funny? Ev is a vegetarian,” Mel says, but clearly one who can make a boss chicken sausage.

“Should the whole article be just recipes that you guys have excelled at?” I ask later.

Mason’s about it. “We should just include our recipes with our album.”

They consider making the cover of their next album a picture of something they’ve cooked, with production credits and lyrics deleted and replaced by just the recipe for it. Full disclosure: I would buy the fuck out of that album, but in case it never happens, here’s a list of other essential Values dishes:

  • Garlic Mashed Potatoes
  • Pulled Pork Sandwiches
  • Brie Cheese Pie

Evan can apparently make a mean chicken, too.

Invite them to your next party.

2:34 So Mel’s apparently so vocally talented it once got her abducted.

“There’s a story our mom tells us about when my sister was in pre-school and there was a bus driver who would hear my sister sing on the bus,” Nat recounts. “And she was Columbian like us, so my sister was singing this song from a popular Columbian telenovela at the time. And she was like, in love with my sister. So she took her, didn’t take her home to my parents, took her to her home, had her sing in the living room for her family.”

“I’ve never heard this story,” Mason chimes in.

“How old were you?” Evan asks.

Mel’s pretty nonchalant about it. “I was like, 4 or 5?”

Evan freaks out. “WHAT?! YOU WERE KIDNAPPED. THAT IS KIDNAPPING!”

“And my sister’s not aware that she was being taken against her own will. The bus driver took her back home and my mom was like, worried sick,” Nat says. “This was before people took things like this more seriously.”

“Like, kidnapping more seriously?” I ask.

Anyway, we’re all very glad that Mel did not end up a milk carton kid. That really would’ve hindered The Values’ sound.

3:00 The Values are recalling their old rehearsal space in Brooklyn Heights, a hot box in which they had to fit roughly “67” people in a room.

“We were down to our bras in that room and we kept singing,” Mason remembers. “And I vividly remember Phil sitting down and after 5 minutes and I checked him and was like, ‘Are you okay?’ and he was like, ‘I’m not moving, and the sweat is just pouring down my face and I’m not moving.'”

It sounds like a time, but I’m too many mimosas deep to concentrate, and Air is playing, and that was my high school sex stuff music. So.

“I think this is one of the best, funniest songs,” Mason shares. “It still kind of makes me giggle, and just the fact that that’s the hook makes me laugh, ‘Sexy Booooy.‘”

“Well they’re a French band so a lot of it’s just nonsense, they’re like, Oh, yeah, we are a couple of sexy boys. Let’s do it,” Evan jokes, putting on a mangled accent.

“Like Borat?” I ask, confused.

Like Borat.

3:55

Eventually it ends up just Evan, Mason and me watching the dorkiest but purest Foo Fighters fan video, cry-laughing the whole way through. I think I’m still too obliterated to make intelligent conversation, but I’m learning that Evan grew up in Shanghai and Mason grew up in New York.

“I think that’s part of why we get each other. We had similar experiences in high school seeing bands and going to bars and stuff,” she says.

“It’s also like growing up in a big city, there’s always more trouble to get into,” Evan adds. They talk about the lure of these communities, a sort of “chase culture” that draws active, adventurous, creative teens like a moth to the flame. More trouble to find, more troublesome people to run with.

“Chase culture.” I don’t know if I’ve grown out of that yet. Sometimes I worry I never will.

“Can I play with the dog?” I ask. The answer, thank dog, is yes.

I check in on The Values twice more before I write this, supplementing their shows as a date plan, as a 25th birthday plan, a plan that I plug into my schedule whenever I can.

“It’s so refreshing to see a band that actually tries,” my friend Joe Mayer says during the tail end of their Knitting Factory set. Word.

It’s a drive-by appearance, as always, but I chat with Nat in the bathroom about how they killed it with their choreography (choreography, HOW). And in a smokey haze, sunken onto the couch in the Green Room, I catch up with Mason, who asks me about how things are going with That Guy. Different That Guy, but always some That Guy.

There’s always a possibility that I’m an easy crowd member to win over. But more likely, The Values are playing with a brighter spectrum of hues than most. And sue me, I like visiting their colorful world.

I think you would, too.

“I do my online window shopping, just to see some beauty…”

You can follow The Values on Facebook, listen to them on Bandcamp, and catch their eponymous EP September 14th!