Family of The Year’s Inspiration to ‘Make Music We Want to Hear’

Christina Schroeter believes Family of the Year, which some critics have dubbed an indie pop group, is “genreless.”

Merriam-Webster may not recognize that adjective, but Schroeter, the group’s keyboard player and vocalist, is certain.

“Anyone who has only heard our song ‘Hero’ and comes to our shows is usually surprised that we have way more diversity in our set,” she says. “We like almost every kind of music, and we never want to be pigeonholed in a certain category.  I think the only way we’ll be happy is if we make whatever music we want to hear.”

Happiness wasn’t easy to come by when Los Angeles-based Family of the Year — a quartet that also includes lead vocalist/guitarist Joe Keefe, his brother Sebastian Keefe on drums and vocals, and James Buckey on guitars and vocals — was working on its debut album Loma Vista. The album, released in 2014, included “Hero,” a song that became a worldwide hit after it appeared in director Richard Linklater's film Boyhood.

“We wrote Loma Vista when things were pretty tough for us,” Schroeter recalls. “We were crashing in a one-bedroom apartment and totally broke. It was a time in our lives that I’m glad we documented, but (Family of the Year’s self-titled 2015 album) comes from different experiences. After touring so much, we figured out we missed playing rock and roll, so we’ve got a few more rock songs on there. But we also expanded the opposite way and have a few really chill songs. It's maybe Loma Vista but a little more grown up.”

Schroeter credits two albums — the Preatures' Blue Planet Eyes and Wolf Alice’s My Love is Cool — for providing inspiration in recent years.

”They have been some of my favorite recent records,” she says.  “It made me so happy to hear guitars in rock music again after so much crossover electronic stuff.”

A 2014 concert by the Australia-based Preatures at the Observatory’s Constellation Room in Santa Ana, California, “was probably one of the best shows I’ve ever been to,” Schroeter says. “I had chills.  Isabella Manfredi is the most badass front person ever. I couldn’t stop staring at her, and I felt like her eyes were burning holes into my soul. I kept thinking, ‘Wow, she’s soooooo cool.’

“I feel like when I go to shows I naturally absorb things from musicians I love. I feel I became way cooler on stage after seeing Izzi do her thing. The venue was so small, and the crowd was kind of thin, but they performed like they were playing a stadium show — 110 percent.”

The concert that influenced her most as a musician, though, was a show by Air with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl in 2004. It was the French electronica/rock duo’s first live performance with a full orchestra.

“It was many years ago, but I remember being completely sober and feeling so high,” Schroeter says. “It could have been a contact high, but something about their music really puts me in a trance.

“When I think of that Air concert, I remember what an effect beautiful music can have on someone. Sometimes it’s hard to believe something you’re a part of can really mean something to someone else.”