When I first discovered Caveman, they were a little-known band from Brooklyn with one of the unexpectedly best albums of the year. However, their debut album, CoCo Beware, had yet to be released and they were still playing mostly local shows. But soon after it was released last fall, many finally caught wind of what Matthew Iwanusa, Jimmy Carbonetti, Stefan Marolachakis, Sam Hopkins and Jeff Berrall were all capable of. They were bound to take hold of the independent music world.

Through redefining 1960s-style harmonies, incorporating intricate drum beats, and adding a calming, reverb-filled atmosphere to their music, they created a sound that was intriguing to the ear and left you wanting to hear more—hungry for the next chord that would be strummed.

After months of growing their fan base and a tour with the War on Drugs, Caveman finally made their way to Los Angeles to perform a headlining set at The Echo in Echo Park. As we sat in the loft of Origami Vinyl next-door Jimmy Carbonetti and Stefan Marolachakis reminisced of a favorite memory as a band—their first show as Caveman when they opened for White Rabbits at Bowery Ballroom. Little did they know when sharing this with me that only next month they would perform their own headlining set at the Bowery Ballroom to a full crowd.

The loft at Origami Vinyl looks down onto the shop, where records line the walls of the narrow shop. Just outside the front door, a line was forming to see Caveman perform later that evening. This was their first time in Los Angeles as a band, and they got to that point due to their own hard work. The band formed its own label, Magic Man! Records, and Jimmy crafts their guitars through his own shop, Cobra Guitars.

However, this trip to the West Coast would prove to be an important one for the band—one that would allow them to reach a greater audience. The evening at the dimly-lit Echo would prove to be a significant moment in their careers, as they were shortly thereafter signed to Fat Possum Records. But at this moment in time, sitting in the loft, this was yet to be determined. Jimmy and Stefan were proud of what they had done thus far, and were optimistic as to what the future would hold for Caveman. With the talent and drive that the band has, it’s no wonder their vision is unfolding before them.

This is your last tour of the year?

Stefan:  Yes, of 2011. We had a great year. We got to tour with our friends in White Rabbits, Here We Go Magic, and War on Drugs—who are our new best men.

I saw them about two months ago.

Stefan: Aren’t they the best?

Jimmy: We hit it off with them. The first time we actually met them with in Philly for their record release show, so it was a special night for them.

Stefan: But the way we met them, though…

Jimmy: Was through Here We Go Magic.

Stefan: Right. But the moment we met them was when we were loading into the club, and some guy smoking outside held the door open and was bringing in all our gear, and he was like, “You’re Caveman, right?” And it was Adam Granduciel, the singer of the band. And that sort of set the whole mood. They’re so considerate and fun; they’re exactly what a band should be.

Jimmy: And I think they’re as into gear as we are.

Stefan: You know Jimmy builds all our guitars, so they were going nuts about it. They’re into nerdy stuff like gear and basketball, like we are.

Jimmy: On tour, that’s an atmosphere that we really love. And off tour we surround ourselves with that family vibe—really humble and polite, good people with like-mindedness and good energy. It’s so important.

Stefan: It’s nice to think of it as a community of people trying to lift one another up and helping rather than cutting each other down. It’s always the most depressing when you catch everybody cutting each others’ legs off.

Jimmy: I just saw that in the Pearl Jam documentary. Johnny from the Ramones was telling Eddie Vedder, “Man, Seattle’s scene is so different from our old New York scene. You guys are actually a tight family and community. But when we were in New York, if somebody else was playing a show, we would try to fuck them up as much as possible. We would rip down their posters, we’d untune their guitars…”

Stefan: Here’s the thing, though. We’re from New York, and obviously I think that if you’re going to hack it at all there you need to have some type of killer instinct. But it shouldn’t be exacted on other people. I think our vibe is just trying to get each other—in positive ways—to step up our game.

Positive energy takes you a long way. I’ve always liked the idea of community, especially when everyone supports each other.

Jimmy: Yeah, especially with having a guitar shop in the city. That was a huge part of it. And I opened it just as we started the band. It was growing together. And just having that little staple in the East Village where all of our friends can come and hang out, listen to vinyl, build guitars, and help other musicians. You know, swap notes if possible.

Stefan: And turn each other on to different music.

Jimmy: Yeah. I had this other guy, Mas Hino, at the shop who used to work at Rudy’s Guitars from 1985 to 2000, which was an era with Eric Clapton and all those guys. He was building guitars for them for those many years. He went back to Japan, and I had the pleasure of meeting him, and we just hit it off immediately. Then he started working at my shop. There’s an amazing team with that respect for each other.

Stefan: I’m a few years older than Jimmy, and he’s such a relatively young guy. But actually, via him, he really reinforces up tapping into this much older vibe. It’s just funny to think that now we’re looped in with this really old New York guitar scene.

Jimmy: It’s just funny working in guitar shops since I was 18—fresh out of high school. At Chelsea Guitars—I was right under the Chelsea Hotel—I didn’t know much about guitars, but that was the best place to learn about vintage guitars. Danny, the owner, was just an encyclopedia. I took a lot of my guitar shop from his. That almost pawnshop vibe, but really something special. Like you walk in and you feel relaxed and at home. That’s a vibe that I think our band has—very relaxed. I think when we’re all around each other, it’s like a big family. It’s fun to spread that to whoever we’re around in whatever city we’re in.

Stefan: And find it in those cities. It’s like the common language.

Jimmy: Exactly. Or it finds you.

This past year has been really good for [Caveman].

Jimmy: It’s been amazing. It’s definitely been a whirlwind of fun.

Stefan: The nice thing about it—not to sound like a cliché—is that this year happened because of all the other years that came before it. I’ve known Matt and Jimmy for almost a decade now. And they’ve known Sam and Jeff for years. And through them, I’ve had these burgeoning friendships with Sam and Jeff that are through the roof.

Jimmy: And me and Matt went to high school together. We met in 2000 when we we’re 13. I was sitting in front of him, and I heard him say that he was having déjà vu. So I turned around with a pencil, and was like, “Was this in it?” (While waving the pencil). And he was like, “Nope.” And I looked on his desk, and I think he had the Korn biography, and I had the Limp Bizkit biography—those were the only two books in our school’s library that were music related. So I asked, “Do you play music?” He said, “I play drums.” So I said that I played guitar, and then it was like sleepovers every day.

Stefan: Our tours are still sleepovers every day.

What have been some of your favorite moments from this past year?

Stefan: Our first show was such an exciting thing. We played Bowery Ballroom—like the dream venue. We played with White Rabbits—they had us open. They heard a demo, and I think Jimmy and Matt got them drunk enough one night to be excited about asking us to play with them. And that was a really fun show.

Some of these moments on tour. Working on the album. Even a few days ago, during our flight from Seattle to L.A. we had the whole 22nd row on the plane.

Jimmy: Oh, man. And one of the stewards was a Queens native and he gave us two rounds of drinks on the house. And another moment for me was in Seattle at Emerald City Guitars. It’s a father and son team. They hooked us up with free guitars for an acoustic performance we did—they were loaners, but it was still amazing. And I showed him my guitars. It was a really nice, humbling experience. Just to go around the world, and if you’re bringing something good to the table, other people will be open to what you’re doing. You can look into someone’s eyes and you can tell everything.

Stefan: Recent memories are the clearest, of course. And I think when we landed in L.A., after Jimmy and I rented our car and we were leaving the parking lot, the attendant asked what we were here for. We said, “To play shows.” He asked what our band sounded like, and right at that moment it was playing on the radio, so we turned it up. It was amazing.

Jimmy: He thought we were playing a CD. And then driving to the show today, it came on again.

Wow. How strange. What do you hope 2012 holds for Caveman?

Stefan: I’m hoping for a New York Knicks championship. I’m hoping we do a lot of traveling, but I’m really hoping to just share more new experiences together. I’d like to go places we haven’t been, and really dig into our next album. And find more like-minded people.

Jimmy: Expanding all of our art, too. Record the next record, tour a lot more, and just really dive in to some new songs and see where they go. We already have a few new ones that we’re playing tonight. It’s been feeling really natural. It feels like it’s been a nice climb to more work, which is great. That’s what it’s about.

You all have been pretty much doing this all yourselves, right?

Jimmy: We have our own label, Magic Man! Records.

Stefan: Yeah. It would be remiss not to mention what a great team we have assembled behind us. But it honestly did start with just us five guys. Inge [our publicist] was one of the first people to sign on. I like the idea of doing it ourselves. I mean, I’m totally into expanding that, but I think you should stay hands-on. If I’ve learned anything from this, it’s the merits of keeping really tuned-in to what’s happening.

How has L.A. been treating you so far? What does it mean to come here and play as a band?

Jimmy: It’s been incredible. We’ve all played here in our past bands, but it’s really exciting to come here on a fresh palette and with a record that we’re really excited about. And we’ve made a lot of friends over the years that are out here, so we’ve been catching up.

Stefan: And the timing seems right.

Jimmy: Our friend lives in Weird Al’s house now. He lives near Laurel Canyon, and he drove us up the canyon as the road kept getting smaller. Then we were like, “Oh, it’s a dirt road.” Then, “Oh, we’re actually going up this peak.” And once we got to the peak, we just kept going another 50 feet. The road was as thick as the car. Then we went out to this spot overlooking the whole of L.A. We could see the ocean and the islands. There were three hawks. It was mind-blowing.

Stefan: L.A. carries a real mystery for certain New Yorkers.

Jimmy: It’s got a mystique to it.

Stefan: We’re born-and-bred New Yorkers, but L.A.’s always had this mystery. It’s such a hotbed of both glamour and grit and filth. It has natural beauty and horrible smog. But when you’re here, it’s beautiful. This place is such a microcosm of the American experience in my eyes. It’s everything jammed together.

I think L.A. can be whatever you want it to be. You can be a Scientologist or a hippie…

Jimmy: And in between all of that, you still have to sit in your car for most of it. So it doesn’t matter if you’re a dirty hippie or a rock star; you’re still sitting in the traffic.

Stefan: The freeway is the leveling blade for Los Angeles.

Jimmy: That’s what I love about New York. Me and Stefan both grew up there.  There, I feel a lot freer than anywhere else in the country because you can walk. There’s no, “I can’t get there because I’m in traffic.”

And as a creative city, you’re pretty free to do what you want to do.

Jimmy: There are so many outlets and so many opportunities that are just timeless. You just have to do it. And you really have to be the best.

I’ve talked to many people from there, and they always say how everyone is always working on something. And this makes you want to make good art. It makes you competitive, but…

Jimmy: Healthy, though. You’re still friends with most of these people. It’s more like you show your best friend, “Look what I just did.” And he’ll say, “Oh, man. I’ve got to raise the bar.” It’s a healthy competition. We have that with White Rabbits. And with War on Drugs it’s like you play, and they play, and you’re like, “Now what are we going to do?” But the next day you raise the bar, and they’re freaking out.

Well, of course. You don’t want to be the closing band and have your opener show you up. Are you all living in Brooklyn right now?

Stefan: We’re all mixed between the three boroughs right now: Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens.

Jimmy: I just moved to Brooklyn. I just got an apartment there.

Stefan: I was living in Manhattan, but I moved to Queens—which is the borough in which I was born. Jimmy grew up in Roosevelt Island, Matt grew up in Park Slope, I was in Queens until I was five, and then the rest of my life in Manhattan.

How do you think, collectively, New York has influenced Caveman?

Jimmy: I think New York has influenced us a lot, just with a lot of sounds and moments and the vibe of never knowing who you’re sitting next to. You turn a corner and you don’t know who you’re going to bump in to. Everything is up in the air and you just have to work really hard. I think New York has given that to us. You just have to work really hard, keep your head on a swivel, and keep a good head on your shoulders. There are a lot of temptations—like anywhere—but in New York there’s everything. You have to be really good about making good options. There are so many amazing artists there, so to be inspired isn’t that hard. Walk around the city and look up. There are buildings from the ‘20s or earlier, and you can get inspired by what man has made. It’s just exciting to be around that and to be surrounded by all this greatness that has happened and will keep going on forever, hopefully. To be a part of that and to be in New York and doing it is incredible because New York is worldwide.

I can imagine being a street artist there and walking around and seeing art everywhere. Or being a musician in Brooklyn where everyone seems to be making music right now.

Stefan: Even the old world of New York. Even though a lot of developers try to make this not the case anymore, New York holds on to so much history on every corner. I just saw for the first time a movie called The Cruise. So Timothy Speed Levitch is this incredibly intelligent, really eccentric tour guide. He knows every back-story about every corner. He treats the city the way it should be treated, like a living organism.

New York always pushes you, even when you’re too tired that day. It pushed you and reminds you that you should be working harder.

Jimmy: It really turns you into a shark, in a good way. You can’t stop moving. If you’re sitting in your apartment doing nothing, you really know that life is passing you by.

Stefan: The other thing is you have to be open to whatever hits you. You can wake up in the morning and all you wanted to do when you left the house was grab a bagel at the corner and come home, but then you run into this dude you know who has an unbelievable opportunity. You follow him to Queens where he introduces you to a friend, and you look up and it’s like a day later. It could be an irreplaceable experience.

Jimmy: My girl always says to me—which has made me very humble—“You can control how you react to situations, but you can’t control the situations that come to you.”

Stefan: That’s the biggest epiphany I’ve had within the last few years. I completely agree. If you waste your time thinking about situations over which you have no control, your life is wasted.

Where do you see yourselves being most creative? Where is it easiest for you to write?

Stefan: Just being in a room together. I’d like to have a practice space, of course.

Jimmy: It’s just a very New York band thing. If you’re a band from here you really have to roll with the punches because you don’t own a big van and you don’t own a house. If you’re a band with a house, you can just practice in the basement. In New York, you have to try to find a good deal on a practice space because they’re really expensive, and it has to be convenient for every person in the band to get there. And also convenient to store your equipment, so when you play shows it’s not a huge hassle.

Stefan: And to echo the whole New York thread we’ve been on, it’s for certain that restrictions breed creativity. It’s like if you have a room that’s 6×6, you’ve got to get creative. I remember on one tour in an old band, I was in Savannah, Georgia. And Savannah has some of the strictest zoning laws in the country because I think it has the largest historic district of any city. And an architect was saying that it would seem like you’d have your hands tied, but he loved it. He has to find the tiniest little nuance that he’s allowed to tweak and really find identity in design through that little moment. And I feel like that’s been a metaphor in my mind for the last ten years almost.

Jimmy: And that’s with everything we do too. It’s the little nuances. Everything we’re doing is all in the details. You can’t focus on those enough.

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For more information visit CavemantheBand.com.