On Location: How Khruangbin Channels a World of Funk Through Houston

David Black

On Location is a column that lifts the curtain on the destinations behind the season’s most exciting new releases, from film and television to music.

Khruangbin’s story has always been an international one. When bassist Laura Lee Ochoa and guitarist Mark Speer met in 2007, it was a shared affinity for Afghan music that made them quick friends and collaborators. Looking to start a band, they recruited drummer Donald “DJ” Johnson, who played with Speer at a local church. In 2010, the three formed a trio, named it after the Thai word for airplane (pronounced krung-bin), and began making music inspired by funky subgenres from around the world—dub from the Caribbean, Middle Eastern funk, and West African disco to name just a few.

It all makes sense for three folks who grew up in Houston—Texas’s crown jewel of world cultures and a fitting hometown for a band so at home with elements from far reaches of the globe. Condé Nast Traveler caught up with Ochoa and Johnson to hear more about their international upbringings, collaborating with fellow Texan Leon Bridges, and longing for a family reunion on their new album, A La Sala.

Khruangbin is well-known for having a globally influenced sound—what role did growing up in Houston play in that?

Laura Lee Ochoa: Texas [is so close to, and used to be,] Mexico, so there's obviously that presence. But yeah, I went to a language magnet high school, so it attracted a lot of people from different countries to speak different languages there. My two best friends at my school were from Russia and Brazil, so every time I went to their house after school, I was not listening to music in English. And any time you go out to eat at a non-American restaurant, you're also going to be listening to music from different places.

It's just an incredibly diverse city. I live in Brooklyn now, and New York is obviously diverse. But as somebody from Houston, I can honestly say it's not as diverse as us. It's a part of our genetic makeup, being from there. I don't think people see Houston like that because they see Houston as being a part of Texas, which has an image and a vibe in people's minds who haven't been there. Some of what they imagine is probably true, but not in Houston. It’s its own thing.

DJ, you’ve said before that when people look at Khruangbin, they see three people who don’t necessarily look like each other playing music together and they’re often surprised about that, but for three people from Houston, that’s not all that surprising. Can you talk more about that?

Donald “DJ” Johnson: The street I grew up on in the suburbs represented everyone and I didn't realize growing up that this was something that didn't happen as much in other places. We all rode bikes together. My friend across the street, Chad, who was white, his dad was always barbecuing in the front yard and he used to pour beer on his barbecue—I remember that as one of my childhood memories. You’d have Black kids, white kids, Iranian, Hispanic, Vietnamese—everybody was all kicking it together. As a child, you don't appreciate how special that is.

Another Texan y’all have collaborated with is Leon Bridges. Did your shared roots in Texas help that collaboration happen?

DJ: Absolutely. We got a chance to tour with Leon in 2018 in support of his Good Thing tour, and we got along so well, I think partially because we were both Texans. Being Texans, you kind of have this understanding and inherent niceness about you, and a welcoming spirit. We connected on that level. It felt like we did a record with our cousin, in a sense.

There’s this barn you all record in near Burton, Texas. It sounds like such a cool, romantic place.

LO: It is 100% romantic, I can confirm that. It's magical. And it's not a studio, I always have to reinforce that because there are quite a few barn studios that exist. But it’s not a studio, it's just a barn. It was a free rehearsal space when the band started, because there’s a lot of rehearsal spaces, especially in Houston, that are warehouse buildings where you're competing for sound. The barn was an hour and a half away from Houston, but it's worth the drive to get the quiet. It’s not so quiet, in the sense that there are birds and bees and cows, but not city sounds. On a good day, you could have all the barn doors open and you're playing with sunshine and rolling Texas hill country and hay barrels and cows. It's so gorgeous. Playing for a cow is a vibe.

What’s it like to record there?

LO: Well, because it is in nature and it's not a studio, it's not maintained. There are always things we have to manage. The last two times we've been there, there's been a giant beehive underneath the little platform where DJ’s drums go. The first time it happened, we made a tunnel for them to exit. Then I learned from the Internet that the sonic range of bass notes actually makes bees go away, so I just set my amp up on the hive. They went away temporarily, but the year after that, there was a six and a half foot hive that had grown. We hired some lovely people who saved the bees and took them to a place where they were safe and happy and not in our way.

I love that y’all’s first instinct was to drive the bees out with music, and not to, like, exterminate them.

LO: No, they were never exterminated. No bees were harmed in any Khruangbin album recording process!

And yet you did not record in the barn this time. Why did you choose Terminal C in Houston for A La Sala instead?

LO: Logistics. Also, Terminal C—which is our name for our engineer, Steve Christianson’s studio—isn’t like a fancy sterile recording studio with isolation booths.

DJ: Outside sound still gets in, but that's okay—when things kind of get too sterile and closed in they can have an effect psychologically. Speaking for myself, I like windows, sunlight, things like that.

LO: There's a comfort and a familiarity there, too. Even though we hadn't done the actual bass, guitar and drums recording at Terminal C for a Khruangbin album, we spent a lot of time there. We do all the mixing there, we recorded Texas Sun, Texas Moon, and Ali there. For A La Sala, I was also eight months pregnant and I felt more comfortable being in the city. The nearest grocery store to the barn is like 30 minutes away, so everything is a little bit more of a mission.

Let’s talk about A La Sala. Laura Lee, the title is a phrase that comes from your childhood, right?

LO: Whoever was at home and whoever would listen to me, I would run around my house pointing, telling everyone “a la sala” [meaning “to the room”] to get to the living room, to get everybody together in one space. For me, this album felt like we were on a mission for the three of us to have a family reunion in a way.

What made you want to make a more intimate, family reunion style sound on A La Sala?

LO: There was an innocence to when we started that I think we've missed. We recorded Mordechai in 2019 and in that year, we also played over 150 shows and recorded Texas Sun, most of Texas Moon, and Ali all in that year. We were just busy as humans, and Mordechai was such a reflection of that energy—fun and busy and celebratory—because that's the space that we were in. This album, I was eight months pregnant and I was hardcore nesting. The three of us all have our own homes now that we’ve made for ourselves. DJ had his but is deeper in it, and Mark and I now have places we're living and rooted. There is that sense that comes through on A La Sala, a homeyness.

Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler