The Little Ones: Working From the Inside

Hometown: Los Angeles
Album: Morning Tide
Band Members [L-R]: Brian Reyes (bass, keys, vocals), David Esau (drums), Ian Moreno (guitar), Ed Reyes (vocals, guitar), Lee LaDouceur (keys)
For Fans Of: Electric Light Orchestra, The Beach Boys, power-pop band Shoes

Ed Reyes can keep a secret. During his recent time spent working in the music industry—as a Maverick Records intern, executive assistant to producer Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, and then an A&R assistant at Warner Bros.—the sly singer/guitarist cloaked his real objective: a contract for The Little Ones, his jangly power-pop combo. Why didn’t he ask his bosses for help? “I really wanted people to know me for my work, and not have them thinking I was only there to get signed,” he says. “So I kept it hush-hush until we ended up getting signed to Astralwerks and press started picking up on the band.”

Eventually, buzz from the band’s debut EP Sing Song grew so huge, he was forced to quit his cushy day job. And when he lost his label deal, the student of showbiz knew exactly what to do. “From Babyface, I learned a lot about recording and about the back end of being a songwriter,” he explains. “And from my A&R days, I learned how hard the process of signing a band really is, and how a lot of groups don’t have a vision for themselves when they get signed.”

And so The Little Ones simply redoubled 
their efforts, put out a second EP themselves (Terry Tales & Fallen Gates), then got cracking on their new full-length, Morning Tide, all the while never losing sight of their sunny Pet Sounds-on-Prozac effervescence. “People always say our sound is cheery and summery, but it just comes out that way. Who knows? Maybe it goes back to being Filipino and the idea of being on an island, surrounded by the ocean. And living in Southern California—that’s all we really know!”