With the release of their second album, “This Beautiful Demon,” and a recent stint opening for The Killers, LA-based band Solarcade is poised to make some serious waves. They just released a video for their single, “The Teardrop Explodes,” and they’re enjoying a surge of underground success – all as an unsigned band. I caught up with singer Paul Van and guitarist Tony Pomilla recently, and here’s what they had to say:

Tell me about the band and how you got together.

PV: We were originally signed to a label out of New York called Seven Records, and they released our first album, “Aliens and Angels,” in early 2005. Prior to that, we’ve been a band for almost 6 years. Pomilla, the guitar player, and I have been writing since early 2002, and we put the band together. We’ve had some lineup changes along the way, but we’re a solidified four-piece now. And we just completed our second studio album called “This Beautiful Demon.”

How did you hook up with The Killers?

Brandon Flowers had heard our material, and liked it enough to invite us to play three really big shows with them. So that was really cool. He caught wind of what we were doing and invited us to play, so we were really ecstatic.

You mentioned that you recorded your first album on Roland’s VS-2400CD Digital Studio Workstation. Can you tell me about that?

Our debut album was recorded entirely and mixed on the VS-2400CD. We wanted it to be an in-house project, and to be hands-on with the recording and production, because we knew exactly what type of record we wanted to make.

Can you describe that process – the tracking and mixing – and what features do you like on the 2400?

I was wild about the onboard effects, and that it was 24-track playback. The fact that it is also fully automated made it really easy when it came down to mixdown, because I could pre-program all that stuff, and it would fall into place exactly where I wanted it to. I’d fooled around with different in-house recording gear, and there was no other product that I thought was as user-friendly, and sounded as great as this machine. It was really, really impressive.

We didn’t want to use Pro Tools, specifically because it sounded so sterile. We wanted something that still sounded a little gritty, that still had that analog feel to it. Honestly, I’m a big visual guy, and it looked so cool – the actual interface – it was hard for me not to want to get hands-on. I produced and mixed the album myself. And it got picked up and released by a label, and so it proved to us that not only were we working with the right gear, we’d taken the right approach.

I also own the BR-1600CD, and I tracked some demos on there, and they sounded so good that I exported what was originally recorded directly to the 2400. I just loved the sound. It had such great warmth! It was some drum and bass tracks that I had programmed on the BR-1600, so rather than re-track them, I was able to use them because they sounded like I wanted them to sound. I’m just really impressed with these digital recorders!

What about the second album?

The second album was recorded in three different studios with a whole bunch of different gear. I’d say about a good 45% of that album, though, was still tracked on the 2400. And then I exported that into different software programs.

The song “Beautiful,” which is our first single off the new album, was entirely recorded on the 2400. On the rest of the album, there’s a cohesive flow – even though we also worked on Pro Tools as well as some analog tape stuff – it’s very hard for the naked ear to differentiate between what is very high-end out there, in terms of the boards that are in conjunction with Pro Tools, and this Roland 2400. If you do your homework and know how to record well, you’ll be safe.

What effects do you use?

I used the actual onboard effects during recording – I sort of custom-designed the effects that were on the 2400. Live, we use different pedals. I use the BOSS TU-2 Tuner religiously.

Tony, what effects are in your guitar rig?

TP: Since 2003, I have been using the BOSS ME-50 COSM. It was actually this pedal that helped me come up with effect that turned into one of our songs, "Land of Love". It has been great to record with. I like that it is basically 10 or 12 pedals, which eliminates the fuss and muss of single pedals. The BOSS ME-50 has allowed Solarcade's sound to set itself apart in a musical world of copycats.

The landscape of the music industry has changed drastically in the last several years. What are your thoughts on that, and what role do you think labels play these days in an artist or band’s success?

PV: Well it’s certainly different than it used to be. We’ve built our own following – by touring and pushing this record, and the internet has helped tremendously. Solarcade is an independent band, but we are looking for the right label to get behind the record and nurture it, and hopefully help us get to the next level.

To find out more about Solarcade, visit their MySpace page at www.myspace.com/solarcade.