Ezra Miller is very elusive, despite the success of his much talked about filmWe Need to Talk About Kevin. Luckily for us, we discovered that he is in a band — a pretty good one at that — and that one of our contributors went to school with one of his bandmates. Meet Sons of an Illustrious Father: Lilah Larson, Sofia Albam, Jake Generalli, Josh Aubin and Ezra Miller.Steff Yotka: I noticed that there are a tonne of teen-girl fansites about you, Ezra.
Ezra Miller: I don’t want to talk about it.No?
Miller: Uh-uh.
Because it makes you feel weird?
Miller: I feel very uncomfortable [laughs]. I’m scared.
Lilah Larson: A fun note, though, is that most of our fans — as a band — are pre-teen girls. A lot of them tell us very interesting things.
What kind of “interesting things”?
Larson: Someone asked us to send her samples of our pubic hair to attach to a giant sculpture of an unfolded skull.
Did you do it?
Miller: No! No way! You don’t want somebody being able to, you know, clone you.
That would be ‘Sons of Sons of an Illustrious Father’.
Miller: Brilliant, but terrifying [laughs]. We don’t want anybody cloning our pubes. No pubic cloning! No! No! No!
How did you land on the band name?
Sofia Albam: I was reading a really bad translation of Plato’s Republic, and someone was mentioned as a “son of an illustrious father”. It was born out of a poorly translated philosophical text. It’s pretty apt.
If you could trade places with any band, which would it be?
Larson: The Band.
Miller: They are literally the band.
Larson: There’s already a The Band cover band called The ‘The Band’ Band, so we’d have to be something else.
‘The Band Band’ Band?
Miller: The ‘The The Band Band’ Band would be better.
Larson: Ezra would be Levon Helm, Jake’s Robbie Robertson, and I’m Rick Danko, because he died young and fat. No, wait — he was old, but still fat [laughs].
If you were given the opportunity to have a superhuman power but you had to give up your musical ability, would you do it?
Miller: Whoa! I don’t know.
Larson: For flying, maybe. I’m not sure. That’s too difficult.
Miller: Could I learn how to play drums again, or would I be completely tone-deaf and musically incompetent?
I guess you could teach yourself how to play drums, but you’d have to start from the absolute beginning.
Miller: Then maybe.
Larson: No. It’s not worth it.
Miller: But flying… I don’t know. Next question.
You just recorded your second album, One Body, in pretty unusual conditions, right?
Miller: It was suicidal and perilous.
Why do you say that?
Larson: We wanted to record an album with this guy Oliver Ignatius.
Miller: I met him on a trampoline on Halloween, and he was like, “Hey, man. Are you in a band? I have a studio.” I said, “I think you’re going to record us.” Then Jake showed up.
Jake Generalli: And then we were like, “We’re all on acid!”
Larson: But his studio was filled with talking birds, so Ezra’s mother graciously let us record at her dance studio during the winter.
Miller: It’s a small house and a massive uninsulated barn on a mountain in Vermont.
Did you ever think that recording in an uninsulated barn in the winter was not such a good idea?
Larson: Well, there was one day when the handyman called us to say, “You can’t go outside today or your eyeballs will freeze.”
Miller: Essentially we put ourselves in this survival scenario. To an outer ear it might sound like a bad idea, but there was something in the struggle of fighting the cold that gave us drive. We gave birth to the necessity that then mothered our invention.
Larson: Which then was sort of a Rosemary’s Baby–type situation [laughs].
Miller: Yeah, but a baby nonetheless.
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This is an excerpt. For the full interview, pick up a copy of Oyster #98, out now!
Interview and Sittings Editor: Steff Yotka
Photography: Stef Mitchell
Production: Georgina Koren
Sons of an Illustrious Father wear all vintage from Amarcord, Fabulous Fanny’s, Resurrection, Screaming Mimi’s and Stella Dallas, except where otherwise noted.
EDIT: All episodes added!! 
