Duo Turns Hard Living Into an Uplifting Sound

The young husband-and-wife duo of Auto & Cherokee has come all the way from the ghettos of Brooklyn with some big ideas for pop music. They’ve only just released their debut album, and already they’re talking about making the next one, learning new instruments, producing a stable of other acts, writing soundtracks and maybe trying a little acting.

In this, they say, the diverse work of producer/composer/musician Quincy Jones is an undeniable influence. But the sound found on Auto & Cherokee’s “Naked Music” album also reveals a preference for the uplifting experimental pop of the Beatles, Prince, Sly Stone and others, mixed with a contemporary hip-hop rhythm.

“It’s been a progression,” says Auto, sitting with his wife in their Van Nuys apartment. “We did a lot of different styles of music, and eventually we found something that had all the elements of the styles of music that we liked, and we fused those together.”

They chose that musical direction back home in an abandoned building in Brooklyn, where Auto & Cherokee (who prefer to keep their full names secret) had established a small home studio and made music.

“We don’t want to sound like everybody else,” Cherokee says. “If we have to take the chance of maybe not getting played for a while on the radio, then that’s what it takes.”

The bland uniformity of some pop radio playlists is a sore point with them. And in their new album, the song “She Eats Like a Lion” begins with some wildly psychedelic verses, but is quickly followed by Cherokee’s voice asking: “What is this crazy world coming to? Everything sounds the same. . . . We need a new twist, with a fonky fonky style.”

The song “is about the record industry and how they just eat up the same sound over and over,” she says.

The couple met eight years ago when Auto was seeking a bass player for his high school rock band. Cherokee, who was then 16, had the instrument, but didn’t yet know how to play it.

“She was very attractive, so I put her down anyway,” Auto says with a laugh. By then, he was playing guitar, keyboards and a variety of horns. “We went through a lot of high school bands, but it didn’t work out. One band sounded too rock, one sounded too R & B, one sounded too funk. We wanted a good blend.”

As songwriters, the couple were rarely at a loss for material, often writing songs around their own experiences in the poor Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook. One new song, simply titled “Homeless,” was inspired by the time some years back when young Auto found himself living outdoors for a month after a bitter argument with his mother.

“Here I am 16 years old, and I’m happy to be out on the street,” he says. “After a couple of days, I realized she fed me, she clothed me. I didn’t realize that’s what kept me going. For a month I actually had to beg people for money to eat.”

That experience ended after Cherokee discovered him sleeping on a park bench and persuaded her mother to invite him to move in with them. “Homeless simply means being without a home, just like during the earthquake or the hurricanes in Florida,” Auto says. “Once your home is gone, I don’t care if you’re a hard-working person, you are homeless.”

About two years ago, the couple were married and moved into the abandoned building, staying indoors to work on their music and avoid the bullets they could hear flying outside. “We got robbed,” Auto says. “It was hard. People got shot a lot. You would hear bullets ringing out, and yet there were families there who were trying to survive and stay together.”

He adds: “There’s so much talent in urban areas like that. And it’s important that people just know that, so it doesn’t die there, without making a difference.”

Now that Auto & Cherokee are themselves comfortably signed to Morgan Creek Records, they’re hoping to help other acts find success under their Apple Children Productions. Among those artists is a 10-year-old Australian rapper named Wade, singer Dawn Monique and an all-female hip-hop group called 4 Ever Yours.

“All recording artists should definitely be involved in the business aspect, and not just let it be handled by other people,” says Auto, explaining why the couple relocated to Los Angeles nine months ago. “We’ve been together for eight years, and we’ve been through various projects and deals, and we’ve been through a lot of trouble. So we decided to stay close to the business and watch it grow.”

Besides their various other plans and projects, Auto & Cherokee are now working toward gathering a band behind them to perform locally and on a national tour early next year. “Our parents were poor, so we never had the opportunity to get lessons,” Auto adds. “We knew we wanted to make it in music, no matter what. We quit our jobs, and for two years we got up and worked 9 to 5 on nothing but our music. Eventually, it’s started to pay off.”