With their feature in Paste Magazine and CD release show sponsored by Manic Productions, it's hard to be in Connecticut and miss hearing about Wess Meets West these days. Their new record, When The Structures Fail Us, debuted just 2 weeks ago and the band is eager to take the stage with the new material Wednesday night at BAR in New Haven.
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| Sam at his studio, Port City Recording |
I was lucky enough to catch Wess Meets West's Sam Stauff at his studio, Port City Recording, to talk about the progress of the band over the years and learn about the new record.
Wess Meets West's Record Release show is coming up THIS Wednesday at BAR in New Haven with Ports of Spain and Breakthrough Frequencies. Show starts at 9:00 pm and is free so you've got no excuse to sit this one out. For more information on the show, check out the event page HERE
How has Wess Meets West evolved in and
out of the studio for this new record?
Sam: The biggest change has been that half
of the band is new. Andy Porta and Nick Robinson weren’t around for the last
record. Now it’s much more of a community between the four of us, Andy, Nick,
Erick Alfisi and I. The last record was primarily my work with help from Erick
and Jesse Vengrove. This new record is
100% equal between the four of us. We are at the point where everyone pulls
their weight equally. Everyone has their roles and everyone is a song writer.
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S: Nick does all the artwork and visuals.
He’s an amazing artist. Erick handles most of the business and Andy helps with
recording/mixing and business. I do a lot of the recording, mixing and
mastering; I try not to do any business.
This is a bit of business.
S: This is the fun part of it. They book
the shows and handle getting the record out on time. If it were up to me, the
record wouldn’t be out for another two months. They are the realists and I’m a
big jerk about everything. [laughing]
A big jerk?
S: I’m just hard to please. I need to
think it’s perfect for me to be happy with the music and you need to give up
your ego when you are working with other people. For instance– there’s this
piano part that I wrote for one of the songs on the new record and I had it
really loud in the mix. No one else wanted it that loud so I had to turn it
down. It ends up being better in the long run, when you make compromises.
What else makes this album different
from the last?
S: There are a lot more vocals. We all
sing.
Singing or yelling and chanting?
S: Both; there is actual singing on this
album. That’s the part that we are most nervous about. I’m inspired by lyrics
that mean something to me but I was never brave enough to sing before. We’ve
had some kind of vocal part on every release but this one is a little more
forward. We’ve become more comfortable with our own voices. The record is still
very much instrumental, but there is definitely more singing than people would
expect. There are parts of this album that are straight poppy. It goes from
poppy to heavy to electronic to very ambient.
Do you have any shows or plans of
touring in support of the record?
S: Yes, we have several shows lined up.
March 19th is the Connecticut CD Release at BAR, New Haven, with Ports of Spain
and Breakthrough Frequencies. Then March 23rd we play Manhattanville College
with And The Traveler, True Apothecary, and We Are Not Our Bodies. April we are
doing a cd release in New York, and then we have plans for a Northeast tour for
July. We do want to go to Europe within the next few years. We haven’t done any
promotion there, well, nothing on purpose, but we’ve had some reviews that came
out in Russia and Germany. Our friends Deadhorse did a tour in Europe so that
inspired me to think we could as well. Caspian just toured there too, so maybe
post rock bands can make it happen over there.
Aside from that, what’s next for Wess
Meets West?
S: We’ve been getting involved in some
commercial work. When I say “commercial work” it sounds bad but we’ve been
doing some scores for short films and things like that. We’ve already been in a
few films and that is something we want to do a lot more of. It’s just not easy
for us to write short music. We also will continue writing new music and be
more active putting ourselves out there. It’s important for us to have as much
visual stuff as possible and we’ve been thinking a lot about how we want to
present ourselves. We’ve been really quiet for the past year but that will all
change with the new record. We wanted to start fresh. We even talked about
changing the name but it felt wrong so we all nixed that idea.
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S: We had no names. We had nothing.
Maybe that’s why you nixed it.
S: No, as much as we are trying to rebrand
ourselves and make it different, I am proud of what we did in the past with
those old records and EPs and most importantly those people. This record is not
supposed to be replacing Chevaliers; it’s an addition to it. I think the older
EP’s pre-Chevaliers will start to disappear on purpose. I think it’s a mistake to have too much
material out there, especially when you have no intentions of ever playing songs
live from those EP’s. However it is fun to look back and see the growth of a
musical project. It’s like an old yearbook, you’re not going to throw it out,
but you really don’t want to see it every day.
LISTEN TO THE NEW RECORD NOW AND PURCHASE OFF BANDCAMP!
LISTEN TO THE NEW RECORD NOW AND PURCHASE OFF BANDCAMP!
