09/26/08
Text: Bianca Barragan
Anthem spoke with Matt Papich (bass), Cale Parks (percussion), and Joe Williams (vocals/keyboards) of White Williams before the second of two sold-out Los Angeles shows with Vampire Weekend and Los Angeles' Abe Vigoda.
Rushing to hasty conclusions based on the cover to White Williams' album Smoke (a hookah exuding gaudily-colored smoke); the lyrical references to blowing snow; and the glossy, glam twinges to their music, it was surprising to find fat-free yogurt and fun-size Mr. Goodbars backstage, but no depravity.
Your album Smoke came out last year. Could you talk a little about the recording process? It took two years to make, am I right?
Joe Williams: Yeah, maybe a year and a half, from the oldest song to the newest song. But it wasn't meant to be a record. I was just kind of making songs, one by one, and I accumulated enough songs for a record. There was actually much more material than what went on [the album]. I just took the sounds that felt like they worked together. But I think when you hear that it took two years to make, [it sounds like] it was this struggle, like there was a goal in mind. But there was no goal. It was just song after song. There wasn't anyone saying, "We want to put this out"—there wasn't really anyone saying anything about it—so it wasn't working in that way. It wasn't like working toward a conclusive thing.
So there was no cohesive theme in mind?
J. W.: Nothing like that. It was just songs. Some of the songs didn't even have names.
When you say "I," you really mean just you, Joe; you recorded this whole album by yourself.
J. W.:I started the project by myself and it was mostly because I didn't really have the opportunity to work with anyone else. I was moving around a lot. I [had] moved to San Francisco and I knew a few people, but I didn't have people to work with. No one had heard my songs. A lot of my friends didn't even know that I was making music at the time, so there was no real opportunity to collaborate. I was also going to school full time, so there was no way that I could tour or have the time to rehearse or play with people. It wasn't until I graduated school and other people found out about my music that I got to know people that I felt like I could talk to and play music with.
Joe, you studied art formally, so did Matt. How do you think your backgrounds in art affects your music and your attitudes toward the band?
Matt Papich: Recently, I think that a lot of the decisions about the visual aesthetic were being considered from a whole other standard. Everything from merchandise to how the T-shirts should look to how things are set up on stage, all of that is talked about.
J. W.:: It makes it fun for us, too, to be talking about those things all at once because you realize that everything kind of impacts everything else. It's not just about the songs.
It's not like we actually talk about what we're going wear or anything like that. But when we talk about art, merchandise, text positions, the way the record should look, the way the record should sound, it makes it more fun. You're part of a project that's more than just playing music and touring in the traditional way. There's that big problem [with] getting more popular in music: the more your music becomes known to a wider audience, the harder it is to preserve any kind of message or identity or anything. It's so easy for things to become misconstrued. So the more control you have over all aspects of what you're doing, the more you can continue [with your idea]. The more people that are involved, the easier it is for a project to completely lose its purpose. For us, its fun to kind of be in charge of more than just the chord changes.
Obviously, though, you make musical decisions well together. Have you three talked about ideas for a second White Williams album?
J. W.:Right now, we're still in the schedule, promoting the first record, so there hasn't been that much opportunity to write collaboratively... In the fall [after the tour ends], we'll start—I'll start working on ideas and we'll take it from there.
M. P.: And all the old songs we play tonight have been remade. Everything is constantly changing. It's just more fun that way.
J.W.: We get way more into it. Before it was like people were taking the record and learning it literally; it was a sterile performance. Now things are a little more loose.
M. P.: The thing that's nice is like the music that you're influenced by can change all the time―even from month to month or from week to week, hear a new song and it'll sound totally alien and something that you want to try to do. So the set is like always staying as fresh as your influences. You're excited about it and hopefully your audience can also recognize what's going on and not feel like they've been let down in some way.
J. W.: And if we can set it up so that every night we can play something a little different, then that would be awesome. It's happening; it's starting to happen.
What music is currently influencing your live sets?
M. P.: This week? There's this Soulja Boy song that is fucking insane. Eric Copeland from the Black Dice's solo project is incredible. Black Dice is incredible. Dub. Dubstep.
J. W.: All modern dance music is kind of interesting in one way or another. I think when we write music, it's not intended that people dance. I mean, it's nice if people do, but it's not like club music in that way. But club music is so influential for us because of the sounds of everything--the way things are mixed. There's just tons of low-end, there's tons of high-end: it's an overload of the senses. It's hard for us not to be influenced by that.
M. P.: The way we listen to things in general... I think that we're always paying attention. Engine sounds, natural sounds are also influential. You'll be driving in your car and the thing you're listening to on the radio is in the same key as the person driving next to you.
Cale Parks: Yeah, if you've ever been in a car and the windshield wipers are in sync—not that it all has to be in sync.
You said you didn't want your music to just make people want to dance, so what do you want your music to do? In your opinion, what does a good song do?
J. W.: My favorite songs confuse me in some way. There are ingredients that aren't supposed to be there. You think, Why is that so loud? That shouldn't have been that way. Someone should have been there to say that's not right. Things like that.
M. P.: There's something king of alien, surprising.
J. W.: Like that Lil' Wayne song, "A Milli," If you just listen to that "a milli a milli a milli a milli," it becomes hypnotic―it loses all language. It sounds like it's going to rain or something. Rap music is so innuendo-based, you're constantly seeing how one simple thing can mean several things.
M. P.: Sometimes [music] sounds like it didn't come from this planet in some way. Or from people right now. Like it's from the future or it's from another place. Unfamiliarity that you can understand, you can recognize something about it.
I was definitely not expecting to hear you cite Lil' Wayne... I mean, Smoke is very T. Rex, Brian Eno, Roxy Music, but then again, you did say that a lot has changed since you recorded the album. Did you grow up on that kind of music?
M. P.:I got into that stuff later on. When I was young, I would listen to punk and hardcore music. It's still extremely relevant today. There's still something from that music that I'm interested in, in terms of it being physically performed, or the volume.
J. W.: Or the way the instruments are defied in a way, the way they're not played the way they're supposed to be or tuned the right way. Those kinds of things are in what we're doing. I was learning guitar a lot as I was playing the songs. All the participation on the record was a first for me. I had been recording for a little bit but I'd never really picked up guitars before that record. I didn't know how to play guitar at all. I've learned a lot more about those things now, though.
