Fun Fun Fun Fest 2015: Wildhoney Interview

by Tafari Robertson
Assistant Music Director

How was y’alls show? How do you feel playing a late night show that’s tagged on to a festival?

Allen: It was fantastic. All the bands we played with were so good: Girl Pool, Joanna Gruesome, Pity Sex. It’s been a wonderful show so far.

Is it different when you’re playing in sort of a festival atmosphere, even though I know you guys aren’t actually playing the festival, but does it feel different playing in a festival atmosphere as opposed to playing a personal show that you tour with?

Joe: Not this particular show because its with Pity Sex and La Dispute and that’s the tour, so just Joanna Gruesome is the only addition to the gig. So it doesn’t feel that different from playing just a regular show. This one feels a little more punk because it’s a warehouse but not that different.

Something I always wonder about with different bands is: do y’all really rep a Baltimore sound or do you think of yourselves more individually?

Allen: We represent a Baltimore work ethic not necessarily a sound. There’s a lot of different sounds coming out of Baltimore right now but we represent being kind of blue collar. Everyone has a job, everyone is fighting for every thing that we get and, yeah, we have a lot of respect for everyone else in Baltimore too.

How do you think you guys all living in Baltimore has affected your songwriting and the way you guys play?

Allen: Well there’s a certain claustrophobia you get when you live on the east coast. Things are very compacted there. There’s a lot of people in a small area in general, more so in New York or Philly than in Baltimore, but we’re still part of the east coast culturally in a lot of ways. Being in Baltimore, we’re around a lot of injustice and a lot of suffering and there’s no way it doesn’t rub off on us. We see it everyday. It’s part of our everyday reality.

https://wildhoneysound.bandcamp.com/

You guys just released your debut album this January, right? How’s it been touring that and what’s the transition from recording and writing that and then promoting it and going through each stage of that album like?

Joe: We recorded the record about 9 months before it came out so by the time it came out we were already moving forward with just writing more new stuff and at this point we’re more concentrated on the record that just came out two weeks ago. The LP is just… we play songs off of it and we like it but we’re just constantly mentally, artistically moving forward.

Lauren: We’re also still developing what we want our sound to be and experimenting with different things and what feels right. Not in an overly pre-meditated way, just kind of our songwriting has shifted in different directions.

As you’re developing your sound, what is that process like? Are y’all jamming in different ways or what do you think is still changing?

Lauren: I think the songs on the record that just came out we’re pretty much written in the same fashion as the LP but now we’re already starting to look forward to the next thing and with that we’re kind of mixing our songwriting up. In the past it’s been pretty much instrumentals first and then me as the vocalist I kind of help arrange things and give my painted gallery opinions and then write the vocal parts after but for the next one we’re going to try and – me and Joe are just sitting down with guitars and we’re trying to just get the chords and melody first and then try and flesh out everything afterwards. It’s an experiment. We’ll see how it goes.

How does a band like Wildhoney come together? I know you guys are all from Baltimore but can you talk to me a little bit about the manifesting of Wildhoney?

Allen: We all work the same crappy jobs and we all go to the same shows. It’s inevitable that we end up trying to collaborate on creative projects together. Like-minded individuals just kind of find their way together in a city like Baltimore, where creativity flourishes.