Westerly Interview
Q: Can you talk about the musical history of the band and how Westerly became a band
A: So, Westerly has been a part of my life now for around four years, but the line up and even the direction of the band has always been in a state of change. We did our first album as a two-piece right after I’d left college and moved back up north to the San Francisco Bay Area. The songs were really political and personal and I was drawing on a lot of the early folk music that I had grown hearing from my parents’ generation and mixing that with the energy and lyricism of the East Bay Punk bands that I grew up listening to. I was really excited by that album; it was better writing than I’d ever done in any other band before, but the songs were quiet and small and I was just very unsure about how to present or perform them. I couldn’t see them working in a venue and I wasn’t brave enough to stand on stage and sing these quiet songs to a loud bar. I’d always played with a band, and these songs were just so small that they made me nervous. So I just wrote and recorded and didn’t do much else.
At the time, the band was myself and a woman I was seeing. We ended up having a rough falling out and I had this mini-breakdown and found myself hiding out in Southern California trying to nurse myself back to sanity. In the course of two weeks, I wrote every song on the second album. They were all just heartbreak songs and I felt very, very alone with them. So, I called up three friends who I had played in bands with for years and we got together over a week to hash out full-band versions and then hit the studio. The result was Spirits and the Voice of Reason. The songs were bigger and more rock n’ roll, so I started promoting the album and we ended up playing just about ever week at venues around the Bay. We got a little air-play and a lot of very kind words. I really spent that time trying to be recognized by the Bay Area scene as simply a member of whatever was going on. I wanted to know all the venues and as many bands as possible.
That was an incredibly exciting time for us. I was meeting amazing musicians and they added to the band. At the same time, I began to feel like I was finally writing songs that I really loved and that were coming from a reflective and sincere place. These weren’t just like broken heart songs or introspective ballads, I was finally writing and crafting something I was proud of. A lot of those songs become Fire in the Evergreens.
I asked an old friend who I had been in a children’s choir with, Leah Woodard, to come sing with us and she brought her amazing jazz sensibilities. We also found Gordon Allen playing fiddle for a really great Bay Area singer/songwriter, Lisa Marie Johnston. We opened up a gig for them and he came up after the show and asked to be part of whatever we were doing. His violin and voice helped create beautiful three part harmonies and add a bit of a more upbeat pop sensibility to a lot of the songs. I also was working with some of my oldest friends and musical collaborators, Scott Wilson and Brandon Seinturier, who always add a bigger grungy, punk ethos and also just make me feel very comfortable. On that album, our good friend Ben Bernstein recorded and produced as well as playing bass. Then, right after we finished, we found Jeff Peck, an incredibly well rounded musician in perfect Americana instincts, to take over the bass for all our gigs.
I’ve been really lucky to work with this group of people. They have supported my songwriting and added so much to it. I can’t believe how talented these guys are and honestly I just feel lucky they listen to some of my ideas about songs!
Q: Your output has been prolific since 2015. Three albums deep and no signs of slowing down. How are you able to generate this much music at a constant pace?
A: I guess we’ve put out a lot of songs, but it never feels like it. I write slow and I’m always worried that I’m not working enough. I have five or six songs rolling around my head at any time so even if each one takes two months, they all kind of show up on a regular basis.
I definitely feel a constant need to be working on music, though. These songs are my passion and when I’m not writing, I feel like I’m letting myself down. I don’t want to be content with being noncreative. I think songwriting is a skill you can quickly lose if you let yourself get rusty or if you just wait for magical inspiration. Writing one song gets the ball rolling to write two songs and it keeps building.
Q: What is your creative process like?
A: I find that creativity just really takes time and inspiration. I am constantly looking for new music, new songs, new stories, new shows, new books. With all of that, I’ll have a lot of vague ideas running around in my head, but that never produces anything until I become very, very intentional about creating time to create. That’s hard because you can spend an hour with a guitar and come away with nothing, but if you don’t do it, you never run into a lick or riff you like. One way I’ve been making that time lately is by forcing myself to turn off all my music, podcasts, or news and just sit with my own brain during my commutes. I think when I get that quiet, something always tends to come up and then I do the grind of following that thought until it opens up into a song.
Q: Can you talk about some of themes and concepts on your latest album? Fire in the Evergreens?
A: This latest album draws on a mix of experiences and personalities of the San Francisco Bay. There are stories of the housing crisis, addiction, obsession, justice and spiritual struggle, which really make up the themes that I feel most comfortable working in. I try to tell the stories of the people who surround me, but they always end up filtered through my own semi-fatalistic lens.
I think the songs hold these really idealistic concepts of how strong love is supposed to be or how justice will always come or how people of integrity will always win out, but then the final note of each story seems to be that in reality, or in the lived experience, nothing ever seems to turn out the way it’s supposed to. That’s where I find my creativity and expression: in a balance between truly believing in these grand ideals but never feeling as though I see them fulfilled. That’s also the space that I hope my music helps bring light to. I want to inspire people and give them strength and courage in moments where life seems like a disappointing struggle.
Q: One significant difference between your first and third album is the addition of percussion. What are some of the changes you think happened between those albums?
A: Well, Brandon Seinturier is one of my absolute best friends. He’s played with me in several bands for over eight years now and when he gets behind the drum kit, I just trust him with my songs. Also, between the first and third album, we played a ton of shows. We spent a lot of hours working on how to build music together and I think you can see it in the way the percussion has evolved. We’re doing pretty straightforward singer/songwriter stuff, but then we lean into our punk or hardcore influences and come out with something a bit tougher, a bit harder and more powerful.
I don’t like thinking of myself as a solo songwriter. I have always seen my work as part of the collaboration of the many people in the band. It’s a communal creation and Brandon’s drumming is really one of the best examples of that.
Q: What else can we expect from Westerly? Shows, videos, etc?
A: We’re constantly playing in the Bay Area. For the moment we’re taking a short break to focus on recording and working on new projects, but we’ll ramp up the shows pretty soon. I want to expand what we do and think about new ways to get our music in front of our fans.
Currently, we’re working on some new music videos and thinking about how we can tell stories visually in complementary ways with the music. We’re also building up a catalogue of songs and home recording capabilities so that we can release new material on a much more frequent basis. That will look like singles, short EPs and eventually the next album.
I’m also working on a project to write three short stories that will be paired with three new songs, basically trying to tell as many sides of a story as possible. That will be our next bigger push and I’m incredibly excited about the way that project is turning out.
If folks are interested in what we do, we’d love for them to follow up on Instagram and Facebook. We’ll be staying in touch and putting out new and exciting stuff regularly!
Q: Can you talk about the musical history of the band and how Westerly became a band
A: So, Westerly has been a part of my life now for around four years, but the line up and even the direction of the band has always been in a state of change. We did our first album as a two-piece right after I’d left college and moved back up north to the San Francisco Bay Area. The songs were really political and personal and I was drawing on a lot of the early folk music that I had grown hearing from my parents’ generation and mixing that with the energy and lyricism of the East Bay Punk bands that I grew up listening to. I was really excited by that album; it was better writing than I’d ever done in any other band before, but the songs were quiet and small and I was just very unsure about how to present or perform them. I couldn’t see them working in a venue and I wasn’t brave enough to stand on stage and sing these quiet songs to a loud bar. I’d always played with a band, and these songs were just so small that they made me nervous. So I just wrote and recorded and didn’t do much else.
At the time, the band was myself and a woman I was seeing. We ended up having a rough falling out and I had this mini-breakdown and found myself hiding out in Southern California trying to nurse myself back to sanity. In the course of two weeks, I wrote every song on the second album. They were all just heartbreak songs and I felt very, very alone with them. So, I called up three friends who I had played in bands with for years and we got together over a week to hash out full-band versions and then hit the studio. The result was Spirits and the Voice of Reason. The songs were bigger and more rock n’ roll, so I started promoting the album and we ended up playing just about ever week at venues around the Bay. We got a little air-play and a lot of very kind words. I really spent that time trying to be recognized by the Bay Area scene as simply a member of whatever was going on. I wanted to know all the venues and as many bands as possible.
That was an incredibly exciting time for us. I was meeting amazing musicians and they added to the band. At the same time, I began to feel like I was finally writing songs that I really loved and that were coming from a reflective and sincere place. These weren’t just like broken heart songs or introspective ballads, I was finally writing and crafting something I was proud of. A lot of those songs become Fire in the Evergreens.
I asked an old friend who I had been in a children’s choir with, Leah Woodard, to come sing with us and she brought her amazing jazz sensibilities. We also found Gordon Allen playing fiddle for a really great Bay Area singer/songwriter, Lisa Marie Johnston. We opened up a gig for them and he came up after the show and asked to be part of whatever we were doing. His violin and voice helped create beautiful three part harmonies and add a bit of a more upbeat pop sensibility to a lot of the songs. I also was working with some of my oldest friends and musical collaborators, Scott Wilson and Brandon Seinturier, who always add a bigger grungy, punk ethos and also just make me feel very comfortable. On that album, our good friend Ben Bernstein recorded and produced as well as playing bass. Then, right after we finished, we found Jeff Peck, an incredibly well rounded musician in perfect Americana instincts, to take over the bass for all our gigs.
I’ve been really lucky to work with this group of people. They have supported my songwriting and added so much to it. I can’t believe how talented these guys are and honestly I just feel lucky they listen to some of my ideas about songs!
Q: Your output has been prolific since 2015. Three albums deep and no signs of slowing down. How are you able to generate this much music at a constant pace?
A: I guess we’ve put out a lot of songs, but it never feels like it. I write slow and I’m always worried that I’m not working enough. I have five or six songs rolling around my head at any time so even if each one takes two months, they all kind of show up on a regular basis.
I definitely feel a constant need to be working on music, though. These songs are my passion and when I’m not writing, I feel like I’m letting myself down. I don’t want to be content with being noncreative. I think songwriting is a skill you can quickly lose if you let yourself get rusty or if you just wait for magical inspiration. Writing one song gets the ball rolling to write two songs and it keeps building.
Q: What is your creative process like?
A: I find that creativity just really takes time and inspiration. I am constantly looking for new music, new songs, new stories, new shows, new books. With all of that, I’ll have a lot of vague ideas running around in my head, but that never produces anything until I become very, very intentional about creating time to create. That’s hard because you can spend an hour with a guitar and come away with nothing, but if you don’t do it, you never run into a lick or riff you like. One way I’ve been making that time lately is by forcing myself to turn off all my music, podcasts, or news and just sit with my own brain during my commutes. I think when I get that quiet, something always tends to come up and then I do the grind of following that thought until it opens up into a song.
Q: Can you talk about some of themes and concepts on your latest album? Fire in the Evergreens?
A: This latest album draws on a mix of experiences and personalities of the San Francisco Bay. There are stories of the housing crisis, addiction, obsession, justice and spiritual struggle, which really make up the themes that I feel most comfortable working in. I try to tell the stories of the people who surround me, but they always end up filtered through my own semi-fatalistic lens.
I think the songs hold these really idealistic concepts of how strong love is supposed to be or how justice will always come or how people of integrity will always win out, but then the final note of each story seems to be that in reality, or in the lived experience, nothing ever seems to turn out the way it’s supposed to. That’s where I find my creativity and expression: in a balance between truly believing in these grand ideals but never feeling as though I see them fulfilled. That’s also the space that I hope my music helps bring light to. I want to inspire people and give them strength and courage in moments where life seems like a disappointing struggle.
Q: One significant difference between your first and third album is the addition of percussion. What are some of the changes you think happened between those albums?
A: Well, Brandon Seinturier is one of my absolute best friends. He’s played with me in several bands for over eight years now and when he gets behind the drum kit, I just trust him with my songs. Also, between the first and third album, we played a ton of shows. We spent a lot of hours working on how to build music together and I think you can see it in the way the percussion has evolved. We’re doing pretty straightforward singer/songwriter stuff, but then we lean into our punk or hardcore influences and come out with something a bit tougher, a bit harder and more powerful.
I don’t like thinking of myself as a solo songwriter. I have always seen my work as part of the collaboration of the many people in the band. It’s a communal creation and Brandon’s drumming is really one of the best examples of that.
Q: What else can we expect from Westerly? Shows, videos, etc?
A: We’re constantly playing in the Bay Area. For the moment we’re taking a short break to focus on recording and working on new projects, but we’ll ramp up the shows pretty soon. I want to expand what we do and think about new ways to get our music in front of our fans.
Currently, we’re working on some new music videos and thinking about how we can tell stories visually in complementary ways with the music. We’re also building up a catalogue of songs and home recording capabilities so that we can release new material on a much more frequent basis. That will look like singles, short EPs and eventually the next album.
I’m also working on a project to write three short stories that will be paired with three new songs, basically trying to tell as many sides of a story as possible. That will be our next bigger push and I’m incredibly excited about the way that project is turning out.
If folks are interested in what we do, we’d love for them to follow up on Instagram and Facebook. We’ll be staying in touch and putting out new and exciting stuff regularly!