(From the show, photo credit: Geoff Nudelman)
Luke Temple (LT)-Guitar, vocals
Jen Turner (JT)-Bass, Vocals
Michael Bloch (MB)-Guitar
Kristina Lieberson (KL)-Bass
G: How is the tour going?
LT: It’s going great. Our tour with Grizzly Bear just ended in San Francisco and it was amazing.
JT: We also had an awesome drum jam at the Fillmore in San Francisco on the last night of tour. We were banging on coolers; there was hootin’ and hollerin’ and chanting everywhere. It was an hour-and-a half jam session after the whole show was over. At some point there will be Youtube footage of it.
LT: We busted a hole in the wall, actually.
G: Are you guys the type of band that gains a lot from touring with someone established like Grizzly Bear?
MB: We learned a ton.
LT: We had never played stages that big before. We were used to playing smaller spaces with a small PA and in a larger venue, we had to manipulate our sound to make it work. Limited time for soundchecks didn’t help that either. We learned little tricks to maximize our short amount of time.
G: Did the quality of the live show suffer or were you able to compensate?
JT: We have no idea (laughs).
MB: We’re still processing it.
LT: We reached a plateau after a few shows where even if we were tired, we were still performing effectively enough to translate the music.
KL: We had really great reactions from the audience. Especially from people who’ve never heard us before.
JT: That’s the best part.
G: I noticed that HWGM doesn’t stick to one genre; your sound tends to splash in different areas of music. Was this the intention of the band or was it a result of the progression of HWGM?
LT: It’s a way to keep us interested.
MB: It’s not a conceptual design; It’s something we all lean towards.
G: So, you all come from different musical backgrounds?
KL: I learned from hitchhiking around the country.
JT: I studied Jazz and Classical and now I’m doing what I’m doing.
MB: I played nylon-string guitar and studied Flamenco music like rhythmic, percussive playing.
JT: Before this tour, Luke had never played guitar. I taught him a few chords and he picked it up quick.
LT: I’m a hand drum player for the most part, so I tried to adapt that to learning guitar. I don’t necessarily want it to feel like a hand drum, but maybe sound and look like one (laughs).
G: Since HWGM originated in Brooklyn, how has the evolution of the music scene there influenced the band?
LT: There’s a lot of interesting, urgent music being made there right now.
G: Urgent?
LT: There’s a lot of progressive music being made with varied expression. They all tend to get lumped together, but are all quite different. I don’t want to say there’s competition, but there’s a healthy incentive to try to do something really thoughtful and streamlined rather than arbitrary Indie Rock. Since we’re so young as a band (they formed in January, became a quintet in March), we don’t really have a motus operandi.
JT: We’re babies (laughs).
LT: We all share a cohesive vision that’s really hard to articulate right now, and I don’t know if we ever will be able to. But, it’s great to have that shared feeling that we are coming together as a band. It really feels like a band.
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