Exclusive Interview: Freelance Whales

DeadJournalist.com Exclusive Interview: Freelance Whales
by Chuck Norton
02.28.10

Freelance Whales

One of the new artists to watch in 2010 is the New York-based band Freelance Whales. With the release of their debut LP, Weathervanes, only a few weeks away on March 16, 2010, the band is set to bring their unique sound to the masses.

Formed in 2008 in Queens, the band has spent much of the last two years honing their craft playing eclectic venues in and around New York such as Staten Island’s Farm Colony, the Boroughs’ subways – and as you will read in this interview – on a yacht in the Hudson River. Last Fall they joined Fanfarlo on their first national tour.

Early in 2009 the band also began recording the layer-filled songs featured on Weathervanes. Comprised of Judah Dadone, Kevin Read, Doris Cellar, Jake Hyman and Chuck Criss, the band is chock full of multi-instrumental musicians.

In describing the band’s sound, the music magazine, NME said, “It’s awash with gentle, naive bliss, and if you’re the type that likes to observe hooks blossoming with the pace of an actual flower opening, then you might have just found a new favorite band.”

With an opening slot on one of the Spring’s best tours – with fellow New Yorkers Cymbals Eat Guitars and Bear In Heaven – the band is gearing up for a tour that includes festival dates at SXSW and Sasquatch.

Freelance Whales will begin their Spring 2010 tour schedule with a March 1 show with Shout Out Louds at the Music Hall of Willisamsburg in Brooklyn before hitting the road with Bear In Heaven and Cymbals Meet Guitars, beginning with a March 3 performance in Philadelphia. (Click here for complete tour dates.)

MP3 – Freelance Whales – Generator 2nd Floor

For more information on the band, visit their Web site: www.freelancewhales.com.

DeadJournalist.com brings you this exclusive interview with Chuck Criss of Freelance Whales.

With the release of the band’s debut album, Weathervanes, next month do you find that you have more of a sense of accomplishment or that the release of the album is just a step in the process?

Freelance Whales - Weathervanes

CC: Well, we felt accomplished if we could just get people to listen to us in the subways or just have people that weren’t our friends come to shows. So it’s definitely not just another step in the process. We’re very grateful and excited for the Frenchkiss/Mom+Pop release. Can’t wait to see what happens.

Did the band find similar sources of inspiration when writing the songs for Weathervanes? Were they written as a collective or were they written individually and brought to the group for finishing?

CC: All of the songs on the record kind of came from the same place. Musically, the inspiration came from the instruments themselves. The banjo, harmonium, glockenspiel, etc were foreign instruments to us and it allowed us to step out of our comfort zone and come up with new ideas.

Lyrically, the ideas came about from Judah, who had been dream logging for about a year. Judah had been mocking up these ideas with instrumentation as the band was forming. He did the majority of the writing, but the group put the finishing touches on the record before it was done.

Did the songs evolve from how they were originally structured until the final album version? Have they evolved since?

CC: A few songs have been restructured to tailor to our live show, which is much more brash and aggressive. Fans of the record will notice some songs have been elongated or have extra parts not heard on Weathervanes. I think our songs will continue to evolve and be restructured live to keep us and the fans interested in coming back.

What was your first exposure to music? Was there a point where you knew being a musician was what you wanted to do for the foreseeable future?

CC: All five of us are in love with music and have very diverse backgrounds with how we got into it.

For me personally, I remember borrowing my friends four-track tape recorder in high school and learned how to (poorly) multi-track. I became consumed by the process of putting parts together, and there was no turning back from there.

It’s funny to listen back to what I was going for then. It was a kind of chili peppers/banjo/too much wah pedal funk/rambling high school album.

Having spent much of the band’s first years together playing in and around the New York boroughs, how did the experience of your first North American tour enhance both your live performances and your musical scope?

CC: When we first started playing New York, we would play at most three shows a month. When we got on tour, we played more shows in a month than we had done in six months of shows. So, we definitely got tighter as a group both personally and musically.

We also got more comfortable living on stage with our instruments. We had a hard time in the beginning since a lot of the acoustic instruments are susceptible to feedback, but the set up in much more figured out now.

Freelance Whales

What is the biggest challenge of live performances? What is the most enjoyable part?

CC: Like I just mentioned, the biggest challenge is how intricate our stage setup is. In addition to the acoustic instruments, we have all of our synths and guitars as well as vocals mics for all five of us.

The biggest challenge is getting a good mix from a sound guy we just met. We normally get a pretty good mix, but it’s definitely a challenge communicating everything we want in what is normally a pretty rushed or non-existent sound check.

Luckily after that, we can just play a show and have a good time interacting with the space we’re in.

Which do you enjoy more, performing live or writing and recording?

CC: Both of those things kind of cyclically feed each other so it’s hard to say. Writing and recording is a more personal process and performing live is the gratification that you can give it back. So I would have to say that performing live is more enjoyable. It’s amazing what an energy from a crowd can do to inject new life into a song.

You about to hit the road again – on what I think is one of the better tours of the Spring 2010 season – joining Cymbals Eat Guitars and Bear In Heaven on tour. Since both bands now call New York home; were you friends/acquaintances with the band members in advance of tour or what is just a label pairing?

CC: We did a short five day tour with Bear in Heaven about a month ago. They’re really great dudes and bad-ass musicians, so we can’t wait to go on the road with them again. We were trying to do a tour in and out of SXSW, and Bear in Heaven were already slated with Cymbals Eats guitars for those dates, so it proved to be a good fit.

Given the band’s experience in performing in unique settings; is there one performance that stands out due to the bizarre nature of events?

CC: We got asked to play on a 650 foot schooner in New York. We got excited because we thought we would sail around the Hudson [River] and play music and enjoy the open sea. Of course when we got there, for safety reasons the boat wasn’t allowed to leave and had to stay anchored. It still rocked back and forth a lot, and I got kind of sea sick, but at least we can say that we played on a boat.

Is there an artist that you’ve encountered recently that you’ve been recommending to your friends?

CC: We brought this band on tour with us called Animal Tropical. We first saw them play at Pianos some time last year when we were first starting out and happened to be on the same bill. We were blown away by the musicianship and more importantly, how great performers they are. Its Miami/Cuban influenced spastic and updated punk music. We can’t get enough.

What were you listening to in 2000?

CC: Whatever Carson told me to.

Which do you prefer: MP3, CD, Tape or Vinyl?

CC: mini-disk.

Web site(s) you read regularly?

CC: youface.com

One Drink; One Movie; One Album:

CC: Coconut water; ‘Taken’; Gorilla Manor (Local Natives)