New material from White Denim sounds so wrong it must be right
Words John Doran
White Denim, a red-hot garage band from Austin, Texas are causing something of a minor kerfuffle. They arrived here on Monday practically unheard of and now, five gigs later on Friday, they’re a hot ticket attracting queues round the block at Camden’s Barfly. It’s easy to understand why when you clap peepers on them: their understanding of sound dynamics is amazing, as is their grip on The Sonics. They play off each other perfectly, vibing on one another’s demented energy.
It’s only recently, though, that White Denim (James Petralli on vocals/guitar, drummer Joshua Block and bass player Steve Terebecki) gave up their day jobs. They now spend most of the time when they’re not touring jamming and practising in Josh’s trailer home.
I suggest to them that it’s interesting, when a form like garage rock is 40 years old, that a band like White Denim can come along and make it sound fresh again. “It might be because we’re, and I may be wrong about this, getting it wrong rather than getting it right,” says Joshua before cracking. “Do you guys even agree with that?”
James ignores him and states: “I think that all of us bring a different sense of what the music we’re making is. There isn’t a consistent view of what we’re doing in the group. Rock music is kind of like a common ground for us as musicians. It is kind of new for us, so maybe that’s why we sound fresh.”
What were you doing before then?
James: “I was doing a lot of ambient guitar stuff. I guess it was rock tinged but never with full-on power chords. I guess I was trying to play jazz a little bit.”
Steve: “I made soundtracks for videos and did other freeform sound experiments.”
Joshua: “I went to jazz school.”
It’s doing them a disservice to call them a garage rock band however.
There are elements of electronic and avant rock involved. Is it difficult to incorporate non-standard garage rock elements into the sound?
James: “Well, the studio is in Josh’s back yard so it’s really easy for us to kick a bunch of ideas around and record songs in different ways. We can play the song live and see how it sounds and keep little elements of it. But we’d start drinking early and keep on laying down ideas until we couldn’t move our fingers any more. That’s probably why it’s all over the place.”
But if you’re keen to groove to the best young garage band out there, get it while it’s hot as they may change direction soon. On his way out of the pub James admits that they were keen not to get tied down to any one style: “We did a new style of music the other day that we decided was like a white trash Daft Punk. We took it to the record company. What did they say? Nothing. I don’t think they particularly cared for it.” And he starts laughing as they walk off toward The Barfly.
