11th Hour Online

11 Questions The Whigs

by Chris Horne

Amid the clamor for banging dance-club beats, and soft-sung folk, one can hear the first shots being fired in the revolution to reclaim rock as the bar’s favorite music—that louder, more aggressive genre for whom attitude is as important a factor as song structure. Of course, it seems natural to find an Athens band in the thick of things. The Whigs hit the road over four years ago, gigging all over the country, spreading the sound of this gospel in as many joints as they can book. After their debut, “Give ‘Em All a Big Fat Lip”, national magazines fell all over themselves to spew praise. For example: Rolling Stone called them one of the ten bands to watch, alongside emerging acts like Wolfmother, Bonde Do Role and Papoose. On January 4th, they return to Macon, to the Hummingbird, playing in support of their sophomore effort, “Mission Control”, which is being released on January 22nd by Dave Matthews’ label, ATO Records. Fortunately for us, despite the harried nature of holiday travel, lead singer/guitarist/songwriter Parker Gispert took a few minutes out of his day off to talk to The 11th Hour—he also correctly predicted the Bulldawgs’ Sugar Bowl victory. Not bad for a day’s work. – Chris Horne

1) You last played Macon on the heels of your first album’s buzz, and now you come in advance of your second album. Does that change the way you go into a show? (Watch a Video of Them At the 40 Watt Here)

It has, but in a good way. We just have more songs to choose from, which is a nice thing. Having a new batch of songs you can put into a set list, it makes it fun for me, after all the touring we’ve done, to have different songs to play each night, having the ability to play stuff off the old record that we might not’ve played in a while.

2) Have you spent much time in Macon before, or is it just when you come for a show?

It’s probably only been when we’ve done shows, but we’ve stayed the next day, walked around, that kinda thing. We’d go visit the record store that’s downtown, the one with all the cassettes—I love that place.

Chris: I hate to tell you it’s gone now.

Parker: What? Are you serious? That sucks. I love cassettes. That place was great. The great thing about cassettes is that they’re so cheap that when you find a place like that place—stuff you don’t want to risk buying on CD—you can afford to pick up those albums for a dollar so if they suck it doesn’t matter.

Chris: Did you ever have a cassette player in your car?

Parker: I did. I still do have one in my car. I rock the cassettes. When I got the car, I tried to find one that had a cassette player in it. CD player’s in there too; it’s a hybrid. Same thing with vinyl. I just like to listen to things on what they were intended to be played on, what they were originally recorded on. Now it’s heading into more headphone listening.

3.) How do you think the medium affects your approach to making music? It seems like it’d be hard to rock out on headphones.

That’s definitely something that we thought about when we were recording the album. The first record sounds—my favorite way to listen to it was in a car turned up really loud. I think that’s the way it sounds the best. I didn’t really like the way it sounded on quiet listens; it was just so much softer than lots of albums. We definitely had the intention of making this one rock at a low volume. When you put on headphones, it sounds really full, really rockin’. It’s definitely different in that way.

4) Going into your first record, it seems you were trying to meet the demands of your fans to put out a CD to sell. This second album, you’ve got a record label behind you, you’re in all sorts of national magazines—does that affect the creative process for you, did you feel like you had to play to what people expected? Listen to some tracks from their new album here.

No. I think we’re fortunate in the fact that, despite getting a lot of press attention, we’re still just a very small band. We weren’t in a position like someone like The Arcade Fire, who’s a much bigger band, who probably had a lot more pressure to deliver a certain kind of record. I don’t think you can ever let those kinds of things interrupt you anyway. It’s about making a record that you’re happy with. We talked about, from a production stand-point, there’s certain things when you make a record that you’d like to improve upon. Those are ways to challenge yourself when you set out to do the next one.

5) At the Open Mic Madness at Smith’s Olde Bar in 2003, you won this prize package that included vocal lessons and studio time and all that. Did that help at all or did it just give you the illusion of being an upcoming band?

It was definitely helpful. There was recording time involved in that and any time you get to go into the studio, it’s just a huge learning experience. I remember reading somewhere, when the first record came out, someone said that we’d already gone to the studio to try to record this album multiple times before. That just wasn’t true. The first time we went in was because we’d won the time. We went in knowing we weren’t going to record an album but it gave us the ability to mess around with stuff because it was free, we weren’t paying for it. For instance, there’s this idea I had—you know, the band’s a three-piece: the bass is on one side, the guitar’s on the other and the drums are in the middle—I thought it might be cool to record the band as you might see it visually. Have the bass panned all the way to the left, guitar panned all the way to the right, and have the drums fill it all out; keep it real straight that way. We did that when we went in there—it was a real bad idea but that’s what we were able to do with that.

6) How’ve you kept your head and your focus in the midst of all the mounting press and praise, people calling you ‘the next big thing’?

For whatever reason, we haven’t thought of it that way. Those things are true and it’s definitely very flattering, but the band is still a really small band. We still show up in South Dakota and play to fifteen people. It’s not like we went from being students to being in the biggest band in the world. We’re playing maybe the least popular genre of music right now, which is rock music.

7) You told Rolling Stone that the band’s crazy, dedicated touring schedule is "like a mission." Is that philosophy the genesis for the title your second album?

Yeah, kinda in a weird way. I remember when the Rolling Stone thing came out—I try not to read that much press, but it was the first time we were in a major magazine—I ran out and read it, and I remember being kind of surprised that I said that. I don’t feel like we’re on a mission or that we were on a mission, but yeah, when I was writing the song, it was definitely part of it. It’s about getting to where you want to go on your own terms.

8) It seems like everything that’s written about The Whigs—or any Athens band, for that matter—invariably brings up REM, and sometimes the B-52s or Drive-By Truckers. How much does it really matter, in your opinion, that you’re from Athens?

It definitely doesn’t hurt us by any means. It’s just funny when people come up to you after a show and ask where you’re from and you say Athens, it’s just like this reaction—“Where’re you from?” “Athens.” “REM!” Not even a question. It just happens, comes shooting out of their mouths.

9) Have you ever heard any comparisons to a band that took you off-guard? Any that annoy you?

No, but I will say that early on the Replacements thing would come up, and we’d never listened to The Replacements. Since then, I’ve got through their catalogue and heard all the records but we finished the first record before any of us had ever listened to them. It’s just how people who write about music talk about music. It’s how we talk about stuff, how musicians talk about stuff. You know, like “I was trying to make it a little more David Gilmour-y.” It’s just a good way to communicate.

10) What bands have influenced you?

I’ve seen Pavement come up, and they were definitely a huge influence on us. As much time as we spend in the van, there’s a lot of things that influence us. You spend eight hours a day there, that’s seven records you can listen to. …Maybe I’m too close to the music, but I don’t really think we sound just like The Replacements or just like Pavement. Maybe some of the things that are important to us are important to them and that’s what you hear. Maybe I’m wrong.

11) Athens is still awash in the second wave of Elephant 6 bands, like Of Montreal and Elf Power, but it’s clear that The Whigs are coming out of a newer crop. Is there as much collaboration in this emerging Athens music scene, or is the coda completely different?

It’s tough for me to speak for other people. I’ll say, as an outsider to the Elephant 6 stuff—we’re definitely not a part of that—I grew up loving those records. One reason that I moved here, I was a huge Elf Power fan, huge Of Montreal fan, Olivia Tremor Control. Obviously they all played on each other’s records and they had much more of a communal thing. I don’t think we have a community like Elephant 6 was, but there’s definitely people around town who you feel you have a lot in common with, who you see eye-to-eye with, you understand each other—when we had trouble with people quitting or whatever, we were fortunate to live in a place like Athens to have those kinds of people around to help us out.

Chris: Any Athens bands currently getting your attention?

Parker: Yeah, I really like Venice Is Sinking. I think they’re fantastic. The Ginger Envelope, too. The Glands were always just the band that we rallied behind. We just liked what they did. They were sort of a model for what we wanted to do.

Chris: In what way?

Parker: Just all their songs were always really well written. Their drummer, Joe Roe, was just a really hooky drummer, had really memorable drum parts. They did a lot of things in context of an album, in the context of 14 songs—they just covered a lot of ground and were the kind of band we always wanted to be. To not have a particular sound but to put the songs first.