A few minutes with...Whirl

Whirl and their entourage.

Here is my recent email interview with Nick from Whirl, a new shoegaze band out of Northern California. Also, make sure to download the free mp3s below!

How did Whirl come about?
Eddie, Loren, Joey, Sergio and I have all been close friends for about two years now and there had been talk of starting a shoegaze band for a while. I ended up writing rough versions of the songs on the demo through a midi creating program called Tab It and we decided to do it. We knew we needed a girl singer to pull off the sound we were going for, so we asked Byanca. She was super down for it and that's pretty much it.

Where do your rehearse?
We rehearse at Lorens house, in the Orange Room. A room that we decorated with paintings of oranges and bordered the walls with Christmas lights.

What was your best gig so far? why?
We actually haven't played any shows yet, there isn't really much of a music scene for what we play here so until we find somewhere to play or someone to play with we'll just be practicing and getting our set down as solid as possible.

Your demo is available to buy on cassette. Do you think that the cassette format is gaining in popularity again in certain music scenes? And/or was it just an easy format to showcase your music?
Yeah, I do think in certain scenes people are more into the collecting aspect of music, more so toward Vinyl and cassettes.
As for releasing it on cassette, we just felt like we can put up the demo for free digital download for anyone who wants it but for people who really enjoy it and/or want a hard copy or want to support us they can purchase a cassette.


When your band is just hanging out, what music are you probably listening to?
9/10 times it's The Smiths/Morrissey.

What was the first album you ever bought?
Ha ha, I actually got two in the same day, "Wrestlemania: The Album" and "George Thorogood's Greatest Hits".

Any weird phobias and/or band superstitions?
I don't think so, although Loren and I are terrified of spiders.

What's your band's fashion sense/style? Any favourite clothing shops?
Haha, I don't think we have any sort of style. As for myself, wherever sells cheap tank tops and jeans works for me.

Describe your fanbase in 3 words:
Not big enough.

If you could be any other person for a day, who would you be?
That's a tie between Jude Law and John Mayer.

What's better - downloading, still buying CDs, or collecting vinyl?
Sound quality vinyl takes the cake, although downloading is by far the quickest/easiest.

Best band you've seen live?
Rage Against The Machine, Rock the bells 2007

Is there anything (previously unknown) about your band that you'd like to share with the world?
I've known Byanca since kindergarten but I don't believe we said two words to each other since the sixth grade up until this whole band thing, ha ha.

Tell us something interesting about your hometown:
George Lucas is from here and the film "American Graffiti" is based on our town.

And what are your plans for 2010?
Release an EP, play a bunch of shows and hopefully get a decent fan base.

Thanks Nick! x

Download:
Whirl - Meaningless.mp3
Whirl - Leave.mp3

Whirl's myspace