‘No Silence In A Room Of Noise’ - Wahl Give Their All
Traceability is a funny thing. Most people these days find new music via a streaming service. Not in this case, I know exactly where I was when I started on a path that would lead me to this band. I was at Hyde Park waiting to see Paul Simon perform music from his game-changing 1986 work 'Graceland' on July 15th 2012 when I saw Nina Nesbitt performing in a tent at the back of the venue. Later I'd see Alexa Mullins support Nina at The Scala. I followed Alexa's instagram where she shared information about her producer, the rising star Lauren Deakin Davies. Lauren also has a band performing her own music under the name DIDI. DIDI's bass player, Pen Churchill has a project of his own called The Motion, and their drummer, Kayleigh Cheer, is the drummer for this band, Wahl. It took seven years, but one of the first things I found out about Kayleigh was that she watched Paul Simon performing live, through a fence in Hyde Park, on July 15th 2012.
Wahl are a duo of star-crossed collaborators in the form of Rachel Still and the aforementioned Kayleigh Cheer. Kayleigh has sat behind the kit for a number of artists including Meggie Brown, Friedberg, Horny Robots and even recorded soundtrack work for the BBC's 'Guilt'. Her knowledge of music is vast, her jazz collection is rad, and her quest for increasing both is ongoing. Rachel Still is a prolific songwriting monarchy whose art stretches across mediums. A poet passionate for sound-design and increasing production prowess, she lends her voice to Choir Noir (whose credits include Bring Me The Horizon and Frank Turner) whilst playing keys with Meggie Brown. Still and Cheer have been friends and experimenting with music for nine years, but their first release as Wahl came in September 2018.
'Walk Away' is Wahl's first single, backed with b-side 'Run In The Fire'. Filled with pounding drums, a thick bassline and a guitar sound that could march into battle, Walk Away is easily one of Wahl's more conventional songs, and the perfect way to introduce themselves. The video, shot by Wahl and produced by Rachel Still is largely a performance based piece, fitting for such a performance based song. Interspersed with stock footage, the list of contributions is numerous, but the effect is staggering.
Wahl closes out 2018 with their second single 'Heaven Knows', a more evenly paced track with inventive drumming from Kayleigh Cheer. Kayleigh's tom work is a particular feature of Wahl's music, circling Rachel's melodies like a hunter. This is also true for the single's b-side, 'T.V.', a song Wahl discusses at length in our interview. The Heaven Knows music video, this time produced by Wahl, features kaleidoscopic imagery used to great effect in warping a mundane bus journey into something more savoury. Such is the success of this, the single artwork inherits the look.
It was just a few months later when I found Wahl and began absorbing these four songs. I first saw them perform in the Waterloo bar 26 Leake Street. Sandwiched between a bill of H. Grimace and Italia 90, Wahl totally blew me away. The venue's amps looked like they'd been dug out of a skip and the drums had been dropped off a cliff, but I was so impressed with the sound that emanated from them. I was intimidated by Rachel's unwavering stage presence, especially as she abandoned her microphone in the last number, 'Waiting'. Walking confidently through the crowd, singing the final notes of the song, this was just one of many I hadn't heard before. The duo were augmented by Diego Perez-Guillermo on bass guitar. It's rare, but not unknown for Wahl to perform without backing musicians. In addition to performing Walk Away and T.V., they also played 'Waiting To Find Everything', 'Give It All' and 'Always Gonna Be This Way', their upcoming single.
Produced by Margo Broom, Always Gonna Be This Way has a more electronic flavour than Wahl's previous singles. The opening sound effect reminds me of the unscrewing of the cylinder in Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds. That effect was achieved by unscrewing a lid in a toilet bowl, I imagine it's not quite the same here. This continues through the track as electronic drums and bass lock in to drive the song forward. There are acoustic drums too, building up like the introduction to the Dire Straits classic 'Money for Nothing'. Melody is carried on guitar, but the real star of the show is Rachel's voice and superb lyric. The choir-like backing vocal is all Wahl's vocalist, I was floored the first time I heard it, and every time since. The b-side here is a different recording of this track, subtitled as the 'Wahl Mix'. This version of the song is closer to the live performances, as the electronic instrumentation was absent from their live set.
I raced across London after a Rick Wakeman gig in July to catch Wahl headlining The Old Blue Last as a duo, where they debuted a new track - 'San Jose'. Between the end of July and early August, Wahl embarked on their first tour, a few dates across Europe playing as a duo, an adventure I would've traded my handsome earlobes to chronicle. Wahl played The Finsbury in early September, their first U.K. show since the tour. In addition to Diego on bass, Emily Aldrich was on guitar here, also a member of DIDI's band.
San Jose was released at the beginning of November, this and Always Gonna Be This Way would feature on Wahl's first EP entitled 'Exit Pt. 1'. San Jose opened the EP with a myriad of synths. Kayleigh's trademark tom work was ever present, increasing in intensity as the track progressed, adding ride without missing a beat. The yearning in this track is unreal, 'Come, come, come to me, I will wait for you. Oh take me home again.' The passion with which Rachel performs this song live is unparalleled. It isn't just from the heart, it's from the soul too. It twists away in a fade out like the feeling never dies.
Give It All is track three. I love the pseudo theremin introduction. I can imagine this having been written as you hear it with the guitar part. This underpins the atmosphere in the background, certainly giving it more of an edge than it would if it was left bare. The studio version differs from its live counterpart in that Kayleigh doesn't feature on the EP version, live though, the piece is elevated by being played with a full band. The line 'There's no peace in a time of war, no silence in a room of noise,' is particularly apt right now.
By the time the EP came out, I was well acquainted with Waiting. I'd heard it more stripped down than the studio version, which has some keyboard in it too. Something I like about Wahl's studio output is the lashings of reverb on the vocals, which people tend to shy away from in this day and age. It harks back to shoegaze or dream-pop, I feel myself drawing comparisons to Slowdive or Cocteau Twins in my mind. There is percussion here too, is that a triangle tickling my right ear? Waiting fades like it does in the live environment as if Rachel is relinquishing her microphone in the studio, leaving only her "Ooo's". Kayleigh switches to playing the drums by hand here, tapping them with her fingers, still audible, but giving more control as if each finger has its own tone.
Officially, the next track, 'Berlin', finishes off Exit Pt. 1, but I like to see it as an interlude between Parts 1 and 2. It's a curiosity in the Wahl catalogue so far as it's an instrumental. You can hear sound effects of birds. The sizzle of guitar in your right ear. Feedback. The real highlight for me though is the drums, their sound, and the drummer behind the kit. After a stampede of low tom, Kayleigh goes into a beat alternating between hi-hat and snare drum. The room she plays in is enormous even if the room might not exist at all. I had to ask Kayleigh about this in our conversation. In a strange sort of way, I could see this opening Wahl live performances, and then going into something like Walk Away, though reverb is a must.
Wahl returned to the stage at The Finsbury on the day of Exit Pt. 1's release and performed two new songs, 'The Future', which remains unreleased, and 'Eye of the Storm', a single from the upcoming 'Exit Pt. 2' EP. They also performed a cover of Sharon Van Etten's 'Seventeen' and this time they were augmented by Jimmy Burgess on bass and Paul Shine on keys and backing vocals. Recreating their keyboard sound live brings Wahl one step closer to fully realising their musical environment on stage. The band performed again in this configuration in February at The Old Blue Last, performing the same set, an excellent glimpse of Wahl's past and future.
While we're on the subject of covers, Wahl has taken to uploading the odd one here and there. A great example of this is their rendition of Brian Eno and John Cale's 'Lay My Love'. Watching the video shows in real-time how they created this piece with a nine-way split-screen revealing the band's creative process. Kayleigh is seen on snare, maraca, cowbell, toms and even bass guitar, while Rachel is singing lead, playing three guitar parts, a keyboard and backing vocals. Both John Cale and Brian Eno are strong influences on Wahl, so covering a track by both seems a fitting tribute.
And now we're on the brink of Wahl's Exit Pt. 2 EP being released in July, the band have very kindly shared the tracks with me so that I may write about them. 'Tomorrow' is this EP's first single, it received a premiere via BBC Introducing and was officially released on May 1st. The piece opens with sound effects of children outside, a distant keyboard, and then a delicate piano brings in Rachel's voice in what is their best work so far. There's bass, a guitar, synth, the drums come in with the first chorus. 'It's only Tomorrow...' This is by far the best Kayleigh's drums have sounded, the crisp snare, the wide open cymbal swishes, punchy bass drum and inspired performance are key to the success of this track. Rachel gives us a guitar solo and a crescendo of noise bringing us back to the delicate piano and an even more delicate vocal.
Eye of the Storm received a lyric video release in early June. That thick bass is back again. For a musician who is essentially not a bass player, Rachel does well in convincing us otherwise. Something that is visible in Tomorrow as well as this track is a toy piano sound, an addition so far from their singles in 2018 and yet so vital to these new works. The Bruce Springsteen influence in their work peeks around the corner with the unified accents at the end of this line, 'It's just the Eye of the Storm, oh baby so run, run, run, run, run, run, run.' The ticking of a clock is all that's left after the multi-layered work reaches a fade-out.
Waiting to Find Everything gets its release here as 'Wait To Find Everything'. A multiple layer of guitars is visible, something distinctly folky, almost like a mandolin, a picking acoustic and a touch of electric guitar lie underneath the vocal. There are sound effects here too, an atmosphere that makes you feel like you're sitting by a fire. What I'd only heard in a live environment before is expertly rendered here. Bass joins in, though drums are absent. I imagine Kayleigh being a part of the crowd enjoying the experience here too. I don't think I'll have enough of Rachel Still's backing vocal ensemble to last me a lifetime, it makes me want to hear those parts in isolation.
'Wahl' is the self-titled name of track four. A head-bobbing hi-hat beat pairs with a bass sound that makes you feel like this band is about to start bigging up Shaft. But what we hear instead is, 'You could speak into the silence, hear what isn't said. See through the blindness, read what isn't read.' The reverb on the vocal takes you right out of the moment, and a piercing violin is added in. This track isn't a song, it's a groove. It's the most happening thing here, and much needed after Wait To Find Everything. There is something comforting about the entire lyrical content of this EP. 'Take my hand and don't let go,' are the last words as the track gives over to the pair's bass and drum groove that reminds me of 'Heart of Glass' by Blondie, a genre defining disco work by a punk band.
'Surrender' is the final track on Exit Pt. 2. If you've ever played the 'Life Is Strange' series, this would fit right in on their acclaimed soundtrack works. Opening with a melodic guitar, a rhythmic bass and Rachel's voice, Kayleigh joins in with bass drum and accented closed cymbal strikes. Using plastic tipped sticks gives that high-end definition here. In calls of 'I Won’t Surrender', the duo creates a Wahl of Sound that would amplified tenfold in a live setting. I can already hear the applause ringing out.
People have tried to classify Wahl as post-punk - I disagree. There is so much to discover in Wahl's music. From the gentle singer/songwriter output of Wait To Find Everything to the heaviness of Walk Away, to the yearning of San Jose, the electronic tinged Always Gonna Be This Way, the groove of their self-titled track and the sheer epic elevation of Tomorrow. There is something for everyone, as long as you feel some kind of human emotion.
But enough of what I have to say. I spoke to Kayleigh and Rachel over the phone in what has been my most in-depth interview so far. The pair discuss their new EP, their first singles, music videos, studio and demo work, their writing process - I mean we talked a lot. What is brilliant to witness is their chemistry, which is precisely what makes Wahl the band they are.
Terry Woods: Right, so I'm gonna jump straight in, opening Exit Pt. 2 and the first single is Tomorrow, in my opinion, a production masterpiece, did it sound differently at the demo stage?
Rachel Still: I actually wrote the string arrangement first and nothing else, so no it sounded very similar in that the strings are the main piece from the beginning. And the last things to go in were vocals and the guitar solo and drums so it was actually an instrumental orchestral thing I think for two or three years. Or longer.
Kayleigh Cheer: There was just a chunk of it floating around that we kept going back to and then we didn't write the rest of it for ages.
R.S.: I just had these chords and these strings and eventually made something out of it and periodically I would show it to Kayleigh and she'll be like "Ok! Cool! Don't know what I'm gonna do with that!"
K.C.: "Keep going!"
R.S.: Yeah!
K.C.: "Needs another trumpet!"
R.S.: (laughing) And we got to a point where it- what I presented was drummable, and songable and we kind of-
K.C.: That was a good day.
R.S.: -yeah it became a song, which was nice.
T.W.: It's so interesting because Rachel you're kind of on your own, creating demos and then sort of presenting them to Kayleigh, so- (both laughing)
R.S.: Yeah-
K.C.: Is it good enough Rachel? I don't think so, you can do better. Go back to your room with all your instruments and try harder! More heart, more spirit.
T.W.: So with all that being said, what is Eye of the Storm about?
R.S.: I am one of those writers where I don't particularly have a theme in mind necessarily when I write. Every now and again I might have a message behind it but it's very rarely about a specific thing or an event. It's normally about something a bit more, I guess philosophical in places? And then sometimes it's about nothing. It's always a range of that but a lot of the time, what we present together we end up having a kind of shared feeling of it and a shared experience but even interestingly when me and Kayleigh compare notes, our feelings on the songs are different. So it's fun, I like it like that. I've always been a fan of artists that present their work in a way that it's very subjective and it's very open, it's like this open door feeling. You can walk in and be from anywhere, and be anyone and it could mean something to you and I think that touched me as a teenager and what really set me on my path of writing so I try to honour that because I found it the most comforting and the most influential when I was growing up and just discovering new music.
K.C.: Half the time, I can't hear what the lyrics are in anything that I play on. So what happens is I get this strange idea of what the lyrics could be and it forms this whole of a song in my head and then I'm like "Oh Rach, I love that song, I love that how it's all about that umbrella up the tree I mean that's beautiful!" And you'll be like "No, no, no, it was about forever you and me" or something and I'm like "Oh, oh." (both laughing) So yeah, but I think I completely echo Rachel's thoughts about the kind of songs that I prefer to listen to or the artists that I've been drawn to when I was younger especially. The songs can take on any meaning. They're not too specific.
R.S.: For me there's an element of the pursuit of time and the anxiety behind time. That came from a clock sound that I put in there like right at the beginning so often I do a lot of production before the lyrics are done on things, and I had this like clock sound, which is actually my foot on a jack lead against my bedroom floor to sound like a clock. So that was in there from pretty much the beginning just as a rhythmic part. I often put like very bad rhythmic elements in to remind myself of-
K.C.: (laughing)
R.S.: So I'll say to Kayleigh "Oh make it dry". But it ended up becoming a feature and I only realised this once we'd released it really that I probably took some serious subconscious direction from that clock.
T.W.: Ok, so is there anything behind Surrender at all? What inspired that?
R.S.: That one is an anomaly that has a direct meaning and it's about not necessarily me personally. It's more an abstract thing of being in a place of depression and seeing like a light at the end of the tunnel and hanging onto that and you know not- I think there's a line in it- Yeah. It's 'for with vision, I will rise, through the sea and the night' and like that idea of if you can see where you're going, even if you're in a dark time, that you have the ability to rise through high water, darkness, whatever you're in. So that's probably more the direction of that one. That statement is like a closing statement of everything she's going through, like there's a tussle going on, there's a lightness at the beginning, and there's a darkness in the middle where it drops and then it rises out and there's positivity and at the end it's meant to release. So I tried my hardest in the production to mimic the lyrics that there's this massive release at the end and then there's this closing statement of 'for with vision, I will rise through the sea and the night' and that's kind of like the thing you end up finding as you go through that.
T.W.: With Wahl, what inspired that change in musical style because it's got like, more of a beat to this one.
R.S.: So I'll pre-requisite it from my part but I think it's very quickly going to hand over to Kayleigh because at the time Kayleigh was in a noise band and was really involved in the noise scene and I wasn't. I was living in my parent's house in a village/town and like what I saw of the noise scene blew my mind and I just wanted to write something that had that kick butt in it so, yeah.
K.C.: (laughing) is that where that came from?
R.S.: Yeah because of Vyk Non and Savages. The bassline is like super Savages inspired. I was angry at the time but I didn't have anything to be angry at, and it ended up being a very positive song but it's totally influenced by the noise scene like 100%.
K.C.: That was really fun, well it was fun until we had to record it. I'm looking forward to playing it live properly! I was experimenting a lot with time signatures but I had always associated time signatures that weren't 4/4 or free-time playing, I always sort of put that in a certain academic style of musical playing that I felt that I didn't do, I wasn't able to do. And when I started playing with Vyk Non, they were interested in doing songs that had all kinds of different time signatures and messed about with the feel of the groove, but it was in this heavy, aggressive or like very exciting way and so I connected with it instantly and loved doing that stuff. I think the bass was written first. You did a bass that was written in 5?
R.S.: I was gonna say I wrote the bass part in 5/4 but I am not particularly gifted and I didn't know, so it was completely by accident.
K.C.: And then I was like "Oh it's in 5, it's in 5! I'm gonna play in like 10 and then halfway through I'm gonna switch back to a fill of 5 and then I'm gonna play in free-time all the way to the end, but with a driving kick pattern underneath." The only production thing that I had a particular say in was I think I asked for there to be like a sub-kick layered on? Because I wanted it to feel more dancey and just constant and like allowing electronic drum parts into the recording process has been quite a new thing for both of us but I found it really enjoyable. Like getting rid of the stigma that I myself had as a drummer about having programmed parts mixed in to your track. Yeah that was a Margo Broom thing.
T.W.: The only other track on the EP is Wait To Find Everything, so that used to open your live performances. What changed from it opening your shows to now not being an opener here?
R.S.: It's actually the other way round in that this is a song that I wrote pretty much in one take. I did a demo of it that was just me, like three years ago, and me and Kayleigh then spent a really frustrating afternoon trying to live track drums and guitar to a new set of it and we just both felt that the vibe of the song was getting smothered by our rigidness to click.
K.C.: Yeah it just would not go, it would not go. Yeah it just wasn't meant to be changed too much.
R.S.: So we had this situation where we ended up playing it live because we loved the song so much and then when we came to do the EP I honestly did about 20 versions. Like when I say versions I don't mean takes, I mean like 20 projects of this, trying to get it right. And normally I have Kayleigh as like a rhythmic backing that I'd lay things on but we decided to honour the demo because it felt right. But it meant that I was really out on a limb because I was having to balance performance with timing and long story short, I was like this is the last take and then I'm just not putting it on the EP. And I just did it at that and I kind of fell back in love with it eventually and then I was so grateful because Kayleigh gave it her blessing and it saved itself but it in a way it made it even harder that we'd been playing it live because I knew how powerful we could play it together. Whereas when we tried to record it in that way, it just lost something. So we came up with two versions of it.
T.W.: So staying on Exit Pt. 2. The drums are the best they've ever sounded for Wahl, so take us through the recording of your parts Kayleigh.
K.C.: Woah. I have literally never been asked about the recording of the drums. How we started recording all this was Rachel was living at her parent's place, and I was living in London and I was very busy at that time and so we didn't have a lot of time together. But that kind of suited what was going on because Rachel was having like a creative explosion, like she was just shitting out songs.
R.S.: (laughing)
K.C.: She was doing like five to ten songs every week or two, maybe three weeks. Once she had a batch, like ten songs maybe or around that number, I would come to her house. Her parents very kindly allowed me to store my drum kit at the house.
R.S.: They were away man, like we had the house to ourselves.
T.W.: That's the dream!
K.C.: Yeah it was great! And we'd set up the drums in the front room and then because we didn't have a lot of time, I couldn't be too precious about getting drums down for the demos, which I think worked in my favour because I can get quite pernickety or perfectionist about parts, not so much like how they sound recording wise but if there's a part that doesn't quite sound right, it'll really bug me. Because I had to do so many in a day or two, we'd do a couple of takes and when there was something there to at least give the suggestion of the groove I might do on a final recording, then we'd move on to the next song. I also had an experience where I'd forget everything so I'm going there and it'll just be this blitz of recording. "Woah this song's amazing and oh my god I wanna put percussion on this and let's do a floor-tom part." And then it'll be over and then I'll be gone and I'll have like three weeks completely- I don't think me and Rachel really spoke much in this time either because Rachel's in this like nocturnal place. And then I'd come back again and then I'd go again with another round and so I really enjoyed doing that because it showed me the value of not being too precious, it showed me how productive I can be as a player when I'm not obsessing about what I'm doing and I'm just getting on with quantity. And then the next step was when we'd sit together and go through each batch again trying to be as listeners and also trying to hear what's cohesive, what two songs do the same job and therefore we don't need to take both forward. What choruses work, but the verse of a different thing might work and then smushing them together. We went through everything and shortlisted it basically down to- I don't know, it was probably about twenty songs in the end. And then from that we went into a more in-depth process, I think that's when we possibly started sending some demos to producers or engineers? But then we ended up deciding to self-produce. Exit 1 was done at home, because we ended up living together, and then yeah we re-recorded them in our new front room and that was the final version of them. For Exit 2 we went to Hermitage Works and recorded the drums with Nathan (Ridley).
R.S.: Shout out to Nathan, he's amazing!
K.C.: Shout out to Nathan, my man!
R.S.: I also must say at this point he really guided me on production, like it's self-produced but he gave me a lot of mix references and a lot of feedback so, it's self-produced but through his ears.
K.C.: (laughing) Yeah he was incredibly generous with his time and knowledge with us, because he's also a drummer, he has this way of capturing drum sounds that is just unrivalled in my opinion. Drums on everything he produces always sounds incredible, everything he engineers. And I've worked with him a lot of times on lots of different sounding projects, so there's a real familiarity with how he works and it lifts my playing instead of blocking it in any way. Just him being there and how he wants to record me and his passion for what he does draws out the best of me as a player. So I was really happy knowing that we only had one day I think to track all of the drums for Exit Pt. 2, and I was really confident knowing that it would be a very smooth, well organised and fun day. And it was! And I wrote all the parts on the day because I just binned everything that I'd done for these demo versions. They gave me the vibe, they gave me the suggestion of the groove but then I was happy, you know, two or three years later with my playing style, my musicality had changed so I just re-wrote what I wanted to do and it sounded really good just through the monitor speakers. And then Nathan touched them up.
R.S.: That was the first day you ever heard Tomorrow, because I hadn't finished until like the day before. Kayleigh's drums are literally like take 2 or take 3 but perfect for hearing the song like that.
K.C.: Yeah I think I did one take through where I was guessing all the way through because I didn't have any structure, and then it was changing and I loved it and I was like "ok let's go again", and then Nathan said just hold off the snare hit in the chorus. I was like "Woah, yeah man! That's the one!" Couldn't have been happier with how those drums turned out! It's probably the best sounding recordings I have of my own playing.
T.W.: And I think it really shows, it's a really great sound that you get on Tomorrow as well because you heard it that day and you were playing it on the day the final recording was done, it's so fresh as well.
R.S.: I have a wonderful video of Nathan conducting Kayleigh, it was just so sweet because it's two drummers and it's like there's no screen between them, it's like they're holding each other's hands. It's beautiful because they're both so in it. Yeah it's lovely.
T.W.: So that's the latest stuff, and now I'm gonna go back to the start really. So I was checking out your facebook page, and even though you released your first singles in 2018, the page said it was created in 2011, so was it something else originally?
R.S.: Me and Kayleigh have worked together a very long time, we've been in bands together and we kind of used that as our rocket fuel really so even though like band names and music changes, we've been a unit for almost ten years, we believe that gives us - us, really. We at first were looking for years for other people to add onto the side of it and Kayleigh very brightly one October evening rung me and was like "drop what you're doing, we're gonna be a duo". I thought she was mental. And then didn't talk to her for a couple of months because we were doing different things, we were just texting.
K.C.: Totally just threw shade at me man. Four years - didn't talk to me.
R.S.: Actually it was after I wrote Give It All and she text me after me showing her that as the first thing I'd written in a long time, and she was like "We're a duo, we're doing it." And I thought she was mad. Got to December, got a bit of Christmas money and just decided over night to go and buy a guitar which is now my black Johnny Marr Jag Jerry and I didn't tell Kayleigh any of this and started teaching myself properly. How to actually play with other people rather than just like three open chords. I turned up to the studio in Brixton end of the January and I was like "let's have a jam". I had a guitar suddenly and that was it. So yeah we've worked together for a long time but this formation is new.
T.W.: Ok, what is the story behind the band name because it was going to be something else before Wahl.
R.S.: At the time of writing the demos we had a really big dilemma because we basically decided not to call the band anything because we didn't want to put any pressure on ourselves to ever release this. Because we'd worked together so long it was just a bit of an experiment, like let's see where we get to. And we got to this point without intending it necessarily in that particular direction. In that we found it really hard to find a band name, and so we came down to it and we ended up actually picking what we thought was our most stand out song which is funny that you- when I say standout, I mean it was the weirdest thing we had and it's funny that you picked up on that earlier because we just literally chose the name from the song.
T.W.: So the song came first?
R.S.: Yeah! (laughing) However the song is not in any way definitive of our future, present, past sound. They're very separate things now, but it was the initial seed that- Kayleigh had great band names. I remember I came up with the name of the song, but you were the one that kept being like "we should call it this name that you'd named the song". So in true us fashion, it was entirely 50/50 because I was so against it.
K.C.: I just remember I particularly disliked the other names that were on the table at that time and I seem to remember just being quite passionately against being called Exit. (laughing) But I just really liked how Wahl looked and sounded and me and Rachel have been influenced by what I call the Berlin period of music where a lot of our heroes were spending time writing and recording in Berlin and we've both visited Berlin.
R.S.: In fact we visited Berlin that winter, after we did all of this work.
K.C.: Yeah, that would be why that was prevalent. We both just felt a weird spiritual sense of familiarity and homeliness I think in that city, and still do and so it didn't feel strange for us to use a word that had come from that place or from that country. It felt normal to us I guess.
T.W.: Fast forward to September 2018 and you've released Walk Away, and then later on that year you released Heaven Knows. So, in Heaven Knows, Rachel you mention two characters - Freddie and Suzie. Who are they?
R.S.: Good question. A quick answer is no one. They have really great syllables for what I needed. I like to follow things rhythmically but in a melody as well. So they suit that but also we had another song that had the central character as Freddie and at that point that was gonna be released at the same time. However, for various reasons we left it off that batch so it didn't get released. At the time I thought it was a cunning plan to use Freddie because it was a little bit like Bon Jovi or- I wouldn't compare myself as a songwriter to him but Lou Reed. There was a theme in the two songs which is arrogant - because A: the song now doesn't have a partner but also B: I only mentioned it twice in the whole release so it's not exactly a story but it was a younger me thinking it was clever. That was the initial thing, Suzie wasn't anywhere.
K.C.: Yeah Suzie hasn't popped up again yet, but she will. She will!
R.S.: I'd say keep an eye out, I also wanted a name of each gender to kind of incorporate. I wanted to be talking about everyone. Not everyone in the way that it's applicable to everyone but I wanted people to listen and be able to identify with it if they wanted to, that's why I think Suzie came in because I couldn't say Freddie twice.
T.W.: So what was the other song called, with Freddie in?
R.S.: (laughing) Freddie's Dreams!
K.C.: Mate, mate, it's such a good song.
R.S.: It's one of my favourites isn't it?
K.C.: It's one of mine.
T.W.: So can anyone expect that to come out at some point?
R.S.: I'd love it to. I think it's some of the best lyrics I've ever written, however, it didn't fit the theme of this, this current pastiche of things and I've had it for years. I wrote it when I was 19! I've had it for like 8 years. (laughing) And everytime I go to put it out I get cold feet about it because it's almost like I love it too much so. At some point it will, if Kayleigh can get me to grow a pair and put it out, yeah. (all laughing)
K.C.: I'll just keep pushing you. It'll come out one day, you'll see.
T.W.: With Walk Away and Heaven Knows, they were in your set for a while but they were actually phased out. But the b-side T.V., you kept that on. So that does that relate to the current material better?
K.C.: What a good question.
R.S.: I think all I'd say is that we're very conscious of light and shade. It's two things we use in our writing, in our production and in our live set. We like to encapsulate positivity but we like to offset that with some shade so you get this well rounded presentation and we like to satisfy as many emotions as we can because it's who we are and the music we listen to.
K.C.: I care a lot about how one song ends and the next song starts. You can really tell, when you're on stage and you shift from one song to another, the emotions shift the moment the new chords are played. When we're putting setlists together, I want to keep a change happening, so that if someone such as yourself Terry comes and sees more than one show, you may not have the exact same emotional experience. I like experimenting with "oh what would happen if we put this there? What would happen if we put that there?" And yeah and it's fun, when I watch bands live, I notice things like that, I notice if they start every song with just a guitar and that really annoys me, like it should have different things. T.V. starts very differently to a lot of our other songs. I feel like it's a really weird groove, it's uncomfortable to play it. Even still, I must've played it a thousand times now but it still fucks me up sometimes. It's really awkward! It's so monotonous. For me the song is super industrial, it feels like it's talking about a machine, it feels like it's talking about "the system" pumping out people, going to jobs, making money, spending the money on beers and fun, and then going back to the jobs and there's this monotony of life in it for me. I therefore find it really difficult as a drummer to just play the same loop round and round and round and not put anything in it, and I'm trying to make it not groove at all because it's supposed to sound uncomfortable. When I wrote the drum part, I made it really difficult for myself to play, I made it left handed so it never feels good to play ever! I'm waiting to get to the end of that damn song but then that is the point because I feel that that's what the song makes me feel as a listener. When I first heard it with the programmed part I was like "urgh, this is uncomfortable, I love it!" It's different, it's challenging, let's definitely always do this in the live set and may my left handed drumming forever improve. (laughing)
T.W.: And I completely agree! As a drummer myself I do follow along that beat so and-
K.C.: It's awkward as fuck isn't it? It's so annoying! Keep crossing your arms and...
T.W.: I've actually seen you play live five times now and I've never seen you play Run In The Fire. So was that ever in your set?
R.S.: That was from our OG duo days when Kayleigh used to get on bass-
K.C.: Yeah I used to play it...you would've loved it!
R.S.: I think we did it once as a three-piece. It's really sad because it's a beautiful song but it came down to the fact that I would literally have to take an extra guitar to every show because it's on acoustic, for it to sound legit and-
K.C.: We used to bring so much gear to a gig.
R.S.: When we were playing Run In The Fire I think the only times we ever played it were at the Windmill, when we lived right next door to the Windmill- well like two streets away. I didn't notice it but then when we started playing The Old Blue Last I was like "no way" because I had so much stuff, I'm not particularly strong so. If I was coming from work or whatever and I had no one else to help me carry shit, I just couldn't do it. So unfortunately that's why we dropped it but it's one of my favourites to play.
T.W.: Staying on your live sound and your gear, Rachel I love your guitar sound, what is your guitar rig?
R.S.: Good question, so I have this, "if I like the sound of it, then it goes on" point of view. Live, if I had a preference, I have my Johnny Marr Jag, Jerry, so he's the main thing. The sound of that guitar is really Exit 1 and Exit 2, and just me as the guitarist, you could put that through any amp and it just sounds beautiful. I use distortion so I use a Big Muff, I use an MXR reverb because I'm really into the reverb and that's got a load of different things and depths and modulations and stuff you can play with. And then I have a loop pedal, and we don't actually loop things live because we don't like playing to click or keeping ourselves to a backing track. However I use the loop pedal for textual elements from the production that I feel helps enhance the live set without it still being to click where possible.
K.C.: What happened to the Rainbow thing?
R.S.: Oh the Rainbow Machine as well.
K.C.: That's the best one!
R.S.: Yeah I don't use it live but I use it for recording, because live it got to a point where it was just got too much to carry and it was just me being really wanky and having a little bit of chorus for like one part. Yeah I always have a Rainbow Machine, it's one of those quirky devices which is just "whack" like modulation and chorus, crazy machine that I love.
K.C.: (laughing) It sounds like rainbows, but like rainbows with shade. It's got shade. It's so good.
R.S.: Yeah, yeah it's like really dark rainbows, but it has it all over Exit 1 and Exit 2. I got really into Brian Eno, as an artist, as a person, as a lecturer and you know, genius, but just as his music and the idea of ambient drones became really key to me. Those songs were written off me experimenting with a brand new guitar, a Rainbow Machine and a shit-ton of volume on my amp because my house was empty so when it came to doing it live that's why I had the loop pedal. I miss those warm sounds that actually you probably can't hear out the front but it's just a thing. (laughing)
T.W.: So if you were given a platform to create the ultimate Wahl live experience, where gear wasn't a factor, what would that be?
R.S.: In all honesty? Literally fifteen people, like I love layers and I really struggle leaving them out. Luckily my best friend and my sidekick or peer I should say, is very good, like what's at the heart of the storm is what's important at this stage. However, that being said, I literally would have millions of people on stage if I could.
K.C.: (laughing) I'd have like three percussionists, for sure. How fun is that? Oh yeah we'd have a lot of people, I don't think we'd have much tech, we'd just have all these people playing their instruments but like very good people playing-
R.S.: Like the E Street Band.
K.C.: Yeah like E Street Band level of performers that gave everything. I think our shows would be quite long. Oh I'll tell you what we'd have, which is not really a sound thing, but when we were on tour, our tour manager Dominika (Nazarejová), she was a projection artist, she's a visual artist. So she came up with projections that were specific to what was happening in each song and she would play the projector like it was an instrument, I can't really explain it.
R.S.: She called it Veejaying!
K.C.: Yeah veejaying! Like she would drag stuff in and it was all swirling around and it would be like a live recording of us playing but it would all be manipulated and it would have all these colours and effects. Oh my god it was so cool, it just added something. It felt like she was on stage, it felt like another person, she was bouncing off us and we were bouncing off that and particularly like through endings and outros where we'd be playing instrumentally, it just did something. I said it many times on tour, I was like "if we get the budget, like I am hiring Dom to just come and do every show with us." Because I just thought it was so good and you know what? It was really nice to have eyeballs not all over us whilst we were playing, but have them behind us on this thing that was bigger and doing a far better job of depicting emotions and experience.
R.S.: That night in particular we got to play alongside each other which is something, where we can we really aim to do. We've got some wonderful friends that jump on bass and keys when we're able to get them, but we're really aware that our set can live and die on me and Kayleigh's ability to communicate and just connect with each other. The standards we've set for ourselves and what we consider a good show can really be, maybe not even to other people's ears but to our own souls, can be really affected in how we're able to communicate with each other and we really find eye contact and just that proximity very important to us. So that as well for me was a great show because we were alongside each other and that's something- again talking about stage set-up, ideally, if we could, we'd always be like that because it's just really fun.
T.W.: So your last music video was Always Gonna Be This Way, tell me about the making of that video.
R.S.: (both laughing) Ok, the making of that video is really funny because I had just eaten a massive plate of tacos and tried to do like ten takes of that and I gave myself full on whiplash and I almost threw up. I had to lay in the foetal position in our front room like 45 minutes after doing that because I felt so sick. But aside from that, I was freaking out because we'd done two music videos and I'd done both of them and I got to the third one and I was like "Kayleigh I don't know if I can make it look any different." And she was like "just do it, just do something really simple that is like one take, so you don't have to change it." So it's Kayleigh's idea, she was like "just do something of you to a camera". So one afternoon everyone was out of the house. In fact no, your girlfriend was in the house, she was asleep.
K.C.: She definitely said she saw you (laughing) throwing yourself around miming in the front room.
R.S.: It's really funny because we didn't have a tripod or anything so I had to balance my phone on a load of books and an armchair. So I'm on my knees in that video, but I wanted it to look like I was dancing, like standing up. The full wide angle takes are hilarious. It's me kneeling on a carpet, like looking really sick.
T.W.: I never- I had no idea that you were kneeling in that video. I thought you were standing up!
R.S.: Great! Great. Yeah I had a lot of fun editing that and making sure that I didn't give that away but yeah the idea was to do it in one take and I kind of wanted to maintain the intensity of the song. I was also reading Jack Kerouac - On the Road at the time which I've only just finished because I find it quite hard to read. But I kind of liked the idea of reflecting that monotony in- obviously Always Gonna Be This Way is a song about "is it always gonna be this way?" Again Margo produced that and like to Kayleigh's point of programmed drums and this machine like feel, so we had that in the song. And because I was reading Jack Kerouac, I thought well I might give it like an automotive theme and that's why there's a projection of a tunnel on me because it just really backed up subliminally the idea of monotony. You know when you're just driving and at first you enjoy it and you're like "now this is getting intense I want to get out".
T.W.: Ok so the whole thing was shot on an iphone as well, you said?
R.S.: The tunnel is in somewhere of the East Coast of America, I was on a road trip with my sister on my iphone and then the video of me actually dancing- "the performance", I did two shots of that, so it's actually on a full-on camera, because the iphone take wasn't good enough.
T.W.: Are Walk Away and Heaven Knows both on an iphone as well?
K.C.: What was the video for Walk Away, what did we do for that?
R.S.: Oh Kayleigh I made you do it twice mate, because we did one then I wasn't happy with the angle but it was like three months later because it had taken me so long to edit all that, like stock footage.
K.C.: (gasps) That was when I had to re-learn the drum fills because I'd played them improvisationally. I never thought I'd have to know what I was doing!
R.S.: We filmed each other, and then I just chopped it up with some stock footage and then the one on the bus, Heaven Knows was a friend of ours that did it, again I was almost sick on that as well because I got really car sick. But it was like 2am and I fell over loads and it was really funny.
K.C.: My friend Anna (Bartlett) was filming for us and she was just getting thrown around this bus trying to like keep the camera somewhat still and we were just sitting there and it was just so funny. It felt very egocentric.
R.S.: There's loads of like- as well because Kayleigh just hurt her knee surfing so she sat down-
K.C.: Oh yeah I can't walk at all!
R.S.: She looks really cool in the background and there's just loads of shots of me just like stacking it down the central aisle of the bus-
K.C.: (laughing) Yes!
R.S.: They're completely unusable.
T.W.: It's funny because Kayleigh- I re-watched these videos today and you just look so angry in the whole Heaven Knows video.
K.C.: I'd just snapped my knee!
R.S.: You did great!
K.C.: I felt quite a bit of pain and I couldn't have my knee brace on in the video so I was very aware everytime we turned a corner or Rachel would nearly land on my knee, I was slightly freaking out. Also I think my directions were to look bored, I think that's what I was going for.
R.S.: Yeah, we were going for mundane.
K.C.: I think my resting face is angry, but yeah my friend Anna is actually a cameo in the video, she's got a little part where she's in it which is cool. I love that.
T.W.: So Rachel you mentioned an American road trip, is that what inspired San Jose?
R.S.: Haha! Erm, no, well yes, yes, but not that one. That was like twenty years ago, that one, so. I've just always loved California but I was very fortunate to go there as a child. My Mum worked out there on and off and we went there as a family holiday and I just fell in love with it. I ended up going back when I was 19, I left university, I walked out and then just saved up for a year and went back and did the same trip, but on my own. I love the West Coast of the States, I love mountains and it was a symbolic thing to me, it always felt very comfy and like home.
T.W.: So what is San Jose about then?
R.S.: It's really a good question actually. It's one of those things that it's very ambiguous.
T.W.: Ok so it's similar to Eye of the Storm in that way?
R.S.: Yeah in a way, and I think the way I described it on tour and it probably came into- often as songs do, it came into more meaning for me over time than I probably realised when I wrote it. I love that where you don't quite get something and then it becomes something to you. I ended up saying it every night pretty much when we were on tour but there was one particular night where I kind of did this little speech in the breakdown ad-lib and was saying that, "home is where the heart-" I can't remember what it was. I basically was saying about how you can be so far from "home" but if the people or the place or if there's a situation that makes you feel at home, that becomes your home. On tour that definitely was something that every night, San Jose just really went down so well, and it was just always a moment where I felt so connected to Kayleigh. I just felt like if there were points in the set where we were drifting apart because a thing was hard or the sound was bad, that song, just night after night after night was just this burst of energy of like, we were together. I even broke a string in the last time we played it because half way through the song, I just went crazy and so it kind of, yeah I guess it's grown into that, really.
T.W.: That features on Exit Pt. 1 but at the end of Exit Pt. 1 there's a track called Berlin, which is unusual because it's an instrumental, so Kayleigh would you tell us about the recording?
K.C.: We were doing one of our recording drums in a batch thing at Rachel's house, we were in her front room. My drums are set up. I think we'd finished for the day? Or we'd done a bunch.
R.S.: Yeah, we'd ordered a takeaway I think.
K.C.: I think we were pretty much done and then Rachel was like "Oh I made this piece of music and it's a bit weird." It wasn't the whole thing, but it was maybe the sound effects bits or the guitar bit. So I think you were like "have you got it in you to try and put some drums on it?" I was pretty whacked and I was like "yeah let's just do it in one take, let me just put the headphones on and just play along with it and whatever comes out, we'll just leave that in." So it was like a bit of a throwaway thing. But then what happened is Rachel was like "I can put this setting on your drums so you're playing your drums, they go into the microphones, the microphones go to the computer, the computer turns it into the sound of Hansa," which is a very well known recording studio in Berlin. A lot of our idols recorded in there. It turns it into that room sound and then that room sound will go directly back into my headphones. So in real time, I will hear myself play in this huge octagonal, humungous recording space right? So she did that and she set off the track which was the backing track bit or some of the stuff that ended up in the main recording and so all I'm doing is sound-checking myself, so you just hear me hitting stuff randomly and trying things out. I'm not like specifically playing in time to anything. I'm ignoring the Berlin stuff, and I'm just hearing my own drums and getting excited about the echoing and everything. And then I play this massive drum beat and then I stop, and that was it. That all got recorded, and we listened back and we were joking about how it sounds really abstract and unusual, but we put it in the big list that we were gonna shortlist things from. We put it in there just because it was a piece of something that was finished to demo level and then we both just loved it. When we listened back through all the songs-
R.S.: Like "what did we make!?"
K.C.: We listened to it again like "what is this?" You know what, there's something endearing about it, it really is the capture of a moment where I'm very excited (laughs), you can hear that in my playing. I'm hearing myself in a space that I didn't think I'd ever record in. I'm having a fucking ball. At the same time, there's no real melodic structure to it or lyrics so it isn't something we can necessarily ever re-create, and so we liked that element too I think. It was just a segment of time, there seems to be this theme of time that accidently is embedded in everything, and it really was very present and I think that's why even to this day, I like listening to it. It just makes me smile, it takes me right back to the front room.
R.S.: Same! The idea at least that I began with is to put that at the end of Exit 1. They're both scenes, they both have kind of touchstones of ideas, they're tracks on those two EPs for a reason and in the order they are for a reason. But that one was at the end because we were really aware that Exit 2 has much darker moments in it, and some much louder, crashing- it's just a really big contrast. I initially drew a mood board for these EPs, and I had Berlin like dripping down and it ended up, for me, it embodied like leaving the list for Exit 1 knowing that Exit 2 was probably gonna take a while to round off. Just being like "what the fu- what are they smoking?" It was also for me like we had this really nice house and we were showing people around it, we'd just moved in and then we're like "and here's the basement" and there's loads of creepy stuff and they turn around and we're just gone.
K.C.: (laughing)
R.S.: (laughing) That's kind of the idea behind it, and also to give like a sonic boom into what comes next that's not as quiet, not as thoughtful, it's a bit more in your face.
T.W.: So obviously people consume music in different ways now and they consume EPs better than albums, but was Exit Pt 1 and 2, was that meant to be a unified work, could that potentially be an album?
R.S.: Yes. Yes. It was intentionally an album and, we are a duo because Kayleigh is the ying to my yang and she's very wise and especially at the time I wasn't living in London, I was very disconnected from the scene. And I had all these grand ideas of going to Hansa and recording an album and Kayleigh was like "nope, it's not happening like that now."
K.C.: (laughing)
R.S.: We both realised we had some real dedication to this material and we couldn't see it getting lost so it became a way of us maintaining that integrity between the tracks, without like, losing the thread or without them getting lost.
T.W.: Ok, so you, you know, you made a point there of saying that you were a duo but has anyone else played on your material, other than you two?
R.S.: No.
T.W.: No? It's just you two?
K.C.: No.
R.S.: Correct me if I'm wrong Kayleigh, did Margo programme some drums for Always Gonna Be This Way?
K.C.: Yeah she programmed the drums for that song.
R.S.: But that was it, that was at your guidance and that was the only one of these that someone else has produced. I mean Kayleigh plays a Rubik's cube on the first EP.
K.C.: I also played the volume wheel of the synth once on something. That was fun. Yes. I played the Rubik's cube, I played a football on one of the songs-
R.S.: The football played into the sub. The forks?
K.C.: The forks, the bongos.
T.W.: I mean that's particularly obvious in the various covers that you've done because you've split screen all of the different parts that you do and you've played bass as well and various percussion so, is there a cover you'd like to do that you haven't done yet?
R.S.: I really enjoyed when we covered Bon Iver live. That was a fairly impromptu thing we did and we only did it once. But I'd love to revisit that.
K.C.: That was cool because it's basically just like a cappella vocals and drums. It was really scary actually.
R.S.: Yeah you're telling me!
K.C.: Yeah you had to do clicks on your own, ah it was scary. I was scared for you and then it was nice. Oh man.
T.W.: Well I've seen you play Seventeen live.
K.C.: That is a tune.
R.S.: Yeah we love Sharon Van Etten. (laughing) That's my jam. She's so good.
K.C.: I would love to one day be able to cover a Killers song, without it being a fad. When we first became friends we bonded over our love for The Killers, and we used to put Killers songs in our set or we'd play them in rehearsal but there's something about you know when it's a band that you love so much-
R.S.: When I was playing the same keyboard and also dressed in a feather jacket, it's maybe going too far yeah.
K.C.: And I was legally changing my name to Ronnie (both laughing). But yeah I think something happened where we both felt that we couldn't honour it correctly and therefore it went on the shelf eternally and I'm just waiting for the day where we're able- maybe the day is now- Maybe this is what we do.
R.S.: That's a really good shout, I'd love to do that.
K.C.: Do you know what I mean? Something off Sam's Town or something or like...
R.S.: We spent hours dissecting those songs. Trying to match up like, just working out what they were doing, or the production or everything. We just ripped them apart.
K.C.: It was the first thing we realised about each other, that we had both done- which was before knowing each other at all, we had individually dissected me - the drums, and for you - all the everything else of every song The Killers had done and learnt the parts and pieced them back together and looked into every element of how they were recorded. It's so special when you meet someone else who loves a band the way you do at the same level. It's special like, you have an instant connection, it got us very excited about making music together because we knew there was suddenly some kind of shared vision or appreciation. That's important, in a band, that's really important. Sometimes it's more important than I would like to admit. Some of my more negative musical experiences have been with musicians who didn't- we didn't have that common ground and there's just this gulf you can't really fill even if you're both passionate people. But yeah that was a big deal, so I would love to do a Killers song, one day.
T.W.: This is gonna be a pretty bigass question. You've mentioned before that there is a meaning behind everything in your work - the photoshoots, the videos, the tracklistings, is it really all a grandmaster plan?
(a considerable silence)
R.S.: I would say- in what respect?
T.W.: Does everything relate to each other?
R.S.: Yes and no. We are very meticulous people whether it's writing an instagram post or collating a batch of songs. Whatever we do with our work, we don't take ourselves seriously, nor do we take each other seriously but when we're working we take ourselves very seriously and so in that sense yes. We cast a very devil's advocate eye over each other and the work we do for a joint reason, a joint goal of quality that we believe in. Having said that, project by project, song by song, there isn't necessarily a seam that's intended at the beginning. We're definitely putting out Exit 1 and Exit 2 and as I said there's a shadow behind each of them and why they're there but kind of back to I guess where we started. I love any kind of art that you can digest on any level. And it's always been my favourite because there are days where I whack on something on spotify, I just want my ears to hear it. I can be like that but there are days I wanna stare at something and just think, you know? But I like that complexity in life, I like that complexity in art and I think it gives you the best chance as a listener. U2 for me they blew my mind as a teenager because I grew up listening to them but going back to them as a teenager I suddenly realised they had a song for every mood I was in. You know, everything I was feeling - they covered it. And I just ended up chasing after that but I now extrapolate that to any kind of art I'm into whether it's a book, whether it's a painting, I really like to be able to digest things on multiple levels so we try and strive for that I think where possible. You don't have to hear the meaning, you should just be able to listen to it hopefully and enjoy the music. But if you wanted to dig for it then there are little things there if you wanted to create your own story about it.
T.W.: Anything to add Kayleigh? (laughing)
K.C.: I would've just said that I think maybe it's too soon to tell because I think for example if you take an artist or a band like Fleetwood Mac, I think it's easy in retrospect to see threads that run through all their work. But I imagine that at the time when they were making things and they were trying to stay fresh and reinvent the sound and try new technology out, try new things out, different band members were coming and going. At the time it may have felt that each thing was new and fresh and had its own little miniature universe attached to it but when you have the gift of retrospect, much further on in a career, I think as an artist and as an audience, you can probably find threads that consciously or subconsciously run through it. That's my thoughts on good art, much like Rachel was saying, on art that I find moving or engaging. But I think it's just a bit too early to tell if that's gonna be an obvious thing for us, if that'll be achieved or accidently achieved or completely not, you know. There's definitely reoccurring themes in between Exit 1 and Exit 2. But I have no idea if that's going to be clear still after four, five, six, seven bodies of work. I think time will tell.
T.W.: And will there be another music video for Exit Pt. 2 because Always Gonna Be This Way was the last one, the last music video.
R.S.: There may or may not be something else planned, it's still being planned. If we can, there will be something.
T.W.: You guys have been working on some new things in lockdown, is there anything you can tell us about that?
R.S.: Erm...yeah I mean-
K.C.: Rachel is shitting out songs again, that is all I will say. She's having her song diarrhoea. (laughing)
R.S.: I'm always of the opinion that any type of creativity is a muscle and there's periods of my life where I haven't done it and when I've come back to that, I've almost been scared or put off by it. So I'm always doing something because even if it's crap, I make myself be doing something because I really shut down if I'm not able to control that element of my life to some degree. I don't really function very well. So I'm always doing something to some degree.
K.C.: Rachel does a lot more art than she lets on. Rachel has many mediums and is always working on something. Clearly at the moment with our lockdown situation, lots of different bands and artists I think are using this time to create because it's a rare opportunity where they're not being asked to gig or tour or you can't even get in a studio to record at this point. A lot of people are doing a lot of writing which makes me really excited, but that being said, Rachel has self-lockdown many times, and it's a part of our creative process as a band so yeah. Stuff is a-cooking but we're not on a timeline with it.
R.S.: It's an easy one to answer at any point and because we're a duo, that limitation in the fact that there's only two of us is also our greatest strength because we don't have to have four people in a room to be doing that process. We're free to decide when, where or you know, so we're always trying to do some element of it.
K.C.: I personally go through really binary phases of ingestion and exertion of things. I'll go through a really heavy phase of learning, learning, learning and being inspired by tons of stuff, new music, other musicians I'm working with, poetry, art, like people in my life. And then I'll go through a period of going into a practice place and starting to put ideas into drumming and then passing those things across to Rachel or saving them for when Rachel has stuff to give to me. As a duo we probably both do that, sometimes at the same rate and sometimes at completely opposite rates and it creates interesting new ways of working and making music, which is cool.
Find Wahl @WAHLmusic on facebook, instagram and twitter. Find Rachel Still @rachelemilystill and Kayleigh Cheer @kayleighdrums on instagram. For more information about the bands mentioned at the start of this article, feel free to get in touch with me @brainysod on instagram.
