Washed Out – ‘New Theory’
Washed Out is the principal recording project of one Ernest Weatherly Greene, a 26-year-old from Perry, Georgia.
His soaring EP Life of Leisure has built up an estimable word-of-mouth following over the last six months, culminating in a proper UK release last month and a sold-out London show that was very much the talk of the town. Life of Leisure‘s gauzy, synth and sample-driven textures invite comparisons with the denizens of the new US indie-psychedelia such as Toro Y Moi and Ducktails, but there’s more of an immediate pop sensibility to Greene’s writing, and his music’s appeal isn’t limited to hipsters and blog-botherers.
FACT’s Trilby Foxx called up Greene earlier this week and found him to be every bit as affable and laconic as his music had implied he would be. Oh, and he was the one who brought up “chillwave”…
“For the first few shows I had absolutely no idea what the fuck I was doing.”
How you doing? You just got back from a European tour, right?
“I got back a little over a week ago. I did a really short tour in Europe, yeah, and before that I was on tour for a couple of months in the States.”
Were you happy with the way that the songs came across in a live context?
“It’s a very new thing for me. I’ve been recording for quite a while, but the translation to a live show is really new. The first tour I did was in the beginning of March, and luckily I’ve had a band from Brooklyn called Small Black as my touring band: they played a big part in translating songs, working out what parts to use and what parts not to use, that kind of thing. So yeah, I guess it’s gradually got better and better – it’s a pretty steep learning curve, though, especially playing on bigger soundsystems…”
There’s a lot more than can go wrong on a big system.
“Yeah, and I figured out how shitty our mixes were pretty quickly – ‘cos I recorded everything in my bedroom, and the EP which I have out now I mixed myself on shitty little monitors, and you realise when you hear it on a big system that the low-end especially sounds terrible. So it’s improving little things like that that I’ve learned. I’m pretty psyched to have a couple of months off to regroup and change some things around a bit. I also have some new songs that I’d like to come out soon.”
“It became increasingly obvious that the songs were much more pop than I originally thought…”
Have you always worked with a backing band when you perform live, or have you done solo shows as well?
“Well, wen I was writing the songs at home last summer, there was no thought at all of playing them live. There was barely even an audience there to begin with that would be interested in a live show, so it wasn’t really an issue.
“The question since then has been how to approach live performance. I’ve tried many different things. The first handful of shows I did were last Fall, I did those all myself, and I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. Once I began playing songs out in front of people, it became increasingly obvious that they were much more pop than I originally thought. People enjoy getting into it and singing along and that sort of thing – and that doesn’t really play off very well with just one guy on stage, I don’t think.
“Normally when I do play by myself I kind of weird it out a little more, make it more droney and atmospheric, whereas with a band it’s more straight-ahead songs. I think the audience enjoys having the full band out there; I enjoy aspects of working by myself and aspects of working with others. At the moment I’m seeking out some new band members, kind of recruiting friends, ‘cos Small Black has their own record coming out soon and so we’ve had to part ways, which is a little sad.”
As a recording project, Washed Out has been, and will remain, a solo enterprise?
“When it comes to recording, Washed Out – at this stage, anyway – is just me by myself. Mainly because I’m just so used to working that way. I recently released a song which was kind of a collaboration, with this girl called Caroline Polachek, she plays in a band called Chairlift, and it was really funny – I’ve never really collaborated that much before, its been years since I last did, and it’s actually really hard just letting go, allowing someone else in. A lot of times it’s really great – I mean, with that song it was really fun, ‘cos the direction that she [Polachek] wanted to take it in was the right way to go. But I’ve worked with other people before where it’s just this power struggle almost. I definitely enjoy having the final say.”
“I definitely enjoy having the final say.”
For all its warmth, there’s a definite “isolationist” quality to Life Of Leisure – it seems like a record born out of solitude. Is that fair to say?
“Definitely. Just on a really basic level I’d say that Washed Out has always been this thing that I’ve done by myself and which I really don’t share with anyone, at least not until lately. It’s not a conscious thought to make the songs sound like that, I think it just naturally comes across that way. It’s really strange how that works, to be honest.”
Did the concept and identity of Washed Out come before the songs, or was it a result of them?
“It was kind of a natural development – I was working on a couple of other projects, and I see it as a union of two in particular. I was working with a group, writing and producing a kind of straight-ahead dance record, and that was happening around the time I started doing Washed Out. I was also doing another solo thing at this point called Lee Weather, which was more of a kind of garage-rock, lo-fi thing. And Washed Out was kind of me bringing those things together in a weird way.”
“There was a little bit of a concept though. For the past couple of years I’ve been honing the sound of this lo-fi thing, and the vocal sound was a very important part of that experimentation. So, I had the idea of doing this particular sound, yeah, but it was worked out naturally with each song that I was writing, especially on this EP. From the first song to the last song I was shaping whatever that template that a Washed Out song is.”
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Washed Out – Feel It All Around
Do you work quickly, or is it more of a long-winded, tortuous process?
“The initial ideas come pretty quickly; a lot of the songs happen by chance when I’m experimenting with some sound, reversing something, pitching something down or up. I’m so envious of bands who can just sit down with a guitar and write a riff; it’s never been like that for me. So because of that it can be a little frustrating, I can find myself waiting around for something to happen, to build a song around, and that sometimes takes a while. I’m currently writing now, trying to get an album together, and it’s been a bit of a challenge – particularly beginning writing with an album in mind. Before I was just writing songs, whereas now I’m thinking about the big picture, and where things are gonna be played, and how they’re gonna relate to one another.”
Do all the songs on Life Of Leisure originate from the same period of writing and recording?
“Yeah, they all happened really quickly actually, probably a month. I mean, there were a lot of other songs from that same period that just didn’t fit with the EP. I had a cassette tape release, and there are a few of them on there. There’s a song in particular called ‘Belong’ which I thought was pretty strong but just didn’t fit with the Life Of Leisure stuff. It was kind of crazy, the ideas were coming really quickly, and I was just trying not to over-think things, which is strange, ‘cos that’s exactly what I’m doing now [laughs]. I tried to keep it fresh, a lot of the vocal takes are the very first take.”
“I’m so envious of bands who can just sit down with a guitar and write a riff; it’s never been like that for me.”
The summery, beachside mood of the record – where does that stem from?
“The EP was written in this small town where I grew up. I hadn’t lived there for like seven years, since I’d first left to go to college. I moved back for several reasons, the main being that I’d run out of money and needed to regroup. It’s a really beautiful area of Georgia, it’s the heart of peach country. All around my house there are peach orchards everywhere, and I guess in an very indirect way that may have seeped into the music a little bit. All the images that are packaged with the album were taken around that time and in that area, and I guess that’s had an influence on people’s perception as well.
“It’s kind of lucky how things came together though – this kind of movement that got attached with this visual aesthetic of being at the beach. I don’t think that I necessarily planned that, it naturally happened, and the music has always been easy-going – it’s meant to be relaxing, to take you somewhere else. And I guess the visual representation of that which people reach for is, you know, sitting on the beach. And I think it works.”
It’s also transferrable – in summer it’s just appropriate, in winter it takes on a dreamlike quality…
“Exactly. It’s funny, the new record that I’m working on will come out late in the year, maybe even early next year. And I’m sure this is going to be the go-to phrase for press stuff, you know, ‘This is going to make you wanna look forward to the endless summer” or something [laughs]. I think that’s really funny. At the same time, it’s heading for that point where it’ll be played out – I’m already seeing way too much stuff that’s connected to the beach.
In a way, it’s part of a grand Stateside tradition: from Brian Wilson onwards, evocations of the beach and lazy summers have reverberated through American music culture. What did you grow up listening to?
“Well, it’s funny, recently I’ve been listening to a lot of – I don’t think of it as new age music exactly, but I can see that other people might – stuff like Tangerine Dream, I guess the more cosmic, weirder stuff. I’ve never listened to so much of this until recently, but it’s so up my alley in terms of what I’m going for, it’s really funny to me hearing it now.
“In terms of when I was growing up, probably the biggest thing that connects with the Washed Out thing is my getting into hip-hop and starting to write songs with a hip-hop approach – with loops and stuff. The big name would be DJ Shadow, who I was pretty much obsessed with when I was like 18 years old, and that definitely still informs the way I do things now, I still record in a similar way. It’s obvious in a way that the vibe is quite similar in that it’s reaching for something more than the surface-level.
“Moving forward I was into a lot of shoegazey, ambient stuff – which I guess connects back to the 70s Tangerine Dream-type stuff, though I didn’t realise it at the time. Lately it’s been dance music stuff, ‘cos I’ve never really listened to much of that in the past either. When I was writing the EP, I wasn’t that familiar with dance music at all, so I felt really naïve working with it, I realised that I might be doing things that were cliché, but also realised that that might work in a good way.”
“Hip-hop definitely still informs the way I do things now.”
Are there any current artists you feel a natural kinship with?
“In terms of current artists, in the press there’s the whole ‘chillwave’ thing, where there’s this handful of bands that I guess have a similar sound or aesthetic, and for the most part I’m definitely a fan of those guys. You know, like Toro Y Moi or Small Black, though I guess I wouldn’t really think of Small Black fitting with that style.”
There seems to be a new wave of American psychedelicists – led by people like James Ferraro and Ducktails – drawing on obscure new age and kosmische music as a well-spring of inspiration. Why do you think this might be? I guess the internet plays quite a role…
“Yeah, I definitely seek it out through the internet. I don’t think I could’ve made the music I’m making now ten years ago, because a lot of it has happened because of these influences that I seek out or just stumble upon searching online. I mean, I have the entire discography of Tangerine Dream here; it’s pretty hard to find all that stuff on vinyl.”
“But I think the way that I’m working with those influences is a bit more apparent on the new stuff than on the EP. The thing is, Tangerine Dream is a very experimental-sounding act – the average person isn’t going to enjoy them at all. So for me it’s just about taking those more experimental ideas and sounds and kind of putting it into a pop format. I think that if there is a way that I connect with the whole “chillwave” thing, it’s that we explore those sorts of influences – from the obvious analogue sounds, to the kind of transcendent vibe that they were going for.
You’ve released work on a number of different audio formats. Do you have a favourite?
“I think the cassette tape [High Times] I did worked out really cool. I mean, I’m a big fan of cassettes, I’m not super-deep into collecting them – I have friends who are, and you know, it’s kind of an underground culture, connected usually with noisier material. I definitely like the idea of it being a very personal connection – and the coolest thing with cassettes is usually that the artwork is really great. For me, it was also a very practical thought of, ‘I can do this myself. It’s fairly cheap.’ The songs that are on the cassette are only available on the cassette, so any versions that are on the internet are ripped versions – occasionally I’ll hear the same song in two different rips that sound quite different. And I really like that.
“As far as the new record in concerned, there might be some kind of limited cassette release, but I suppose in some ways [Washed Out’s] kind of outgrown that. But then, who actually buys CDs? [laughs]. That said, I personally enjoy listening to CDs ‘cos the sound is so much better. But my everyday listening habits are based around seeking out things quickly and easily online. I’ll always do vinyl releases where I can – even if they’re not always available everywhere, I’ll sell them on tour or whatever, because I collect vinyl, and I guess it remains my ideal format in that sense.”
“My everyday listening habits are based around seeking out things quickly and easily online…but vinyl remains my ideal format.”
What role do samples play in your compositions?
“It’s normally a starting-point – there’s a sampled sound, usually an analogue-sounding thing, that shapes the overall sound of the track. All the tracks have a kind of analogue feel, and a lot of the time the sounds that I want to use can’t be easily recreated. So sampling for me began as really a practical thing, a result of me not having the resources to collect these unique analogue synthesizers. The other thing that I’ve always really enjoyed about sampling is how really unexpected things can happen – when you put two things together, or you reverse something, or you stretch something, and suddenly you stumble upon something completely new that would never happen if you were just sitting down playing a guitar or whatever. So some of my favourite songs are just stumbling upon something that’s cool and then building a song out of it.
What plans do you have for the remainder of 2010?
“I have a couple of songs that are finished that I hopefully will have out as a single or something. I would love to just put it up on the internet for free. Earlier in the year I was planning to have an album finished and out by the beginning of August, but at that point I was assuming that I’d be able to get work done on the road, which didn’t happen, so I’m a bit behind schedule. But now I don’t have any shows til mid-August, so I’ll hopefully have everything done by then, which would mean the record would be out by the end of the year. I think I might come to the UK again for a few dates before then.”
Trilby Foxx
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