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.”
Pages: 1 2
Pingback: FACT: the week that was – FACT magazine: music and art
Pingback: Vitaminic