Weekend Music Preview: Woven Bones Tour Kick-Off [Beerland / Friday]
What was the initial catalyst and also, the final piece of the puzzle that led to the formation of Woven Bones?
I’m from Florida and was recording a slew of songs by myself on a cassette four track under the name Woven Bones starting in early 2008. Some of the original songs were written as early as 2004 while I was in college in Gainesville, though I never had a solid motivation or direction for what the songs were to become (Woven Bones). I've just been into the ideas that are Woven Bones for a long time now.
I moved to Orlando, Florida from my home in Jacksonville, Florida around June of 2008. I had a friend that lived there that I wanted to try and do a live Woven Bones set with. We did it for about 2 months before I lost my job at this cafe I worked at. The economy hit hard in Florida really early and I was very stressed. My friend had no intention of moving with me and I had a friend in Austin that encouraged me to move here and pursue freelance graphics and said that I would not have a hard time finding people to jam with. So I packed my car and moved to Austin on September 1st, 2008.
I played a few premature gigs within the first two weeks of being here with Christian (Bland) from The Black Angels before deciding that I really wanted to get a 3 piece band together and give my songs all they needed to really rock. I met Matty (Matthew Nichols), and our friend James (Oswald) at those first gigs and when I decided to move Woven Bones into what it is now, I sought them out to be the rhythm section. We all saw eye to eye on what I wanted to do with the band -- it was perfect chemistry between us when I brought my songs to the table at the first practice.
We are all transplants to Austin, Obviously I'm from Florida, Matty is from Walla Walla, WA, and the current drummer Colin (Ryan) is from Kansas.
Zoo music is Dee Dee from Dum Dum Girls, and her husband Brandon (Welchez) who plays in the Crocodiles. Both Dum Dum Girls and Woven Bones first 7" singles came out on HoZac Records in March 2009 so we had a label connection already. We had mutual friends, interests in each other sound, etc. etc. -- they offered up the idea of doing a record for us and we jumped on it. Dee Dee and Brandon are two of my best friends.
Our first full length will be out on Chicago's HoZac Records in mid-spring 2010.
You guys have released much of your work on 7" records -- a lot of bands don't utilize that format anymore -- any specific reasons you guys still press vinyl? How does a band today balance releases on vinyl, CD, and direct online releases --- are iTunes releases, etc. essential in this era?
7"s or 45's are still the way to release a non digital single, so we use that format. They are really popular again these days, and become instantly collectible sometimes. CD's are so disposable and people just download digitally for free anyways these days. Vinyl is the way to actually get a product to the music consumer that actually wants a physical item. The art is bigger, it's more tactile, the music sounds warmer, and actually records last longer than CD's if taken care of. I'm sure our LP will be on CD in the spring, and when something bigger happens for us with bigger distribution we'll have CD's. Right now, we are selling records to a niche sector of the music economy, and most of them have iPods or record players. We'll get into iTunes and digital stuff soon, probably around the time the LP comes out. Everything has just been going so fast we haven't thought much about digital yet.
You guys are leaving on a West Coast tour next month -- is this your first jaunt across that area? Any specific cities you're especially excited about?
We played San Diego and Costa Mesa in June, but for an actual tour this is the first jaunt for us out West. We're super excited about all the shows. We have friends all over the West Coast and we're ready for a little vacation from the Lone Star State, though Austin is so a good home to come home to.
What are your thoughts on Austin as a breeding ground for musicians -- a perfect city for musicians because of the myriad of opportunities, or a dilution of talent because of the mass quantity of bands in town?
Austin has all the resources you need and rent is cheap enough in the right spots to be able to pull off the rock n roll life. At the same time, I think Austin is also a place that takes hard work to get your band decent local recognition. It’s a fine line of playing enough, not playing too much, and playing the right shows before you build a solid local fan base. I do believe that the real dilution of talent here is that there are many bands that think Austin is their ticket to fame -- it's not at all. You gotta work hard here too. Nothing just happens because you live in Austin -- it's a regular city when the festivals aren't going on. It's a great youthful, artistic city, but still just a regular grind like any other city on any normal day. Austin is a perfect place if you take hold of your own destiny in it.
Thank you for speaking with Austinist.
Woven Bones: [Official] [MySpace]
Shapes Have Fangs: [MySpace]
Dated: [MySpace]
Flip through the Austinist Weekend Music Preview Slideshow below for details on a number of events in town this weekend.
Images from MySpace / Facebook / provided by entity.
