The Wheeler Brothers Like You--For Reals: A Chat with Five Guys in a Van

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The Wheeler Brothers know that you like to kick back under an old oak tree after a long day of toil and trouble and have a beer--and they're making music to capture just that feeling. This five-piece sometimes country, sometimes indie-rock band is composed of three brothers (Nolan, Tyler, and Patrick Wheeler) and a couple of their friends (Danny Matthews and A.J. Molyneaux)--all Austin natives. They released their first album, Portraits (a mix of alt-country, Americana, and the good old American love song perfect for that aforementioned beer and oak tree combo) in June of this year. For five guys riding around together in the backwoods of Tennessee in a van they're very polite and almost chipper. Their genuine interest in talking to people has earned them a diverse and devoted fan base (among them local legends Ray Benson and Bob Schneider). Write something on their Facebook page--they'll write you back. Want to meet them? Just go to one of their shows and they'll probably say "Hi!" before you do.

Since this new Austin favorite is playing at Antone's tonight we thought we'd call them up and chat a spell about their fans, their music, and who would win in an all-out drunken brawl.

Danny, you guys are a somewhat of an anomaly: you were a new band that was selling out shows before you had even dropped an album. How do you think you were able to accomplish that?

Well, I think it's a perfect storm--a good mix of how you put together you street team and your promotions and your immediate network of fans. [For] most bands your first fans are your friends,the first people who see you, but then apart from that you've got all the flyer-ing and shaking hands. We got shows where we sent out hundreds of post cards, like personal post cards, for people to put on their refrigerators, "save the dates" kind of thing. Basically before the shows we were just being as loud as possible and hoping for the best and then once people got there -we rehearse very hard and just have really deliberate, tight, high energy live shows--I think people were very responsive to it in the beginning and it was awesome.

You mentioned that you guys pretty much promoted the crap out of yourselves through digital media and real-world interaction. I read somewhere that at some point you guys were actually busking in the subway to get people to come to your shows. Was this kind of intense commitment to promotion the plan you started out with?

We kind of realized really, really quickly that those were the kind of tools for us. Those are tools for any band that are free and if you use them and if you really reach out and connect with people in those ways then it's also a way for your fans to have a more personal relationship with the band. So these are really reciprocal ways to get out, actually shake people's hands, busking in the subways, really maintaining the Twitter, the Facebook, and all of your digital media. It's just absolutely crucial for us to grow our fan base and I don't know how else we'd do some of the stuff we do without this outlet. It also gives [the fans] a way to interact with us on a personal basis, like when someone sends us a message on Facebook, it's one of the five of us responding. It's not some guy in a management office somewhere. It's us. So it's kind of nice to be able to have that relationship with your fans and it's definitely been the one tool to help us build.

How do you guys see yourselves being able to maintain that as you get bigger and bigger and your fan base expands?

I think we have to hopefully keep a level head about it. Our job is to play music and to write music and deliver it, but before we got started working with--and we do have a management group--but before we started down that path we were doing it ourselves and honestly, I think we like doing it. It's kind of weird. It doesn't really feel like work. It's that interaction with the fans and maintaining all that stuff that's easy to do and it's fun for us so it makes it less like work and less like upkeep and more like just something we want to do. Making those relationships.

How are you keeping yourselves from burning out or over-saturating people with info and attention?

It's just offering them that outlet and that opportunity to have a relationship with us, a real one, if they want to have it. Now it's just up-keep and shows but I don't think that visual and social media is necessarily over-saturating. But in terms of keeping it from burning us out...it is a lot to up-keep and you have to want to do it.

You just want to have to do it; it's a part of a program. Being in a band isn't just writing music and just playing music and just delivering it, it's also communicating, managing, and booking. I think fans would like to be a part of all that so we let them in on it as much as is possible. Our band is very public.

So, hopefully that's not over-saturating to our fans--maybe it is. If it is I think that's how it will continue to be because it's been useful so far.

I've read different descriptions of your sound: americana, rock, indie-country, alt-country, and you yourselves have said that you considered yourself more "eclecticore" based on the strangeness and vastness of your fan base. What did you all have in mind for your sound when you went in to write and record Portraits?

For starters: we all listen really diverse kinds of music. If you look at our iPods it's just a complete cluster-fuck of indie-rock, and old country, old americana. Real modern indie-rock like Animal Collective, dance music, jam music; we listen to a lot of Jay-Z...a lot of Jay-Z. It's just a crazy mash-up. When our writing styles get together--especially since acoustic and electric instruments drive a lot of our music, the beginnings of a lot of our songs--then it's natural that some of the early writing is kind of going that way: americana, alt-country, whatever genre you want to put it in. But then some of the new stuff that's been kind of slipping out of the jam room lately is much more indie-rock, pop-indie-rock so we're still developing the sound a little bit. Hopefully the next record is a little more cohesive. But, I don't know, we try not to pigeon-hole anything; we try not to limit our sound to anything. We just keep our song ideas open. If it sounds a little bit country, it sounds a little bit country. If it sounds a little bit like it came out of the indie-rock bible, then maybe it did. I don't know. We try not to limit any of it. I try to just do what feel good and what sounds good.

But, I'm gonna just pass the phone over...[to A.J. Molyneaux]

Switching band members means switching gears: I just recently watched your music video for "Home For The Holidays" and I'm super psyched that Art LeFluer was in it. How did that happen?

Our manager, Pat Cassidy, before he started doing the band and music stuff with us, he- and still today, I think - he makes movies and makes films. He had made a movie in Virginia about a year ago and Art LeFleur was one of the stars in the movie. We were making the video for "Home for the Holidays" and we thought "Well, we've gotta do something to get some attention." We were wondering what and we said, "We need an actor that is two things: recognizable and affordable; someone who's down to earth that'll come out and have fun and take this as a cool project like it's supposed to be." We brainstormed for a couple days, and he [Pat Cassidy] started remembering through some of the casts of his movies he'd made and he came up with Art LeFleur. [Pat] brought [Art] down and he was the coolest guy. We got to hang out with him for a couple days and we didn't gush over him too much. I think the first day I asked him a couple "Field of Dreams" questions and asked one "Sandlot" question. Besides that we kind of just got to it--passed the beers, hung out making that video and he's a really cool dude.

Your tour is "Home for the Holidays" so can we expect some sweet-ass Christmas sweaters at your shows?

[Laughs] Maybe! You just planted a bit of a seed there. We're open to people that have ideas for our shows but wardrobe-wise we've been pretty stagnant, so..maybe we'll cut you up a bit with some sweet sweaters. If you've seen the "Home for the Holidays" contest video [on Facebook] you can see there's a couple of us wearing some pretty awesome sweaters. Maybe we'll just have to break those out on stage.

I feel like the sweaters and the Menorah hat would be appropriate--just to cover all of your bases..

And the dogs! I don't know if we can bring the dogs into Antone's but, yeah, you better believe those dogs would be there if they can be there.

Last question is a random one: you are part of a five-piece band--three of which happen to be brothers. Let's say all of you got into a fight--who do you think would win?

[Laughs] If we all got into a fight?!?

Yeah.

Now what fight are we talking here? Are we talking physical fight? Like a fistfight?

We're talking about a drunken-Donnie-and-Marie-sibling-rivalry-thing where someone may or may not have a knife.

Oh yeah, and who would win?

Yeah. Who would win?

I don't know…but I'm gonna go ahead and have to give that to Tyler just because he's the biggest guy in the crew. [Laughs] I think if there was an all-out brawl, I think I would give the title to--not to undermine myself and come across as someone with low self-confidence--but I'd be having to give the win to Tyler.