Interview: Who Loves You
Posted: by The Editor
During an off-date on Bleak Falls’s most recent tour, I had the pleasure of staying in Philadelphia with the wonderful folks in Who Loves You. They were wonderful hosts and welcomed us into their beautiful new apartment, which was adorned with the cutest dog I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. Read below to learn more about the new Who Loves You record, their touring plans for 2017 and some of their favorite up-and-coming artists.
Alex: Could you start by introducing yourself and stating your role in the band?
Adam: I’m Adam and I play a bunch of things in Who Loves You. I do vocals and guitar, mostly.
Parker: Hi, I’m Parker Ackerman and I’m also a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter in Who Loves You, but my main focus is drums.
Alex: What’s the songwriting process like for Who Loves You? Is it any different than other projects you’ve been involved with in the past?
Adam: Not particularly, I don’t feel. I mean, usually it’s just –
Parker: For me, it’s definitely different than bands I’ve been in without you.
Adam: Yeah.
Parker: Adam and I have a pretty on-lock songwriting style I would say.
Alex: Sure, it seems like y’all come out with music pretty quickly.
Parker: Yeah! Maybe our only strength is the fact that we can write very well together. Sometimes it’ll start with Adam bringing a riff or I’ll bring a riff and stuff comes out of that but it’s very intuitive. Adam will start playing something and we don’t even think about the next part, it just comes.
Adam: Exactly. A lot of the time it starts with me playing a riff and when we finish a part that we’ve written together we can go forward to where the next part of the song should be and just do it together! It just makes sense, I don’t know.
Parker: We don’t ever stop to think “what does this song need?” it just kind of happens because we’ve been playing music together for a long time at this point.
Adam: [laughs] Yeah, too long. Just joking.
Parker: [laughs] No, yeah I completely agree.
Alex: So, I noticed that you just finished up recording the first Who Loves You record, how was that experience?
Parker: It was great. The studio and the folks we recorded with were great.
Alex: Who’d you record with?
Adam: We recorded with Brad Krieger and Chaimes Parker of Big Nice studio in Rhode Island, who have been involved with recording the new IAN SWEET, Soft Fangs, and Horse Jumper of Love!
Alex: Word! In terms of songwriting and playing style, who were some of your biggest influences on the LP?
Adam: A few of the bands that influenced me personally were IAN SWEET, Krill, Pile, Two-Inch Astronaut, stuff like that. We had basically the same influences for our EP, but I think that these influences are more pronounced on the new record than they were on the EP.
Parker: I think there’s a lot less pop punk/emo influence and less energetic moments than our previous material. Not say there’s less energy, it’s just –
Alex: – the LP is definitely a bit more refined.
Parker: Yeah, that’d be nice to say. [laughs]
Adam: Yeah! I mean, I feel like we sort of came into our own with the LP. We figured out a nice groove to writing our songs and we worked on it for a while. When we first started this project, the two bands we wanted to sound like the most were Pile and Jeff Rosenstock. I don’t think we strayed from that on the LP, I think like you said we just refined those two aspirations a bit.
Alex: Have y’all heard the new Pile record?
Both: Oh yeah, it’s possibly their best to date, actually.
Alex: Hell yeah, it’s seriously too good. Any tours happening following the release of the record? Any name for the album yet?
Parker: [laughs] Well, we just got back from a terrible tour, but the name of our new record is Strange Lows.
Adam: Speaking of Strange Lows, there were definitely some strange lows on this tour!
Parker: Yeah, Strange Lows definitely does reflect our most recent run but as for new tours, we’re going to try and settle in and keep our noses to the grindstone while we get acquainted to Philadelphia. We’re going to get out there and play shows in the local scene here but we don’t have any big runs planned for awhile.
Adam: Yeah, we don’t have any plans for bigger tours just yet but we’ll do them. Probably after the summer!
Alex: Are there any up-and-coming bands from your area we should know about?
Adam: Well we just moved to Philly from Massachusetts, so this is a bit of a loaded question! We’ve been really into Leaner and Saccharine. For Philly, the new Kississippi record is going to be great! Weller is great too.
Parker: Weller is very nice and we just Harrison out in Connecticut and he is a very nice boy and he’s very well dressed. His band, via his good looks and well-dressedness, is going to go places. [laughs]
Alex: What are your plans for 2017?
Parker: Our 2017 has already been pretty wild for us. It feels like our plans for 2017 already happened. We recorded a split, went on a couple of tours, recorded an LP, and recently moved to Philadelphia. We’re kind of in the valley of 2017 now and are going to be laying low for a bit.
Adam: Yeah we just moved to Philadelphia so we’re going to lay low, make some money –
Parker: Yeah, you know, going to take in that Philly vibe. Become Philly locals.
Adam: I want you to edit that out! Hey, phone, that sucks, edit that out! [laughs] “Siri: edit that fucking shit out!” [laughs]
Alex: Anything else y’all would like to add?
Parker: On the record, I would love to tour with Bleak Falls if they all learned to walk faster. [laughs]
Alex: Oof, that’s a dig. Any shout outs or reps ya’ll wanna throw out before we wrap this up?
Parker: Shout out to Mover Shaker, they’re all my friends. Shout out to my dog Riley, she’s perfect.
Adam: Shout out to us! We are the best band in the world!
Alex: Thanks for doing this y’all! Best of luck for the rest of 2017!
Check out the band on:
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Alex Boundy
