photo by Lauren Dukoff
Some may call it a great act of valor for a sun-drenched gang of ragtag, rock ‘n’ roll stoners to share a stage with the concrete real estate mogul that is Donald Trump. The mere thought intensifies when the platform is national television. Hell, the only plausible response you could give to that scenario would be “only in New York.”
Wavves kicked off their tour last night in Denver supporting their fourth album Afraid of Heights, but only after a stop in the Big, Rotten Apple.
“We just flew into Denver this morning,” says Wavves bassist Stephen Pope, who timed this interview perfectly to get out of loading duty. “We did Letterman last night and Donald Trump was the main guest, which was pretty fucking great. Then we woke up at 5 a.m. and hopped on a flight here.”
But let's be clear when talking up Trump: There should be no misconception about Wavves’ ability to hold their own: "Tremendous!" Letterman says. These weed demons have been ferociously grueling over their highly anticipated new album for over a year. Now, they’re ready to send fully fledged, hazy buzz vibes across the country.
“With only two minor breaks, we spent all of 2012 in the studio,” Pope says. “And since Nathan hasn’t had a license in five years, I picked him up every day to go to the studio.”
Afraid of Heights marks Wavves’ first EP produced solely on the band’s terms with money out of their own pockets. Therefore, the recording process was able to cater to the band.
“With King of the Beach, we would go into the studio for a couple of hours to record our parts, then leave and leave the rest to the engineer and producer,” Pope says. “With this, we all had a hand in listening to the work over and over again and discussing why a specific piece would be the best route. It was pretty satisfying.”
Pope feels like a big part of being able to finalize the record is due to the help of producer John Hill (Rhianna, Santigold, Wu-Tang Clan) who agreed to go into the studio with Wavves for an entire year without getting paid.
“He was confident enough that we could make an album that would sell to a label and make the money back,” Pope says.
Which is exactly what happened when they sold the record to Sony offshoot Mom + Pop.
Although working on an album for such a duration is surely satisfying, it is also an unfamiliar approach. And that idea couldn’t be closer to the truth than for bassist Stephen Pope, whose lineage goes well beyond the Southern California pop sounds of Wavves.
Pope’s initial pull into the garage rock centripetal force starts with Memphis’ acclaimed Goner Records, playing alongside the late Jay Reatard and the Barbaras, consisting of members of the Magic Kids.
“It’s pretty different,” says Pope, reflecting on his Goner days. “We didn’t see too much coverage, although I think that’s changing with groups like Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees. I don’t know, I think a lot of my peers at the time didn’t like Wavves just because it wasn’t cool in that scene to like them.”
Whether there was ever a gap that couldn’t bridge the two stronghold eyes on defiant musicians defending integrity, Pope feels like his experiences with Goner have definitely shaped his current role in Wavves.
“Wavves and the Barbaras especially,” Pope says. “Nathan started out with girl group harmonies over pop garage rock and a lot of Barbaras songs are pretty similar. On the new album, I helped write five songs, and I don’t know if my roots will shine through, but I haven’t changed the way I write songs at all.”
Wavves were also able to incorporate new, layered elements into this new EP that were unfamiliar for both frontman Nathan Young and Pope. Now, experimentations for the sake of experimenting runs the risk of going disastrously wrong, but allowing yourself to be picky about making it sound right relies heavily on time well spent.
“John was really good at matching the sounds that we wanted,” Pope says. “So if we had to wait a month to get a particular instrument, like this Phil Spector-eque celesta, we could do that and John was willing to buy it.”
Pope says that the sounds of Phil Spector, including The Crystals and The Ronettes, as well as Frankie Valli and other various girl groups are typical for the band’s daily listenings.
Among a few cameos on Afraid of Heights, former Saddle Creek artist and Rilo Kiley lead singer Jenny Lewis lends her vocals to back the title track.
“We met Jenny a couple years back and decided it would be cool to have her on a track,” Pope says. “She also lives in L.A., so it was easy to call her up. I think she showed up the next day.”
Wavves will be pulling into Omaha tonight to play The Waiting Room with labelmates and punk rock boozehounds FIDLAR as well as Cheatahs.
As for Pope and Williams, their mainstay will be chronic and video games. And there's no question of who is better at the latter under the influence.
“(Weed) helps Nathan, and it hurts me,” Pope says. “Nathan is really good at video games. I’m OK at easy sports games. If I play Call of Duty, I usually end up just shooting at the clouds and getting killed.”
Steven is a Hear Nebraska contributor. Fee-fi-fo-fum, he smells Kraft dinner. Reach him at stevena@hearnebraska.org.