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Interview: Black Whales

By Brittney ⋅ October 3, 2008 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

The Black Whales, a Seattle foursome, make tight, catchy pop with folk-rock edges. It’s a sound that can easily be dull or cliche, but the Whales do it just right, making tunes that get you bouncing and drift happily through your head for hours after you hear them. They’re also kind enough to answer my emails.

Alright fellows, introduce yourselves.

(Turns around in reading chair, surprised…) Oh, hello! We’re Black Whales. We’ve got Davey Browzowski on drums and percussion, Alan Foote on guitar and backing vocals, Ryan “Black Boss” Middleton on bass and Alex Robert on guitar and lead vocals.

Tell me a little bit about your various histories in the Seattle music scene, and how you came to join forces as Black Whales.

Alan and I [Alex] were in a band called Tourist for a hundred years, but when that band kind of fell apart, we kept playing together and decided start over and just go back to the beginning. We wanted to do really simple and honest stuff that’s actually fun to play live, stuff that we grew up listening to and stuff that first got us into music. Davey had been in The Catheters before he was old enough to walk or eat solid foods. After that ended some time ago, he had a band called Tallbirds. When Tallbirds ended, Alan, Davey and I started playing together on and off. Ryan had been in a band called Problem With Heroes years ago and then more recently, a band called Spacesuit. The bass thing took a minute to figure out. We weren’t sure what we wanted there yet, but Ryan wasn’t doing anything musically at the time and we’d always talked about playing music together at some point, so it just seemed like the perfect time to ask him to come in and play bass. It all kind of happened quickly and easily and I think that’s why we all work so well; there’s that common interest to keep things fun and simple. It doesn’t seem like too much to ask, but it’s hard to find people that are really okay starting with just that.

Google and Wikipedia tell me that black whales aren’t an actual species, though the term is sometimes used to refer to (snicker, snicker) sperm whales. So, the dreaded question: where did the name come from?

This is a really tough question. It came up in New York a few weeks ago. I had seen this picture in a magazine a long time ago of a huge whale underwater. The picture was really eerie and the article was about an old fisherman or something, talking about spotting this whale called the Right Whale. It’s all black and looked really ghostly and strange. The article said that the whale’s nickname is the Black Whale and I liked it right away. It’s kind of creepy and seeing the picture and the name ‘Black Whale’ together stuck with me. When it came time to give the project a name, I immediately thought of that.

Plus…there’s a lot of ways to make fun of yourself with a name like that.

You self-released a four-song EP earlier this year, and you’ve recently finished recording a full-length album. What can you tell us about titles or release dates?

We just finished doing six new songs with the Zach Reinig who did the last four, so at this point the idea is to throw them all together and sort of shop it around and try and get someone to release it as a full length. There are a lot of title ideas. I really like the name “Origins”. It’s the title of the closing song on the record and it’s kind of a concept thing, so it would make sense that way. We’ll see…

Besides being really talented, you guys are also, well, really cute. Any secret aspirations to make the cover of Tiger Beat, or maybe Cosmo Girl?

Hah…no comment? Can I do that? Besides, I think we might be getting too old for Tiger Beat. The Jonas Brothers kind of own that market and they’re like, what, 6 years old or something?

You play Reverb Fest in Ballard on Saturday. Why should everyone go see you, instead of one of the seven other bands on at the same time?

Well…we put a really good set together for this, plus, its all-ages. You can take a 40 minute break from the booze and walk down the street and support it, just for that reason alone. I think this is only our second all-ages show, so we’re pretty excited about that. You really should come….how about that?

Who do you plan on going to see during your downtime?

Festivals can be hectic, but if we get the chance, Brothers of the Sonic Cloth for sure. Tad!? Seriously? That’s pants-shitting stuff! Also, See Me River should probably not be missed and if….if we can make it all the way until after midnight, Moondoggies at The Sunset. I get the feeling that the party gods might have something very different in mind for us though.

What drink should an impressed fan buy you after the show?

Impressed fans may present us with gifts of Cazadores shots and Negra Modelos!

Any last words from the mouths of the Whales?

Sarah Palin is an idiot.

Black Whales play Salmon Bay Eagles at 7pm tomorrow. All-day Reverb Fest admission is $10.

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