The Warlocks: Regular Urban Survivors

 

In July The Warlocks celebrated their fifth anniversary together. Guitarist JC, says they see themselves as, “an artist collective.” With the addition of two new members to the family in the shape of bassist Jenny Fraser and second drummer Bob Mustachio, they’re demonstrating a classic Warlocks trait - the ability to change. But through endless touring and line up changes – there’s been 19 band members to date – they’ve proven their worth as survivors. They’ve also made some pretty mind-bending music in the process. Gigwise duly grilled JC to reveal all...

 

 

JC: "I don’t think there’s anything to live up to with regard to those two bands as they didn’t subsequently do anything with the name. I’m sure there’s been many Warlocks throughout history, but we’ve kinda made the name ours these days. Nobody’s had it for quite a while, maybe that’s a curse in itself."

 

JC: "It doesn’t matter, I enjoy the press, it makes me laugh y’know. If I ever read a full page deconstruction or negative response, I will prefer it to nothing because it means we’ve moved somebody enough to write something. It’s lazy journalism in the end when people just say ‘these stoners can rock’ because it’s kind of a blanket statement – they don’t know who’s a stoner and who’s not. I just laugh, as a band we have to laugh."

 

JC: "Touring is what destroys a lot of bands, it’s not financially sound by any means, there are no guarantees. There’s no safety net, at least not with this group. We did this for years and years without any recognition or compensation, we paid for this all ourselves."

 

JC: "I guess I’d say the same thing to people who have heard the band. The sound has changed a bit, it’s a bit more direct in terms of song structure, but still full of abstract sounds and noises. It’s enjoyable at low volumes as well as loud."

 

JC: "I think we’re still doing that, but it’s also kind of different. There’s a lot of texture and emotion in this new record. We took a long time working on it over the course of a year and a half and we’ve gone through quite a lot of different emotional experiences which will be seen I believe, maybe not. In terms of sound it’s very close to who we are right now."

 

JC: "It’s somewhat different to when we first started out because we are different individuals now. I believe we are tighter now than we’ve ever been and have gone through more together than some people do with their own families. We’ve suffered, been happy, it’s a gang, it’s a lifestyle. We’re dysfunctional like any family. We do have a couple of new members, Bob Mustachio who is an old friend and young Miss Jenny Fraser. It’s interesting because although Bob and Jenny go way back, it’s actually our collective experiences which have brought us closer together."

 

JC: "We believe that it’s our own sort of thing. It’s hard to say, I think we certainly are inspired by others from time to time, those we respect, but for the most part we’re on the fringe of many different scenes. As individuals we stand alone. There is no extended scene in LA which we are a part of. "

 

JC: "There was never a time when we had that many people all at the same time, at least not performing on stage! We are a bit of an artist collective, we have many people involved who you will never see but you may see their work as time goes on or recognise and learn their names if they go on to do other things. We have had an extensive amount of turn over, it’s very difficult working with others in any aspect of life and we are a very difficult group because we have high demands and high expectation. We work very hard and diligently, a lot of people cannot hang with that."

 

JC: "It’s a good question, because we’ve been so deep within the wood it’s been difficult to discern if we’re on the right path but apparently we are. Things have been going really well and I’ve been impressed with people’s reaction and they’ve been impressed with us."

 

JC: "It’s very exciting personally, and I can speak for everyone and say we all are. In fact we’re looking forward to returning and doing a full tour. In the Fall we’ll be back, we’re doing a full tour of the States over the summer then a full English tour, returning to the States and then Europe after that. Things change so often that we kinda just wait to see what happens."

 

JC: "I would like to say that’s me as a lot of the time everyone else is busy doing something else. Why Beethoven? It gets very boring to hear rock music all the time. I think most of the members of the band have to agree with the choice. It’s always good to hear something just as intense but from a different direction."

 

"It’s going to be solid touring, unfortunately it's very taxing but I enjoy it more than anything else. We have learnt through trial and error that we need to take breaks here and there, but I think primarily me and Bobby (Hecksher, singer/guitarist) are working on some ideas which are in the development stage at the moment. You have to make time on the road, on this last record we had worked through so many song ideas that didn’t make it. There’s one song I’m particularly fond of and this happened to it and I’m encouraging it to be brought back. We have not allowed too much of 'Surgery' to be heard so far. We’re always, if not a completed album ahead of ourselves, always a sound direction ahead of ourselves. I guess you could blame it on video games – they lower your attention to span somewhat.