Whitney’s Light Shines Brightly

The story of Whitney isn’t necessarily about two teenage lads falling in love with music and deciding to form a band.  Formerly with Unknown Mortal Orchestra, vocalist / drummer Ehrlich joined indie rock’s Smith Westerns, where he met guitarist Kakacek. 

Following Smith Westerns’ 2014 breakup, both Ehrlich and Kakacek worked on solo careers and side projects.  It wasn’t until during one of Chicago’s toughest winters that the two artists, by then roommates, began collaborating on songs.

Whitney’s debut album, Light Upon The Lake, arrived earlier this year on Secretly Canadian.  Denver-based Reverb hailed the disc filled with songs about breakups and failed relationships as a “captivating debut” while Consequence Of Sound described the LP “as majestic and ethereal as its title implies.”

Ehrlich and Kakacek spoke with Pollstar as they headed to Washington, D.C., for a gig at DC9.  Despite the critical accolades awarded to Light Upon The Lake, the two musicians seemed more concerned about the music than about what scribes were saying about the album.  Maybe that’s because when it comes to Whitney, the music is always first.

I how much time was spent working on the album?

Ehrlich:  We were just living together.  It took like a year and a half or so to write.  We were writing every day.  We had jobs and stuff.  Whenever we felt we had an idea worth working on, we’d sit down and figure it out.

Are there particular topics the two of you enjoy writing about?

Ehrlich: Mostly romantic relationships, I guess.  All the lyrical content is relationship based, whether it be family or personal relationships.

Your press bio states that the two of you “wrote frankly about the breakups they were enduring.”  Is dating either one of you a tough job?

Kakacek: It definitely is.  We’re gone so often.  We haven’t really found girls that are going to [occupy] important levels of our lives, that will be in front of our career at this point.  I think, in that respect, it’s pretty tough.  They’re always going to be … like second fiddle to our real passion.

So the music always comes first.

Kakacek: Maybe that’s kind of sad sometimes, but yeah.

What did you learn while playing in Smith Westerns that you’ve been able to apply to Whitney?

Kakacek: Mainly, just to be grateful for everything and work really hard on the road.  Julien and I have been making music, individually, since we were really young.  I dunno if Smith Westerns really had much influence on what we’re creating in Whitney music, necessarily.  More about how to build a band from the ground up.

At What point in the initial songwriting process did you realize that you might be on to something?

Ehrlich:  It was the third song [“Golden Days”] we wrote.  Once we realized the scope of what that song was going to be, it just kind of upped the ante for the entire album writing process and we realized what we were going to make and realized that we were going to be in love with what we were making. And it wasn’t something like a joke record.

Do you think this is a more mature album than anything the two of you would have come up with during your days with Smith Westerns?

Ehrlich:  Definitely.  We took more care with the lyrics.  Smith Westerns were more basic.  Not in a bad way. They were very catchy.  That band approached [songs] in a more tongue-in-cheek way, maybe.

What’s the live configuration for Whitney?

Kakacek: We have a six-piece on stage and then our sound guy.

Whitney is presented as the two of you accompanied by other musicians.  Is that easier than working in a complete band where all musicians are members and have equal say in the group’s direction?

Ehrlich:  I would probably chalk that up to decision making.  It makes it a bit easier … in all facets, like songwriting and logistics, being on tour.

Kakacek: Also, it’s one of those things where the band isn’t just us two and then a bunch of hired musicians.  They’re our best friends and we’re all in the band together. … And everyone participates in the making of record as well. 

What is the creation process like for the two of you?

Ehrlich:  I guess it’s kind of like an open door policy.  We live together, for the most part, off the road and on the road.  Once we come up with an idea that we deem worthy to seeing through to the end, we obsess over it.  It’s always in our minds. Whether we’re together or alone, we’re always trying to do something to help the song and make it better.  When we find inspiration, we’ll text it to each other or call each other … or we’re in the room together, creating, finding a melody … a guitar part.

Do you work so closely that you’re always on the same vibe, perhaps ending each other’s sentences?

Kakacek: I don’t know if we end each other’s sentences.  I think everyone in the band has a similar sense of humor.  We all get along really well, which is very lucky for us.

Ehrlich:  We’re all at the same stage of our lives where  we want to see this project into our 30s. We’re, like, blended, pretty much on all topics.

Artists with decades of music behind them have often said that at the beginning they never imagined a band or a solo career to last more than a few years.  Is that a common feeling in any new band?

Kakacek: I think that speaks to how fleeting success can be at times.  The minor success we had, it’s kind of hard to understand what we did right.  It’s something that’s like a combination of luck and hard work.  I think, in that sense, it’s maybe hard to find forever being successful or whatever.  We’re interested in music enough that we’re going to pursue it as long as we can.

For each of you, what was your first instrument?

Ehrlich:  It was drums. … And vocals. … Screaming, crying and playing drums, probably at the same time.

How old were you when you began playing drums?

Ehrlich:  I was 2.  What attracted me was my father is an amazing drummer. He wanted me to do that.  Music didn’t necessarily work out for him.  He’s a great business man in his own right, but I think he just wanted me to pursue it with a real passion.

Kakacek: My [first instrument] was piano. My sister is an opera singer, now, but we were both put into piano in second grade or so.  I had piano until I was in eighth grade when I started playing guitar.

Did piano make learning guitar easier?

Kakacek: I think piano is a really good instrument to learn first, when you’re younger. It’s a little more visual than guitar, things are laid out. … But I still sucked really bad at guitar when I first started playing it.

With Whitney’s debut album: How do you think listeners are perceiving the LP?

Ehrlich:  I hope they don’t read any sort of press release or any former band bullshit, and instead take it for what it is – a record of honest songs that we made.

You recorded the album in analog.  What advantages did that have versus recording digitally?

Kakacek: It makes you more concise on your arrangement because there’s only so much space on the tape.  We were working with a 16-track.  Digitally, you can add as much stuff as you want, whenever you want.  With tape you have to be a little smarter about how you set things up.

Does the album sound like the two of you imagined it would?

Ehrlich:  We took a shot at mixing it ourselves and realized we were not going to reach our goal in terms of sound quality.  Then we had Jacob Portrait from Unknown Mortal Orchestra mix it.  As a singer, I was worried about how my vocals were going to turn out.  The work he put into them was like crossing the finish line to me. I was like, “Damn.  This is going to turn out to be something that I am fully comfortable with, and I love.”  Any time you make a record, you do this.  But we both listened to the record for an entire month straight after that, because we were immediately proud of it.  We still love it.  We have to play the songs every goddamn night but we love doing it.

What is the business of Whitney like at this moment?

Ehrlich:  We have a manager and a booking agent.

What moves Whitney on tour?

Ehrlich:  We have a van with a trailer.

Kakacek: We have nine people on the road.

Ehrlich:  A big happy family.

Soundwise, what kind of venues do you prefer playing?

Ehrlich:  We just played this place called Exit / In in Nashville. That was really fun.  It’s a good size room, like 500 capacity.  There’s a little balcony area.

Is the record the No. 1 priority for Whitney or is it the live show?

Kakacek They’re definitely equally important. Artists who make incredible records but can’t back them up live, they just don’t last as long.  We try to play as best as we can.  We’re really proud of our live show and it will probably take us where we want to go.

Ehrlich:  I think it’s one of those things where when you’re on the road for a super long time, it feels really good to go home, sit down and write some more.  By the time you’ve been writing for a while, you get antsy and want to go back on tour.

Which artists do you look up to?

Ehrlich:  Neil Young.  We’re all pretty much similar in our music tastes.

Are there moments, perhaps when facing a creative speed bump, that you might think, “What would Neil do?”

Ehrlich:  No.  I think we’re a little bit more selfish.  Since it’s a collaborative songwriting process, we can work those moments out by saying, “What would we both agree on?”

But a lot of times we’ll write something … like the verse of “No Woman,” we wrote that and it was like, “Oh, man!  This sounds like our weird take on a Neil Youngy type of verse or something.”  We’ll notice if [a song] is influenced by someone we look up to.  But never try to use them like spirit animals or something.  We’re not conscious of that when writing.

Are you each other’s best friend?

Ehrlich:  Yeah. We’re really close.  I think we’ve gone through the volatile band situations.  We got that out of the way when we were 19, 20.  We’ve been through a lot and our relationship has stood up.

Are you already working on the second album?

Kakacek: We just started writing.  We haven’t booked any studio time or anything like that.

What’s the best piece of advice anyone has given either one of you?

Kakacek: There really wasn’t a [moment] where people in bands sit you down and give you advice.  You just kind of learn from what they do.  I think both of us have been schooled in playing live shows, playing a lot and playing well.

Ehrlich:  We could answer this question in a number of different ways, though.  It’s like, “Don’t eat sushi in this country” or something.  We’ve just kind of learned by example.

Whitney’s upcoming shows:

Oct. 14 – Montreal, Quebec,  Bar le Ritz PDB
Oct. 15 – Toronto, Ontario, Lee’s Palace
Oct. 16 – Grand Rapids, Mich.,  The Pyramid Scheme
Oct. 23 – Barcelona, Spain, Various Venues (San Miguel Primavera Club)
Oct. 25 – Cologne, Germany, Blue Shell
Oct. 26 – Munich, Germany, Unter Deck
Oct. 27 – St. Gallen, Switzerland, Palace
Oct. 28 – Dudingen, Switzerland, Bad Bonn
Oct. 29 – Paris, France, Grand Halle de la Villette (Pitchfork Music Festival Paris)
Oct. 30 – Brussels, Belgium, AB Club @ Ancienne Belgique
Nov. 3 – Brighton, England, The Haunt
Nov. 4 – Nottingham, England, Bodega Social Club
Nov. 5 – Glasgow, Scotland, Centre for Contemporary Arts
Nov. 6 – Newcastle, England, The Cluny
Nov. 8 – Manchester, England, Gorilla
Nov. 9 – Bristol, England, Thekla
Nov. 10 – London, England, Koko 
Nov. 12 – Utrecht, Netherlands, “Le Guess Who”
Nov. 13 – Amsterdam, Netherlands, Paradiso Noord
Nov. 16 – Stockholm, Sweden, Debaser Strand
Nov. 17 – Malmo, Sweden, Babel
Nov. 18 – Oslo, Norway, John Dee
Nov. 19 – Goteborg, Sweden, Pusterviksbaren
Nov. 20 – Copenhagen, Denmark, VEGA House Of Music
Dec. 1 – Milwaukee, Wis., Turner Hall Ballroom
Dec. 2 – Madison, Wis., Majestic Theatre
Dec. 3 – Chicago, Ill., Thalia Hall
Dec. 4 – Chicago, Ill., Thalia Hall

Appearing at  “St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival”    

Jan. 26 – Brisbane, Australia, Brisbane Showgrounds
Jan. 28 – Footscray, Australia, Footscray Community Arts Centre
Jan. 30 – Auckland, New Zealand, Albert Park
Feb. 3 – Adelaide, Australia, Harts Mill
Feb. 4 – Lilyfield, Australia, Sydney College Of The Arts
Feb. 5 – Fremantle, Australia,  Esplanade

For more information, please visit Whitney’s website, Facebook page, Twitter feed and Instagram account.