Forever Turned Around: Indie Heroes Whitney Return To The Road

Whitney opened for Phoenix, The Head And The Heart, Wild Nothing, Unknown Mortal Orchestra (Ehrlich’s old band), and The Decemberists, and sold out headlining shows at clubs including West Hollywood’s The Troubadour, Los Angeles’ El Rey Theatre and, in 2018, three nights each at Chicago’s Thalia Hall and San Francisco’s The Independent. Then they disappeared.

Kakacek and Ehrlich spent a year-and-a-half in the studio, building on the catchy songwriting, masterful musicianship, and falsetto vocals for which Whitney became known. The break, Kakacek and Ehrlich tell Pollstar, was largely because the band doesn’t write music on the road and needed lots of time for the creative process that led to their sophomore album Forever Turned Around, due Aug. 30.

“We were talking to Ben [Swanson, co-founder of the band’s Secretly Canadian label] about it, and it’s the nature of the sophomore album,” Ehrlich says. “It’s always going to be the hardest record that you have to make. But he’s happy with it. You can tell that we worked really hard on it, hopefully.”

“The record didn’t come together in a flash of creativity, we pored over it quite a bit. Making a record can be torturous but we’re very happy with it.”

Whitney formed from the ashes of critical darling Smith Westerns, where Kakacek and Ehrlich played guitar and drums, respectively, and Kakacek says he and Ehrlich have consciously tried to avoid the pitfall of becoming too formulaic, which he feels might have contributed to their previous band’s downfall.

The duo, who were close friends living together in Chicago when Smith Westerns ended, started writing songs about various themes important to them, with drummer Ehrlich deciding to try his hand at vocals. Whitney’s songs incorporated horns, country-inflected vocals and guitar patterns, and heartfelt songwriting about love, loss, loneliness, and the general experience of being twentysomething. Kakacek and Ehrlich built a live band and began performing when John Chavez of Ground Control Touring heard rumblings that two guys from Smith Westerns had a new project. 

“They were one of four acts at a DIY venue in Brooklyn that no longer exists, Shea Stadium, it was a Frankie Cosmos show. … It was a very hot, 200-cap room in New York in August with no AC,” Chavez says. “It was refreshing and unique to see a band playing its first show, already fully formed. Six [skilled musicians] onstage, they were touring with their own sound guy, the drummer was singing.”

Chavez saw potential and offered to start booking them. And book shows he did: Whitney has logged hundreds of dates since 2015. 

“I was blown away. From the moment we met and the few shows I saw from them at SXSW, I was fully committed and in,” manager Ryan Matteson of Ten Atoms tells Pollstar. “These guys have worked their tails off to get into the position they are in. I can’t overemphasize the lengths they will go to be successful.”