Whitney Skip the Small Talk

Images courtesy of Whitney.

How many bands can say they’ve had a day in their hometown dedicated to them by a semi-disgraced mayor to celebrate the release of their album? 

No idea, but in 2019, to accompany the release of their album Forever Turned Around, former Mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, declared the 30th of August, Whitney Day. Six years, a cover album, and a not-so-well-received album later, the band led by the two best friends of Julien Ehrlich and Max Kakacek are back with a new album. Small Talk brings Whitney back to a place familiar to fans of their first releases, that place one full of timeless, laidback, catchy, Americana-inspired indie rock that could be released anytime over the last fifty years and still makes sense. 

I caught up with Julien and Max over Zoom, while they were in an Airbnb in New York City in the days before the Small Talk’s release, to talk about the album, the annoyances of being a vocalist-drummer, and Whitney Day, but not before beginning at the really strange point of asking about their 2019 cover album, Candid. 

I wanted to ask about the cover album you guys made. Do you think playing around with other people’s songs helped improve your musical breadth, thinking so critically about other people’s music in a way you wouldn’t normally?

Max Kakacek: Definitely. The thing about that album is that it was pretty rapid fire. We did the whole thing in three days. We would go into the studio in the morning, and everyone had a list of songs that they thought the band would have fun with. We would learn it, run it a few times, and record right on the tape. In that way, having toured extensively for a few years, it was us being able to use how tight we had gotten as a live band to really just smash them out. “Rainbows & Ridges” is still one of my favourite recordings the band has done. It’s really pretty. I think that song specifically informed the recording process towards Small Talk because we did it mostly ourselves, and it feels a little less shiny than some of the others.

Yeah, Small Talk does have an analogue, a low-key sort of feel. Is that something that was intended?

Julien Ehrlich: We were so incredibly focused on the songwriting side of things, I don’t think either of us goes into making a record with some grand agenda. We have to give a ton of credit to Ziyad Asrar, who is one of our touring guitarists and basically engineered the entire thing. The sound quality of the record is incredible; it feels like our best-sounding record.

I’ve really been enjoying the album. “Silent Exchange” feels like a good place for it to start.

Max: We just got to play that song live for the first time, it’s so fun. It’s funny because there are no drums, and Julien’s playing guitar for that song. For a song that doesn’t have drums, it really holds a lot of weight in a live setting, specifically.

Yeah, how is it not playing drums on that song?

Julien: It’s nerve-wracking for me; the real use of my guitar playing is just for writing and noodling at home. We open the show with “Silent Exchange”, when I get nervous, the guitar is not what I want to be doing, playing with nervous fingers.

Does it feel really strange playing guitar and singing in comparison to playing drums and singing?

Julien: I think it looks strange, I think for playing guitar you have to be super skinny and have good posture [laughs]. I have bad posture, I don’t think I have a good standing stage vibe, I’m a sitter.

Do you think you’ve mastered the sitting-down singing posture?

Julien: I mean, it’s an everyday struggle, I feel like you’ll notice me sit up during the show because I get conscious that I’m slouching.

What’s the most annoying thing about being a Vocalist Drummer? 

Julien: That I have to be bouncing around all the time, as you get older, I feel like a soft boy, soft boys is a thing, right?

Max: I don’t think you want to be a soft boy, that’s something else.

Julien: I feel more daddy, not necessarily like a zaddy.

Max: Like an unc?

Julien: What’s the deal with chopped unc?

Oh, chunc. Are you feeling kinda chunc behind the drums?

Julien: That’s perfect. Yes, that’s how I feel [laughs]. But honestly, it’s when the mic stand starts drooping because the hinges aren't tight enough, that’s like a full-blown state of panic because I can’t do anything with my arms to fix that. It’s a problem that you can’t hide in any way, shape or form.

Just like watching it fall so slowly in a state of panic. How are you feeling about the release? You’ve put out four singles now, people in the press have listened to the album, and I’m sure your friends have too. How are you feeling about the greater society listening to the album? 

Max: It feels like it’s already out in my head. It’ll be exciting to see some of the reviews come in. I know a lot of people don’t want to read the reviews and comments, but I usually enjoy that stuff even when people are mean; I get a kick out of it. 

How did it feel reading the reviews for Spark, which were mostly negative?

Max: I feel like we could tell from how the singles were getting received that it was going to happen. When we got a somewhat negative review from Pitchfork, we were like; it happened. We were both prepared for it in a way.

What did you think of the music? Looking back, is the album something you guys are still proud of?

Julien: Definitely, Spark is a great record. While we were making it, everyone was so excited, it didn’t feel like the response was going to flip and be negative. Everyone probably says this when a record gets shit on, but everyone on our team was like ‘Spark is going to have its day, people will acknowledge it.’

Max: It doesn’t have much to do with the merit of the record, but when we started playing the songs for this record and learning them as a live band, they came together way quicker than some of the Spark songs. We had to change the way we naturally play to fit those songs in the set, but the Small Talk songs slot right in organically.

I guess with Spark, you took a new direction, and Small Talk feels more like what you’d expect from a Whitney album.

Julien: We made Spark that way because that was the only way we could maintain creative inspiration, by making songs in a new sonic world. It truly freed us up to return to a lot of the aesthetics we started the band with, with a new purpose.

It definitely would get exhausting doing the same thing for years. Going back to the start of everything, I wanted to ask you two are obviously best friends, when Smith Westerns broke up, was it obvious that you guys were going to start a project together? 

Max: No, not right away, because for a second, Julien was making music with Ziyad. Then, just kind of randomly, we made Dave’s Song, and we were obsessed with this song by this Zambian rock band called Amanaz and the way this backup singer sounded. Julien was like I could try singing like that and that's where it started. The band was created as two people messing around in a studio for fun. We were like This sounds really cool, we then made three more songs, which were “Dave’s song”, “Polly”, and “On My Own”. Then after that, we were like, we should make a whole record for this. That wasn't until a year and a half after Smith Westerns broke up, but we were living together at the time.

You still live together, right?

Max: Yeah, but I predominantly stay with my girlfriend, but we use the apartment as mainly just a studio now.

Can we talk about Whitney Day? What’s the backstory behind the famed day? 

Max: It was on album release day, it was cool, we had a big party at this restaurant we like. The most fun thing is that we had a big game of knockout. Are you familiar with the game? 

I’m not. 

Max: It’s a basketball shooting game that can include a bunch of people, and then you whittle it down to one single person, and I think we had a 100-person line in the first game. Basically, if the person in front of you misses and you make it before them, they’re out. It was super fun, I felt like I was ten years old again. 

Where did you play it? 

Max: In the restaurant parking lot, or maybe they shut down the street next to it, we asked them to get a basketball hoop. 

How did it even come up?

Julien: I think our publicist at the time had some friends who worked in the mayor's office.

Max: It was so random one day they came to us and were like ‘We have something big to tell you’, and we were just like ‘what?’ 

Julien: We should honestly start celebrating it again. 

Max: It’s kind of tough, though, because that mayor was kind of wack. It’s cool getting this sign off, being from Chicago, but she was not a well-loved mayor in the city. 

It’s a tough one to even look at fondly.

Max: I feel like she also got a tough go of it in terms of public opinion, but she did some weird shit. 

To wrap this up, I read an article from 2016 when Light Upon The Lake came out, and they asked what you think you’ll think of the album when you’re fifty. It’s been nine years, and I wanted to know: how do you feel about it now? 

Max: I haven’t listened to it in a while, but I remember the last time I listened to it, I was like, damn, this is so fast. You could hear how young we were by how we were pushing BPMs faster than we do now, which I think is cool. 

Julien: I like how there is a way more DIY feel to that record, which is partially due to us not knowing what we were doing. We recorded it in our friend’s garage; there’s a lot of charm to it. 

How do you think you’ll feel about Small Talk when you’re fifty?

Julien: I’m really excited to get to a point where I don’t remember the words, and it’ll feel like I’m listening to it for the first time again. 

Max: I feel like it’s going to make me really sad; the sad songs on this are really sad. “Islands” is a crazy, depressing song and listening to it when you’re fifty, when it’s about time moving on, looking back and living in the decisions you’ve made, will probably make me cry.