Despite being recorded entirely at home in isolation during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, the Wind Ups' debut album Try Not To Think was intended to eventually be performed live. In early 2022, the band is finally able to take the album on the road including a performance at Dayton's Blind Rage Records. Jake Sprecher from the Wind Ups spoke with WYSO's Juliet Fromholt ahead of their visit to the Midwest about the new album, getting back out on the road and more.
Juliet Fromholt (JF):: So as I understand it, the Wind Ups are definitely a pandemic project, and I find it so interesting because when I listen to the album, I was instantly like, "This is music that I need to be experiencing live in a club." Was it hard to summon that vibe when you were creating this work alone in isolation at a time when live music wasn't possible?
Jake Sprecher (JS):: You know, it's funny, I specifically listed in the liner notes that I got my Tascam 388, which I'm kind of a dork. I've become a dork about gear in that way. But this machine is so magical to me because it's quarter inch tape and it's in the same unit as the mixing console and doing it like lofi tape like that in my house, even though I was recording it piece by piece, that machine and the way I just used like two mics on the drums, you know, I just like double tracked all the vocals and split them out wide. It came out sounding really live, which is the best thing I could have possibly hoped for. Because in my mind, the whole concept of the band from the start is, well, yeah, I'm recording these by myself. But this is going to be a live band that plays really fast, just like the album and the fact that it turned out that way to people's ears and seems like it's a band in a room, nothing could be better than that.
JF: And you said you always had the intention of making this something that you could take out live. Did you have the other players in mind as you were working on this or was that something that came together later?
JS: Initially it was going to hopefully be my two of my former Terry Malts bandmates, the band I played in San Francisco for years with Phil Benson and Nathan Sweat. But Nathan had a baby during COVID, so that kind of takes him out of touring permanently or indefinitely, at least. And then Phil, who has played several shows with the Wind Ups, is working full time. And so while I have played a couple of shows with those guys who I initially planned on, I've actually had eight different band mates in the short time we've been playing live shows. So it's been a bit of a juggling act, but it's worked out and now I've got a really solid group of guys right here in Chico, which makes practice infinitely easier than driving down to the Bay Area or whatever, which I was game for, but I did wear me out after about six months of doing that.
JF: You've gotten to get this stuff out live a little bit so far. What was that like, taking it in front of an audience for the first time?
JS: It was just exciting because Mark at Mt.St.Mtn., the little label we're on, like he's old school San Francisco, and he puts out really good records. And just to go out and play shows with the fact that I didn't have to pay for the record myself and it had like, you know, distribution and I can meet people like you and like not have to wear myself out constantly trying to do those sorts of things like, I don't know, I have a lot of gratification getting to do it live and just thinking of those things in the process.
JF: It's nice to get to just focus on the art and not the hustle for a little bit.
JS: Yeah, I mean, it is still a hustle like booking tour is a total hustle, but I didn't have to hustle a bunch of people to try and get the record put out. Mark was the first person I hit up because Phil recommended him to me. And you can see Phil in photos in the album, like Phil's one of my best friends. But that part of the hustle like, total blessing.
JF: When you're making an album all by yourself, especially with a new piece of gear and you're getting to know it and you're working through that process - does that change the way you tackle work moving forward, like writing or recording? Did you have any sort of revelatory moments where you're like, "Oh, like, it's all coming together in a different way for me," process wise?
JS: Yeah, actually, I did. It's funny you ask that because obviously doing it as one person, you know, everybody's going to have their own little processes of how they want to arrange the songs as they're recording and build them. But I'm a drummer first. Like, that's where I start as a musician. And so I record the drums first. And what I realized was, I don't have to sit there with my pen and paper and try and figure out the structure exactly ahead of time, which can just make you want to just crawl under the covers for hours at a time because it drives you crazy. So what I did was I would have an idea for a song, and this is what I continue to do now, and I would play through the rhythm track however I heard the basic rhythm of the song in my head, and then I would go back and I would build the rest of the structure around the drums. So like in "Drinking Bleach," there's a part where there's a measure of nine, which normally, it would be weird to just write that in. But it happened organically, and then I built structure around it. So now I can go and just take that on every time I go out to record. I just go with what's happening in my head, and if I like the drum track, I will build the rest of my idea around the drums. So I hadn't thought of it that way prior, but once I realized that was a way to write songs, it's been so beneficial for me.
JF: Did the songs evolve or change at all from your initial recordings as you got different people's hands on them?
JS: Yeah, there's a song, for example, that'll be on the next album that we've been playing live that I wrote right after the record came out called "You're So Dumb," and initially the rhythm track was like more of like a four on the floor, with the snare hitting on it every one-two-three. And then Blaine, who played the very first show in the band, he plays drums in Spiritual Cramp. He just forgot how the recording went and and straightened it out more like a traditional Ramones song. And that's how we play it now, and I went back and rerecorded it that way. And whether it's harmonies or, you know, there's going to be a song on the next record, that's more of an intro track that we'll be playing live on tour. That's going to sound different every single night because while the recording is only a minute and a half, you know, if your intro-ing a set and you're just trying to pick up a groove and make noise, maybe that song's two and a half minutes that night. But most of them, the structures just stay in place and we just hammer right through on like the record.
JF: So you mentioned that you're already working on the next one?
JS: Yeah, I'm like 75, 80 percent done with it. And I'm going to finish another guitar track today for that rhythm track yesterday and build up the vocals and stuff after that and obviously the bass. But my hope is if I can have the artwork get sent off to the person that does the collage for me, her name's Heather Kelly. She does really cool work under Sick Pleasure out of Oakland. If I can send her the images to work with before tour, and then, you know, send it off for mastering sometime in the next two months. Hopefully, I can have the record out by fall, something like that if pressing plants aren't too messed up.
JF: Is this tour going to be your first opportunity to get this project out on the road across the country?
JS: Yeah, it is. I mean, we've played plenty of shows now in the last, I don't know, six or seven months, but it's just been Northern California. We did one quick trip down to L.A., which was great. But you know, it's just been the Bay Area and Sacramento and Chico. So I've just been dying to get back out for a proper tour for two years now. And I know it was a little dicey for a minute with the way the whole winter surge went, but then, as predicted, all of the numbers started dropping and it was like, okay, these shows are going to work out. So I'm just thrilled.
JF: It's got to feel so good to get back in front of audiences and have that exchange of energy between you and them.
JS: I try and stay in the moment, especially at really, really good shows, you know, where you're appreciating the fact that you're doing something super cool in front of the people that have come out to see your band or just happen to be there. It's not lost on me, and I book and promote for a living when I'm not performing, so like just working has been gratifying, honestly. Even after, you know, losing several shows between performing and booking from December through January, just getting back to work like in early February or late January was a gratifying feeling because that was very frustrating. So I'm happy anytime I can do it these days.
JF: You say you're you're happy to be back to live music, but has being away from it for a while changed your perspective on what it means to be a musician or somebody working in music?
JS: Early on in the pandemic, you realized how people that are involved in music whether it's just a hobby or especially if you're doing it for a living, you're not really part of any safety net. You know, like there's no backup plan for your industry. You're just like, Oh well, fend for yourself. You know, you're not in the federal planning other than whatever unemployment you might get. And it kind of made you feel, I don't know, made me feel at first bitter but then, I don't know, maybe emboldened at a point when it was time to go back to work like. You know, I have been very careful through the whole pandemic about testing and especially with my little nephew and my niece and all that. But I was also one of these people that was like, hey, I want to do my job. So let me go to work, you know? And there's that sort of prideful thing that happens there about caring about what you do, whether it's performing or booking or whatever. And I think it definitely would have been the perfect opportunity, that year and a half stretch, to be like, "This isn't for me anymore. I don't need to do this. It's too much of a hustle." And on the contrary, I came back with a reinvigorated band, a new band and like total, you know, just ready to go back to my job. So I guess it makes you realize how much you really love doing that thing when you couldn't do it for a while.
JF: So you're going to be playing some really cool spots in Ohio, kind of for a variety of different places for people to to hear music. What would you tell people who might be considering coming out?
JS: My favorite thing about this band and what I wanted to do from the start and we used to do this in Terry Malts is just rip them off one after the other, like no downtime, you know. No long winded tuning sessions, like, yeah, you talk to the crowd occasionally, but just one after the other, you know, old school Ramones style. And to me, that's really fun. And I know that audience members like that sort of thing, especially if you're if you're playing 16 songs in 30 minutes, it feels like maybe you played for an hour because you didn't stop. And it's just a fun way to go about a live show. So I think that's pretty cool.
