Whitehall, Charleston, South Carolina’s indie-rock band is currently finishing up their United States and Canada fall tour! Before they embarked on this run, I had a chance to chat with them about their 2020 goals, recent releases, and three important tips for being on tour!
Paddy, Brennan, Davis, and Avery started playing music together in college. Ever since then, Whitehall is proving to be one of the best. This band is one you don’t want to ignore. With over 500,000 streams on their song “Vacation Home,” Whitehall is making their mark in the indie rock music scene. Continue reading to get an inside look on one of For The Punks’ new favorite bands!
Tell us about your recent release, “Ocean Fiction.” What does the album mean to you as a band?
Ocean Fiction came out almost exactly a year ago. The songs were written over our 4 years together in college and captures a formative time in our lives. It was our first release we were really excited to put out. We recorded it with Wolfgang Zinmerman in Rialto Row. The album is about turning 21, 22 and figuring out who you are as an adult and human being. It’s about exploring the ocean. If marine biology was a record… I heard that you are currently in the midst of writing a new record as well. How is that process going? What can listeners expect from the new music? We’ve been writing songs for the new record for about 6 months now. We recently had a line up change in the band and lost our sax player which has changed and grown our writing process a lot. On the last record; they were written for playing live at parties – this record we’re focusing on writing songs for a record, then figuring out how to play them live. We don’t want to give away too much about the sound and tell people how to feel before they hear it.Whitehall is embarking on a tour soon! What are you looking forward to?
We’re excited for warm van beers and Pop-Tarts! And the cold weather in Canada means the van beers won’t be hot. Also QT Buffalo chicken rollers, Wawa up north. This will be our longest tour yet – we’re going out for about a month. We’re really stoked to go back to cities for the 3rd or 4th time and see familiar faces. We’ve made a lot of friends from touring the last year and it’s awesome to see them. What have you learned about yourselves as a band throughout your multiple tours in the past year? Do you have any tips for being on the road? We’ve learned how to handle unexpected things – vans breaking down, being flexible. You learn about how everyone else operates and how to interact with people – how many things are universal and how many things aren’t. It’s important to figure out how to exist around 5 people all the time. Also, time alone is pretty important.
Tour tips from Whitehall
1. Gas station pizza is awesome.
2. Sneak into hotel pools if you can’t find a shower.
3. Call your mom – she misses you.
Take a listen to Whitehall’s live session of their hit song, “Vacation Home” here:
Do you have any funny behind the scenes stories you can share with us from tour?
We just bought a new van-new to us, it’s 94’ – the gas gauge doesn’t work which we found out in the middle of the road in DC… we had to push it to the venue.Also, Avery will eat anything at anytime. Our recent favorite is malt vinegar.
What would you like to accomplish as a band in 2020?
Touring more, releasing another record, touring the west coast – playing 100 shows next year. Perfecting our La Croix cocktail!
Is there anything else you would like to share with us?
Our new single “Learning to Dance” just came out – check it out.
