Interview Podcast with Wreck Of The Zephyr: Plus the music video they talk about in the interview!
When we interviewed Wreck Of The Zephyr at Razorcake HQ, Eric and Dave had to leave about thirty to thirty-five minutes into it. They’d warned us. Working in film and television, they have gnarly schedules. We’d planned the interview weeks in advance and they’d given us a window. We knew that going in.
I’m not going to lie: I’m a writer, not a “journalist.” I have no qualms with rearranging an interview for clarity, for precision, and for continuity. This is a band playing music, not war coverage, not the inner workings of Wall Street. We have latitude.
The print version of this interview which ran in Razorcake #70 (/store/razorcake-70) doesn’t reflect that Eric and Dave left and it was just Daryl, Noah, and I gabbing away for a good half hour after they split. I just thought it’d read weird; like “What the hell happened to the other two guys? Why haven’t they said anything for the past four pages?” So we rearranged the print interview to lock their story in tight, to balance out the voices.
Mind you, we didn’t put anything into anyone’s mouths. We didn’t fabricate anything. We just crafted the interview so it told a cohesive story. The story in their own words. That’s the important thing.
Well, I know next to shit about audio editing, so what you get in this audio interview is in real time with maybe a cut or two to say goodbye to Eric and Dave.
Below is the original print intro, so if you have no idea who this great band is, it’ll give you some bearings.
Enjoy,
-Todd
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This sounds hokey. A trio of friends who enjoy one another’s company move from Boston to Los Angeles. Two go into television and film. The third becomes a cook and opens a DIY venue in Northeast L.A. for exactly one day less than a year. The three play music because they can’t stop. Arty music pretensions fade. Folksiness is amplified; stomping resumes. A homosexual yeti movie gets made. On-set intestines are perfected, made vegetarian, get pecked at by pigeons. Domestic dogs develop a taste for human flesh. ZZZzzzrrrrt. What?
Wreck Of The Zephyr is a great example of organic, practical accidentalism. They’re a triangular peg of a righteous-yet-humble band, not quite fitting into the round holes of pre-existing punk scenes. Punks label them as “alternative” and have encouraged them to play with Christian bands. Indie folks shy away from their volume and speed.
That suits me just fine because it’s often hard to shake the feeling that round-hole, DIY punk can be a beer-soaked failure. That it can be a folly, a reenactment. That it’s often childish and petty and the dialogues don’t progress; they just endlessly cycle like turbulent waters without forward motion. I need to hear and see bands like Wreck Of The Zephyr that reshape possibilities. Bands of friendly folks that have no interest in fitting in. Bands that create their own language. Bands with a drummer who pulls out his shoulder air drumming in the van to his old band’s songs.
Wreck Of The Zephyr’s first LP, For Helen, is available as a personally handmade hardbound volume: vinyl, fully illustrated 12”x12” book, and handwritten download code. The time and effort that went into making it is ridiculous. It’s priced below cost. It’s money-stupid, brilliant, awesome, and quixotic.
Wreck Of The Zephyr’s an affirmation.
They leave me with the hard-to-shake feeling that punk can still save those who invest themselves in it, even if sounds hokey when you try to explain it.