Ever the hard-working road veterans, The Whigs have long been putting out solid rock tunes, year-over-year, album-after-album. Their latest release, In The Dark, came out earlier this year and was followed by lots of touring, some of that with the Kings of Leon.
Daily Vinyl's Leslie Kinsman caught up with Whigs vocalist, guitar player, and primary songwriting force, Parker Gispert, just before the band embarked on a European tour. Parker talks touring with the Kings, the best place to buy vinyl in their hometown of Athens, GA, how the format of the music affects the recording proces, and more.
Check it out...
DV: You guys will finish your European tour at O2 in London. How many tours will this be with Kings of Leon?
PG: This will be our fifth proper tour actually.
DV: How did you guys connect in the first place?
PG: I guess the real genesis of the relationship was when we played a show in Paris with MGMT and the Kings. We were first on the bill, and after that show there was a big party and we had a lot of fun together. And that night they asked us to play their CD release show for their Only By The Night album. Then after that show they asked us to go on tour with them.
DV: How vinyl-conscious were you when recording? Is sounding clean on a record more of a concern or aesthetic for you guys, now that vinyl is making its comeback?
PG: Totally, when I’m home I listen to vinyl. I’m gone so much that when you’re on the road, you’re kind of stuck with the iPod. We do cater to a headphone, digital listening experience just because it’s the most prevalent. It’s not the utmost first thing that we’re considering when we go into the recording studio though. Both of the last two albums we’ve released have been on vinyl, and that is my preferred way to listen to both of those.
DV: What was the most rewarding part about visiting the troops in Germany and the U.K.? Can you describe the experience a little?
PG: Well at first, I definitely had some ethical qualms about the idea of going. It took me a minute to just think about it. Tim’s dad was in the Air Force and he grew up living in Germany for a couple of years, Japan, The U.K. etc. If you’re a 14-year-old growing up on a military base, you’re kind of starved of going to an everyday rock show experience. So regardless of how we felt about the war, for me it was just a very basic, humanitarian way to just show what we do by putting on a show for those people. It was a great experience.
DV: So you guys toured with The Hold Steady this past summer. I met Bobby Drake this summer living in Greenpoint. He’s the man.
PG: Yes. That was awesome. Oh my god, I love that guy. What a sweetheart. We had an awesome time with them. Learned a lot from them about music and about life in general. They’ve been through it and have been doing it for awhile. Their tour manager played in our favorite Athens band, The Glands. So all around it was just a really awesome time for us.
DV: Where is your favorite place to album shop in Athens?
PG: This actually ties together with The Glands. I go to Schoolkids Records in Athens and it’s owned Ross Shapiro, who is the singer of The Glands. They’ve been inactive for a while now, but they were the band to really inspire us to form The Whigs way back in the day. His musical taste influenced me a lot. He listens to all the records that are in the store and he has these really funny little captions that’ll he’ll write on every piece of vinyl like, “excellent enjoyment, second side has slight surface noise and ‘this’ song skips a bit.” So you really know what you’re buying. When people ask about record stores, I think that’s one of the things that goes overlooked. A place that has a really obscure album doesn’t really get me really excited anymore, because if I want something really obscure, I’ll just order it online. But the personal side of being able to have someone recommend you things that you respect, understanding the taste of the people who are physically in the store so you can hone in on something they’ll be excited to listen to it is what I kind of deem most important about a record store.
DV: What album in your record collection do you cherish the most? Why?
PG: Most of the records I’ve bought have come from Schoolkids. I bought vinyl growing up but I didn’t really listen to it as much until I was 18 or so. I would just buy it because I thought it looked cool and I wanted to look at the art really big. I would buy things that I already owned on CD just because I thought it was really cool to have the record too. In high school I had a Who’s Next vinyl that my friend’s dad had given to me and I listened to that a whole bunch. But I didn’t start a good collection until I went to college at UGA. But I think that Who’s Next album has the most special place in my heart just because I listened to it the most and subsequently went through two additional copies. That’s slightly embarrassing, I guess.
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