Control, Annihilate…
CVLT Nation Interviews Whitehorse

Today CVLT Nation brings you a killer interview with the ultra heavy Aussie noise/doom band Whitehorse. Their last album, Progression, was a sonic clinic on how to create a record that will punish the listener. Whitehorse has been in constant rotation at our HQ. But who cares what I have to say, let’s get to this rad Whitehorse interview. So after the jump, it’s your chance to jump inside the unknown…have fun!

Photo by Greta Brinkman

What up Whitehorse…how are things in your world?

Pete: Hey CVLT Nation, things in the world of Whitehorse are coming along quite productively since our USA tour earlier this year, with the imminent US digital / vinyl release of Progression on At A Loss Records, recently established www.whitehorsedestroys.bandcamp.com with downloads of a lot of currently physically unavailable Whitehorse material made officially available for the first time. The band is currently also working on new material for upcoming shows and releases with a new drummer, Dan (also of Nation Blue), after our previous drummer, Rob, relocated to NYC.

On the song “Mechanical Disintegration,” you have this blackened, tortured vocal mixed in a way that in sounds as if it’s being sung from the bottom of cave. What effect did you want this vocal to have on the listener?

Pete: The end of “Mechanical Disintegration” is a pretty bleak, sparse scree of visceral noise and screaming, delivered somewhat ferociously. I guess a listener could feel some discomfort at that point of the song; that is my perception of the vibe in the audience reaction to that segment when we play live. People seem to step back a little. When we played the “Aussie BBQ” at SXSW, an event that we were one of 2 or 3 bands that were not either sassy garage rock or upbeat indie puke stains, from memory we opened with this song and the majority of the crowd seemed genuinely terrified… that was a great moment.

Photo via Pinhole/Collapse

What would you say would be one emotion that doesn’t inspire you to create music?

Pete: All emotions are relevant in creating our music in one way or another… I guess it’s kinda obvious that happiness and joy are not the ones that are most strongly represented.

What is your view of these four things & what impact do they have on what you create: feedback, drone, space & repetition?

Pete: While these things are all elements of Whitehorse’s output I would have to say that the only one I feel we concentrate on during our creative process is “space”. For us it’s important for a song to have space enough for the dynamics to have maximum effect.

While you were creating Progression , what were things you wanted to achieve as a band & get across to your fans that maybe you didn’t get to do on your past records?

Pete: Progression is quite different from earlier recorded documents of Whitehorse, it is the first non-live (studio / multi-tracked) recording of the band for one, and it also followed through with directional changes that had begun with the previous line up of the band, as can be heard somewhat on the recently surfaced Document : 250407 12″ on Blind Date. Leading up to and post the two and a half year hiatus after 2007 US tour, we had been working on a more varied pace and length from the 15-20+ minute pieces we had been rolling with previous. I guess we generally like to keep evolving as a band; we have had many line up changes and have been a band for around 8 years now… until now, most of our 6-7 releases previous to the material on Progression and the split 7″ with The Body has been documents caught on the fly. In a lot of ways this record is a bit of a milestone for us as a band.

Photo via Pinhole/Collapse

Whitehorse at times almost has a meditative energy, where does this come from?

Dave: I think it comes with the territory…The style of music is heavily centered around creating sense of space in a controlled environment, to a degree. Concentration and patience plays an extremely large part, I feel, as a listener and player. I would say much like any form
of meditation, you need both in order to achieve results

If you had to describe the Whitehorse live experience as a drug, what drug it be & why?

Dave: I would describe it as punk on codeine, the new songs especially have a more punk energy with a codeine drawl.

When you guys perform live is there room for improvisation?

Pete: People generally ask this question of us, I feel that it stems from the noise element. There are next to no improvised elements in Whitehorse, all Mark’s noise elements were constructed, written and performed as they are heard on the album. Very early on in Whitehorse there was some flexibility in length of some pieces, but I would not translate this as improvisation. More recently on our US tour, Dave, replacing Mark in the band, and playing his first through to 31st shows over the duration of our tour with minimal rehearsals prior, brought some planned elements to a initially mostly improvised performance which he developed over the first half of tour into a more refined, less improvised flow.

Your songs have layers & various textures, & underneath everything I hear melody…how is melody important to what you create?

Dave: Melody has always had a role in Whitehorse. I guess if you follow the various members’ broader musical output and interest then you might find that some of the core members of the last 8 years that Rob Mayson played drums and bass in the improvised noise-sludge outfit Grey Daturas for a long time, Mark’s projects Absoluten Calfeutrail and Dead Boomer weigh heavily in Australian power-electronics, Pete’s role in Occult Blood, an improvised punk or “neanderthunderous noisecore” troupe, and Rob, Mark, Pete and WH ex-bassist Simon’s outlet retardo ensemble Collapsed Toilet Vietnam

Photo via Pinhole/Collapse

Was there one concert or band that you saw when you were a teenager that made you realize music was your calling?

Pete: From the age of 9 or so I have fairly regularly attended shows, I was playing in my first band at age 15 or 16. I have always been surrounded by music in one way or another.

What’s the greatest thing that creating music gives you?

Pete: For me, the greatest thing that comes from involvement in the broader music environment is the community of people that stretches across the whole world, I don’t know how else I would have met so many great people.

Do you think that low end bass tones have the power to heal?

Pete: I am listening to some Thomas Koner right now and it’s definitely helping me relax. I think there could well be some healing properties to those tones.

What would be the ultimate environment for a Whitehorse performance & why?

Pete: I guess we in general prefer intimate spaces, dark, close, physical, somewhat claustrophobic environments. The more opportunity to get a little tight with people who are watching the better.

Photo by Sam Codo

Who are some of your peers in Australia & beyond? Can you explain how they inspire you?

Pete: Ok… so on our our US tour we had the pleasure of releasing a split 7″ and playing a bunch of shows with The Body, we had played a show with them on our US tour in 2007 and it was the best show of that tour. It was at a house called The Metal Mansion in Pawtucket, The Body and Tides played and it was totally killer…The music those guys write, their presentation of it, their utilization of gear, their standards across the board are all things we totally respect. Birushanah from Japan have been long time friends of Whitehorse and a pleasure to tour with here last year again. Locally, Dad They Broke Me have for a long time been much respected peers, for the moment inactive, hopefully more will come of this band at some point. Solid humans, devastating music, no bullshit. A few of the other bands we encountered on the US trip that we connected well with include Batillus, great, heavy and fierce; Cross, total fucking ball tearers; Laudanum, beastly! Needles, annihilating.

In Australia, other than Dad They Broke Me, we are surrounded by a lot of great stuff – there is a lot of kin or “Whitehorse alumni” of sorts: Dead Boomers, Ivens, Occult Blood, Encircling Sea, Black Jesus. There is also friends who have been very supportive over the last couple of years like Thrall, Spacebong, Fire Witch, Pod People, Lords of Ruin, No Anchor & Hordes of the Black Cross.

Banner Photo by Xavier Irvine