What does a White Whale sound like?
We sound exactly like Whisperin’ Bill Anderson meets Mahogany Rush.
Um, okay. Whitewhale.com is currently in use by a Nantucket Island apparel merchandiser. Would you consider a merger happening between the store and your band?
Nah, I’m more of an L.L. Bean guy myself.
White Whale is a supergroup of sorts considering your respective histories. But we can’t help but notice that one of you (Ryan) was in the Get Up Kids and yet, White Whale is not emo. Was that intentional?
Wow, and all the while we thought we had made the ultimate emo record. Apparently we have failed.
Considering your veteran statuses, what do you think of the music world today in light of blogs, intense hype, and critical outlets just about everywhere?
Hype is all so boring to me. Blogs are cool though, I just don’t spend much time reading them. I miss the old days of print zines. It used to be that if you were going to offer up your opinion you had to at least go through all the trouble to actually print and publish your thang. These days, anyone can just get online and blab away. In theory, it sounds great. Y’know, power to the people, right? In practice, well, I dunno. There’s just so much that it’s a bit tiresome wading through it all.
The myspace.com/whitewhale page belongs to an actual whale named Moby Dick, that is also 100 years old. Does an underwater creature with a MySpace page seem insane to you?
No, insane to me is entering ‘well-worn shoes’ in the eBay search engine and seeing what pops up.
Your labelmates Arcade Fire have enjoyed abnormal success for a relatively obscure indie band. I can’t help but notice the band is referenced in your press release and the occasional similarities in sound. What are your feelings about having that precedent to live up to?
Until you mentioned it, I hadn’t even thought about it. I guess I’m not really sure what you’re asking. Precedent? In what way? Hmmm. The only ‘precedent’ I feel the need to live up to is whether my mother will like the new record – she’s liked everything I’ve done previously, we’ll have to wait and see on this one…
