Willowz Put Their Heads Together

By Chris McCoy
Photo by James Hickey

On a dirty strip of Hollywood asphalt, in the shadow of Paramount Studios, sits Lucy's El Adobe Café, a darkly-lit Mexican restaurant notable for being both a former favorite hangout of Don Henley, and the spot where Linda Ronstadt began her great romance with two-time presidential candidate Jerry Brown back in the '70s. At the moment, the restaurant sound system is playing Talking Heads' "Naïve Melody." Behind a wooden table sits a handsome fellow with uncommonly straight, chest-length hair wearing a stylish cowboy shirt. This is Richie James Follin, lead singer of the Anaheim-born Willowz and the songwriting force behind the band's excellent new album Chautauqua - a word that conjures images of turn-of-the-century thinkers and artists coming together for a bit of entertainment and intellectual discourse. It's an image that seems quite appropriate for a band whose music has found its way into a pair of cerebral Michel Gondry films, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep.
"I want the record to be something like the old Chautauquas, people getting together and actually listening and discussing and thinking and feeling," says Follin, enjoying some chips and guacamole. "Whether the feeling be happy, sad, angry, disgusted, bored, resentful, overjoyed. And we were deep in the American country while recording it, so the title just seemed to make sense."
Indeed, the album was cut in a dreary basement in upstate New York where the band had little to occupy its time, aside from focusing on the music. After all, it worked for The Band forty years ago. "We just woke up everyday and worked on it until we fell asleep," says Follin.
As a result of these marathon, middle-of-nowhere recording sessions, Chautauqua is the band's sharpest album to date, showing a spectrum of songs ranging from the country-tinged "Jubilee," which demands to be played at top volume while driving through dusty parts of California, to the smartly-chorused "All I Need," in which Follin at first sounds like he's strumming his guitar catatonically in his bedroom closet with the lights off, and then leaps into a refrain of "It's not the flowers or the trees / All I want is all I need / It seems the vacant queen's aware / What a beauty I declare ..." In true Willowz fashion, the musicianship manages to simultaneously sound both rough and impeccable - if a contemporary version of the Nuggets box set were put together, a few songs on Chautauqua would be a natural fit.
"I don't think there was an actual idea behind having the record sound the way it does," says Follin. "We just wrote a batch of songs and recorded them. Any time I have ever tried to think out something too much and create it musically, it never works out the way I envisioned it. So I try to stick with impulsive music, which ends up sounding like the opposite of most modern music, but it works for us." Taking a new approach to recording worked well for the band, says Follin. "We focused on the songs more [on Chautauqua]. First record, we just banged it out in a couple days. Second record, it had been so long since we had recorded we were really into the idea of making an album and focused on the spaces between the song as much as the song itself. Third record, we just focused on the songwriting more, and thickened the sound. We tried things we hadn't really tried before, musically."
Following the recording of their previous album, Talk in Circles, the band's line-up shuffled, a propensity that earned them a somewhat negative reputation in the early years. Now, Loren Shane Humphrey and Aric Christopher Bohn - a hirsute lad who looks a bit like Follin's evil twin - are handling drum and guitar duties, respectively, joining bassist Jessica Anne Renoza, Follin's co-conspirator in starting the band. Fortunately, both Aric and Loren seem a bit more camera-friendly than their predecessors, which bodes well for the band's great love of the music video format - indeed, for Talk in Circles, a video was made for every song on the album, all of which were compiled on the DVD See in Squares. The video for Willowz' new single, "Jubilee," portrays streams of light snaking their way along the shoreline, forming themselves into strange patterns and shapes, and ultimately assaulting the band.
"We make music, the directors make videos," says Follin. "We let them have complete creative control and interpret the song the way they wish. I think television is the only way to really communicate to the youth. The majority of kids don't really sit down and listen to records. They watch music videos, and listen to bands on video games. If we had the capability, we would have made a video game."
That said, things change when the kids see Willowz in concert. After playing a gig in Oklahoma City in July 2005, the band was approached by a group of camp counselors who asked if they would perform at their Catholic summer camp. Seeing as they had no scheduled gigs the next day, the Willowz agreed and ended up playing in a giant cafeteria festooned with a massive crucifix to an audience of about 200 religious youth ranging in age from seven to 17 - most of whom had never seen a rock show before.
"They just went insane," says Follin. "We couldn't hear our instruments the screams were so loud. The best thing about it is we documented the entire thing and put it on See in Squares. That is why we only perform at summer camps now."
For Chautauqua, the band has jumped labels to Steve Aoki's imprint, the perpetually-headphoned Dim Mak - home to bands ranging from The Rakes to The Mystery Jets to Pretty Girls Make Graves - a move that will provide The Willowz better distribution for their work than their previous label Sympathy for the Record Industry was able to offer. Between the new label and the high profile collaborations, it would seem that things are steaming along in a fairly outstanding manner for the band.
"I'm not really sure what 'making it' as a band really means," says Follin. "It's not like you receive a gold medal if you write a good song, or get a promotion and a new office with a window view. We are happy doing what we do, and if people share our enjoyment of the music that is fine with us, but we aren't trying to reach some dot on the map."
Chautauqua was released on March 20 in the midst of a lengthy tour that will not come to a close until May 2 and has already included a Dim Mak showcase spot at SXSW, where some Willowz influences also gave evidence to their abilities.
"I respect bands and singer/songwriters that work on their own terms," says Follin. "I love tons of bands playing these days. The Strange Boys, The Greenhornes, The Dirtbombs, The Mars Volta, The Queens of the Stone Age, The White Stripes, Dungen, Gris Gris, Primal Scream, and tons of my favorite old bands still play and put out records I love. Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Dylan, Willie Nelson, Leon Russell, Metallica, Tool, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Stooges, New York Dolls, The Cramps ... I could go on and on, but I won't."
As for his own work, it seems that Follin's deep respect for his forbearers, combined with his thoughtful, analytical brain, has allowed him some rather astute perspective on the growth of his own band.
"Our development as musicians is a funny thing because we have been doing it through our records [and] in front of people," says Follin. "We didn't know how to play on that first record and [we] were in our teens, and the second record wasn't much different. I guess a lot of the old bands were that way too, but it's like looking back at old yearbook pictures of yourself and getting an embarrassed feeling. The records are good and charming, but I feel this is the best record we have ever made."

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