Whisperfight is a three-piece indie pop project founded by Northern Californians Lauren Ng (lyrics, vocals, bass), Jonn Beames (guitars) and Daniel Kushner (drums, synthesizers) – all founding members of Yeah. Sure. Whatever.
The husband-and-wife rhythm section (Daniel, Lauren) forms Whisperfight’s foundation, laying sparse beats over XXL bass lines which inevitably unfold into ethereal soundscapes with stabbing guitar hooks.
In this interview spotlight, I chat with all 3 members of Whisperfight. We discuss new music, challenges, technology and more.
Full Q&A along with links and music below.
Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)
We’re from the San Francisco Bay Area, a little town called Novato, north of the Golden Gate Bridge.
We like to joke that we’re a Canadian pop band because we’re into a bunch of indie pop bands that happen to be from Canada.
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to keep going?
Our root instruments are guitar, bass and drums and our previous band, Yeah Sure Whatever, had a more rock vibe accordingly. But a lot of the music we were listening to was more electronic and ambient. We created Whisperfight to craft a different sound, pulling back our root instruments and making room for new voices: synths, electronic drums, non-traditional guitars and negative space.
We feel a need to create, so we keep at it. We also feel like we’re doing something unique in our area that fills a void we want filled.
How is this new release different than previous ones? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific?
We’ve just released two singles in as many months. Both are different from what we’ve done before and different from each other.
A Country was released in February. It was our first honest attempt at a pure pop song. We found it a fun and rewarding experiment.
Love for the Fight was the first time a song has gotten away from us in a beautiful way. It’s also our first true collaboration with our producer. It morphed into something in the studio that we hadn’t anticipated and we’re really proud of it.
Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this oversaturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)?
We’re in a new era of real time metrics. The biggest challenge is to not get sucked into the magnetic pull those metrics have. We don’t make music for plays, clicks, likes or follows. Those signals may feel good, but they don’t drive what or why we create. The challenge is to maintain our independence in what makes our music valuable. We think of our music as a legacy that will long outlive the popularity platforms of today.
The technology has definitely helped. We’ve been able to build demos with laptops in rehearsal spaces and take these same project tracks into the studio as a head-start-starting point. Then, during the post-studio mix phase, record last minute new tracks to fill in holes from home, exchanging files with the mix engineer over the internet.
What was the last song you listened to?
Lauren: “Sisyphus” by Andrew Bird
Daniel: “Girl I Love You” by Massive Attack
Jonn: “Weightless” by Local Sound
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
Vinyl. Next question… 🙂
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
Lauren: Spotify. It seems to serve up good recommendations. Case in point: it introduced me to Wye Oak after listening to Stars.
Daniel: Nēdle. You can search live radio with it. I use it to discover, not only new music, but new DJs.
Jonn: Bandcamp. I think they are the most for-the-creators of the the bunch.
Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?
Anything else before we sign off?
Thanks for taking a moment with us.
