In this interview spotlight, I chat with Woofie about the latest 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.)
I’m from Lansing, which is actually the capital city of Michigan and not Detroit like everyone seems to assume. I think my music tends to fall in the dream pop category, or at least that’s what I’ve been going with. I’ve never been good at classifying music genres. I feel like each song could almost be in its own category. I tend to gravitate towards darker themes and angsty lyrics. I’m actually a mortician by trade so I guess that checks out.
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to keep going?
It’s sort of hard to answer this and not sound cliché. I just love music. No matter what I’m doing or what mood I’m in, I just always have some score playing in my head. It’s always been like that as long as I can remember. I feel like that what music is to me. It’s capturing the soundtrack of a specific moment and feeling; almost like a sonic Polaroid.
How is this new release different than previous ones? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific?
I used to go by the moniker King Rat for quite some time. I felt like it was time for that persona to end and to move onto something that I felt was more genuine. I wanted to break these walls that I put up for myself , like being afraid to be genuine. I have a very niche voice. Some people I think would say I can’t sing. I just want this release to be genuine and mirror who I am and what I’m capable of, whether people think it sucks or not. My music is dark, my voice is weird and my songs don’t follow traditional songwriting structure. That’s just me.
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)?
I guess the main challenge is just getting content to the right listeners. There are so many talented musicians out there. So far I’ve been mostly focusing on using Instagram just because I like the interface. I keep getting mutual follows with other musicians, which is awesome because it’s cool to see what everyone else is up to, but It’s hard to reach people who aren’t necessarily searching for the hashtags I use. It’s definitely opened a lot of opportunity though, and it’s been amazing to connect with other artists and just share ideas and stuff. Also it drives me completely insane when I post something and I get like 20 comments saying “DM for promo”. Especially when it’s just pics of my coffee mug collection.
What was the last song you listened to?
Loner by DEHD. I’ve been really digging them lately and I’m thinking about doing a cover.
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
I like collecting vinyl and I have some decent records but right now I live in a studio apartment and there’s just not room for all that. It was either put those in storage or my nine hundred million books. Sorry vinyl. I really have an appreciation for cassettes too. I just think they’re cool and they remind me of growing up. I used to have a Savage Garden tape that I basically listened to over and over for like six months and nothing else. Mp3’s are convenient and I actually have quite an extensive library on my computer which makes it run super slow.
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
I really like band camp. It’s super easy to use and it’s totally free (woofie.bandcamp.com)They let you to upload a song or album right away which is convenient. My single is out on every platform now but it just happened so I haven’t had a lot of time to experiment with other services yet.
Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?
If you want to interact you can follow me on instagram @wildfallows. I have links to all my platform releases there. If you comment, I’ll respond. If you DM me I’ll respond. I want to stay engaged with people. Even if you want to send me a quick little message and tell me to kill myself, it’s cool. I just appreciate you took the time out of your day to do that.
Anything else before we sign off?
My single The Hart and The Vine is out now so check it out! I’m trying to release a new song every couple weeks or so on bandcamp. I’ll post updates on instagram. Thank you so much for the interview and thank you everyone for taking the time to read it!
