Denver-based mountain rock band Whitacre are a relatively young project, but they’re already making big waves within their first three years as a band. Just last year, they played Red Rocks for the first time (and even got commemorative tattoos, which can be seen in their video for “Seasons below) and hit the road for North American tour dates and now, they’re gearing up to release their highly anticipated debut full-length album, Seasons.
Seasons came about as a bit of an accident, when a recording session for two songs quickly turned into a full-length album, but the album itself isn’t just thrown together by any means. Seasons is a bit of a concept record, taking listeners on a journey from hopelessness to hope for an inspiring and empowering release. With Seasons out tomorrow, April 17th, we caught up with Whitacre to talk about the recording process of the album and their plans for the future. Read more below.
Can you tell us a little bit about Whitacre for anyone who might be hearing you guys for the first time?
Yeah, I’d love to! We’re a mountain rock (think Americana, folk-rock) band based in Denver, Colorado. We’ve been around a little less than 3 years, but have had a lot of really sweet things happen in such a short time… From playing Red Rocks, supporting some of our favorite bands like Mt. Joy and Wilderado, to gaining over 500,000 streams on Spotify – we’re just getting started.
You guys are just about to release your debut album, Seasons this week! It being your first full-length album, did you have any major goals in mind when you first started working on it?
Well, we didn’t actually plan to record an album… We went into the studio planning to record 2 songs. The studio we recorded in got our creative juices flowing and we ended up recording 10 tracks without evening thinking about it. The biggest thing we were keeping in mind was to capture the energy from our live shows in the recordings.
You’ve mentioned that Seasons is a bit of a concept album, going from a feeling of hopelessness to hope. What would you like for listeners to take away from the stories on this album?
All of us in the band wanted to write songs that felt personal to our lives, but universally applicable to other people’s situations as well. If even one person resonates with some of the lyrics and can find hope in a dark time of life, we’ll consider all the hard work that went into the album as worth it.
Considering the album’s personal content, was it therapeutic at all to work on these songs? Are there any tracks in particular that stick out to you?
That’s a great question – yes! There were multiple moments in the studio where the band had conflicting thoughts on what we should put on the record. The bridge of “Sailor’s Son” sticks out to me the most. I wanted to yell out “I’m still the sailor’s son, I don’t want to be done.” Everyone in the band, including our producer, thought it was super weird and not a good fit. Those lyrics were just exactly what I was feeling on the inside and I didn’t feel like the song was going to be finished or completely honest unless that part of the song was on there, so we eventually agreed to keep it.
Were there any challenges that you faced when working on the album?
One of the challenges was the order of the tracks. Because we wrote songs that told a story, we needed to put a lot of time and effort into how best to get that message across.
What was the most rewarding part of the recording process?
Staying up past midnight with some of my best friends in the studio was one of the best parts of the recording process. Knowing that there wasn’t anything else on the outside world that we could be doing at that time of night and being willing to fully press into our creative side was so much fun.
COVID-19 has had a huge effect on the music industry, and I know you guys were personally affected by it, with your tour put on pause by it. While the industry is at a bit of a standstill, have you been doing anything musically or creatively to stay busy?
We’re all taking this experience a bit differently. Our bassist, Joe, works in the healthcare industry and his life has only gotten increasingly busy and stressful. With that being said, he is so diligent about practicing and staying creative. He inspires the rest of us for sure. All of us have come up with little home recording rigs and we’re just having a blast recording new ideas from home and sending them in the group text for ideas on how to expand. It’s honestly been a really good thing for most of us.
Do you have any other big plans for 2020?
We’re just excited to put out this new album and see what happens. We’ve been playing the songs live for over a year and just want people to hear what they became in the studio. If all goes as planned, we’ll continue to hit the road hard at the end of 2020 to share the new music in person.
Thank you for taking the time to chat with us! Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Thanks for having us! We’d just like to say thank you to any new potential fans that checked out this article. We’ve got a lot of cool things coming up in the future and the more folks we have along for the ride, the better!
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