White Denim have long used the studio as a sonic lab, on par with their improv friendly live shows. And now, thanks to the power of modern technology, they’ve finally figured out a way to release their music at the pace they create it.
White Denim's James Petralli and Steve Terebecki are standing on the sidewalkin front of Gold-Diggers, a formerbikini bar on the East Hollywoodstretch of Santa Monica Boulevard.From the outside, there isn’t muchto suggest that the establishment hasshed its “so-bad-it’s-good” reputationbut, as with a lot of things in Movie Town, appearances aren’talways what they seem.
Resurrected as a scrubbed-down hipster hang, Gold-Diggersis still a place to get a drink—now for a few bucks more, butwithout the scantily clad entertainment. A once-dormant boutiquehotel is connected above the space; inspired by New York City’slegendary Chelsea, its refurbished rooms are adorned in modernart and velvet.
Mark McLewee, White Denim’s manager, ushers the bandbehind a locked gate that he opens with a key code, down anarrow alley and into an adjacent recording studio also underGold-Diggers’ purview. This place, a former production homefor infamous 1950s camp-noir director Ed Wood, also has acolorful history.
The Soundstage space is 40 feet by 20 feet, with 20-foot walls,stocked with guitars, amps, a drum kit and a piano. Petralli andTerebecki sit on a couch lined with garish gold fabric. “I’ll bet thisis a great live room,” Petralli says, his voice quickly dissolving intosoft and complete silence without the slightest reverberation. Heturns to Terebecki and adds, “We should record an EP here.”
It’s a Saturday afternoon in April, and White Denim are in between sold-out headline shows at the Teragram Ballroom in downtown Los Angeles, winding down their spring itinerary before returning to Europe and the U.K. in summer. About a month earlier, they released their eighth album, Side Effects, which was recorded and released less than a year after theirprevious LP, Performance. Both were recorded in thegroup’s new Austin, Texas studio, Radio Milk. Withinminutes of stepping into this room, Petralli is firingoff ideas for something new.
Their new, accelerated release schedule falls in linewith current industry trends—the rise of affordabletechnology has enabled artists to accumulate gearand set up shop on their own. Marketing is nowabout social-media posts. Distribution takes placeat a merch table or through a Spotify click. The timebetween a completed record and its audience can bevirtually instantaneous.
Partially, if not predominantly, this explains the arrival of Side Effects, just seven months after Performance. The tour in support of the latter tightened the group’s live show and their lineup, cementing its newest members, keyboardist Michael Hunter and drummer Greg Clifford. Without a label insisting that they pause before putting out their next record, they pushed aside the traditional two-year cycle of promotion and, instead, decamped to their new Radio Milk digs, assembling a nine-track compilation of songs and releasing it as soon as they could through indie imprint City Slang. (In June 2019, the group expanded the space to include a full record label, Radio Milk Records.)
In a way, Side Effects is the realization of the original White Denim manifesto. Born in 2006 as a trio—guitarist and singer Petralli, bassist Terebecki and drummer Josh Block—the members of White Denim collected as much gear as they could afford, gathering on weekends in Block’s old Spartan trailer to track and layer their budding repertoire. “We were building the songs out over a period of time,” says Terebecki. “There was no deadline. We made the songs exactly the way we wanted to."
After a few early albums that played as post-apocalyptic feverdreams, they added a second guitarist, Austin Jenkins, and issueda string of progressive rock records—Last Day of Summer, D andCorsicana Lemonade—that elevated the group from Texas curiosityto national and international prominence. Thanks to some solidfestival gigs and a live show that appealed to fans of both FrankZappa and The Black Keys, they emerged as a buzz band, scoringspots on The Late Show with David Letterman and opening slots forWilco. Yet, behind the scene, all was not well.
“It was crisis time for us, honestly,” Petralli says. “It was fourdudes all bringing really strong energy to this thing and, frankly,being on opposite ends of the room a lot of time.”
Petralli released a solo record as Bop English, after Coriscana’s tour wrapped, and toured behind the project with help from Terebecki. Around the same time, Jenkins discovered a then-unknown Leon Bridges at a Texas bar and threw his weight behind the soul singer. The guitarist and Block worked with Bridges on his debut album, backed him during some key live gigs and brought in White Denim’s management company. Eventually, the pair left to work with Bridges and start their own production group.
“I think Corsicana Lemonade is a really cool record, but side A is four band compositions; everybody doing the thing. Then, in the middle of the sessions, itwas like, ‘This isn’t happening,’” says Petralli. “Ina panic moment, I said, ‘Well, here are five BopEnglish tunes, or whatever.’ We were just drawinglines, doing what bands do after they have been onthe road for two years.”
Petralli and Terebecki soldiered on, reconfiguring White Denim’s lineup and starting work on their next studio project, 2016’s Stiff, with the help of some Bop English collaborators. The band’s live lineup and studio team also remained in something of a state of flux throughout the next three years. Petralli cites the “Steely Dan-approach” when talking about using a variety of personnel on Side Effects; each of the nine songs feature different musical configurations, includingfive different drummers.
Likewise, the duo started to mine their own catalog for somenew inspiration, especially on “Reversed Mirror.” The tune’smain musical theme is one that has been at the center of twoprior recordings, “Mirrored and Reverse” from 2009’s Fits and“Mirrored in Reverse” from Stiff (an album title that’s apparentlythe reverse of Fits). It has also been used as part of various seguesbetween songs in their live sets. Petralli admits to having fun with thereincarnation—it’s simply a shuffle in the key of E—but Terebeckioffers a more illuminating clue as to the multiplicity, and to WhiteDenim, itself. “It’s an endless exploration of a theme,” he says.
So, when they bought a wooden shack, as Terebecki describesit, in East Austin and transformed it into their Radio Milk studio,it became a clubhouse dedicated to those endless explorations.And, when they cut the ribbon in March of ‘18, they threw a partyduring SXSW and invited a host of other bands to join them at aperformance space in the studio’s backyard. They loosened up inother ways, too. (For a photo shoot promoting Performance, Petralliwore splotchy clown makeup and Terebecki dressed in a gaudy LasVegas mesh half-shirt.)
White Denim’s core members are avid gearheads and techgeeks,habitually reading books and watching YouTube videos. Startingwith their trailer days, they’ve amassed a cache of vintage equipment,some dating back to the ‘30s, as well as every desired contemporaryadvent. They staffed Radio Milk with their longtime engineer, JimVollentine, whose encyclopedic breadth of recording knowledgeis incalculable. Ask Vollentine anything and, 10 cigarettes later, hehas still more to tell.
Their perpetual quest to make a record that not only “soundsawesome,” but is also worthy of shelf space next to those ofPetralli’s highest order, such as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin or Zappa,at its worst, can be artistically paralyzing. “If I’m being completelyhonest, I can’t really see myself happy with...” Petralli starts butdoesn’t finish. “It’s the reason why we don’t have a live record out.”
There is, however, the mythical Camelot. They recorded anentire U.K. tour and were content enough with the raw materialto consider prepping a live release, with the working title, Liveat Camelot. Inspired by the Grateful Dead’s Anthem of the Sun,Petralli suggested listening to their concert tracks on headphonesand playing along to them in the studio, resulting in stacks andstacks of overdubs. “It was really crazy, but when it was all said anddone, it just wasn’t a live record,” says Terebecki. “Maybe [we’llrelease it] if we let it simmer for another 10 years.”
Petralli admits it’s hard to step away. He’s prone to fussing overthe little details and keeping the band captive during his efforts.As White Denim’s visionary and primary songwriter, he’s seen theeffect of that role on his bandmates.
Most of the ideas he brought to the band for D were alreadyfully-formed. A random photo of the band onstage during thealbum’s tour magnified his sense of disconnect. “It’s the threeguys, and I’m over on the other side of the stage, 15 feet to theleft,” says Petralli. “I feel that way a lot of times when I bringmaterial to the band.”
At Radio Milk, Petralli’s been determined to democratize the process. His lyrics, keenly observational, yet idiosyncratic, often imply an inside joke, a personal catharsis or both, articulated with a beat poet’s vocabulary and a bluesman’s resolve. At the studio, Petralli installed a chalkboard, handed out books on random subjects, and gave his mates three minutes to select two-word couplets from the text. With the chosen phrases on the board, they diagrammed evocative connections.
“The song ‘Magazin’ started from doing that exercise,”says Petralli. “There’s something about being able to standaround it and all look at the same thing. The chalkboard isprobably the best piece of gear we’ve bought.”
Side Effects essentially collects the songs that had beenliving on their own proverbial chalkboard, waiting fora connection to a complete piece. Of the nine, only “NYMoney” comes closest to representing the band’s presentquartet configuration, albeit augmented with piano andsteel guitar. Even so, given the additional recording, andmixing, done at Radio Milk, it succeeds as a sonic andstylistic companion to Performance.
White Denim open their set at The Teragram with "Backseat Driver.” Inside the shifting mid-tempo bopper, Petralli sings, “I ride with wild fires.” The show-starter transitions seamlessly, without ending, to a rapid reading of “Moves On,” and for the next half an hour, the music never stops. Four acting as one, White Denim is alive and mutating, coursing through an unbroken medley with breath-stealing speed and skill.
The rampant rock-and-roll abates just long enough forPetralli to say, “Let’s play more hard, fast music. Yep, let’s doit.” They launch into “Real Deal Momma,” and, once again,hitch a ride on a wild fire.
“The fact that our drummer is 23 years old really helpsus to take it straight into the next thing that’s going to be 15minutes of playing as hard as we can,” says Petralli. “At thismoment, it feels really good to be as tight as we possibly canbe, and keep the energy maxed out.”
Indeed, Clifford is a marvel. The newly minted college grad has both the flawless fundamental ability and young man’s stamina to encourage the ensemble to push everything to the edges. Terebecki proudly says that the band has a three hour live repertoire rehearsed and at the ready. On this night, the set clocks in at over 30 songs—and only about half of those tunes are repeats from the previous show.
Simply from a physical perspective, it’s impressive.With the task of recreating the dexterous, multi-layeredarrangements from the records onstage, while deliveringthe lead vocal on every song, Petralli won’t rule out thereturn of a second guitarist to the fold at some point. “Rightnow, we have [Hunter on keyboards] playing guitar parts,”says Terebecki. “We’d be more likely to make a giganticmedley of every song we’ve ever done before we’d jam.”
“To be able to [improvise] really well, like MahavishnuOrchestra or the Dead, is such a brave thing,” Petralliexplains.
These unrelenting performances, he says, drive themachine. It’s where the magic and the marketplace coalesce,allowing the band to make records when and how they want,create a unique live experience and sell their music directlyto their fans at shows.
“Ideally, we want to release music at the pace that we create it,” Petralli says. “We wouldn’t rule out the right partner but, creatively, we need to move. If we feel like we have some music that people need to hear and we’ve got a tour coming up, neither of us are in the mood to wait 12 months. We’re trying to stay in it and continue growing.”
This article originally appears in the July/August 2019 issue of Relix. For more features, interviews, album reviews and more, subscribe here.
