The Huaraches are one of the coolest bands coming out of Kingston these days, and their latest release "Steal Second" came out just in time for Winter. Throw this record on and it is beach party time and you can forget about the blistering cold temperatures for awhile.
I highly recommend checking out a live show as well. You can't help but have a good time grooving to the tunes of these jumpsuit-clad surf-rocker dudes.
Rabid Ear Music asked the band's guitarists, Adam Weaver and Chris Wood, about their affinity for the Surf Punk genre among other things.
Rabid Ear - Why Surf Music?
Adam - I've always gravitated to the more modern sounding takes on surf (Los Straitjackets, Man Or Astroman, Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet etc.) and I had a few riffs I compiled over the years, and wanted to see how it would actually sound. Figured maybe we would do a handful of shows, maybe an EP recording, and here we are coming up on four years together this June.
Chris - I grew up listening to it, my Dad was a big fan of groups like The Tornados, The Shadows, The Beach Boys... So it was ingrained in my head, Then moving to Southern California for 10 years and being around it's birthplace gave it a sentimental feel for me and connected it to a time and place. When we got together it was to jam as a surf band and see what happened... As you can hear we've got some surf elements to the music but I'd hardly call it "traditional" style surf, way more I dunno, loud and rockin'?
Rabid Ear - What is the writing process like? Is it a full band collaborative effort?
Adam - Pretty collaborative yes. One of us may come in with a riff, maybe a change as well. A skeleton of an idea we all flesh out. Since it's not really a singer/songwriter thing where one of us is like "I Wrote a song, and it goes like this..." , we are all open to throw our ideas back and forth.
Chris - It varies quite a bit. Sometimes when we're warming up at a practice we'll wind up messing around and before you know it, a new riff is born! And if we can't use it or frankenstein-it into another riff/song at the time we log it away in our riff-bank. Other times one of us will show up with an idea for a song, and jam on it as a group and see what happens, sometimes it works out, other times... not so much. We've all had ideas for songs that haven't quite made the cut, but we usually spend time trying to work through them. I find it easier for myself to bring a riff to the table and build off of it as a group.
Rabid Ear - Has anyone ever frowned while at one of your shows? I don't see that as being possible.
Adam - Well, that time we stole candy from the small children at our show, they were frowning big time :). But for serious, we think it's important to entertain your audience, especially if they come out on a work/school night in possibly bad weather, and we wanna do everything that will convince them the trip was more than worth it.
Chris - ...I'm not entirely sure of a frown....I've seen some pretty confused and shocked looks that's for sure, but that goes hand in hand with getting on stage in matching jumpsuits preceded by a pair of go-go dancers wearing luchador wrestling masks, bright blue shiny capes and either grass skirt or bikini. Also heading back to your 1st question, sometimes people are confused as to why there's no vocals, so that draws a few inquisitive looks during the set, as does a guitar playing attempting to play a guitar solo with a machete...
Rabid Ear - Your new record recently hit #1 on the CFRC (Kingston Community Radio) charts. How does it feel to have that kind of hometown support behind you?
Adam - Humbling, and a bit surprising to me sometimes. Just more due to our musical style really.
Rabid Ear - What's next for The Huaraches?
Adam - Play a little more out of Kingston this spring/summer, spread our gospel a little bit. Hope to have a new album recorded by the end of the year. Join a European Handball league.
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