‘The Eighth Note’ is 8 quick Questions with Wellington Musicians.
A chance for us to catch up with people & see what they’re up to, or introduce you to a new musician/band and their music.
Today’s guest is Jack from new band Happy Valley WGTN, who released their debut E.P in February.
Who are you? Tell us a bit about your music:
We’re Happy Valley (Jack,Isaac,Hamish and Dan) and we’re a screamo/post-hardcore band that have been together since partway through 2018. We recently released our first EP a few weeks back, and if you’re looking for a quick description we play quite melodic but aggressive music in a similar vein to bands like Funeral Diner.
What have you been working on lately? Any new tracks or albums on the way?
We’ve been working on 2/3 new songs recently, not too sure what shape they will take up when they come out at this stage – could be anything really! Is a bit slow going cause our bass player lives up the North Island at the moment, but keeping writing going by distance is working. Keep an eye out, we’ll definitely be releasing more.
Where is the best place people can follow you & find your music?
You can find us on Spotify, Facebook and Bandcamp. Facebook is probably best for updates, but no so good for the actual music so take your pick really.
What were the 3 most influential albums to you growing up?
For me (Jack), I found all the most influential bands to me nowadays in high school.
If I had to pick three for influence (really damn hard) I would have to say Streetlight Manifesto – Everything Goes Numb (third-wave ska), Funeral Diner – The Underdark (screamo) and Maudlin of the Well – Bath (avant-garde metal). Each of these albums were pretty game changing for me when I found them, despite two of them not sounding anything like our music as a band.
Which other Wellington musician (s) would you most like to work with?
It would be cool to do something with our friends in ColdxWar sometime and we really like Stress too. Doing a split is something we’ve definitely thought about so who knows what the future holds really!
What’s your favourite Wellington venue to play in?
We’ve only played Valhalla and a house show thus far, so as a band our choices are a little slim to this point. Both were really awesome to play, and Valhalla really is the home of heavy music here so for the legit venues would have to say there.
In your songwriting or composing (or the band’s songwriting) how do the compositions and songs take shape?
For our first release I (Jack) wrote almost all of the guitar before we got everyone together, but we then refined all the songs together as a band. This is changing with our new stuff though, as me and Isaac have been working a lot together on the music this time – then bringing it to Hamish and Dan to go from there.
Where/when is your next gig?
We have something in the works for June, keep your eyes posted for that! Hard at the moment because Isaac is away – but we’re hoping to get some more shows organised soon, as we are super keen to play a bunch. If you have any shows coming up a little bit out hit us up!