The Wha Interview Electric Picnic

The Wha Interview

 Day three of Electric Picnic, walking from the Charlie Chaplin campsite like something from Apocalypse Now, feeling like someone who had just done 10 rounds with Conor McGregor. I was in desperate need of some serious music to get my spirits back in the swing of things. The Wha were not shy to wake up their eager audience from the get go with a heavy set of strong quality tunes. Even with a slight technical issue in the last song  The Wha lived up to be The Cosby Tents best set of the weekend. I was eager to congratulate the band and do a quick interview with them after their set.

          In the media tent I met Sam, Finn, Marek and Abe and sat down to talk everything Electric Picnic and The Wha. The Wha are a four piece band from Kilkenny in their teens finding quick fame due to their unique sound. I couldn’t find a lot in relation to their biography so in true Art Of Rockin style, I started from the start by asking where it all began. Sam helped me out,

“Myself and Finn met when we were 4 in primary school, we just started playing in bands here and there just doing a load of covers and we met Abe in secondary school. We actually just picked up Marek on the street.” Marek stepped up and said that they actually formed him out of a bottle of pure energy. I added that this was evident on stage. Finn then added that “We’ve been playing for three years playing gigs in Kilkenny mainly pubs and a few different places in Dublin.”

The crowd at their gig was quite diverse with a crowd of young people at the front but a healthy mix of an older generation that were invested in this refreshing sound. This made me ponder how their audience and fan base was collected.

          “There’s two groups to be honest. There’s the younger crowd, and then the older people who are keen to give us advice.” Finn also added “It took us a while definitely but the Kilkenny crowd did get behind us, that meant playing a lot of the same pubs and getting our friends to like the band.”

The Wha released Innocents on Wednesday before Electric Picnic and has gotten 1.2 thousand plays in one week. I then asked where they would love to hear their music being played. Marek was quick saying “In a hot boxed RV somewhere in the middle of nowhere.” Finn argued and said “In a gaff party with strobe lights, with Innocents on repeat for 8 hours.”

Sam began to talk about recording in Dublin and how well it’s going which naturally brought around the question of which the band preferred to do, recording or live gigs. Finn said he was in favour of doing live gigs, “I much prefer doing it live, it’s what it’s all about, the most important thing, if you record all your life and don’t do any gigs then what’s the point?” Sam disagreed and pointed out how fun recording can be. “With recording we done a song called 40 odd years, by the time we were finished with it there was a lot more on it, the songs change with the recording and they change for the better. I still get a lot of anxiety performing live about breaking strings and guitars cutting out.” Finn added “Yeah sorry about that by the way”.

          For a young band finding quick succession I was interested to see if they thought the music industry in Ireland was competitive and difficult to get into.  Sam mentioned he isn’t sure if they are at the point to say whether or not it is easy to get into. “We haven’t really met many contemporaries of ours, like, there is nobody else in Kilkenny, there’s one other band that are all 18 and starting to do gigs” Finn pointed out that it is a very exclusive scene. “It’s very exclusive with only one or two people on top, everybody else that’s in the scene are just the band that is not the biggest band. It’s nobody’s fault but still.”  Sam also mentioned that the Dublin grunge sound is very similar and seems to be the only sound on top at the moment. When you think of Dublin grunge you can find yourself thinking about bands like The  Murder Capital and Fontaines DC. These are very divisive bands with everyone having their own opinions of them, this lead me to  asking the Wha what they thought of their rivals. Finn was quick to respond.

“I think the Fontaines have good songs but I don’t think Murder Capital have anything, I’ve heard they’re good live but I don’t know.” Sam mentioned he thinks that that the Fontaines are good. “They have a really high energy and really good lyrics, it kind of stems from GirlBand.” I then asked Finn about Irish culture in music. “We’re Irish, there is Irish culture in our music but we don’t write about it too much other than a few colloquialisms.”

          As the interview came to a close I asked if there were any bands they recommended seeing over the weekend. Johnny Marr, TPM, Courtney Barnette, King Kong Company and The Claak. Finn discussed a few inspirations, “Johnny Marr is a real inspiration and The Strokes it’s amazing to see them here.”

The Wha are a band you cannot afford to miss, Hot Press named them the act not to miss for the weekend, if you don’t believe in all I say you can’t take away from Hot Press. Innocents is on Spotify and is curing my post festival blues and will no doubt cure your FOMO of the Picnic. I would like to thank the guys for taking the time to talk to me and wish  them best of luck with everything in the future.