I first heard The Savage Blush when JL did a Shout Out for them. Very cool voice that does the excellent surf guitars justice. These two are very good at making some fuzzed out, guitar driven, kick ass vocals surf garage romps, …Sometimes okay most times Bands can describe themselves better than anyone else, This is what The Savage Blush wrote about themselves, that should make you want to turn this up, right about now….
“Imagine Link Wray, Grace Slick, The Seeds, and Billy Childish making some strange musical baby in a basement bathtub. ” Give a listen gang, and I want to thank JL for turning us on to The Savage Blush….LOVE THEM!!!!
Hi our name is….
The Savage Blush
People say we sound like…..
Some have said vintage, which I will take as a compliment. Someone said like a Tarantino movie. I like his movies, so I’m cool with that too. Since we’ve just gone public with the music, people haven’t made many comparisons yet.
We are…
Rebecca Williams and Joshua Williams, yes, we are siblings
We are originally from…..
Denver, Colorado.
Who are some that have an influence on your sound??
This question has always been hard for me to answer. I don’t know that I can pinpoint one specific thing or band that influences the sound.
I feel like it always just sort of happens as it will. I’ve never listened to something and thought I want to play something more like this. I’m also not quite sure
how the surf element came into play. Maybe because I am really over being cold at this stage in my life. We definitely have some Latin influence, because of growing up in a Spanish church and playing that style of music. I hear that come out every once in awhile. It definitely influenced how we play, as we did quite a lot of improvisation.
The first time we all decided to get together and make some music…
My brother is the only permanent fixture in this band. We have someone play bass live, and are looking for a good fit for our first tour to take place in January.
We have always played music together, from the time we were kids. Our Father is a pastor so we played in church from a very young age. We were always right next to, or very close to the church, so we were playing music all of the time. With friends, anyone who wanted to play. I remember our Dad coming in when we were playing louder “rocky” (as Pops put it) songs, and telling us not to play that, it wasn’t appropriate in there. So of course we played that as often as we could. We understand each other, so I’m really happy to have him drumming for me in this project.
Books we recommend …
Josh says Rant by Palahniuk. Right now I would say A Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.
Can you tell us about the process you use, from writing the songs all the way through getting the album ready?
This definitely depends on the stage of the band, point in your life, your surroundings etc. For this project and the first album, I had just broken up with a band and immediately kept working.
I didn’t take a break at all. I wrote like a crazy person. Anyone who was around me at this time can attest to how.. in my head I was. I couldn’t shut down. I would write until ridiculous hours and wake up a few hours later, thinking about all of the songs I was working on. I would wake up and immediately turn my amp on to start working. During the final writing stages I set up my amp in a small room made for storage and blocked out the window so I didn’t know what time of day it was. I lit it just enough to see what I was writing. Some songs just happened immediately, and they were done. There are others I would work through and tweak up until recording day. Some happen with a guitar riff, or chorus part, or bass line first. Some songs are built around the lyrics. Some are almost complete all at once in my head and I had to record one piece of it on a field recorder and play the bass part over it to figure out what I wanted. Then kind of just know what I wanted for drums. My brother reads me really well so he would start playing and if it was what was needed we used it. If not I just did some guiding as to what I wanted.
The recordings were done in a high school. An Art high school. This place had everything we needed, and we were able to record after school was out. Everything about the process of this album and beginnings of this band have been a lot of hard work with almost zero resources. I would have to have two or three seperate plans for recording and practing, finding a bassist etc, because I knew I would have to modify all of those plans. In fact for the recording I decided to just track the bass parts in myself after we did vocals guitar and drums live because I couldn’t find what I needed for that piece of the process. Also I knew by doing it that way it would come out how I needed it to. Just a raw representation of that time, or those songs, of the feelings and thoughts in those moments. Hazy, delirious, heartfelt. I believe in pouring myself into my songs, and it came out how I wanted in these recordings.
Our craziest gig ever was….
Let’s say it’s going to be our next show this Thursday. It’s our third. Come back to me in two months, I’ll have some great stories by then.
If you could pick any time to travel back to for music, where would you go and what year would it be….
Lubbock and Dallas Texas in the 60’s. There were all of these crazy good Garage Psych bands there at the time. All teengers. There is a documnetary called Teen-A-Go Go depicting this time and what was going on. It’s rad, kids had places they could go and listen to great music back then. Larry and the Blue Notes are just one of those bands.
Growing up ,at home we listened to…..
All Christian music, and mostly in Spanish. Although, we would be sneaky and listen to anything that we weren’t supposed to. I remember listening to a lot of Jazz and Classical music as well. Oh, and really loving music from the 20’s-50’s quite a bit, that was also not allowed.
What tunes are on heavy rotation for you…
My brother picked up a tape from a local record store by a band called Deadly Lo-Fi. He got it because the cover looked cool. We were very pleasantly surprised. That and the billboard top songs of the 50’s tape. We need more tapes. Josh is digging on The Picture Books pretty hard right now.
If you could open for any Band right now who would that be and why?
Whoever won X factor, those boys, One Direction? Because we could steal their girls.
If you could give any advise to the kids who are just picking up their 1st guitars or drum sets and want to be in a rock n roll band , what’s your advise?
Keep playing. Play whenever you can. Really explore what it is you want to say, how you want to say it. Work hard, nothing will come easy. If it does and opportunities arise, never ever take them for granted. Know your worth but be humble. Never treat anyone like they are less than you because they don’t play an instrument or are on a stage. We’re all the same. You will just have a special understanding with the people who play music, or fully understand you and your art. People play music for different reasons. The one that will take you furthest is passion.
When you are touring and have some time off , where could we find you..,.,
We’re planning on spending some time in the desert when we’re done with our first tour. Probably some beaches. We live in our van, so we can nomad and rubber tramp until we’re ready to go back out on tour. Joshua Tree in California is one of the places I want to go for at least a few weeks. Writing, climbing some rocks, thinking, getting ready to go out on the road again. We will come back to Colorado at some point, our family is here, but like I said, not diggin the cold right now.
The one thing we want you to remember while you’re listening to us
The passion we have when we play. Even just in the recordings I need that to come through. I’ve always said if I can just touch someone with my music, make them think and feel. That’s what it is all about for me. Us sharing this special thing, this thing where we can connect, where I am the purest version of myself and you can connect with one of the purest versions of yourself.
listen to the album….
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