Wandering with Whitney

Watching the Chicago Darlings Blossom

Words by Ben Niespodziany  •  Photos by Bianca Garcia

The winter blows through Chicago, emptying cold wind down side streets and into floorboards. Brutal flurries compliment my frosted breath as I wait outside of a nondescript home in Logan Square, in search of folksy, "country soul" band Whitney. The address is where the buzzing band is having band practice and member Will Miller advises me to go around back and enter through the basement, where seven twenty somethings work on material inside of dimly lit concrete. An old Pac Man arcade game gathers dust in the corner. Having just added guitarist Print Chouteau (formerly of Bass Drum of Death) to the lineup, Whitney work together to teach the newest member the proper molds for their upcoming tour. 

As a means of an introduction into the group, Whitney is a six piece rock outfit formed as an organic union between Julien Ehrlich (lead vocalist/drummer) and Max Kakacek (lead guitarist) after the indefinite hiatus and ultimate breakup of Smith Westerns. Having both been in acclaimed bands since teenage years, both artists act as youthful veterans to the “scene"; the now 24-year-old Ehrlich was touring and recording with Unknown Mortal Orchestra at only nineteen and Kakacek formed the self-titled debut by Smith Westerns while still in high school. With the split of their band happening around the same time as heartbreaking finalizations of relationships and homelessness, all on top of a relentless Chicago winter, the two holed up in Kakacek's family cabin in Wisconsin to begin the initial songwriting that would become Whitney. 

Once Ehrlich and Kakacek recognized the potential, soaring through country, acoustic soul, and backroads Americana, they added Will Miller (previously of The O'My's) on trumpet/keys as well as Josiah Marshall (bass) and Malcolm Brown (keys), artists previously in the band Touching Voids, which featured vocalist/keyboardist Ziyad Asrar, an artist who was briefly the rhythm guitarist for Whitney before departing for family reasons. Line this all up and you have Whitney. They even lassoed Charles Glanders, an on-sight engineer "sound guy" to the list, one who can allegedly do sound check blindfolded without the band even being present.

They finish up their basement session with an unreleased track. The instruments smack against the bricks, bouncing around the concrete scattered with carpet slabs. It's the early afternoon and the band is relaxed. Some have coffee, some close their eyes, nearing a meditative state during this rendition of a song they've been playing live for months, a song they will continue playing live throughout the year. They tell me they only have one more song to teach Chouteau, but that they're ready for their upcoming tours. I repeat: tours. The week that I meet with them is the week before they leave for Europe, traveling all over "as far north as Oslo" for three weeks. London, Paris, Berlin, Gothenburg, Netherlands, and more, all in under a month. They're antsy, they're excited. Then it's SXSW, followed by touring the States from the middle of March until the end of May, where they'll trek up to Canada and finish out spring with a slew of shows before partaking in summer's festival season. 

Nomadic traveling with guitars, whistling harmonies in camouflage jackets, this all comes natural for the band. Whitney defines American grassroots, connecting friendship with chemistry. Drinking daytime liquor and having a cigarette break. Whitney takes rest in the bedrooms and couches and futons of Chicago, getting by calmly, confidently.

In regards to the sonics of Whitney, Smith Westerns this is not. UMO this is not. No overindulgent party noise this time around. No reverb. Whitney is mature, tranquil, soft spoken, falsetto as hell, positive, even a little sad in the eyes. Sounding more like Neil Young or perhaps Bruce Springsteen's album Nebraska than a standard active indie rock band, the group initially formed as a means to release “reissued", lost/archived style tapes. Vintage songs that would later become immortalized. See Abner Jay, see Nick Drake, see Junior Kimbrough. Once Ehrlich and Kakacek understood where these songs could take them, they brought in a team, they polished and perfected and prepared for the road, all the way maintaining a vintage and WiFi-free aesthetic. Ehrlich tells me that he and Miller are the only ones who use the band's Twitter account, that the other members of the group “don't do social media.” With videos in the woods and songs by the creek, with numerous publications describing them as “post-hipster”, this image only forms more strongly. 

Stripped of the radio single synth pop and highly stylized look, Whitney is instead a fictitious character, a mirage, a poem. Whitney is coincidentally (but not purposefully) the name of Ehrlich's first kiss, yet was invented as a means to describe an imaginary old man, living alone, reflective, sorrowful, but still smiling away his sunny days. Sitting on the porch after an argument with his woman, looking for his harmonica and his glass of sweating lemonade. 

We depart from the basement and make our way upstairs, to Glanders' bedroom. The guys admire the room, sitting down on the bed for some photos while commenting on various desk lamps and a hot dog toaster on the floor. Despite the praise, the bedroom will soon be someone else's: as a result of their upcoming schedule and wandering calendar, sleeping on floors and couches throughout two continents, the members of Whitney moved out of their homes, handed over their leases, and took to the road, where their songs will feed their hunger and grow their fan base. “We'll come back here and station up,” says Ehrlich, “but we're not gonna sign leases here for a while.” 

Their first overseas tour, this remains impressive given that the band only has one official single out: the track “No Woman”, which has been garnering acclaim and circulation alike through a woodlands music video of bon fires, male bonding, and hatchet tosses. Both the video and the single are being distributed through independent label Secretly Canadian out of Bloomington, Indiana. The SC co-sign is huge for the group, as they have assisted with the musical careers of acts like Bon Iver, Tallest Man on Earth, and Foxygen. This makes sense when it is discovered that Foxygen member Jonathan Rado produced Whitney's forthcoming debut album. This makes sense when it's discovered that UMO's bassist Jake Portrait mixed the very same album. All of these fine connections plus a Pitchfork's sought after “best new track” and an addition to their festival lineup in July, and the band is on their way to being indie rock (ahem, country rock) darlings before the leaves start to fall again. 

On first listen, Whitney's compositions are full of happy melodies, groovy harmonies, and guitar solos that leave as quickly as they arrived. But on a third, fourth, fifth listen, the audience takes note of the sad, wallowing lyricism. The tears hiding behind the content bottle of Jim Beam. The break up album to heal the break up. Songs about loss, songs about drinking, even a song that acts as cover tribute to a late Louisiana legend. Last winter, for example, they recorded the song “Follow”, a song Ehrlich wrote about his grandfather who has since passed, a song that was later played at his funeral.

Fast forward to a week after I interview Whitney, days before their departure for London. They're performing an intimate show on the top floor of Chicago's new Virgin Hotel. With a 60 person capacity, the event isn't being promoted or hyped. “[We go on at] 10,” Ehrlich tells me. “I would get there early if you can. I don't know about any sort of list because it's a free show so if you come before nine you should be good.” As I take the elevator to the top floor at 9:04 p.m., arriving and showing my ID, the bouncer receives a message from a voice on his walkie talkie: “Are the doors open yet?”

“Yes,” he says, “but we're already at capacity. Don't let anyone else up.” 9:04. I consider myself lucky; I attempted to see them earlier in 2016 at Chicago's venue Schubas, heading north after work only to receive a call from a friend who told me that a line was wrapped around the location, that the event was sold out.

The Virgin Hotel set is a success. The room is a packed house of friends and fans alike, spending money on overpriced beers and valet parking in order to support a new movement: a talented team of twenty somethings taking full shape. It is a movement worth documenting. The show also acts as a nice farewell piece before their seemingly endless tour. The set is quick and endearing, full of unreleased hits that the crowd already knows (thanks to numerous shows and an infamously private SoundCloud playlist). Whitney even includes an instrumental jam, one that fits nicely in the middle of their cheerful, banter-driven setlist.

A strong live show is obviously an important aspect of Whitney. This is made obvious upon seeing how they are in Europe right now, on tour, with only one official song, a summertime demo, and an acoustic video. Touring nonstop with past reputations that have led to crucial cosigns, they've been doing what they love and garnering steam based on playing these unreleased tracks to the public. Most shows rely on that one song or numerous hit singles to guide the crowd into singalong sways, but Whitney continue to play their music for first time listeners, with new audiences remaining dazzled and delighted. Such was the case in New York for CMJ (see their Fader Fort video) and such will be the case when they play throughout Austin, Texas during SXSW later this month. 

With word of mouth, reputation off of the strength of past bands, and with Secretly Canadian scooping up the assist for their debut album, due out this summer, Whitney seem destined to shine. These seven gents are on the fast track to something sweet, something void of smart phones and electronics, something that can be set in 1962 or in 2042. Their sound is stripped down and intimate. A trumpet, antique keys, relaxed drums, a swift guitar solo. It all works here, all fits nicely in a log cabin in Appalachia, maybe in a tent in Yellowstone, singing of heartbreak and camaraderie, healing those aching pains with touching breaths of Americana that would make Neil Young shed a folk tear. Whitney is full of gentle souls smiling substance through the weirdness of the world. While the content within Whitney's debut album might sound more like something from Tennessee or New Orleans, Montana even, it was written and recorded in Wisconsin, in Illinois, in Los Angeles. Back at the house, I ask what keeps them stationed in Chicago.

“The people," a member chimes in quickly. "The weather,” another jokes. “Three of us grew up here,” adds Miller. 

“When it comes to writing the next record,” Ehrlich continues, “we'll probably write like a chunk of it in Chicago but I'd like to go different places. Probably like the Northwest [he's originally from Portland] for a spell, maybe L.A. for a little while.” 

The sound of Whitney doesn't sound as much like Chicago as it does like Harlan County and Big Mouth, creations of American recluse artist Jim Ford. It's less of The Orwells or Twin Peaks and more Woodie Guthrie; it's less Windy City and more national park; it's less Navy Pier and more Nashville Skyline. Someone mentions Dave Davies, a singer/songwriter from The Kinks, who turned 69 the day of our interview. This side-note of awareness fits perfectly into what they're going for both sonically and visually. 

Rather than being stuck simply in the musical past, members talk of the music being created by their talented friends, like Chicago groups Lionlimb and NE-HI, like New York artist Frankie Cosmos. Even modern country gets thrown into the mix. 

As made aware by past interviews with Whitney, the members are fixated on performing at Stagecoach Festival, a country music festival comparable to Coachella with cowboy boots. Eric Church, Little Big Town, John Fogerty, they're all playing the festival at the end of April. Whitney members make a note to include this festival performance desire in every one of their interviews until someone wise underneath founder Paul Tollett shoots them a telegram to saddle up and head out to Indio, California. . 

“It's the Coachella of mainstream country music," says Ehrlich. "We really wanna. More than anything."

"Shout-out The Band Perry," Brown adds. "I don't even know what they sound like but I think that's a band that will probably play there.”

Given the desire to be taken seriously as a country band and with most of their influences being artists and bands long deceased or disbanded, being boxed into the indie rock world is not what they want. They shoot off old bottle rockets resting in the wet grass, they slam hatchets at beer cans, they skip rocks in southern Indiana. They look like they shop exclusively at a secondhand Cabela's, wearing variations of tan, alpine, grey, and denim, and they tweet about listening to Joni Mitchell's Blue album for the first time while in the freeze of Scandinavia. 

I depart from the interview in the house, I leave at the end of the Virgin Hotel concert, both times thanking the members of Whitney for their time. This whirlwind of a band, combining the past with the current, intertwining heartbreak and struggle with relatable and catchy choruses worthy of being played at a folk show but also on Beats1 and at Hype Hotel. With only one single out, I imagine they will be a much larger name by the time 2017 begins. For now, these seven men are beginning to test their wings on the threshold of the world, teetering with stardom through high-pitched harmonies and grins, wool socks and mud boots. Their climb seems inevitable as they grow as one country soul unit, one both rehearsed and organic, one both original and timeless.