A convergence of sound and space, experimental folk collective We Are The West are dedicated song-stylists who have developed a uniquely immersive approach to performance, playing both concert halls and improvised venues, including their preeminent underground parking garage concert series.
On March 30, 2018, We Are The West will release their first full-length album, The Golden Shore, a lush, intricate, and moving eleven-track collection. Ahead of its release, John Kibler and Brett Hool kindly too the time to talk in depth about the album, 'The Underground Series,' The Hollywood Bowl, and more. Did you have a musical mentor? If so, who was it and how did they influence you? Brett: There’ve been countless mentors, coaches, heroes, and teachers along the way, I think for both of us. I studied mostly literature and John studied classical music. But I’d say personally that in terms of performance and expression, one of the biggest influences on me was my grandmother Constanza. She was a ballerina and choreographer in Mexico, and forged a very unique career throughout the 50s, 60s, and 70s, all over Latin America. But the experiences she would talk to me most about were the spiritual moments, when her dancing would transcend, like a particular performance in a cathedral that didn’t used to let women in, and performing in India for Indira Gandhi, improvising with local musicians. When she was getting late in her life, I remember my brother wheeling her into one of my first gigs, at this fairly grungy dive bar we used to play. Later when she was in hospice and I brought my latest recording and some earphones for her, her hands and feet started dancing in the wheelchair, and she told me she was choreographing something, telling me how to position myself on stage. Is there a story behind your album’s title? Brett: ‘The Golden Shore’ arrived within the title song. It’s one of our oldest tunes, but the original chorus and title weren’t quite working. The album starts out in the dark a bit, floating on the sea, and so does the beginning of this song. When the chorus arrives it’s like the sunrise, washing out the consuming thoughts and worries. A little light, a change in perspective, and suddenly you see you’re surrounded by beauty, that life is a gift. You know, all the good stuff. I think it was tied to the painting we’ve used as the album cover, which appeared to us at just the right time. We live in LA, and have been touring up to the Bay Area quite a bit over the years. A while back we played a last minute gig at this DIY art center warehouse junk shop kind of place, that doesn’t even exist anymore. Before we played John and I walked around, taking in all the strange artifacts that littered the place: a full miniature version of Coney Island, an intricate collection of soap carvings by an inmate at San Quentin, a bunch of random stuff. This one painting caught both our eyes but we didn’t say anything to each other about it. At the end of the night the owner was apologizing for not being able to pay us much. We both asked, “What about that painting? How much is that?” He just told us it was ours. That night we were hanging at my buddy’s place where we were crashing, and we had the big painting up while we listened to music. We were watching the painting like it was a TV. “Now, that’s a record cover!” we agreed. We found out later it’s by Marcus Uzilevsky, so we contacted his family who gave us their blessing to use it. Once this album started coming together, ‘The Golden Shore’ seemed to tie it all together. Why did you choose to anchor the album with the songs you did? John: It’s funny how these songs came to be on the record. We’ve always been more aware of space and room sounds than gear and recording techniques. A friend and fellow bassist, Kaveh Rastegar, suggested a recording engineer named Husky Höskulds, who worked out of an old warehouse in Downtown LA. We approached Husky with the idea to record 3-5 songs over the course of a few days. Our intention was always to record the trio (bass, drums, guitar/ voice) live, so we spent a lot of energy in the days and weeks leading up to the session rehearsing and ironing out the details. When we got into the studio we found ourselves having recorded 5 songs within the first two days, so we decided to continue with other songs and in the end we ended up with 11 songs in total. Because of this I think the record is a great combination of patient and impulsive musical moments. 
Where do you draw from when writing - personal experience, the experience of others, observations, made-up stories, something else or a combination?
John: That’s an interesting question. Speaking for myself, I think it’s probably a combination of all of those things. Some of the songs on ‘The Golden Shore’ are directly related to personal experiences of mine. For example ‘Any Day of the Week’ is about a specific day, a Tuesday in 2010, when I moved with my family abroad. For me it was such a monumental undertaking, but as I left to go to the airport I saw people walking their dog, getting a coffee, just very normal stuff, and I felt like ”How could they not know that this was a big day?” That all got me thinking, that probably happens to everyone. Some days babies are born, some days people die. I guess that could be considered a theme in my songwriting. Universal truths. Things or situations that everyone experiences, but in different ways. ‘For Me, For You’ would be another example of this. “It’s the same as when when you’re breathing in, someone’s breathing out.” Brett: I don’t usually think in those terms myself. I guess I often let the music pull words out of my mouth, and then later start to find the connections and meaning between them. I can get really attached to the scene or setting that a song suggests, and that’s where the words often come from, not necessarily an idea. But wherever it comes from, once I’m singing the song I’m there, inside the world of the song. I’ll find reflections of myself, or memories, or myths, or images of might-have-beens in there, but I don’t worry too much about the specifics. They’re slippery. It’s kind of like dreaming when you’re awake. How do you kill the long hours in the van? John: Van time is the best. I wouldn’t say killing time was ever a thing we set out to do, but along the way we’ve written some great songs, I think. ‘More Machine Than Man’ started out with a Casio plugged into the cassette player in the van using one of those old cassette adapters or a radio transmitter or something like that from a truck stop. The primitive sampling abilities and distortion of the keyboard through the speakers created a really unique sound that kinda allowed the song to take shape. It informed the lyrics and got us a few 100 miles down the road! What’s your favorite venue and why? John: That’s an easy one! When Brett and I formed We Are The West we started playing out around New York, where we were based at the time, and really had trouble connecting with audiences at the clubs we were playing. It soon became apparent that maybe even though we were playing in all the ‘cool’ clubs that we may be looking for something different. With this in mind we began searching out alternative venues, I guess you could say, where we could create an experience that complemented the music, and allowed people the space to listen. We noticed that people’s expectations went out the window and their openness to something new grew as soon as they entered an abandoned convent, tow lot, shipping container, or any other of the places we put on shows back then. Since moving back to LA, we continued this idea with a monthly concert series, we call ‘The Underground Series’. I know that probably sounds like we’re trying to be all “underground” and cool, but it really is subterranean. For the past 6 years, on the Saturday before each full moon, we’ve been hosting these shows in the underground parking garage of an office building in LA. To me, it is the ideal venue for our music. It’s spacious and vast, at times it’s loud, and at others it’s pin-drop quiet. It’s a place to experiment. It’s our laboratory. What’s your dream venue and why? Brett: The Hollywood Bowl, because, of course. I saw Neil Young and Crazy Horse there. John saw Willie there. Last year I caught our friend Kinan Azmeh mesmerizing the place with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, and also saw maybe the best show I’ve ever seen, by Dolly Parton. On a warm summer evening, with the right music, it feels like the right place to be. We’ve actually spent serious time thinking about how we can raise enough money to rent it out and put on a night. I have this dream of playing there with one of our favorite bands Ramon and Jessica. They have a song called ‘Spiritual’ that... as our good buddy Gerard, who DJs most of our garage shows, said when we first played it for him, “Well, that’s pretty much the greatest song ever, isn’t it.” I dream of us all playing that together in the encore. Is there a recent release you cannot stop listening to? Brett: Does 1978 count as recent? Cause we’ve been playing ‘Daylight Katy’ from Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘Endless Wire’ album on repeat lately. John: Actually our mixing/mastering engineer, Jonathan Burnside, turned us on to this record. When we heard it we knew we found the right guy! Watch "From The Bowar" HERE Website/Facebook/Twitter/Purchase
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