The Mowgli’s hails from Los Angeles and is well known for their laid back west coast pop music stylings. The Chronicle’s Aaron Paskin talked to drummer Andy Warren about the band, their new album and their new tour.
The Chronicle: First of all, I think your new album "Where’d Your Weekend Go?" is fantastic. How do you feel about the final product?
Andy Warren: We’re so proud of it. This being our third album, you know, we’ve kind of been up and down in the writing process since the first album, and this was kind of the group collective effort for the first time since we started writing music. You go through a lot of ups and downs in the music industry. A lot of people telling you to work with other people, a lot of input, and this one was kind of just us in our zone working together, and so we’re really proud of it.
TC: Thematically, how is the new album similar or different to your previous albums?
AW: It’s definitely still themes of love. This one’s a bit more of—if the first album’s kind of like a universal theme of love, the second is more stories of love, this is kind of a more personal view of how love can help in moments of feeling down. There’s a lot of songs about loneliness, a lot of songs about people that surround us that make us feel maybe uncomfortable, or provide challenges, but how in the end, love can conquer and help bring it all together and get over those feelings of lonesomeness or feelings of anxiety in social settings and all those things. So it’s kind of using love as a tool and examining that and how it can help.
TC: Right, and that’s definitely an interesting progression from the previous two albums.
AW: It definitely is, to kind of veer from the more universal grand statement of love into more kind of how it can be this thing that can help get you through times of sorrow, times of pain, times of feeling scared.
TC: I’m wondering, who are some of your favorite musicians or bands, and which ones, if any, are you inspired by when making your own music?
AW: Well I think when it comes to the band, that’s such a grand statement. Everyone has their influences. Personally, for me, I’m really into The Beatles, I’m into jazz music, I’m into punk and ska. But I mean if you were to ask anybody in the band the question would be different. Colin loves pop music, Katie loves indie, Josh loves 90s rock, so there’s so many influences coming through on each person, and that kind of seeps into the grand picture of our band.
TC: In May, you played for Widefield Elementary School in Colorado Springs, and the students even joined you in singing your hit single “I’m Good” from 2015’s "Kids In Love." What was it like seeing your music connect so positively with the kids?
AW: That was great! I mean that song’s been a really cool thing for us, and we’ve had a lot of reach-out from -- it was originally written for this bullying campaign, so it kind of was always tying into different people with different stories reaching out to us and sharing their stories of, you know, being hurt and having to kind of overcome it. And that was a cool moment to go in and have a large group of kids, and I don’t know if they all have -- they were so young so I can’t really speak to their struggles because they’re so young, and like, maybe they don’t have a personal tale of being bullied just yet because they’re like first, second, and third graders. But just seeing the power of our music touching these younger children and having them join in and sing with us was a really special moment.
TC: Despite being a band of six members, one of the great qualities of your music is that the songs don’t feel “crowded,” and all the components work really well together. Are there challenges in bringing this cohesiveness to the stage for live shows?
AW: The band used to actually at a point have even ten people in it, and at that time it was like four people playing guitar, and everybody singing, and you can even hear that on our first album, it felt like kind of a wall of sound. Lately, with our newer songs it’s been cool because we’re so buckled into the six of us and so close together that we really kind of each honed what our role is in the band. So I think that’s why it comes through so clearly now, especially on the newer songs. Kind of hearing each part and each person has their thing that they’re doing.
It was a challenge at first I think with so many people, but as we pared the band down to lesser people and defined each role, it becomes an easier thing, and I think that’s why it sounds clear now even though there’s still a lot of us, and that we each have our role and it’s working.
TC: The "Where’d Your Weekend Go?" Tour began a little over a week ago. What’s it been like playing some of the new songs?
AW: Really cool. You know, it’s always interesting when you play new songs and the album’s not out yet because a lot of people don’t know them. But like, for instance, our first show was at Dartmouth, and that was our first time ever trying the new songs out on anybody, and the reaction was amazing. And our live show, it’s been cool kind of seeing what’s hitting, what’s not hitting, and every night’s different too. Sometimes one song that maybe didn’t get as good of a reaction as we wanted might get the reaction the next night. And I think once the album actually comes out it’s gonna be even better because the songs will be familiar with people.
TC: You’ll get to hear the audience singing along at that point.
AW: Even still, we’ve leaked a couple songs and there’s a preview on Pandora of the album, so there are still people that are singing along. It’s cool that the fans can already, if they know how to find the songs they’ve been finding them, which is cool. But I’m excited for it to kind of get on a wider scale.
TC: Last spring The Mowgli’s played at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, N.C. What do you remember from the show and are you excited to return to the venue with new material in a couple weeks?
AW: Yeah definitely! I remember, that was our first time there, and everyone that worked there was so cool. I remember the room was packed that night, it was a really high energy show. It’s a really cool town and we’re excited to get back there.
Listen to The Mowgli’s’ new album "Where’d Your Weekend Go" and see them live at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, N.C. on Tuesday, Oct. 11.
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