Oregon Music News

In less than two years, Freelance Whales have gone from promoting their self-released album in New York subways to being picked up by a major label, receiving copious amounts of national attention, and heading out on their first headlining US tour.

Oregon Music News caught up with lead singer Judah Dadone as the band traveled to Houston before they bring their dreamy blend of folk and pop sounds to the Doug Fir on Sunday, November 21st. Dadone talked to us about their fancy new ride, busking, and what fans can expect next from the Queens-based five-part conglomeration of organic and synthetic sounds.

Houston, huh? Are you traveling through Texas by bus?

[Laughs at the interviewer's naiveté and wishful thinking.] If only. Though, we can’t complain. We are traveling in what is commonly referred to as a sprinter or a porter van, which is pretty big. Bigger than your standard 15-passenger van. It’s really high, which I think is the real defining feature of it. You can stand inside it without hitting your head, which is pretty cool.

That is pretty cool.

Yeah, it’s nice. The van we’ve been driving in for the past year is… not ideal. It has horrible alignment; the tires are blowing out; it’s uncomfortable. We’ll play shows and people will be like, “You’re driving around in that?” So, we figured it was time to treat ourselves to something a little bit safer for this tour.

Sounds like a good idea. So, how is the tour going so far?

Really good. We are about six days into this tour, and so far the shows have been really amazing. The vibe with the crowd has been great, and we’ve had an opportunity to try out some new songs that we’ve been working on.

We’ve done some headlining shows before, little legs of tours, but this is our first proper headlining tour of the United States (and a little bit of Canada). We’re playing much longer sets and challenging ourselves in that way because most of this year we’ve been supporting other bands and doing shorter sets. So now we’re kinda figuring out how far we can take it, and it’s really nice.

Awesome. This past summer, you guys stopped at Sasquatch, where you were great.

Oh, thanks! Yeah, that’s a fun festival.

Yeah, I remember the day you guys played there was some crazy, blustery weather, and the wind was doing some interesting things to your instruments. It sort of fit the ghostly sound of the songs on Weathervanes. Has this tour had any ghostly incidents?

So far everything has been really smooth with sound. Playing a festival is so different than playing at a club. At a festival you don’t really get to sound check; you just kinda throw your gear up there and play everything, and it’s really kind of haphazard… At a club show you have a lot more time, and everything’s a lot more laid back.

In the early days, you guys did a lot of busking, playing on the streets in New York. Is that something you’re still doing, and do you get the same kind of kick out of the live club shows as you did out playing on the street?

We haven’t done it in a while, mostly because we’ve been out on the road. We’ve definitely thought this [busking] is something we should be doing in every city that we go to. But sometimes the way tours are planned out, it doesn’t really allow for that. When we can, we’ll do it–we did it once in Telluride, Colorado; we did it in Chicago once.

But, really, when we were doing that in New York it was sort of like we were doing it because we didn’t know what else to do with ourselves… It wasn’t really all that ambitious to play in a club to ten people because nobody knows about you… So we started playing in the streets and the subways because that was the only thing we could think of as being practical for sticking our necks out there and getting ourselves out in the world.

So, now that we are out in the world, it’d be more an aesthetic decision to go into the subway and play now, whereas before it was purely practical. And now that we’re out touring, that’s another way of doing that. We probably wouldn’t go back into the subway and play until we have some new songs to try out… Playing in the subway was a really good way for us to really hone our parts, especially our vocal parts. So in addition to promoting shows, we were also just getting better at singing our songs. We might do it again at some point, but I think for the time being, we’re holding off.

You mentioned that you’re trying out some new songs on this tour–and you just released the free single “Enzymes”–so I wondered if you could talk a little about what new things are in the works.

We’ve been playing two new songs. One of those is “Enzymes,” and the other is called “Day Off.” “Enzymes” is already available from Green Label Sound for a free download, and then I think in a couple weeks “Day Off” will also be available for free.

Those are two songs that we recorded very quickly between the tour that we did in September and when we came out here on the road in November. We recorded them with Emery Dobyns, a really great music producer who’s worked with Antony & the Johnsons and Noah and the Whale.

Those two songs are in large part a reflection on the last year–how touring is a lifestyle change for us and how we’re adapting to that and what it feels like to come home and try to reclaim your own possessions and reconnect with the people in your life that you love.

Those songs really represent where we are now emotionally. It’s a rare opportunity for us… because we get to give people this reflection of what’s going on in our lives right now, whereas normally when you make a record you make a song, sit on it, you record it, and then maybe it comes out a year later.

We’ve also been playing this other new song called “Footprint,” which we haven’t recorded yet, really… It’s kind of wintry and has this strange energy that builds very slowly to a really nice momentum.

You guys are known for your unique combination of different types of instruments. Are you adding any new instruments to the repertoire on this tour?

If anything, I think we’re kinda paring down a bit. With “Enzymes” and “Day Off,” it’s more electric guitar, bass, drums, and synthesizer–and still a lot of vocals, you know… I think what we’ve learned in the past year is that it does become a bit of a balancing act to have so many different elements that you’re dealing with. Sometimes the reaction to that is to strip things down instead of making them even wider and grander and ambitious.

These three songs we’re working on now tend to be not as hugely diverse instrumentations. They still have that same interlocking rhythmic and melodic sound that the songs on Weathervanes have. I think when we get home and have time to work on a proper record, we’ll have a much better sense of what the near future holds for us, as far as what we’ll be lugging around.

Watch the Whales in “Generator ^ Second Floor”:

Sunday’s show at the Doug Fir is at 9pm, with fellow New Yorkers Miniature Tigers opening. Tickets are $11 in advance, $12 at the door.