Women In Freakout: Part 2

Ushering in its 11th year with the same DIY garage punk ethos from which it first arose, Freakout Festival returned last November to the neighbourhood of Ballad, Seattle to once again welcome a mix of independent and mainstream performers.

A record label based in Seattle, Freakout provides music opportunities for all while supporting artists locally and internationally. Their four-day festival featured a wide array of global artists and bands, ranging from garage rock to psychedelic, punk and electronic music. Headliners this year included Allah Las, The Gories, Son Rompe Pera and Lola Kirke.

We headed down to capture some of the festival’s up-and-coming female artists in their element, and spoke to them about their creative process, and what attracted them to the west coast music scene in the first place.

ALEX VILE

Freakout Bio: “Tacoma, WA’s Alex Vile began as a solo project in with singer/guitarist Alexandra Vilenius and has turned into a 4 piece Modern, Indie Grunge band with the addition of Kaelyn Stevens on bass, Leo Quale on lead guitar & Evan Hartung on drums. Their DIY roots and diverse musical taste has put their own twist on the genres crafting a space to thrive in. Alex Vile has played numerous shows on the West Coast and has recorded an album worth of songs with Producer Jim Kaufman (Everclear, Helmet, Night Riots).”

How did you get into music?

Since I was eight/nine I would write songs but I couldn't play any instruments. I would write them in my journal like lyrics. I remember I watched, I don't know what season it was, of America's Got Talent, but do you know Grace VanderWaal the ukulele girl? Was obsessed I said to myself, I need a ukulele. I begged my parents for one - they are really into metal and told me: don't play ukulele, that's lame. You should play guitar. You should play electric guitar. I insisted and got a ukulele for my birthday. That's when I started really writing songs, all throughout high school. I would record them on my phone like a voice memo, but I never performed them anywhere.. 

Then COVID hit my junior year of high school, and I met my current boyfriend who’s always been in a bunch of bands and played guitar in a grunge band. I would always show him my ukulele songs, he told me I should play guitar and offered to teach me. I became obsessed at how much more you could do on a guitar and started writing more rock songs (it was still very indie). I had this idea in my head that guitar was  this crazy instrument I could never learn because I was too old. I was 18/19 when I started playing guitar.

I was wondering, with a lot of like your music and music writing what influences that? What would you write about?

A lot of love and heartbreak, even in elementary school,  I was out here heartbroken over these crushes. Now I'm branching off - I'm writing slightly happier songs. I think the main influence has always been emotions that I've had; emotions that I can't explain or describe how it makes me feel.

Or feeling very, very deeply about things that people might think aren't a very big deal. For example I think about my first breakup, my first major breakup, we dated for four months while I was 17. And a lot of people can maybe move on but for me that was such a groundbreaking experience of losing my mind for months and months and months. And the way I see love, heartbreak and pain affects me. I sometimes feel like I'm a little crazy, but I'm not. 

I feel like so many people could relate to that! When you get older and as time passes, you feel that it wasn’t that big of a deal. But when you're in the moment….

It’s A BIG DEAL. And I think that's the best thing to write about. It's such a healthy coping mechanism because for me, I'm writing a song about a really negative experience, but then I'm turning it into something positive by playing it live and seeing people enjoy the song or listen to the song. I was able to make something good out of this super negative experience. I think a lot of the themes that I write about are not being able to get over things, a lot of the newer songs are more reminiscing on the past like self-reflection, relationships and friendships. I've been writing recently a lot about being in your early 20s and how you still feel like a teenager. This has been some of the themes about songs that aren't out yet, about feeling naive and like you're not ready for the world. I don't feel ready for it and I'm still stuck on things in the past. I'm still trying to move through everything. I always tell people you're never gonna feel like you are ready to perform. You're never gonna feel like you're ready to share your music. You're ready to start a band. You just have to do it and learn along the way.

Do you think playing in DIY spaces influenced your music and how you navigated the music scene

Yeah! I like to call it  messy chic, it doesn't always have to be perfect. Now I've learned how to write choruses but when I first started my songs it used to be a big word vomit. There would be no chorus, it would just be whatever because I didn't care about it being clean or structured. I just wanted to say what I wanted to and have it sound fun. Playing DIY shows and being in that scene it's a lot more about the energy and about what you're saying than having everything be perfect. Even into our recording process. What I really love about our producer, Jim Kaufman, who we record with, is how sometimes I'll have a voice crack in a song, I'll do 10 vocal takes, and he’ll use that tape where I have a voice crack. At first I'm like- Oh, I don't like it. But then I listened to it and he's like- No, it adds a lot of flavor, it makes it sound more emotional. It just adds to the meaning of the song, so we try to keep stuff like that into the mixes you know, of having it be more of how we play it live and it doesn't have to sound perfect. 

I really love that! Sometimes in studio recordings, the songs come out very clean taking away from the emotion of the song. But you did an incredible job with Kobayashi, it's such an amazing song. You can feel the rawness and the emotion. How long did it take you to record it? 

All the songs that I wrote first, I've always written them on guitar first. But for Kobayashi, I wrote it on bass. I wrote that bassline maybe in 20 minutes and then I remember sending a video to my band. I had a verse in the chorus and then I brought it to band practice and started piecing it together. And then I wrote the other verse. I think, when we got into the studio, we shortened it a little bit, because we're like, oh, we want the start a little bit punchier. We wanted a punchy start to the song. Kobayashi, I'd say, was one of the quicker writing processes probably because it is a shorter song. Also, I knew what I wanted going into it: I want something fun, I want something fast. Leo (our guitarist), just put the leads on so quick, he was like- Oh, how does this sound? I was like, that's literally perfect. That's literally perfect.

That's incredible. With your performances, what's your favorite thing about your audience? What do you want your audience to feel while you're performing? 
I want them to feel included. When we're playing a show we're not just performing for them, we're all in it together. I really want it to feel like a music community. The people that show up to shows are just as important as the people playing, without people listening to the music or coming to the shows there would be no show.. I know watching local shows really influenced me to start a band, so I want anybody to feel like they can do it. If you just started playing guitar, you just started playing bass, you just started singing like, GO DO IT. You can do it, you know? And what I want them to take away from the songs themselves is that it's okay if you feel like you feel a lot or if you feel like you feel too much. That it's actually normal, there's a lot of people that struggle, it's okay, it will get better.

Are there any other artists here in the Seattle scene that inspire you or that you really like?

I'm friends with them and my drummer also plays for them but there's a band called Some Fucking Vegan. They haven't released music yet, but they're gonna record music. Their shows make me emotional. Their songs are so heartwarming and touching. I love their songs and lyrics, they really touched me. And for me a lot of their songs are memorized without them even having music out. I feel like that means a lot, I just memorize them from seeing them play live.

Do you want that to be the case for your own show? 

Yeah! I really want people to feel something when they watch us play. Whether they’re nostalgic or happy. I want them to feel something.

Alex Vile are currently working on their debut album that is due to be released in 2024. You can listen to their music on Spotify and follow them on Instagram @alevile_

Day Soul

Exquisite

Freakout Bio: “ Day Soul Exquisite is a 6-piece band from Seattle, WA. Fronted by singer Francesca Eluhu, the QTBIPOC-led band is a mix of neo-soul, psychedelic R&B, and jazz. Day Soul Exquisite’s music brings raucous energy, sweet queer love songs, and defiant responses to oppression.”

How did you get into it?

I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. But I also grew up going to the French Caribbean a lot. My mother's from there and my father's Congolese. Both sides speak French and we would fly there a lot. My uncle plays music and a jazz band in the Caribbean, I actually grew up with a lot of music around me, my mom recently sent me lyrics that my grandfather wrote. I had no idea that I wanted to pursue music, I just knew that it was a huge passion. I thought I would just like Nashville as it has so many music opportunities. I thought I would do something in the music business side, so I studied math and econ in college. I did several internships throughout the south and  New York in music licensing and distribution, but it didn't quite hit that passion that I wanted. It didn't feel very fulfilled, it didn't feel fulfilling.

I said to myself, let me at least start doing business consulting, to see if that will take me towards music later on. I moved to Seattle and  started working in that, but I didn't feel fulfilled either. Then, when the pandemic hit, and I had all this time, I lost a family member, so I was grieving at the same time. I realized Life is too short and that music was what I wanted to be doing. So I taught myself production and started getting into it more and then that's when I decided to start the band.

How did the band come to be? How long did it take to bring to life? 

I met all of them through music, so I  decided I wanted to start a band. And then I put posters around the CD, like literally, I think there were posters in chucks here, by the bathroom, everywhere. I put in all my music influences and a call for musicians.I knew I wanted it to be a cutie BIPOC band and I put that in bold. I placed them in big, huge events in no particular order. And then slowly started making music connections I liked. I had the idea of starting a band, in 2020, so it took me a year. It was a lot of work. It helped that I was unemployed at the time. I was working on my solo music which helped educate me on the sounds and influences that I wanted in a bigger group.

Wow! Your sound seems so thought out and settled, I wouldn't expect it to have been so recent. Usually the process takes a couple years. 

It definitely does. The first few months we didn't play any shows, we just played all the time to try to get to know each other’s sounds. It was really fun, honestly. Performing is really fun, too - it's like a different thrill. But I really love co-writing with everyone and at first I was bringing more melodies that I had worked on to the band as a songwriter and stuff and that's how our first single came about. But recently we've been really veering towards just writing together. It's really exciting to be more collaborative. It helps elevate the music much faster than if you were to do it on your own. I’ve grown as an artist exponentially in the past three years. 

What were those music influences?

I think I put that on my original poster. I think I said that I was looking for the Hiatus Kaiyote to my Nai Palm,  The Internet to my Syd. Those are big bands and influences. Also Stevie Wonder, and the Pixies. Man, there's a long list of names honestly. But it ranged between genres, too

I see that you put in a lot of effort in making your band very diverse and inclusive. I was wondering if that was because you saw a lack in diversity and that was something you wanted to highlight?

Yeah, I knew what I wanted it to be. There were definitely times where I was like, oh my god, am I being too specific? Like am I not gonna find these people? Because I wanted it to be majorly women - I got super lucky honestly with who I met. The first person I met was Josh, who's our drummer, who's a white cis man. He waited weeks to get in touch with me from the poster because he saw he was not really what I was looking for, but we have a lot of the same influences so we can jam together. He said if you ever want to replace me with someone else who's a better fit, I understand, and was really humble about it. I think as I grew my queer community, too, it helped in finding those people. It became like a spider web. 

When I was seeing y'all perform, it was so great to just be in that space. And just to see such a diverse band was very refreshing. 

It definitely helped to put that energy out for the posters. But I was also telling everyone I knew that this is what I was trying to do. They would introduce me to spaces and put me in group chats which definitely helps. It’s also important to not settle. There were definitely points where I could have just stopped and been with a completely different group of people. I'm glad that I did it and waited to find really kind people that I knew would want to go on this music journey with me. A lot of the time I see that in musicians there is this ego where they want to create that product of art. Sometimes it becomes a very diverging idea of what their music wants to be, you know, from their like hats clash. It’s important that you find people that are on the same page as you. We also have very different influences so even finding the common language to talk about the music we wanted to create took time. We all have a pretty extensive jazz vocabulary which helps. But not all of us can sight read - some of us went to school for music and others didn't and so we meet halfway away depending on where we are, still respecting everyone's knowledge for what it is and not being condescending, just learning from each other. Everyone has their own set of expertise and knowledge and everyone can learn and teach.

What would you say have been your learning moments with your band? Or how has the band helped you grow as a person and an artist?

Oh, man in so many ways. Learning the difference between performance skills and recording skills, because it's actually a very different craft in terms of how you approach it. In a studio it is very different, it's kind of like TV acting and play acting. It’s also been encouraging for the long distance dream - if you're sharing a goal it's easier to not get so disheartened so quickly, because we're in this together. If it takes six months, if it takes a year, we're still all collectively in it and committed. If you're doing it by yourself it's harder to not get dissuaded. I’ve learnt to have a lot of patience, to not be so hard on myself and keep working on it. There are a lot of times if I'm left alone with a project, that nothing gets done because I never think it's good enough, you keep second guessing. With other people it’s great: I'll be like, I hate the lyric. They’ll say: “No, I love this. We're keeping it.” To have that other definitive voice is so great.

What are some of your goals or your band goals, with your performance, the music you're producing? What are you trying to invoke in your audience? What do you want to say?

I think with just the music itself. We want to enact revolutionary change, to be honest. A lot of us are activists in our own right, and wanted to bring that to our music because we felt like we had a lot of things to say on a lot of different topics. We hope to see that momentum that pushes action forward through our music resonating with someone and being a call to action. In terms of what we like to see in the crowd - people having a good time, you know, I feel like especially because Seattle can be so white and introverted, a lot of people don't always allow themselves to let loose or move the way they want to and feel what they want to in the moment. We're just trying to liberate people. 

So important,  I even find that in myself. Since I've moved to Seattle, I feel more introverted and a lot less free in a way. - music is such a great and beautiful way to channel any supressed emotions.
I think a lot of Americans especially don't always know how to move to music they've never heard before. Our hope is that our music would make you want to move, sway your body or shake or scream or something. With everything going on in the world, issues and genocides occurring within our communities on a day to day basis. It's sometimes difficult to channel emotions in a way where there is something positive that comes out of it. I built the skills along the way but I knew I was a good songwriter, and that I wanted to say a lot of things and as I became more politically aware those are the things I gravitated towards saying, and then I knew that before even starting the band, that I wanted to center marginalized voices with this band, because there aren’t enough spotlights on those voices.

Being that busy, what are things that you do that help you get through all that crazy and help you decompress? 

It definitely helps that I feel like my bandmates are my best friends because then I feel motivated to do it because we're doing it together. The days where I'm having a really hard time or something, I'll call them up and they're a really great support. I think it is important to venture into something like this where you do have that support, or else it's almost impossible. Even if I'm really tired for a show, I genuinely love playing with my bandmates and I’ll just cater this performance to them. I'm just playing for them on this stage and really no one else. I honestly feel like I'm working three jobs. It's definitely gets busy but I guess just finding days to relax. 

What are things that influence your writing and where do you pull creativity from? 

I take creativity from literally everything. Honestly, my job is a big one. I work in black advocacy for homeowners. I hear a lot of their stories of the challenges of homeownership, which is challenging in its own right, but also fulfilling in the sense that I feel  I'm serving my community directly. And music is storytelling, carrying those stories within that. Like new cycles, things that I’m aware of that are happening in the world. I'm Congolese, I’m thinking of the genocide happening there. I recently wrote a song about lithium mining, those are things that plague our community, I feel like I do write about those pretty often but honestly, a lot of it is just introspective as well. I'm trying to heal my own traumas through the music or collectively that's what we're doing as a band. And then we'll pour that into the music.  

Has that always been a way for you to heal?

Yes. I feel like there's so many areas of my life where music was the thing that kept me alive, to be honest, like it was like, I needed it and it was that thing I held on to. 

You can listen to Day Soul Exquisite’s music on Spotify and follow them on Instagram @daysoulexquisite