An Interview with The Wants

Words by Sarah Morrison

Photos by Madison Carroll

The Wants, an experimental electronic trio from Brooklyn, New York, released the debut album 'Container' last week via Council Records. The album brings contemporary America to the forefront; lyrically awakening their audience on the current world circumstances. With all that's going on, this release couldn't have come at a better time.

Madison Velding-VanDam (vocalist/guitarist/synthesis) took some time to delve into the psychological theories that helped with the album's theme, the band's relationship with Council Records, the impact of Detroit, and working with Madison Carroll.

Sharing members from Bodega, how do you separate the projects? How does the way your approach writing/creating differ?

The Wants and BODEGA are completely distinct projects in vision and process. In The Wants, I’m the principal songwriter and work closely with our drummer Jason Gates on the sonic “palette” — a long process of self-production that is integral to our sound.

Heather joined fairly late in the development of our first record, but has been crucial to the solidification of our live and recorded identity with her cool and confident bass and singing style, which we're excited to now harness in the writing stages of the next record.

On the other hand, BODEGA is a live band that has cut records with fully live takes, which aims to capture the excitement of the show. I take producer, arranger, and guitarist roles in that project.

Collectively, how do you incorporate your electronics into live performances? 

We’ve been experimenting with different strategies on how to best include our electronic elements since our project’s conception. The challenge has been to have combined a steadiness that lends itself to the ‘dance floor’ with a live feel that offers some spontaneity and the unmistakable sense that it could all fall apart at any moment.

So far, we’ve achieved that with Jason’s SPD rig, which has short sample loops that he performs, so they’re never perfectly in time, but (hopefully) close enough with two small analog synths that heather and I use to perform leads and arpeggios. Our synths at the front of the stage are tethered to the MIDI clock of Jason’s SPD which can give some exciting techno-inspired arpeggios.

We're always experimenting with the entanglement of live instrumentation and electronics in both our shows and recordings, and where and how we can cross the wires — I read in a review recently that someone thought the drums on the record were drum machines when there's actually not a single drum machine on the record. They're all recordings of Jason playing live.

I read that in terms of modern influences, you really enjoy Scalping. What about their rendition on electronic music is something you admire? When did you first discover them?

We’re genuinely excited by any new acts we see who are working to exert the energy, spontaneity, and arguably precariousness of live music and performance with techno grooves and textures that would generally be found in a club. Scalping, Golden Teacher, in some respects Giant Swan are all acts that do this.

Scalping are label mates on Council Records and also hail from Bristol, maybe the UK’s most energized music scene. Scalping are a maximalist assault of sound and vision that is out of the realm of what we’re after, but something unique and beautiful, especially live.

Lyrically, literature and philosophy play a large role. Can you tell me a little bit about your search for your ‘Inner World Self’?

I studied philosophy as an undergraduate, particularly political philosophy; philosophy of law. I had hoped to be a lawyer for this brief stint, but I think I’m too emotional and irreverent to make that career stick. My interest in these subjects is lifelong and I’m admittedly not the most avid reader of novels, I think this should change — I want this to change! — but I’m a voracious reader of critical theory, political and public policy, and a potpourri of entry-level theoretical physics.

‘Inner World Self’ is an interesting way to describe the lyrics, I like it. I think I was hoping to combine my analytical tendencies with the most wretched corners of my ‘inner world’ to create something I thought was charming, earnest, and at times absurd and funny. I want to reconcile the inherited trauma of my family head-on and contextualize it within a sociopolitical context in a search for a perspective wider than my own, and a community who feels connected to the gray areas of my upbringing

You’re releasing your debut LP with Council Records in the United Kingdom. Where and when did that relationship fall into place? 

Heather and I have spent a lot of time in the UK touring with BODEGA these last couple of years. We’ve met so many brilliant people working in the UK music industry with a real, what I view, classic focus on artist development

Sam Craven was getting 'Council' off the ground with the exciting prospect of releasing Jonny Greenwood’s solo work on Jonny’s own imprint Octatonic Records. Gareth, a young yet wise scene veteran and bassist of Lice passed us on and became Council’s A&R. We’ve been growing together — The Wants were just planning to release an EP, but eventually it became this more fully formed LP statement.

Although you’re based out of New York, you have ties to Detroit; a big part of the themes woven into the album. How has being apart of the system in both cities really shaped your views on contemporary America?

I’ve spent the last decade in New York City and that’s undoubtedly shaped my perspective, for the better in many ways. The competition has made me stronger and I take less bullshit.

The historic cultural cache ‘competition’ between the two cities is also interesting. I imagine at this point, Detroit feels like the aggrieved underdog, but they are both powerhouses nonetheless. The ‘give no fucks’ attitude of Detroit is something to behold and in many ways opposite to New York’s ‘give the most extreme amount of fucks you can imagine.’

I certainly feel somewhere in the middle of these ideas, I think Detroit’s perspective is wounded by decades of economic pummeling and New York has been able to solidify its cultural presence actively on the world stage. But, arguably, Detroiters are still putting out better music.

How did David Lynch’s ‘Lost Highway’ influence the use of parlando in your track ‘The Motor’?

‘Lost Highway’ is my favorite David Lynch movie. I was powerfully taken by the whizzing yellow lines of the intro credits over David Bowie's crooning ‘Deranged.’

I wanted to recreate this feeling for ‘The Motor,’ this floating almost uncontrollable propulsion that comes from a roller coaster or driving too fast. That fear paired with adrenaline with a twist of gleeful mania.

I was also trying to add to the songs more from a Kraftwerk and Cybotron influence, concise and imperfect eliciting almost sculptural simplicity in the words and phrases where you can use your imagination to fill in the gaps.

‘Aluminum’ features the famous ‘Windsor Hum’ that echos from Zug Island; really encapsulating your roots. What gave you the idea to sample the hum and incorporate the island into both the song and other elements of the album?

Growing up we had a painting by Michigan-born James Stephens on our wall which really stuck out to me and now it sits in front of my desk in my apartment. It's a menacing, peeling, rust-colored portrait of Zug Island; a small heavily industrialized man-made island in Detroit. Its flaming stacks are surrounded by a mote in which neighboring residents can be found fishing into the night (which is when the flames grow bigger and bluer).

My mom lives in Detroit and on a recent-ish visit I felt compelled to spend time at the island; by the parking lot where the locals fish across from the biker bar, and driving around the surrounding communities.

I've gone back many times since completely mesmerized by the flaming refineries against the backdrop of working-class homes. The energy and perseverance of these communities blows me away and we've endeavored to document it from a number of angles, visually, sonically...

You use a lot of symbolism from the album cover, album title, to lyrics; was this something you had strategically planned or hoped to achieve ahead of the creation process? 

I certainly planned to make a coherent album, but I’d be lying if I said it all came together straight away or entirely ahead of the process. I was drawing, reading, mood boarding, scrapping ideas left and right trying to pull together all the ideas that were foggy in my mind.

My collaboration with photographer Madison Carroll was a key moment of propulsion towards where we are now. She has such a wealth of knowledge of the photographic medium that it propelled our half-formed visual ideas to a level that matched our devotion to musicianship.

The cover was the other Madison conceding to my being transfixed on something metallic and then making it her thing. Honestly, I still think the logo isn’t perfect, it’s a slight relic of the more ‘3D design’ and cubist sculpture I was musing over early on, and the other Madison has always hated it.

How did working with Madison Carroll help with executing your visuals through film and photography?

Madison Carroll could be considered a fourth member of The Wants. As we mention that our musical vision didn’t come into focus until the last year, the same goes for our visuals.

For this entire album cycle, all the visuals, both still and video, have been in collaboration with Madison Carroll. Her encyclopedic knowledge of canonical photography has helped hone and tune the sprawling ideas I’ve had about our visual direction: Jo Ann Callis, Alec Soth, and Jimmy Desana have ended up being strong visual references. At the same time, she has a keen and unique eye for composition especially that you can see in all our visual materials.

It’s been a long time coming but after three years the album is finally ready to be released. What’s something you’re really looking forward to now that your work is finally out in the open?

I couldn’t be more inspired to make new music. I feel like ‘Container’ is the best first statement that we could make and we needed to make it move forward. Now, I feel like I have an even better sense of what it is that we’re interested in accomplishing with this band both sonically and visually and it’s time to get back to refining that and sharing our best work with our hopefully growing audience.