Featured Musicians: We Call This Courage

ARTS + CULTURE

FEATURED MUSICIAN:

if yoU’rE a fan of pop pUnk, hardcorE or mEtal mUsic, thEn thE namE warpEd Tour should be like a well-known holiday on your calendar. To get people warmed up for the hotter than hell Warped Tour 2013, Brian Marquis of the band, Therefore I Am, decided to do an acoustic tour across the U.S called “The Acoustic Basement Tour.” On their trip across the United States, one of their stops was right here in our hipster to-the-max city that is Richmond. As I entered The Camel ,the merchandise booths were already set up and many of the performers were hanging out at the bar prior to their performances like Matt Arsenault of A Loss For Words, and Vinnie Caruana of I Am Avalanche. To open the show, the tour decided to bring on an up-coming Richmond band that has recently become very popular in the scene called We Call This Courage. This pop punk band had a very familiar sound similar to bands like Ra Ra Riot and The Wonder Years, but had home-grown lyrics that everyone that lives in Richmond can relate to. After their performance I could not wait to speak to them, so I ran outside as they were packing up their instruments to ask if they would like to sit down with me and talk. It pleased me that they were just as eager as I was to do this interview, so we set up a day and sat down with their lead singer Drew Vanlandingham and lead guitarist Ashleigh Lum (while bassist, Matt Caratechea and drummer, KJ Julian were on speaker phone) to talk about who they are and where they plan to go.

BY CORT OLSEN PHOTOS BY PAMELA GOMEZ

INK: What brought you guys together?

Ashleigh: Well Drew and I played in a band together before, a few years ago. Like a year ago, we just started jamming around together and then over the summer Drew talked to KJ and Matt and then we all just started playing in a band together.

When did you guys officially become a band

A: Well our first show was in December, but we started playing and practicing together in August.

Have you guys traveled outside of Richmond to perform, or is it mainly here?

Drew: No, we haven’t started doing anything like that, we have only played like three shows, so nothing like that yet.

I noticed a lot of your songs focus around Richmond and subjects that natives of the area are familiar with. Is it safe to say that a lot of your inspiration comes from here?

D: I would say a lot of things are really personal to me, like growing up in Richmond, going to school here, graduating here, becoming an adult here and teaching here; it’s a lot of really personal issues, but a lot of it is influenced from here.

I noticed at the acoustic show, you guys were getting a lot of praise from Brian Marquis and Koji. How does that make you feel to be recognized by other musicians who are very well known in the pop punk scene?

A: I mean it feels really awesome, but also kind of a weird feeling too, I guess.

D: It’s definitely super exciting to have influential people praising your music and what you’re writing, but then you find out how normal they really are too.

Does your music have a message you’re trying to get across to your listeners?

D: I think over all one of the things I’ve always focused on is trying not to be negative on stage, but try to be positive. I know personally I don’t like to cuss on stage because we have a variety of listeners and I don’t want to portray anything that, might be misunderstood. Of course, working with younger people you want to be able to reach them because they need messages and you don’t want to give them a negative message. Overall, I’d say the songs are about growing up and seeing people change and staying convicted to what you believe in; don’t feel like you need to change just because you get older. We talked about this when we first formed, like we’ve loved pop punk since both of us were really young and just because you become an adult you don’t have to stop liking that stuff because you have a life or because you have a full-time job. I guess that’s the messages I’m trying to get across is that you don’t have to stop doing things that you like just because you’re older.

What do you say to people that think pop punk is only for kids or teenagers?

A: I mean I don’t know, all of my friends are in their mid to late twenties and they all still listen to pop punk and go to pop punk shows and all the bands that I love, like New Found Glory are like in their thirties and still playing pop punk. When you go to their shows there’s a variety of ages, there’s kids in high school and then there’s people who are in their thirties and listen to them.

I suppose there’s always going be that person who has a problem with almost everything.

D: Yeah, I mean this maybe pushing it a little far, but if it’s part of what you like and what you love and who you are, I mean people like applesauce and applesauce is a baby food, (everyone in the room laughs) so if we want to go there, people who eat infant food. If it’s part of who you are and what you love and if you’re sincere about it how can it be wrong. It’s like skateboarding; when someone sees an adult skateboarding people think, “oh what is he doing, skateboarding is for teenagers.” People just want to stigmatize things.

Matt for the acoustic show you played the cello, was that difficult to transition over from bass?

Matt: Well, it was interesting to switch from playing bass to figuring out the bass parts for cello it took a little bit of work, but it was fun though. I had to get rid of a lot of parts that didn’t work. I had to work with Ashleigh, KJ and Drew to figure out some cool things that would work for cello, but it was definitely fun.

I realize that you guys are really new on the scene but are you guys recording anything or are you guys strictly like writing songs?

M: Yeah, I think we’re planning on recording something this summer; we just have to find a studio and we’re start writing some tracks down. I think we are shooting for like ten tracks.

D: We are going to record a full length album in the summer.

Have any record labels come up to you or have you been searching?

KJ: No, not really, I’ve had a friend come up to me and tell me about a friend of his starting up a record label and they are looking for people to put on it, but I don’t think we are really ready yet. We are still kind of in the early stages. Once we record the first album, I think that will really help our image look a little bit more professional.

Finally for people who have never heard your music and want to learn more about your band where can they go?

M: We have a Facebook page and whenever we record songs we are going to put it on Bandcamp and Purevolume.

KJ: We also have an Instagram where people can see pictures of the shows and also send us their pictures as well and all of the pages are under wecallthiscourage.