Tim Deaux of The Whigs gave Editor-in-Chief Courtney Rogers a call to talk about their upcoming show in Nashville and other cool stuff. He even promised to serenade her with a song.
Versus Magazine: What have you guys been up to since you played at the Exit/In last spring?
Tim Deaux: Well, the springtime. Let’s see. So yeah, basically this summer we pretty much spent at home in Athens writing songs and material that we actually just finished recording for our upcoming record. We’ve been home a lot, really. It’s been a real treat because we don’t typically get to spend a lot of time in Athens. We’re usually on the road touring so getting a chance to go home and actually sleep in our own beds and work on those songs was really great. And then we got to hit the studio and record a bunch of new songs. And we basically just finished wrapping up the record about a week ago.
VM: Oh wow!
TD: I guess maybe even less than a week ago. We basically just finished up everything, tying up the loose ends. We got that done literally the day before we left for this tour that we just started.
VM: Nice. So when is that record coming out?
TD: If everything goes as scheduled, it should be out early next year. We’re hoping that by February, that will be out.
VM: Is your song “More than Before” going to be on that one?
TD: More than before. So that is, that song is actually under a different title, those are definitely the lyrics. Okay, this is kind of crazy, but that’s the one tune that we haven’t nailed down a title for yet.
VM: Really?
TD: Believe it or not, it’s the one song where we haven’t solidified the title. “More than Before,” actually could be what it ends up being, but it will be on the record. Who knows what it will be called, but it will be on the record.
VM: Good, I really liked that one live.
TD: That’s actually one of my favorites too. It’s funny how when you’re sort of coming up with new tunes, a lot of times you have the basis for a song and maybe all the lyrics might not be complete yet. But you sort of have to identify the song somehow so you kind of make up these silly names just so that you can basically discuss it or understand each other when you’re trying to finish the tune. You kind of have to give it some sort of a nickname. We’ve had so many of these weird nicknames and every other tune that we’ve had that once had a weird name has ended up with an official song and that’s the one that has not been given a serious song name.
VM: What are the weird nicknames for it?
TD: Oh man, they’re just dumb things. I named one “Jodie Foster.” I’ve been naming songs after our favorite Atlanta Braves baseball players. We had a song “Fred ‘Crime Dog’ McGriff” for awhile. It’s very silly.
VM: That’s okay. Silly’s fine. So are you going to play that song at the Cannery Ballroom?
TD: I hope so. We actually are in the midst of sort of reacquainting ourselves with a lot of those songs. We’ve been working really hard with getting these songs recorded but we just haven’t had a chance to get on stage and play a lot of them. You saw us play that song back at the Exit/In last spring. But we really just haven’t had a lot of time to just work on the performances. So hopefully by the time you see us in Nashville, we’ll have reacquainted ourselves with all the material. I would love to play it, I hope we do.
VM: I think you guys opened the show with that and it was just so good.
TD: I’ll remind everybody. I’ll remind Parker and Julian and be like, “Hey, we have to play this song for Courtney.”
VM: You guys are so nice. I’m really excited for this show, have you guys played at the Cannery Ballroom before?
TD: We played upstairs.
VM: Mercy Lounge?
TD: Mercy Lounge. We played there a handful of times but this will be our first time in the Cannery Ballroom. So we’re pumped. We love Nashville. We were just there last week. … We spent about a week there and soaked up the Nashville vibe. It was really great, it was awesome.
VM: Did you go to any restaurants or anything that you really liked?
TD: This might be extremely touristy so forgive me if this is just kitschy, but Robert’s Western World. At least three or four nights we went there and drank PBRs and listened to Honky Tonk music. Love that place. But yeah, we also went and played pool one night at Losers which is a little kind of hole in the wall dive bar. We went to the Whisky Kitchen one night, that place was kind of nice, it had a good atmosphere.
VM: Well it sounds like you really got to hang out in Nashville and do some fun stuff.
TD: It was awesome, I love Nashville. We’re all kind of smitten with Nashville after last week. Great people and so much music. It seems like in general the climate and everything. It seems like a lot of fun. I can definitely see myself wanting to relocate there sometime. We’ll see.
VM: I was looking at your tour schedule, are there any stops besides Nashville that you’re especially excited about coming up?
TD: Yeah. We’re playing in Syracuse tonight. I don’t think we’ve ever played Syracuse before so playing towns you’ve never been to, we have no idea what to expect. We typically have a really good time in Buffalo. We love Buffalo, it’s got such a great blue collar kind of vibe. Hopefully this time around we won’t have to endure a blizzard. I feel like every time we go there it’s literally three feet of snow. We always have a good time in Buffalo, N.Y., and Columbus, Ohio. The bigger cities, Chicago, New York, those are always great.
VM: Now onto the fun questions, what is your favorite color and why is it your favorite color?
TD: Man, that’s funny because literally I just had this conversation last night. My favorite color is yellow and it’s always been yellow. But, why? That’s a good question, I don’t really know what the answer is. I just like it. It has to be the right color yellow, maybe like a canary yellow. Not school bus yellow, I want yellow-yellow. Like when you open a box of Crayolas, the yellowest yellow you can find.
VM: If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
TD: French fries. I have no prejudice against any sort of French fry, I love French fries. It’s really unhealthy. I actually already had French fries today, I had French fries yesterday.
VM: Oh my gosh, you basically are eating French fries!
TD: Yeah. When I’m home, I don’t eat them very often. But when we’re on the road, I don’t know what it is but I can’t resist them. I guess they’re like my comfort food, they just make me feel happy.
VM: And if you could be any animal, what animal would you be?
TD: I think I’d be a fish. I just like swimming, I think it would be really fun to be able to breathe underwater. Or maybe a house cat, I feel like house cats have it pretty easy.
VM: Is there anything else you want to add about the show?
TD: We’re excited to be coming back to Nashville and we’re looking forward to the show. We can’t wait.
