Interview: whitewolfsonicprincess at Evanston’s SPACE, June 14, 2023

Carla Hayden and James Moeller of whitewolfsonicprincess

at Electrical Audio, Chicago, IL

CHICAGO – In a familiar environment, taking part in the evolution of their legacy, the band WHITE WOLF SONIC PRINCESS (wwsp) will appear again at Chicagoland’s SPACE venue in Evanston, Illinois … led by percussionist/singer Carla Hayden and guitar/singer James Moeller. For details and ticket information, click wwsp.

The band began in 2006 out of a theater project anchored by Carla and James, who have been together as partners and creative collaborators since meeting as teenagers in the 1970s. The band has evolved since it began, adding more instrumentation to their signature sound, but at the core are the songs written by Carla and James.

Their three released albums are “10+1,” “The Shadow of the Marigold” and “The Alternate Boot: Vol. 1&2. They recently went back to the studio to record their fourth album, “Seeds of Light,” which will be released soon. Their sound has been described as “21st Century Druid Music,” but the sound is wholly their own, floating and rising within themes of life, loss, value, environment and the passion of peace.

The eight piece line-up of wwsp that will perform at SPACE is Carla Hayden (vocals, percussion), James Moeller (guitar, vocals), Chuck Wasserburg (electric guitar), Michael Hovanian (double bass), Tim O’Brien (electric bass), Randy Farr (percussion), Steve Rutstein (drums) and Nura Aly (violin).

HollywoodChicago.com interviewed Carla Hayden and James Moeller in anticipation of their upcoming show, augmented with a music legend “Encounter of the First Kind.”

Carla Hayden and James Moeller

HollywoodChicago.com: You’ve performed at the SPACE venue before. What will you do at the June 14th show that will be new to that stage … will you be doing some new music?

Carla Hayden: Yes, we are performing a combination of songs that will be on our upcoming album ‘Seeds of Light,’ and a few of our older songs. It was a while ago a fan called our music ‘21st Century Druid Music’ and we feel we are really focusing on that sound for the new album and this show.

James Moeller: Carla has emerged as a lead percussionist, so that will be a big part of  the show too. Plus it’s SPACE, a great music room with a big stage, perfect for our full eight piece band and the multi-layered sound.

HollywoodChicago.com: You’ve just completed studio work for your fourth album, ‘Seeds of Light.’ What was different about the process for this album, and what will be the surprises for longtime listeners and new listeners of the band?

Carla: We really wanted to do the recording in a live room and with very little overdubs, and we wanted to do it in a space where we would have a new experience and in a space that had some mojo. We ended up falling in love with Steve Albini’s Electical Audio (EA). We recorded in Studio A, and the studio is lovely. We were not only able to get the instrument separation, we were able to get a room ambiance that we feel adds another level of magic to the project. Taylor Hayles engineered the project assisted by Isabelle Dean. They did a wonderful job of getting the capture.

HollywoodChicago.com: How did the legendary Mr. Albini participate?

Carla: We must give credit to Steve Albini. We had set up some appointments with a few studios around town and we were doing the tours on a blazing hot day Chicago afternoon in August of 2022.

Initially we thought Electrical Audio was out of our price range so we never set up a meeting with them, but, we found ourselves near the Belmont Avenue location and James said ‘Carla!! we have to see EA, just call them.’

HollywoodChicago.com: It was as simple as that?

Carla: I was a bit reluctant to make a call out of the blue, we don’t live in that world anymore, everything is online, I felt a little uncool or unpolished, you know, like ‘Hey, your mom’s calling and she is wondering if she can stop by for a studio tour…’

Anyway, I phoned the studio and a voice said ‘Sure, come on by,’ a few minutes later we were ringing the EA door bell. We were pretty excited. So much great work has been recorded there. And… well… Steve Albini answered the door.

whitewolfsonicprincess at SPACE in Evanston, Illinois
Photo credit: whitewolfsonicprincess.com

HollywoodChicago.com: What! How did that conversation go?

Carla: He said ‘Hi, I’m Steve,’ I said ‘This is James, I’m Carla,’ but of course in my mind I’m thinking F*****!! James!!! It’s f***g Steve Albini!! Steve Albini … Dirty Three!! Jason Molina!! Jimmy Page!! Robert Plant!! And here he is, this dude in his mechanic coveralls, just answering the door and doing his studio work thing.

HollywoodChicago.com: How did the tour go?

Carla: It was totally chill, he showed us around. We briefly talked about our band and the instrumentation and what we were looking to do and of course the records we love that were recorded at EA. Then he gave us a music recommendation, Nina Nastasia’s ‘The Blackened Air,’ she is an artist that he has worked with for many years.

The recording was so inspiring, James and I were both blown away, it’s one of those masterpiece works from start to finish. The content, the performance and the production … it turned out so cohesive, soulful, arty and beautiful. WWSP is totally an art band, and we think maybe Steve got that by meeting us.

HollywoodChicago.com: That was pure magic …

Carla: Who knows, anyway, we also do our best at following the magic in the universe. We felt that by Steve just picking up the phone, answering the door and having a little time to show us the studio. It was a little “yes” from the universe, like…

‘YES of course you can record here.”

James: It was definitely a peak experience for all of us. Eight musicians playing all out … sort of like a gnarly beast. Surprises? We’re still standing to tell the tale.

HollywoodChicago.com: What specific evolution have you noticed about your growth as a musician from the day you began the band to the present day?

James: Just play, right? Make sure your guitar is in tune, and you are in tune with everyone else too. Bring the passion to what you are doing. And trying not to fuck up. It helps to play with better musicians, folks who are incredibly accomplished and experienced.

Carla: The past few years, I’ve been playing more percussion, I love it because it’s so physical.

HollywoodChicago.com: The personnel in the band has also been evolving. What have you learned about collaboration in the context of bandmates over the years?

Carla: It’s all about the chemistry, James and I are so grateful for the musicians we play with now. They have a wide range of musical knowledge, from rock to classical to jazz and street blues. They are total pros, all very creative and committed to the work, they bring love to the songs. It’s a wonderful alchemy.

James: We are creating a collective vibe. Everyone is all in. The songs and the performances are about conjuring up that vibe. It’s bigger than any of us. It’s a mystical, spiritual thing. I think that’s what people react to when we perform.

wwsp in EA Studio A: Carla, Jammer James, Nura A. and Prof. Tim O’Brien
Photo credit: whitewolfsonicprincess.com

HollywoodChicago.com: Regarding Carla and James, the core couple of the band, how does a creative journey deepen how you know a person, even as you’ve known each other for several decades?

Carla: James and I have known each other for a long time, we are friends and family and foes and lovers and collaborators and each other’s muses. It’s been a journey on many levels, sometimes the path is overgrown, but I trust we will find our way back, back to the essence of our creative truth. James always says the thing we create together is the very best of us. We feel that way about all of our creative projects.

James: I think the best thing is to forget all that. Approach everything with a beginner’s mind. Act as if you’ve never written a song before. I mean, I do think this long-time collaboration with Carla means we both trust the process. Pick up a guitar, place your fingers on the fret-board, strum, write down a line, or a page full of lines, try to sing them. Get in a room together and let it flow.

HollywoodChicago.com: As you both write songs together … how does what you bring to each other as songwriters help you to complete a song?

Carla: I feel a song can be anything, everything. A prayer, a story, a healing agent, joy, sorrow, a message in a bottle, a universe, or a door opening.

James: I agree.

HollywoodChicago.com: Finally, what is your best pitch for WHITE WOLF SONIC PRINCESS at SPACE in Evanston, on June 14th, 2023?

Carla: Hello beautiful humans! Come out and experience the lovely vibrations of 21st Century Druid Music

James: Yes. Early evening show, all ages, 21st Century Druid Music on a Wednesday night. Plus, pizza!

SPACE presents WHITE WOLF SONIC PRINCESS with The Mixture on Wednesday, June 14th, 2022 (doors open at 6p, showtime 7p), located at 1245 Chicago Avenue, Evanston, Illinois. For more information about wwsp, including information on their albums and “Seeds of Light,” click whitewolfsonicprincess.com.

By PATRICK McDONALD Editor and Film Critic/Writer HollywoodChicago.com pat@hollywoodchicago.com

HollywoodChicago.com – Interview: Local Band whitewolfsonicprincess Releases ‘The Alternate Boot’ on Jan. 8, 2019

CHICAGO – The album premiere is a cause for celebration, and the local Chicagoland band whitewolfsonicprinces (wwsp) is debuting their third album, a double set release called “The Alternate Boot Vols. 1 & 2” on January 8th, 2019. For more on the album release and all things wwsp, click here.

The band began in 2006 out of a theater project anchored by lead singer Carla Hayden and guitarist/singer James Moeller, who have been together as partners and collaborators since meeting as teenagers in the 1970s. The band has evolved since it began, adding more instrumentation to their signature sound, but at the core are the songs written by Hayden and Moeller, and to travel with whitewolfsonicprincess in “The Alternate Boot” is to float in a dream and destiny of magical thinking, ethereal musicality and images of promise… and we all arrive together.

The current line-up of wwsp is Carla Hayden (vocals, percussion), James Moeller (guitar, vocals), Chuck Wasserburg (electric guitar), Ian Ogdon (bass), Randy Farr (percussion), Steve Rutstein (drums) and Nura A. (violin). HollywoodChicago.com interviewed Hayden and Moeller in anticipation of the album release.

HollywoodChicago.com: What is the origin of wwsp, and what is reflective of the band’s evolution in this double album set?

James Moeller: The band was birthed out of our theater group Black Forest. We started incorporating music into our theater work, and we were inspired by, and attracted to, the process of creating music, which then led us to forming a band. The music & the band have grown organically over the years, morphing and expanding. It’s been a crooked path.

We started as a duo, and we are now a full seven piece band. The new album encompasses years of songwriting, multiple rhythm sections, lots of great musicians… an amazing collection of souls. ‘The Alternate Boot’ is a 2 CD set, with 14 songs, an expansive set of music. We think each disc has a different vibe… Vol.1 is what we are calling our ‘alt-country vibe,’ and Vol. 2 is more of a ‘psychedelic folk-rock’ vibe. I mean, it’s all us, but certain songs hang together thematically and musically.

Carla Hayden: The band came out of theatrical play. What this album reflects is the culmination of where we began when we started really honing in on songwriting, to where that journey has led us – in the past and the present – and the songs that came alive through this latest incarnation of the band.

HollywoodChicago.com: You have songs on the album that were written years ago – ‘Song for Natalie,’ for example – and more recently. How do you feel they all co-exist thematically on the album despite the years between the songs?

Moeller: ‘Song For Natalie’ goes way back to a play that we performed called ‘Elston Gunn is Banished from Eden,’ loosely based on the film director Nicholas Ray. Carla wrote ‘Song For Natalie’ in tribute to Natalie Wood. We think it’s one of our best songs, but we never found a suitable place for it. That led to the ‘double Vol.’ idea.

We labor over song order. What songs go together? Which songs best work best next to each other, how to create a story, a vibe, a sound? What holds together as one fully-realized piece? Plus there are a handful of songs that came late in the process… ‘So Clear,’ ‘They Don’t Really Know,’ ‘Hand in Hand,’ ‘Brown Eyes,’ ‘Dance A Wave’ … they reflect where we are now, and they feature the latest lineup of musicians. The band helped us create some unique and driving grooves.

Hayden: Most of the songs for Vol. 1 were songs from the past that we brought to light because, they worked so nicely with ‘Song For Natalie,’ they had the same feel, and we wanted ‘Song For Natalie’ to find its place on this project. There is an ease about the songs on Vol. 1 that is different from Vol. 2, but are still very much a part of our vision. And we do feel that they co-exist and reflect off of each other. The forms of some of the songs are quite different, but many of the themes run through both Volumes.

HollywoodChicago.com: You have more than one song on these three themes – eyes, hands and water –  what is it about these three elements in your worldview that makes them come up in different song forms?

Hayden: Seeing the world and touching the world and how it is so illusory. The cover art is the watery part of matter, in a way. It’s the water merged with the universe, the flesh merged with the universe, what you see and touch is so elusive.

When I think of the song ‘Hand of Grace,’ it is about seeing an event in the world, translating that event and interpreting that event as pure grace. The vision itself is poetic, a vision of an event, a moment in time, that is grace. Water is also meaningful to me, the water imagery is mysterious, it reflects the loss of my sister, many of the songs were created out of that loss.

Moeller: Water is definitely a major element on this record. Check out the cover art. Makes me think of another realm, another reality. A deeper consciousness. A realm of mystery, dreamy, reflective, enveloping. Drowning in the things of the world. And how to take it all in? With our eyes, hands, heads. Be awake and aware of the world, dive in, swim in it and reflect it back. That’s the artistic method, right? How do we make it in this crazy, over-stuffed world? Sink in deep, and reflect.

HollywoodChicago.com: Although Carla is the lead vocalist on the bulk of the songs, James has been contributing lead vocals as well. In the songwriting process, what determines who will sing what song, and how does who sings the song add to the atmosphere of what the song is communicating?

Moeller: It’s pretty simple. We each write lyrics. I come up with a riff or chord progression, and the songs kind of emerge from there. We collaborate on everything, we bounce ideas off of each other, suggest edits, or changes, but if Carla comes up with a lyric, she will sing it. And it’s the same for me. So if you hear one of us singing lead on a song, it’s because we wrote that particular lyric.

There are some great exceptions, for instance on ‘I Close My Eyes,’ Carla wrote the verses and I wrote the chorus. That’s a perfect collaborative blend. We feel strongly about having two voices in the band. Male & female. Yin/Yang. Two voices. Two sensibilities. So we often find ways to sing together. How best to support the song and each other? It’s the strength and beauty of collaboration. Two of us. Add in the band, and there’s seven of us. All contributing to this big, expansive energy.

HollywoodChicago.com: You’ve both had a relationship of living together and creativity for many years. As you made the transition to a music project, how did it shift the dynamic of that relationship, that perhaps surprised you over and above what you knew?

Hayden: I would say for me, because I am a visual artist, being able to translate words into visual imagery, which then found its way into a song has been very rewarding. Those guitar strings… something about the way he makes them sound… he does drive me crazy, but that’s wasn’t a surprise, the surprising thing is how fully merged two beings can become, or how all seven of us can completely lose ourselves in the moment. There’s also a push and pull, a tug of war, how to knock something together so it becomes one thing.

There’s a process, a method, a magnetic thing, that finally merges on an atomic level or something. There’s frustration and fun and joy and pissed off-ness. The opposition before the electrons flip over and merge. You can get into that same place like in acting where you lose yourself, become one thing and not separate things. That makes you forget everything else. The chores, the day to day… the minutiae of life.

Moeller: The music, the band, the creative journey, it’s the best of us. It brings us together, working on something beyond us. It’s a powerful bond. We have grown together, surprised each other, challenged each other. We inspire each other, and keep each other honest.

We come to it as equals. Drop the ego. Once in awhile we do butt heads, but that’s part of the process, it’s the good work. Can’t imagine living without it. It’s an intimate collaboration, which then becomes this bigger thing beyond us. Doing the work. Sharing the dream. Always trying to do the best that we can. Always ready to create, to play.

HollywoodChicago.com: Finally, you begin your live shows by striking a gong to create an atmosphere. How did that tradition begin, and what kind of vibe does it create before your live act?

Hayden: It’s actually a Tibetan singing bowl. I started ringing it for peace, because I felt so helpless in the world, and I wanted to just have a moment where you could send a peaceful sign out over the world. Now I feel we need to ring the bell for peace and love. What it also does is really brings focus, not only the band’ performance, but the for the audience too. It’s a unifying moment. Everyone wants it, everyone can relate to it. Everyone can relate to the simplicity and hope for peace and love.

“The Alternate Boot Vols. 1 & 2” by whitewolfsonicprincess will be released on Tuesday, January 8th, 2019, on all major digital platforms and Bandcamp, as well as available on CD through the wwsp website and Vintage Vinyl, 925 Davis Street, Evanston (Illinois). Upcoming live shows include January 26th at the Ice House Gallery, 609 South Boulevard, Evanston, and the Album Release Party on February 9th at Jarvis Square Pottery, 1443 West Jarvis Avenue, Chicago. Visit the website for more details and to order past albums.

Pat McDonald – Editor and Film Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com
Member: Chicago Film Critics Association

It is rumored that Patrick was conceived at a drive-in during a double feature of “It Came From Outer Space” and “Touch of Evil,” which may explain his movie review perspective. He was discovered for HollywoodChicago.com while wearing a tight sweater and sitting at the Woolworth’s soda fountain, or at least that’s how he likes to tell it.

Patrick McDonald (AKA The Über Critic) has been writer, editorial coordinator and film critic for eight years, and has been a member of the Chicago Film Critics association for seven years. He has made appearances on behalf of the film tour and general film topics on WGN Radio (semi-regular on the Bill Leff & Wendy Snyder Show), WFXF–FM (The Eddie Volkman Show), Fox32 News, WGN–TV Morning News and “190 North” on ABC7 in Chicago.

Follow him on Facebook at Pat Über-Critic McDonald and on Twitter @ubercritic.