WINTER BEACH

“I want to take my music to uncomfortable and abstract places, but I also want to write about trivial things we experience that don’t seem significant, but make for light-hearted sentiments.”

Luke: Winter Beach started in the Summer of 2017 with my friend Billy Crimmins and we were actually called The Martins at the time. We had absolutely no idea what we were doing, but I was pretty decent at guitar and had been playing in jazz band for a few years, so the first few infamous “The Martins” tracks were a fantastic culmination of my complete lack of songwriting knowledge and electric drums recorded by a podcast microphone, recording the electric drum kit amp. When we split off for college, we released one more song called “Hot Dog Water” and shortly after, decided to end the two piece because we hated the long distance songwriting process. After that, I really started taking Winter Beach seriously as a solo project and got more into the Syracuse house show scene, which is where I’m at now, I guess.

Basement: What does your songwriting process look like?

Luke: My songwriting process isn’t particularly glamorous, and usually is just me in some form of dark cave with my looper pedal. Basically, I’ll come up with some interesting chord progression and keep layering unique textures and harmonies over the chords. Sometimes I’ll make it more abstract and just see what sort of sounds I haven’t heard before and try to make it as nonsensical as I can. I have a strange attachment to my loops because a lot of them sometimes go nowhere, but others eventually become finalized songs that I’m pretty proud of. It makes me feel like every loop has value.

Basement: What influences your sound?

Luke: The biggest influences on my sound are some bands that I feel are really my creative idols. I think a lot of people like to hear influences of indie bands being some of the classic rock icons, but that really just isn’t the case for me. I try to stay hip to the acts that I think are pushing the envelope right now. My favorites are Dirt Buyer, Momma, Model/Actriz, Current Joys, Weatherday, Emily Yacina, King Krule, and many others. That isn’t to say I don’t listen to older stuff though. Some of the older bands that influence my sound are early Nirvana, early Slipknot, Duster, and Sonic Youth.

Basement: You are about to release new material- can you tell me a bit about it?

Luke: My debut album is called “The Great and the Grim” and that generally summarizes the theme of the record. It’s an album about the human condition, hating people, loving people, relationships, spirituality, dreams, and Skyrim. In that order (jk).  It’s kind of a personal diary of my observations and experiences. 

Basement: You move around a bit geographically- how are the scenes that you’ve experienced different? What makes the Chicago scene unique?

Luke: To be honest, I probably haven’t played enough shows in Chicago to be a good spokesperson for the scene. From some shows around Logan Square, Bric a Brac, and Sub T, my experience is that the Chicago scene is warm, but competitive. Every band in Chicago that played before and after us seemed waaayyy cooler than us. I think that’s more of a testament to how many awesome and creative bands there are in that scene, though. Many centuries ago, Winter Beach played a set with Beach Bunny and Lunar Vacation at Sub T, and everyone we met acted like we were best friends, and not in a fake way. There’s a real comradery with Chicago bands. I definitely have more experience in the Syracuse scene, and it is very different, but not necessarily in a bad way. It’s just much smaller, so you feel more impactful as a band because there are fewer groups doing the stuff you’re doing. Also since it’s smaller and more of a college scene, the same bill may have bands from two entirely different genres. I’d say the Syracuse scene is more accessible because the people running the houses probably saw you perform at the last house show you played at. 

Basement: What’s next for Winter Beach?

Luke: After the album is released, I’ll be excited to start working on more music. I’ve been chatting with another artist from Chicago called TV Goth who makes really cool dark 80s synthwave stuff, so we’re gonna try to brew up a tune at some point. My good friend George Rezek who produced the album with me also has some fun music making ideas that we want to take advantage of. His band and mine are really tight so whenever we’re making music we like to hang out and just mess around. There are also rumors of a new Winter Beach merch run, but we’ll see. 

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