Bringing indie music to Charlotte, WOAH sets the pace with their newest EP “sitting in an open room”

Jan 31

Interview by Zayne Isom

With over sixty-three thousand monthly listeners on spotify WOAH is on the come up as the next big indie band. This Charlotte based four-piece consisting of Mikey and Ruben Gomez, Zac Tice, and Jackson Martin, who just released their sophomore EP and are expecting 2023 to be a big year for the band. Debuting themselves during the pandemic, they grew a large following on TikTok, following the success of their song “It’s Not a Movie.” Since then, they have released many more singles, broken into the indie music scene, and are starting to expand their live shows beyond the Southeast region.

PLEASER sat down with WOAH to talk about their newest EP “sitting in an open room,” cultivating a fan base amidst a global pandemic and what the band has planned for the rest of the year.

PLEASER: I want to start at the beginning. How did you all meet? Can you give me a brief history of how “WOAH” came to be?

Mikey: Me and Ruben, we were born in California. We moved when we were six years old to Charlotte, North Carolina, and that's where we met Zach. So we've all grown up together, listened to the same music - just kind of grew up as friends. And when we turned 17 or 18 years old we kind of decided like, let's start a live band. See what we can do. So we just played house shows for a few years in our area, which were really cool. They kind of gave us a voice, I guess, and a purpose. And whenever COVID hit, we released our first single, “The Drive Back,” and got on Tik Tok. And it's kind of just been growing ever since. It's been a lot of fun.

Ruben: We spent like two months trying to figure out a name because we've been playing music together and we didn't have a name. I think we went on word mashup and tried to see if any cool words together made sense on Google or something like that. We were really into Lord Huron at the time. It was like, creek, dark trails or black cloud or something like that. And we kind of just scratched that. And Zach out of nowhere in his room just said, why don't we just name it WOAH? Because at the time, it was an inside joke between us. It wasn't intended to stick but it did.

M: Yeah, I mean, we tried to get rid of it and people were just like, nope, no chance. We did polls on Instagram for different names. And they were like, nope, you guys are WOAH, and you can't change it (laughs).

You mentioned growing up in Charlotte. What did you guys do for fun? Did you go to a lot of gigs yourself? What was the music scene like at the time?

Zac: So it was really whenever we started playing music that we actually got introduced to the music scene [in Charlotte], like the DIY kind of house show stuff and it was really fun. We found friends that would do these things and then we kind of tagged along with that. It really introduced us to all the different things that happened in the area.

R: The golden era.

M: It was, it was a great time. Thighs to fo for fun in Charlotte… That's a hard question. Charlotte's not the most entertaining place. It does allow us to write a lot of music but I think a lot of inspiration can be lacking in Charlotte. I feel like if we moved to New York, LA or like Seattle we would have inspiration to be around more bands. There's not a lot of indie bands here. It's kind of just us. We don't really have any other kind of bands that we hang out with here, because that scene just really hasn’t developed here. It's not really a Music City

Do you think the lack of musical inspiration in Charlotte, in a way, inspired you though? Was it motivating that you were the only indie artist in town?

*collectively agreed*

M: Yeah, It felt cool, kind of just being like, the only indie band there putting out music. I felt like we were doing something new and something that had meaning.

Z: It definitely gave us the opportunity to stand out.

So what I'm hearing is there wasn't a big music community in Charlotte. But I know this was around the time your TikTok started to take off when “It’s Not a Movie” was released, so I'm sure you were feeling that fan presence on a global scale with people listening to your music around the world.

M: It's cool to see where our listeners are from and the people who comment on our posts. Even though we haven't toured, we do have fans across the country.

Are there any surprising places that have popped up that you’ve noticed fans listening?

R: We just got tagged in a story. This dad and his daughter were dancing to one of our songs. And I think they were from Singapore.

M: Yeah, Singapore. There's a lot. Lot of Russia, some parts of Thailand. It's cool to see all that. Spotify also lets you see, like the stats of where your streams are coming from.

Jumping right into the new EP, I want to talk about the opening track “I don't want to die when I'm with you.” It reminds me a lot of early Beach House. How did that intro come to life?

M: We use logic [recording software] on a laptop, so I pulled out a synth. I kind of wanted something that kind of fades in and gets louder and louder. I thought that was just a really cool way to start a song. I kind of wanted to find a cool reverb, ethereal sound, and I put it over some tape presets that I have. I just found that melody/chord, and then from there, I added the drums and the synth and everything. So it came pretty fast but as soon as I got it, I was like “that's right, that's a cool intro.”

So are you the producer Mikey or do you all work together?

Mikey: We all work together. I do produce a lot of the music and so does Jackson. Jackson [guitarist, fourth member of WOAH] produces a lot too. It's pretty collaborative.

Where did you learn to produce music?

Mikey: It took a while. We started off on a pretty shitty laptop. And I just kind of practiced, practiced, practiced. Then eventually we got GarageBand and that's where I kind of figured out quantizing and what compression does and what limiters do and how you can treat the vocals and then I eventually got Logic. So it's kind of just been by the seat of my chair, I guess, just learning as I go. Like Dayglow has these little producing videos that he uploads that I've checked out a few times to get tips and stuff. But yeah, I'm always learning how to make my mixes better and how to master them better.

Going back to TikTok, you guys really started to gain traction during the pandemic. Do you think that time of isolation really helped with your music producing skills too, because you had time to just practice and get more experience?

M: Yeah, 100%. I mean, there were like weeks where you couldn't leave the house, you couldn't leave the apartment. So a lot of time was just spent in our heads, I guess. It was just a good time to write because there was no distractions. You kind of just forced yourself to sit down with a journal and a guitar and then come up with something. Being isolated can produce great art.

I love your ability to capture teenage nostalgia in your music, especially through your songwriting. You have a very distinct style that I haven't heard and many artists replicate. Where did this love for indie music come from? Did you guys grow up listening to indie music?

M: Indie music wasn't a big part of my life until I turned 18 and I had friends that turned me on to it. I grew up listening to U2, huge U2 fan. But yeah, indie music kind of came about when all of our friends would show me like Fidlar and Beach House. That's when I was kind of like, this is a new thing. You don't have to be a big alt band or big rock band; like you can make music that's honest and creative and it comes from you. You don't need a big studio or anything. So I think it was really empowering to find indie music, because it kind of gave us a path to create. We talked about it a lot, like if we were in the 80s, we probably wouldn't have made it. You have to have a big voice and go to a big studio. Music is a big part of my life now.

Z: Not necessarily. My mom listens to a lot of air and metal 80s. My dad listens to a lot of folk like Jim Croce. So it's kind of that mesh that really turned me onto music. I was introduced to a lot of different genres. I wasn't really listening to indie music, but I was definitely attuned to the feelings of that vibe.

R: I think everybody goes through that stage where they kind of have their own rabbit hole experience. We started off listening to bands like U2 and Simon and Garfunkel and then that went to Cage the Elephant and then the Lumineers. And then you sort of get more watered down into the indie scene. And like you start listening to Twin Peaks, PUP and King Krule. From then on we kept getting more and more to the sound that we have nowadays, like Beach Fossils , Beach house and Hippo Campus.

You mentioned honesty. Do you think that indie music is the best way to convey honesty?

M: I just think from my listening experience, a lot of indie music is just really honest. And sometimes the lyrics are kind of embarrassing, I guess. I heard Ben Gibbard (lead vocalist for Death Cab for Cuties) say that, “if you're writing lyrics that don't kind of embarrass you a little bit, and maybe you're not writing good enough lyrics” and that's kind of always stuck with me.

What song off the newest album are you most proud of?

M: For me, “never goodbye.” I wrote that when I was 17. And I put it out under my own solo projects, Out to Nobody. That song means a lot to me, so I reworked it, and I think that the final product is pretty cool. I'm really proud of that one. It's all acoustic, which is like a nice change from what we've been doing.

R: For me, probably “all my friends keep saying that i'm dead.” That one was written on an acoustic guitar, I think a year ago. I think I was recording at TikTok trying to show that I was writing a song. It was only the verse but I had to sing a chorus so I kind of just made it up on the spot, the lyrics and everything. So it just stuck and that was the chorus I used for the final version.

Z: Yeah, I agree with Ruben. And as soon as he played it, [all my friends keep saying that i'm dead], I was blown away. I thought it was super good.

The fourth track on your EP is called your last cigarette. What is the meaning behind this song?

M: Me and my girlfriend were smoking cigarettes in this big field in the mountains. And I kind of got an idea of a couple splitting up over a pack of cigarettes. And once they're done with the cigarettes, they're done as a couple. The line goes lying in a field smoking your last cigarette. Have we both thought it through, it's always gonna end on you. I haven't been in a situation like that where you're breaking up over a pack of cigarettes, but I thought writing about it would be cool. So that's where that came from.

What's your favorite part of the creative process?

M: My favorite part is just starting with an acoustic guitar, and having my journal in front of me. That's where I create the melody and the chord progression. And to see it all come together, not on a laptop, but on the guitar. Just like initially starting the song and not knowing where it's gonna go.

How many live shows have you played since the pandemic?

M: Yeah, we've played a string of shows. We played, I think, seven shows in 2022. But we're actually planning a tour right now. So we'll actually get out on the road and meet our fans face to face.

Have you had any cool fan experiences happen already, either through social media or in person?

M: A few weeks ago. I went to go pick up pizza and the guy behind the counter was like, “are you the guy from WOAH.” We've also had fans come to our shows that know all the lyrics and buy shirts. We love our fans, it's a lot of fun.

After you release music, how do you define the success around it? When can you sit back and feel proud/ content?

M: That's a good question. I know for this release we got put on Spotify editorials “Ultimate Indie” and “All New Indie” [playlists] and that was a big milestone. But I think the biggest goal we have for each song is just to monitor the streams to see how they're performing. Once they hit like, 100,000 streams, we are like alright, we did it. And to also see people's reaction and response to it. It’s cool when they send you what the song means to them or how it is the soundtrack to their life in certain moments. It's really inspiring.

What’s next for WOAH? What can fans expect?

M: A spring/ summer tour is on the map. We're going to do that. And we just came out with this EP, so I think new music would probably be early to mid-summer. We don't want to wait too long but we also don't want to rush it.

What would be a dream artist to open up for?

R: I’d want to open up for Hippo Campus, I think that would be really cool.

M: For me, it’s kinda unrealistic, but I'd probably pass out if we did U2. I grew up on U2 so opening up for them would be insane.

Z: For some reason the first band that came to my head was The Highwaymen.

Thank you for chatting with me. I hope to catch you guys on tour this year, good luck with everything!