January 18, 2011
Austin Psych Rock
Woven Bones are a lo-fi punk-tinged psych rock band from Austin, TX. We caught up with founder Andy Burr, 30, who plays guitar and sings for the group. Carolyn Cunningham, 26, plays drums, Matt Nichols, 30, plays bass. Their first full length, In and Out and Back Again, came out a few months ago.
You’re not originally from Austin, right?
No, I’m originally from Florida. Born and raised in Jacksonville and did my time in college in Gainesville. I moved to Austin in 2008.
When you relocated to Austin did you get a new creative spirit?
I moved here with a lot of pent-up creativity that was going unused living in Florida. In Austin it is a really supportive town for rock ‘n’ roll bands but I don’t think Austin caused my creativity. It more or less facilitated the fruition of the live band, and gave us a home base with good local support. Creativity come in waves and from many different random things.
Right, now you’ve just found a place you can exhibit it. You guys seem to root a lot of your music in classic song structures, the kind of things that can be directly traced to old blues or country, it has a primal element, and then you graft on these classic pop hooks for the chorus, what do you want the listener to take away from hearing your band?
The hooks, mainly. I’m still working on that actually. That is my favorite thing. We have some new songs that are driving pop-rock kind of songs. The still have the sonic characteristics that have defined our sound, but the song writing is evolving and I’m excited for the future.
Does playing those kinds of songs feel different than playing the songs where you are trying to play through the audience? Where you crank it all the way up and just drive it right through people. Do you feel differently?
It feels good to meld both together, to just try and drive it all on home, loud and as hook laden as we can manage.
You do all the visuals for the band?
Yep.
It has a nice blend of the early trashy punk aesthetic mixed with elements of pop art, those two eras also really inform the sound of the band, is that intentional?
Those are probably my two favorite things and I’ll probably always want to involve those two elements, playing in a punk band and looking at a Pop Art painting.
Do you like it’s forced restraint?
The simplicity of it, maybe. I’m not drawn to make really layered complex things visually that much. I like to keep it simple. If i get an itch to go really involved then I will.
