"The Whirlings": Mountain Stoners Are Here!

  A new name that is willing to spread the electric psychedelic sound from the Apennine mountains and the Mediterranean area to the globe.Combining the intension of the heavy rock through a seventies prism with some dreamy post overview,the Whirlings( Andrea Lolli,guitar,Mattia Lolli,guitar,Diego La Chioma, bass guitar and Giulio Corona,drums) seem that they want to redefine the stoner idiom their own way.Andrea,bandleader of the Italian combo is here to tell the story.

Tell us few things about the Whirlings.When did you start, how did you meet each other?

 We started to play together about 2008.I knew the other members separately; Mattia is my cousin and with him we used play  acoustic guitar and then, when in NYC, I bought my first guitar and we decided to play what we feel. Then in L’Aquila, I called Diego, one of my best friends, and Giulio one of the best drummers in town.Then, after a long pause caused by the earthquake in our town, and when we were ready we started again.

 

How did you first get into playing and writing music?

 At first we played into an underground rehearsal room for hours jamming an trying some different riffs. I don’t know much, almost anything, about notes so we had to play necessarily our music. Then we gave to our tracks a structure(very hard for who, like me, played for the first time in a band) and the game was done! Only Giulio and Mattia played in another band before the Whirlings.All of our tracks are composed mainly by our instinct and feelings, each one of us put something in the tracks, riffs, sounds etc.

 

What did your first songs sound like and who were your main influences?

 

 We’re influenced by classics as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath etc. but also by contemporary bands like Colour Haze, Dead Meadow, Mogwai etc.

How did you get your name?

 The band’s name was originated both by the Dead Meadow song and also by the psychedelic and symbolic concept of the spiral!

 

 Are there any other groups that sound similar to you in Italy?

 Fortunately in Italy there aren’t so much psychedelic instrumental bands so we have enough opportunities to play!

  

How would you describe your music?

 Our music is a mix of classic psychedelia, progressive, desert stoner and post-rock. We live in a mountainside so we can say than we play mountain-stoner instead desert-stoner rock.

How did you get the decision to self released your first project?Have you sent any demos to a  label before you release it?

  We decided to avoid at first place to have a label deal because we need our space to create our music without any kind of interferences and some contract dead line time for releasing recordings. Without a label, on the other side we face some difficulties for the physical distribution of our work.

Tell me a few words about all 5 tracks of the ep.How did you choose titles etc….My favourite is Calcutta’s Sewers,what’s the story behind?

  We put the titles after the final version of each track, there isn’t a particular way of choosing it, the tracks inspiring  us the titles not the opposite. Calcutta’s Sewers is one of our first track composed, we worked on it a lot, than on day, after a long rehearsal room session playing it Mattia told us: “we must call this track Calcutta’s Sewers!!!”. We laughed a lot and the title was given!!!

 

Do you think of adding vocals in the future?

 Only if we’ll meet a really good vocalist (Maynard from Tool???) we could think about a singer in our band, since that day we’ll continue with the original vocation of the music… the universal instrumental language! 

What are you doing for living?

 Unfortunately we can’t living only by playing music, or better, we’re living for playing, so we have to work, when it is possible.

 

Describe the atmosphere in your concerts. How people react in your music?

 During our lives we project some psychedelic clips and visuals made by Diego, a little help for the audience to travel into our trips!

What is the feedback you get from people who listen to your music?

 We’ve a lot of positive feedback by our audience, during our lives but also by the web.

 Through the years a lot of groups are mainly known via internet and not from the their cd or vinyl releases. What is your opinion about this?

 Internet is quite useful for us because is the only free broadcasting we had and a lot of people listen our tracks on youtube, myspace, reverbnation, etc. and buy our music on cd or mp3.

Which are your future plans?

  Now we’re going to record our next work, an  full album this time with 7 new tracks, influenced by a more structured heavy psych and post-rock as well.

(As told to High Fidelity Stories)

Contact : thewhirlings1.bandcamp.com/album/the-whirlings-ep

               facebook.com/TheWhirlings