Isaac: I think “In Love with the Sound” has a special place. That song was largely untouched and that’s–it’s so cool to me, the preservation of that moment. The demo I did that night is what’s on the record, except Josh’s drums. The whole time I was at my aunt’s I couldn’t wait to go home and record. Henry: “NYC” as a song is pretty special to me–I can’t remember the circumstance, but it was like Easter or something and I was supposed to see my family and before I left I figured out the chords and I was writing down some lyrics. Josh: The little break in “GOLDN” with the drum fill! That’s my personal proudest moment. I’m curious with all three of you here–what’s one moment on WHY NOT you’re most proud of? There were two one-week chunks of us together in the room to finish the songs.įocusing more on the production side definitely comes through. We have demos here, demos there, and we sent them to our producer Caleb, and he’d do his thing. That was a lot of sending demos back and forth, brainstorming for when we get together, and it was a little more piece by piece. We wrote the first few songs in summer 2020, right after–or real lockdown–and that prevented us from being together. A lot of the seeds for the album were conceptualized at the same place–a lot of the album was written at Isaac’s farm. Making those decisions as a group is definitely different than what the album process was like. We were all together figuring it out, what to do. Henry: Well, like Josh said, the EP happened all at one time–at least, the seeds were planted. How different, then, was the writing process for this LP versus that EP? Josh: Yeah, and this is just WHY NOT. Or it’s very, very WHY NOT. Isaac: The EP is like the album on steroids, and then the album is the distillation of us. Josh: We went a little far–it’s like pulling back a bit after that album. Henry: Chronologically, yeah, you’re right. Interesting–it feels the other way around to me, that this album bridges your older stuff, and then VERY WHY NOT is a step further from there. It was impulsive and we–why wait til after the album? But this is kinda a sonic bridge to the album, so it felt right to put it out now. That EP, we went to my farm in Wisconsin for a week, and then a huge chunk of the EP came from that time. Isaac: That was made after the album was finished. That EP was a collective effort, all of us in one room collaborating in a short time.
So does all of that, what you just said, apply to the VERY WHY NOT EP also? Because I know that only came out in January. But at the same time, they were not written with the intention of playing at a house show. I think it’s a much fuller sound that normal because of that focus on production. We thought outside the box of how we usually construct a song. It definitely allowed us to focus on the recorded song–what you can do with production. Isaac: I think it shifted our trajectory as a band. We were all in the room together, but that’s how it all panned out. We were writing songs and finished the album without all being behind our instruments at the same time. Prior to, we were writing and whatnot, all with the intention of playing live and such, and then it became a different process. I mean, as far as generally–we were just talking about how, in the last two, three years, we’ve been working on the record, and how COVID has played such a large part in transforming that process. Henry: Things are going good, besides currently having COVID.
How has COVID impacted your ability to be WHY NOT? We sat down with the band–Dell, vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Henry Breen, and drummer Josh MacGregor–to discuss writing a record in quarantine, their proudest moments, and their love of Tool.
It’s perhaps best described as hyperpop-punk, taking the left-field production of hyperpop and imbuing it with the melody and attitude of pop-punk. The ten tracks on WHY NOT embrace every flavor of pop music imaginable, resulting in a dense, layered, and extremely replayable record. Their music is eclectic–although guitarist Isaac Dell describes their upcoming WHY NOT as “basically pop songs,” that’s selling themselves short. WHY NOT has been playing music together since its three members were in high school, and they’re finally about to release their debut LP. Home > Artist Interview: WHY NOT Artist Interview: WHY NOT