Warpaint will show off their layered and powerful yet calm sound at The Pabst Theater in Milwaukee this Saturday.
After a buzzed-about debut EP in 2008, the Los Angeles-based quartet found success with their 2010 album, The Fool, and its lead single, “Undertow.” Four years passed until its follow-up, a self-titled album this year that includes the muscular, drone-infused track “Biggy” and the icy grooves of “Love is to Die.” With a band made of such robust and original compositions and recordings, it will be exciting to see what their live presence is like.
We exchanged emails with Warpaint drummer Stella Mozgawa last week in advance of Saturday’s show.
What do you think of when you hear “Milwaukee” or “Wisconsin”?
“Real America.”
Four years fell between The Fool and Warpaint. How did making this record differ from the last?
“We wrote it as a four-piece this time, one that had been on the road for a relatively long time, which bred a different set of goals.”
The new album is a bit moodier and more down-tempo than your last. Have you found a way to comfortably work the new material into your live set?
”Yeah! There’s a lot of higher energy material on this record, too. It integrates well with our older material. Making sure that we’re doing these songs the greatest service was the biggest challenge.”
In a highly collaborative group with four strong personalities, how do you keep the songwriting process fresh and successful?
“We’re still working on it! It’s the biggest blessing and the greatest challenge for us as a band. We try to be open to each and every idea, see it through and come to some semblance of diplomacy with every song.”
You enlisted famed producers Flood and Nigel Godrich for the new record. What is the experience like working with them?
“Flood co-produced the record with us and mixed all but two songs, which we were lucky enough to have Nigel work on. We worked in a very intimate environment with Flood. He was really sensitive to our process and was a joy to work with. Nigel is a genius, too.”
You all did some awesome work on the forthcoming SBTRKT album. Can you tell us what it was like to work with Aaron Jerome? Does doing work with other artists help keep things more exciting within the band?
“That was a fun project. We just recorded at Flea’s studio, ‘The Boat,’ for two days, sometimes just openly jamming and other times building on ideas that Aaron already had. Every new collaboration is a glimpse into another way of making music, so it’s always exciting.”
Imagine you’re attending a concert and the drummer vanishes without a trace. It’s very unfortunate except that you get pulled onstage to replace that person. Who is the band?
“It’s awful to even hypothetically wish that upon somebody—but it would be fun to drum with Queens of the Stone Age for a night. Then again, no one can even come close to the thunderous drum machine that is Jon Theodore!”