Weber State University’s radio station, KWCR, hosted this semester’s first “In the Fish Bowl” show with Ogden’s own Vaseline the Band on Feb. 21. Similar to NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts where artists perform live music in a small recording studio, the show featured the band’s new EP, “Middle Distance,” and an interview with the band members.
The fifth-wave punk group consists of Matt Moulding and Logan Jones on guitar and vocals, Brady Griffiths on drums and vocals and Marcos Salas on bass. Despite all these creative perspectives, their writing process is highly collaborative.
“We all worked together on the structure,” Griffiths said. “Me and Matt trade off on vocals, and everybody wrote their own parts, and we all work together a lot. Recently, it’s been a lot of solo writing.”
They’ve found that writing individually and bringing ideas to the group helps them overcome writer’s block and create more effectively.
“I think we all have different flow states,” Moulding said. “We all go through waves where we’re all super productive.”
When evaluating their songs, the band did not rely on their own opinions. They invited friends and family over to listen in on the recording process to give feedback on each track. Moulding said that thanks to this weeklong endeavour, they were able to add elements to their songs they had not thought of during the initial writing process.
“I came up with the second lead line for the end of ‘!Francheskaar!’ and I didn’t want to have to mic up my amp, so I just plugged into the bass amp that has a direct input and recorded that,” Moulding said. “I think if it wasn’t for us being there for a week straight and just having nothing but creative output, we wouldn’t have done small stuff like that.”
The band had a lot of fun performing on KWCR. They were nervous but happy with how the interview and performance went.
KWCR will hold six more “In the Fish Bowl” performances throughout the semester emphasizing alternative rock. They can be watched live at the KWCR station in the Shepherd Union or on KWCR’s Twitch channel. The next performance will feature the band Mopsy on Feb. 28 at 6 p.m.
The future for Vaseline the Band holds a lot of hope and opportunity. The group is currently working on an album that is halfway done and will be going on tour this summer, starting at the end of July, performing shows in Boise, Idaho; Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Washington; and Sacramento and San Francisco, California.
