We took some time to get to know Steel Wool, the shoegaze rockers making waves across the southland
Planetary Group: Tell us about your latest release. How did you come to create it?
SW: We just put out our self-titled debut EP, Steel Wool, which came out of a bunch of bedroom demos we workshopped over the last year or so. It was a really collaborative process, passing the guitar around, tweaking each others’ ideas, trying to create a sum greater than its parts. The phrase “something like that but not like that” was said a lot. Ultimately, we just went with the best five songs, had a childhood friend make the cover art, and then we were off to the races!
PG: Share a bit about your musical journey, from when you first started making music until now?
SW: I started playing guitar around the age of 8 but didn’t really invest a lot of time into it until high school. Then I played in a few bands in college in upstate New York, but it was simpler, power chord garage rock stuff, just trying to have a good time in a small town. Playing in Steel Wool has been a totally different experience and gives me the opportunity to think about music in a different way, exploring more varied chord structures, song structures, sonic textures, etc. It’s a blessing to have bandmates that are so thoughtful and driven to push me to try out new ideas and techniques I never really gave much consideration to before.
PG: Let’s talk about the music that you love. Tell us about the albums and artists that made you who you are! What’s an album you grew up listening to?
SW: The Radio Dept.’s debut record Lesser Matters was huge for me in high school. When I was a teenager, I was really into Sofia Coppola movies, which probably had an outsized impact on my taste in music at the time. I got into the band from hearing them in Marie Antoniette, and the CD lived in my car for years thereafter.
PG: What’s an album that inspires you as an artist (I’m sure there are many, but pick one of your choosing)
SW: The self-titled Yuck album – one of the finest records of guitar music made this millennium. There’s so much variation in this one record and they manage to conjure sounds from their guitars that I didn’t even know were possible. I feel like I discover something new to appreciate every time I listen to it, which is a sign of a great album.
PG: An album you currently have on repeat?
SW: The new Punxsutawney EP, Untitled. Four tracks of instrumental post rock. Incredible stuff. One of the best live acts in Los Angeles right now.
PG: An Artist that inspired you?
SW: The Jesus and Mary Chain! So many of their songs are so simple and yet so perfectly distilled – it’s a helpful reminder that sometimes less is more.
PG: An Artist you’d like to collaborate with?
SW: Karly Hartzman of Wednesday – she’s got such a distinctive voice. Love the track she just did with Cryogeyser; their voices really complement each other.
PG: What do you want people to take away from your music?
SW: The main takeaway for me is that your ‘sound’ doesn’t have to be just one thing. You don’t need to box yourself into a singular genre. It’s quite limiting to think that way, and it’s a habit we’ve learned to kick. All four of us listen to pretty different music, and I think that’s reflected in our creative output – there are elements of folk, shoegaze, jangle pop, screamo, and more across these five songs. Letting go of the idea that we need to be a particular type of band was really liberating for us.
PG: What’s next up for you?
SW:We’re playing our EP release show at El Cid in Silver Lake tonight! I’m ducking out of work early to go load in right now!
