By Keith Walsh
By creating music for live performance as well as for video games, Austin’s WeirdWolves have crafted delicious tunes that compliment visuals quite well. WeirdWolves rely on a trio setup of guitar, bass and drums. The band, formed in 2018, features Ava Gore on bass, guitar and vocals, Raphaël Colantonio on bass guitar and vocals as well, and Alec Cabrera on drums when they play live. It’s almost as if the band has dual identities, as they move between guitar-based and electronic music with equal ease.
I spoke with Colantonio and Gore about their approaches to music, specifically about their live sound. “We switch it around,” Colantonio told me. “We both play guitar and both play bass, and based on the songs we both switch around. During our performances, for some reason, people really respond to that — the switching of instruments around.” Being from Austin, Texas, WeirdWolves played SXSW 2019 at the Iron Bear, and were planning to do so again in 2020 until COVID-19 shut down the festival.
Colantonio tells me his favorite axe is a Fender Acoustasonic Telecaster. “Yeah, it’s a pretty recent guitar from Fender, it’s based on the Telecaster. But it’s a hollow body, so it’s called an Acoustasonic. It’s between an acoustic and an electric, So it’s kind of like the best of both worlds.”
WeirdWolves released their single “Perfect Storm” last year, and opened a remix contest that was won by Julian Shah-Tayler‘s electronic remix. The original version featured guitar, bass and drums and is a gem of post-punk minimalism, while the JST remix visits the 80s and retro electro goth.
Though the primary line up of WeirdWolves features guitar, bass and drums, they’ve released numerous electronic-flavored remixes. Colantonio says he is interested in exploring the layers of dimensions that synthesizers can add. According to singer/songwriter Ava Gore, the daughter of Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore, the electronic touch is quite fine with her. “My musical taste is kind of all over the place, but I really enjoy doing this electro-goth, whatever you want to call it.”
Gore hints that there will be more music released by WeirdWolves in the not too distant future. “We have a lot of fans that have been requesting an EP or something like that,” she tells me. “We have a lot of songs that we play during our live streams and a lot of them are our fans’ favorites but we haven’t released them yet, so we’ve got a lot of requests.”
WeirdWolves will be releasing music for the upcoming video game “Weird West” by WolfEye Studios as well. (WolfEye was founded in 2018 by Colantonio, a former creator at EA and the founder of Arkane Studios). Future songs by WeirdWolves will be produced by Choose Hellth (Matt Piersall of Austin) and other producers.
WeirdWolves On Spotify
WeirdWolves On Bandcamp.com
WeirdWolves.com
WeirdWolves On Facebook
Ava Gore On Facebook
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