Wishy is going Hollywood.

Co-songwriters and co-lead vocalists Kevin Krauter and Nina Pitchkites are picking up and leaving Indianapolis, where they've long called home, for the sunny skies of California. With this move, the band is officially leaving their day jobs to make music their sole professional priority.

It's a big, albeit somewhat scary, step for any indie act to make, especially in a music industry that's becoming increasingly stacked against smaller artists. For Wishy, the DIY side of indie music has always been a big part of the band's identity, from playing smaller venues to becoming part of a tight-knit community of artists. So, even with this change of scenery, it’s hard to imagine they are going to leave all that behind.

As someone from Buffalo, another often-overlooked American city, I feel a particular kinship with Wishy's Indianapolis roots. Both cities have their own distinct scenes and cultures that exist just outside the spotlight. That type of community will assuredly shape a band’s personality, ethos, and ultimately, its music. 

Wishy’s upcoming LP, Nature’s Pill, sounds and feels like a crossroads between these two chapters. The distorted guitar riffs and vocals, paired with decidedly cheery melodies and upbeat rhythms, sound like a band cultivated by America’s upper Midwest looking toward the West Coast. The angst is still there, but is wrapped in a sense of optimism that feels fitting for a band standing on the precipice of something new. 

I caught Wishy when they came through Buffalo on their recent tour, and later sat down with Krauter and Pitchkites to talk about their experiences on the road, the scene surrounding the band, and the making of Nature's Pill.

Drew @TND: I saw you perform pretty recently in Buffalo, during The Trip tour.

Kevin Krauter: The Trip, yeah. Such an epic time. That night was sad, though. That was our last night of the tour.

For readers who don't know, The Trip tour was with Hotline TNT, the Tubs, Horse Jumper of Love, and Canaries. Though it was a pretty short tour, was there anything you were able to take away from that experience after being around those bands in close quarters?

Nina Pitchkites: Just that they're all chillers and awesome.

Kevin: Yeah, just love every single one of them.

Nina: It's cool to hear all this music that I hadn't heard before, but live. And how everyone gets prepared for a show. There were so many of us, so everyone had their own little quirks.

Kevin: The vibes were just great all around. Will of Hotline TNT really knows how to curate a hang, you know? Not only was every band just amazing to watch live, but everyone in the bands was a great hang, and we just felt like a big family by the end of it. It was really sad to leave. There were some tears shed, even though it was only five shows. It was kind of funny.

Another notable aspect about that tour was that you were playing smaller cities and even small towns like Scranton, Pennsylvania. What was it like playing these types of shows? Did it make you think differently about how far your music has reached? 

Kevin: It definitely made me think, "man, it would be really cool to start trying to book more shows in these less common cities." It was really cool to feel connected and to go to a place and see people being really stoked about this tour coming to town. It gave me a feeling of when I was a kid going to shows in Indianapolis, which is a pretty random place, all things considered. It was really heartwarming.

Nina: We played at the Kaiser Valley Community Center in Scranton. When we got there, they were like, “We don't have anything. We don't have Wi-Fi here. We don't have a PA.” Someone had to bring it. It was very DIY, which was awesome.

Kevin: We're typically playing bigger venues now that are very professionally run, which is cool. But we all still love just playing modest venues. At those shows, people go hard, you know. I would so much rather see a band just shred in a fucking community center than at House of Blues or something.

As an audience member, I prefer that much more, too. I saw you were playing somewhere called the Kaiser Family Community Center in Scranton, so I looked it up to see if it looked the way I imagined it in my head—and it did. It looked like the kind of place where a JV football team might have their end-of-year banquet.

Nina: And I'm sure they have.

When you were in Buffalo, you played at Electric City, which is small, but not really a DIY place.

Nina: The first time we played in Buffalo, it was in the basement of a church. On the wall, there was tons of Ani DiFranco memorabilia, including in our green room, and I was like, they must really love Ani DiFranco here.

Yeah, that is the basement of Asbury Hall, I believe. We do love Ani DiFranco here in Buffalo.

Kevin: That place was awesome. That was one of the best-sounding venues I've ever played in my life. Honestly, a real Buffalo vibe. We love Buffalo.

Last question about The Trip — but that tour's tagline was, “five bands from the scene that insists upon itself.” I'm assuming that was a Family Guy reference?

Kevin: Yeah, I think so. I think that was Will's copy.

I don't think I've ever seen a tour marketed using a Family Guy reference before, so it was innovative in that way.

Kevin: Yup, I think that might be a first.

Though the tagline is obviously a bit funny and cheeky, it does raise a question about “the scene” you belong to. Do you think Wishy belongs to any distinct scene?

Nina: That's a good question because normally we get pigeonholed as a shoegaze band, but we're not really a shoegaze band. All these bands on The Trip, I feel like they're kind of outliers in the indie music community, and maybe that's what brings us all together.

Kevin: I feel like there's a real cheekiness to not only using a Family Guy reference, but just that idea of the scene insisting upon itself. I think we share a similar sort of—I don't want to say jadedness, but a sort of realism. Indie music itself is something that can “insist upon itself.” You see people take themselves a little too seriously. I think we share a similar headspace about being an indie band and being part of a quote-unquote scene, as Will does.

It is funny to consider yourself an indie rock band, to consider yourself part of the indie music scene. It's like you kind of have to insist upon yourself in a way, and I think it's a sort of tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement that we're all kind of attention-seeking, delusional cosplayers. At the end of the day, you just kind of have to be real about that and laugh about it because if you don't, then you're a loser.

You've already touched upon this, but I've also noticed you get pigeonholed as a “shoegaze band,” maybe because there's been a bit of a shoegaze resurgence recently. Do you see yourselves as part of that resurgence, or are you coming at it from a different angle?

Kevin: I think both. I think we're inevitably part of it. Can't really escape it, and I'm not really ashamed to say that in any way. But also, I think we try and actively think outside the box. I think Nina and I are both a little defiant in a way.

Wishy's sound can be more poppy and influenced by the late '90s and early 2000s alternative rock than a lot of modern shoegaze. Is there anything specific about that type of sound that you still find exciting or relevant today?

Nina: We've always been big Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine fans, of course. I think inevitably that our songwriting influences from other '90s bands like The Sundays or Saint Etienne comes through. I think every band gets inspiration from somewhere, and I think largely our inspiration just happens to be from that time.

Kevin: Nina and I both have siblings that are a handful of years older than us who were showing us music that was just slightly before their time, so it was really cool to them. Then we kind of adopted a little bit of that early 2000s indie music energy. So I think that's definitely a big influence on us, more consciously now, honestly, than when we first started the band.

I saw that in the past you both mentioned creating a lot of your music remotely, where somebody would record a little piece, and someone else would add to it while you talked back and forth. Was that still a big part of making Nature's Pill, or were you working together more in person this time around?

Nina: Definitely collaborated more in person, yeah, but still using the same songwriting techniques as well.

There are several songs that we each wrote individually, and then there's a handful of songs that Kevin and I both worked on. There's also a song that me and Dmitri, our other guitarist, worked on. Mitch, our bassist, threw down a bass line for the song “Sensational.” So, overall, this was a much more collaborative album in general, beyond just the fact that we weren't working remotely anymore.

Do you think spending so much time touring and playing shows together helped make the songwriting process more collaborative this time around?

Nina: I think just in the time between the last album and this one, a lot of these songs were born from jamming out some new ideas while we're sound checking. That's how “Sensational” came about. Mitch was just playing that bass line, and I eventually figured out something to play on top of it, and then wrote the rest of the song from there.

It was sort of an organic collaborative element. It wasn't intentional, necessarily, that we wanted to be more collaborative, but it also just sort of happened on its own, which is nice.

When you two are writing songs together, how would you describe the differences between your instincts and tastes? What do you think the other person is particularly strong at bringing to a Wishy song?

Nina: I think Kevin is very strong at just laying out the overall structure of a song – you know, verse, chorus, verse, bridge. That takes me a long time. But it's great because I feel like it helps. Watching him helps me learn, and I'm sure a little bit vice versa.

Kevin: Yeah, I agree with that. I think the way Nina writes melodies — there are some songs that she's written where I hear the melody and I'm just like, damn, how'd you think of this?

I feel like when I write things, I can get into a formulaic headspace where it's hard for me to turn off snap-to-grid mode sometimes. There have been multiple times where we've had a song and Nina's written the melody on top of it, and I'm like, that's totally different from what I was hearing, but I really love that bit of a freer instinct melodically. I think that's a strength that I really appreciate about Nina.

One thing I’ve noticed that really sets Wishy apart from a lot of bands in a similar space is your drums and percussion. They’re usually very prominent in the mix, and there’s clearly a lot of care put into them. When you’re arranging a song, how early do the drums and percussion come into the process? Do you build songs around those parts, or does it depend on the song?

Kevin: I guess it depends on the song. But for me, my first instrument was the drums, and that was my first love, and still is. I play drums in another band called Sacred Copy, and I played bass in Hoops for a long time, so rhythm section for me is kind of home base.

When I'm making a song, that's usually one of the first thoughts, one of the first things I'm thinking about. Even when I'm sitting playing guitar, I've got an idea for the drums in my head pretty much immediately. So definitely there's a lot of intentional care and attention put on the rhythmic element of all of our songs. That's something I really don't like to half-ass. I can be very particular about that.

And playing with Connor, our drummer, he and I have a really good language for communicating what I'm hearing in my head. He's someone who is very easy to communicate what I'm hearing to, and he's able to hear it and come up with something that works. So we'll put a lot of attention into that together.

There are what sound like conga drums on the track “Sensational," which feels pretty unexpected for this genre. It’s funny that you say you can clearly hear where you want the percussion to go in a song, because that sounds like a moment where you just thought, “Let’s fuck around with some conga drums and see what happens.”

Kevin: Well, that one definitely was a lot of me doing pre-production for these songs, demoing stuff on my own and opening up the Apple Loops library in Logic and fucking around with different loop samples that they have built in there. I love auxiliary percussion. It's like a guilty pleasure of mine. Not so guilty, but you know what I mean. I just love that shit.

Were those congas a pre-made loop? Was that from one of those software libraries?

Kevin: Yeah, it's a direct pull from the Apple Loops library.

Oh, there you go. I had no idea.

Kevin: Yeah, it's right there. It's all free to use. I'm just letting everyone in on my secrets.

That’s similar to that one Gorillaz video, where Damon Albarn shows that the “Clint Eastwood” instrumental is largely just built off a pre-made synthesizer loop.

Kevin: Yeah. I feel like for the longest time, I had this insecurity of, “I can't just use a pre-made sample for something. We gotta change it up. We gotta make it different.”

But then at a certain point, it's like, no, they did that. It actually doesn't matter. There's no actual rules. The whole inner debate of, “Is this authentic enough or is this original enough?” At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. If the song sounds good, it is good. A hit's a hit.

Speaking more to those production choices, the vocals on Nature's Pill feel really intentional, especially on songs like “Sensational” and “You're Not Serious.” They have this heavy, distorted, upfront sound with a lot of reverb. How did you approach the vocals on this album? It feels like there was a very specific sound you were looking for with the vocals on this record.

Kevin: I'm just a sucker for anything with some upfront, distorted vocals. That's something that's really pleasing for me to hear, and I think it feels fun to incorporate into this style of music.

A lot of times you'll hear very spacey, reverbed, softer vocals, which we do love. We'll do that shit too. But at least for this album, I think a lot of these songs felt a little more immediate and called for a bit more of a present, not exactly aggressive, but very upfront production style on the vocals. I just think the lyrical content, the energy, the vibe of these songs sort of called for that.

Looking back on Triple Seven, what do you hope people notice about how you've grown or changed with Nature's Pill?

Kevin: I do think we took more risks, had more fun, and are much more confident on this album. I'm really proud of our first album, but I think there were some areas where we played it safe a little bit and wanted to push the ticket this time around. I think it paid off.

Nina: Hopefully, people notice that we are better musicians now. I do still think we are who we've always been, and we're not necessarily trying to be different. I guess I'd mostly be wondering, “Is our production better? Are we better at playing instruments? Do you like it?” I think that's mostly what it comes down to: “Do you like it?”

Nature's Pill is out October, 2 via Winspear. Pre-order it here. The band will also embark on a North American tour, kicking things off with a hometown show on October 3. See the full list of dates below:

10/03 Indianapolis, IN @ Atomic Duckpin
10/09 Columbus, OH @ Ace of Cups
10/10 Toronto, ON @ The Garrison
10/11 Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz PDB
10/13 Portland, ME @ SPACE
10/14 Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall
10/15 Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church
10/17 New York, NY @ Racket
10/18 Washington, DC @ The Atlantis
10/20 Durham, NC @ Stanczyks
10/21 Atlanta, GA @ The EARL
10/22 Asheville, NC @ Revival
10/23 Nashville, TN @ The Blue Room - Third Man Records
10/25 Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St Entry
10/26 Milwaukee, WI @ X-Ray Arcade
10/27 Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
11/29 Lawrence, KS @ The Bottleneck with The Umbrellas
12/01 Denver, CO @ Marquis Theater with The Umbrellas
12/02 Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court with The Umbrellas
12/05 Seattle, WA @ Barboza with The Umbrellas
12/06 Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios with The Umbrellas
12/08 San Francisco, CA @ The Independent with The Umbrellas
12/10 Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room with The Umbrellas
12/12 Tucson, AZ @ Hotel Congress with The Umbrellas
12/14 Houston, TX @ Bad Astronaut Brewing Co. with Touch Girl Apple Blossom
12/15 Austin, TX @ 29th Street Ballroom with Touch Girl Apple Blossom
12/16 Dallas, TX @ Club Dada with Touch Girl Apple Blossom

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