Caught in a mosh: The raw power behind SoCal's new horror-rock outfit Warish

Originally published by Alt Citizen
2019 was huge for SoCal hard rockers, Warish. A hot debut album, national tours supporting big name acts from across the spectrum, and positive attention from some of the most respected names in music press are just some of the accolades they’d accumulated in a breakneck year. Not one to let the current moratorium on live shows and public gatherings put a damper on all that earned momentum, frontman Riley Hawk talks with Alt Citizen about his inspirations, side-hustles, and keeping focused in an uncertain time for touring bands.
Let’s start off with a couple easy ones, just to get warmed up. Favorite mythological creature and why?
Riley Hawk: That’s a good question. I think it would probably be some kind of horror character, maybe like Mike Myers. I think it’s because he doesn't talk, he just keeps walking. Very interesting character to me, I like those movies.
So, what’s your favorite 80s/90s horror movie?
Riley: I like [Halloween] but I also like all the cheesy ones like Scream. Would House Of 1000 Corpses be that era? That’s one of my favorites.
What’s your dream concert lineup? You can be on the bill or not.
Riley: I don’t think I would want to be on [the bill] because it’s my dream concert. I would want to just drink and enjoy it! I mean, in their prime or does it have to be them now?
Either way, this is your dream.
Riley: Then definitely in their prime. [Black] Sabbath, Nirvana. I don't know if I want to over-stimulate and stack it too much. If I had to pick three, probably those and Jimi Hendrix. For me, at least, that's the three I would want to see in their prime if I could.
Metal, thrash, grunge, doom. These are big genres that have been around for a long time. They've each got massive histories and had a lot of cultural impact. In your opinion, what's the state of heavy music in 2020?
Riley: It seems to me like the energy is coming back and people are liking stuff with a little more fast pace. Not necessarily like thrash or metal, but just more energy as opposed to heavy, slower, doomy type things. It seems like the new generation wants to get crazy again. They just want to go crazy and have fun at a show, you know, rather than kind of be there and just stand around. I mean, I love both [types] but to me the kids right now want to [get crazy].
Down In Flames, Warish’s debut album which released last year, sounds a lot like grunge but moves at the speed of punk. Do you identify with either of those categories or do you feel that the band’s sound exists beyond the boundaries of genre?
Riley: I didn't really ever think about that when the songs were being written, it was just like “this is what I want to hear, this is what I want to sound like.” I guess it just depends, everyone has their own opinion on genres but I would say [Warish] falls into kind of a punk/grunge category for sure. People that never heard of us or know anything about us, that's kind of what they think. More like 90s era punk, early 90s.
You mentioned earlier that you’ve started to get the impression that music is speeding up and people going to shows want to have a good time and let loose a little bit, but a lot of venues these days don't allow moshing, crowd surfing, etc for safety concerns. What’s your stance on opening up the pit?
Riley: I’ve never liked telling people what to do. When I do a show I’m never like “hey, come up to the front” or “hey, buy our stuff” not because I think it's corny, I just want people do whatever the hell they want to. If people start moshing it’s definitely fun to play when that's happening because it brings the energy up. People moving and having a good time.
Do you like to interact with the crowd when that starts to happen? Have you ever jumped in and joined them?
Riley: I don’t know if we’ve ever had a big enough crowd to where they can hold me up if I jumped out. Maybe if I had had a couple drinks in me and was having fun and people were vibing with it. Maybe I’d go for it, see if I break my arm or something!
You'd been touring quite a bit across the US in support of Down In Flames. East coast versus west coast, where do you think your sound resonates most with audiences?
Riley: That’s a good question. People get it on the east coast because they’ve got that hardcore type scene going on over there, but when we played in Seattle people were having a real good time. That was really fun. That was probably one of the craziest mosh crowds I think I've ever seen when we played.
So there’s almost a universal appeal. Everybody gets into it for different reasons, or maybe the same reason?
Riley: I don't know. It's definitely been a bizarre thing for us because we’ve toured with Acid King and then The Black Lips, so I guess that means our sound is somewhat universal enough to mesh into weird little nooks of genres.
Do you think audiences these days are more open-minded and willing to try out something different that might be outside of their comfort zone?
Riley: Yeah, totally I think so. I think it's always really helpful when you're on tour with a bigger band that has a built-in audience. You either gain a lot of new fans or they don't really like or don't really care about you, but for the most part people seem to always be stoked on the opener bands if they're open-minded. It could be exciting or mysterious.
Skateboarding is a talent that runs in your blood and Warish feels particularly suited to soundtrack the DIY skate videos I used to watch when I was a teenager. Does skate culture have an influence on the band at all?
Riley: Not really, but I think maybe I can’t escape it, it’s subconsciously in my DNA. Growing up on 90s skate videos and stuff, it's just so lodged in there I can't even help but write songs like that.
There’s that forward momentum, that same kind of movement.
Riley: Yeah, totally. If you were skating [Warish] would probably get you hyped up.
Outside of music, outside of skating, what are some other influences that have had an impact on Warish’s sound?
Riley: I definitely love 70s, 80s, 90s, weird shitty b-roll horror films and all the big classic ones that everyone has seen. [The band has] a bit of a darker kind of sound to it, like horror-rock. I had never even heard of that [term] until someone said it about us.
Warish just released a new single called “Woven,” which stylistically is a little bit different from Down In Flames. The track is a little bit more melodic with a tasty hook in there. Will the band continue to explore this type of sonic territory going forward or was the single just an exercise in trying something new?
Riley: The new stuff is a little bit more like [“Woven”]. Kind of songwriting rather than just angry punk style. I’d only ever played in one band before [Warish] and I'm not really a musician. I picked up a guitar when I was hurt skating when I was a teenager and then kept [playing]. I’m still kind of learning how it all works. The new stuff I'm happy with more so because it’s little bit catchier. Hooks and choruses and stuff. We all seem to be happy with it so I think it'll definitely lean in that direction, but still maintaining that heavier, grunge, punk rock sound.
Your previous band, Petyr, leaned a lot heavier into slower, psychedelic territory. The sonic shift from Petyr to Warish reminds me a lot of Lemmy’s transition from Hawkwind to Motörhead.
Riley: Totally, yeah!
What inspired you to speed up, to go from slow heavy psych to fast-paced grunge?
Riley: It was a lot of what I was listening to at the time and it was, I wouldn’t an say experiment, but I wanted to write a couple songs and see how they sounded. I recorded the bass and guitar on most of the first tracks and then my buddy who plays [them] in the band played drums. We were just gonna put it out and then the response seemed to be people wanted to hear more. We were like, “well shit, now we have to find a bass player and make it a band!” That formed into actually jamming and feeling comfortable as a band, and then led to shows. I just wanted more energy in a live show than just long, jammy psych stuff.
Times being what they are, let's address the elephant in the room, the current global situation around COVID-19. Has this unprecedented event impacted your plans for the band at all? Are you taking some time to breathe or are you doubling down on new material?
Riley: We had been planning to have a record out the end of this year. I have a lot of the songs already built out in my head and we actually have about five songs recorded that we did when we cut the single, “Woven.” Tomorrow [the band is] coming over. I have a little garage jam space in my house and we're gonna get cracking on the new stuff because we'd like to try to put it out by the end of the year and that can hopefully lead to some 2021 tours.
Have you thought about using technology to stream any sets or shows to keep the audience engaged?
Riley: I’ve always been a fan of not saying too much and then just putting it out there, getting more of a surprise drop. Everyone has a different [approach]. Daniel [Hall], our label owner, wants us to keep pushing stuff but I like hiding out and then just releasing it as more of a surprise, but we'll see. Hopefully we'll meet somewhere in the middle.
When Down In Flames released you earned some pretty serious press from outlets like Rolling Stone and Revolver. Once all this passes, will the band get right back into it at a breakneck pace for the end of 2020 or early 2021?
Riley: Yeah! There’s some talk right now of a tour that’s going to happen, a pretty big one, at the end of the summer. But at this point, you know, it's all in the air. I'm not really putting my eggs in any basket at the moment. Whatever happens, happens because everyone's getting shut down left and right.
Maybe we’ll hold on to [the new album] until this all passes, I don't know. At this point I’m just gonna try to write the songs, record them, and get as much as we can out of the studio once we're happy with it and just say “well, here it is.”
Warish is signed to Riding Easy Records, a pretty significant label that has made a big name for themselves in recent years as a resource for high quality heavy music. What's it like being on a roster with some of the biggest and most innovative heavy bands on the planet right now?
Riley: It's pretty wild. I’ve known Daniel a long time through skateboarding, I think I’ve known him almost 10 years now. We'd always talk, like, “oh, I should do something with music” bit it never really happened. When I sent him [the Warish] demos I was fortunate enough that he just pretty much greenlit it, “let's put it out.” He's amazing at promotion so I’m really lucky for us to get thrown into the mix of those bands. They’re all really great and it's cool that we get thrown in the mix for shows and tours and stuff like that.
Any label mates in particular you want to give a shout out to?
Riley: Yeah, I mean all of them! Technically I think Acid King is because [Riding Easy] did the reissue [of Busse Woods]. That's a band I’ve listened to since I was like 15 or 16. You’ve got Monolord, Blackwater Holylight, Zig-Zags. There’re so many bands on [the label] that are killer.
Now that everyone has a lot of time on their hands, I’m sure there are some people looking to work on some long-standing creative projects. Is there any advice you can share on getting a band started?
Riley: It sucks to say but, it’s kind of the same way with skateboarding, you want it to be all about the music but there is definitely a major split between the music and actually being able to take it seriously as a business. Marketing, you know, you have to do it to make the dream work and be on the road touring, to actually sell some tickets to shows. I've never been a fan of self-promotion but in this day and age it’s the only way you can get something in front of people because there's so much shit getting thrown at their faces on their phone all day. You just have to do it.
What else are you up to besides Warish and skating? Any cool hobbies or side hustles keeping you busy?
Riley: Me and some buddies own a coffee shop. We started about a year and a half ago but we had to close down a few days ago [due to the pandemic]. Our shop’s called Steel Mill Coffee based off of the 70s band Steel Mill.
What's on your quarantine playlist? Any recommendations for helping us keep it all together until we can go outside again?
Riley: I'm really into Japanese 60s and 70s culture. [There’s] a compilation called Big Lizard Stomp!: Teen Trash From Psychedelic Tokyo 66 - 69. It’s a lot of rip-offs 60s psych, Japanese bands covering songs, but this one's pretty good. There’s one cover in particular by the band called D’Swooners and they do a Purple Haze cover by Hendrix. It's kind of slowed down a bit and it's got that classic 60s way over-fuzzed-out guitar. It's pretty badass.
The Japanese have always had a history of taking rock and psych and doing totally wild and crazy stuff with it. There’s a lot of enthusiasm in Japan for western bands. Do you think you'd ever want to want to tour over there?
Riley: I would love to! That's one of my favorite places to go. I've been there a lot of times for skateboarding and every time I go, I’ve brought back a gigantic crate of records and shirts and shit like that. If you want a reading suggestion, my buddy gave me this book a few months back called JAPROCKSAMPLER by Julian Cope. That's a really good book. It dives into the early 70s heavy rock, hard rock Japanese psych scene with Flower Travelin’ Band, Shinki Chen, Blues Creation and all that stuff. It's pretty amazing.
Flower Travelin’ Band is one of my favorites, they're incredible
Riley: There’s a whole chapter just on them. I don’t know how [Julian Cope] found out all this information it’s pretty wild. It's worth a quarantine read, for sure, if you can get a hold of it.
Warish may not be big into self-promotion, but be sure to follow the band on Instagram for the latest info on their in-progress follow up to Down In Flames.