The Wrecks visited College Station for BYX’s Island party at the end of March to help benefit The Bridge Ministries, a local Christian community service outreach organization. I conducted an interesting interview with the band before their show.
Q: So let’s start with the basics, who are you guys?
Nick: So we’re The Wrecks. Aaron: I’m Aaron and I play bass.
Nick: I’m Nick and I sing.
Schmitz: I’m Schmitz and I play guitar.
Weston: I’m Wetzels-pretzels and I play guitar too.
Nick: and our drummer is in the bathroom for this…
Q: When did y’all form and how did y’all form?
Aaron: We formed in November of 2015 through our manager. He knew us all and was the mutual connection and we met and we started the band. Like two days after that we invited Billy and Nick to be in the band and they drove out across the country and we recorded the EP less than a week after that. We just kind of broke into a studio and recorded it ourselves and then put it out and then for some reason radio stations started playing the song so now we’re playing cool shows and touring and stuff.
Q: What has been your best memory as a band so far?
Aaron: I feel like just touring period and getting to see new places everyday is pretty awesome.
Schmitz: One of our first shows ever we were really uh
Nick: intoxicated
Schmitz: Yeah that, and Aaron convinced some dude to let us drive the go karts when it was clearly closed and we just drove go karts really drunk in some place in Arizona
Nick: Yeah, we were very intoxicated and we went to go to a club, it was an 18+ club because half of us weren’t 21 and they didn’t have fake identification. So there was a go kart place that was closed next to it so we went in and there was a guy sweeping up, and we go like ‘Can we ride them?’ and he goes ‘Nah’ and we’re like ‘We’re in a band, we’re playing tomorrow night’ he goes, ‘Can I come?’ and we’re like ‘Yeah’ and he goes ‘Can I take pictures’ and we’re like ‘Yeah.’ So then we drove around.
Aaron: That was a great night Weston: Yeah, we always do legal stuff
Q: What’s your favorite thing about College Station thus far?
Nick: Oh I don’t think we’ve seen enough of it but I would just say the general vibe of the place
Weston: Yeah and the hospitality
Schmitz: The grass is like awesome
Nick: The grass is groovy dude
Q: What is a weird touring/band story that has happened?
Nick: I was playing catch one time with Connor from Nothing But Thieves on the second tour and we were throwing a baseball around and he smashed a windshield. That was pretty funny. I don’t think I’ve ever told that story out loud before so that’s an exclusive story. I don’t know, we get ourselves into so much everyday because we never turn down an opportunity to do something
Schmitz: It’s hard to compare life, like bad times of life. It’s like everything’s good so like, the worst of the good is the bad.
Weston: beautiful quote [clapping] Schmitz everyone
Q: What is this about a concussion?
Nick: Concussion, yes! Schmitz got a concussion on the second tour, uh loading the trailer. Yeah he just stood up too fast and nailed the top of the trailer with his head. He was pretty messed up for a few days and it was kind of funny because he was a different person
Schmitz: Yeah, one show I got off stage and I had the sweats, I was dizzy as hell, I was sitting there and I was fine but concussions mess with your emotions so I’m like just sitting there crying my eyes out and Nick’s like ‘Yo you alright man’ and I’m like crying like ‘yeah I’m okay man, it’s all good’ and that was that. My dad was kind of pissed I didn’t go to the hospital but by the time I did, I had gotten out of the concussion Nick: Yeah the concussion was pretty gnarly
Q: Any more stories?
Nick: Okay so yesterday was a really good one. We played this daring game -have you ever heard of the game Odds? So we played this game called Odds and anyway it’s basically like a truth or dare but only dares. And Weston [lost] so we were at a restaurant and he had to invite everyone to his stand up comedy show at 6am at the super 8 motel that he was performing in front of the continental breakfast and he had to write all the tickets on napkins. So he just walked around and was like ‘Hey guys, so this is really embarrassing but I’m a beginner comedian and I have my first gig tomorrow, it’s a 6am.’ So yeah he had to go around and we just watched him and we were cracking up so bad because he was just embarrassing himself, like handing it to a couple who was like being really polite like ‘Oh yeah, we’ll try’ so no one showed up. We didn’t even go.
Q: Where do y’all get your inspiration from for your music?
Nick: pretty much anything. I tend to write about, or when I go to write it’s because I’m dealing with something, I’m going through something and that usually is the easiest way for me to write because it just feels like it’s coming from a good place, it’s coming from a vulnerable place so that’s usually where I like to start lyrically and everything like that. Guitars wise, it’s just Schmitz, he just does his thing and we go back and forth and write some cool riffs and yeah. It’s come from anything. There’s like a million and a half voice memos on my phone.
Schmitz: I think the best songs literally happen within a couple of hours
Q: What is your musical inspiration as a band?
Nick: I would say that I’ve gravitated towards honest songwriting and that happens to be bands in a ton of different genres. I would say musically though that there’s a lot of 70’s and 90’s rock that we jam all the time to. There’s a lot of cool, like newer rock bands like Cage the Elephant and The Black Keys that are just keeping rock pretty cool. But then there are bands like Vampire Weekend who are a little quirky and are a little sillier. Yeah, I don’t know just like really cool rock bands that get us stoked to play, and then songwriting wise I think listening to pretty cool guitar parts like Vampire Weekend or Killers or the Strokes. It just depends on the band for the song.
Q: When are you releasing new music?
Nick: I don’t know yet. We’ll probably put out a new single by this summer. The EP will be done by late May. More information on the band and their upcoming tour dates can be found on their website here.
Interview published in Frequency by KANM
