Four Friends, One Band, Endless Energy: An Interview with Willowick

Brought together by their love of music, passion for creating, and desire to express themselves, Willowick is starting to emerge from Houston’s thriving DIY scene. They are known for blending sounds, pushing boundaries, and experimenting to create something entirely their own.

I recently got to interview Willowick to dive into their story and sound!

Who am I here with?

Nicolas: I’m Nic, the drummer.

Devin: I’m Devin. I’m on guitar.

Maraya: I’m Maraya, I play bass.

Alton: I’m Alton, the vocalist and guitarist for Willowick.

When was the band founded and what’s the story behind it?

Devin: It’s almost been a full year now.

Nicolas: Around this time last year we all started playing together. The three of us, we’ve known each other for close to two years. We started playing in another group, originally called Trinket, but that fell through. Then we met back up and we were like, we should start making music again.

Alton: We are coming up on our one-year anniversary.

What artists/music influence Willowick?

Devin: It changes a lot.

Maraya: I think now we are trying to do more noise shit. I think Sonic Youth has a pretty big influence, same with Swirlies for the both of us.

Nicolas: I’m very much into shoegaze right now, so, when I’m trying to think of drums parts to play I’ll listen to a lot of Whirr. I’ve been listening to some Slowdive recently, so I’ll try to take some stuff from there… change it in a way so it’s not exactly the same.

Devin: We have a lot of influences, each of us. Nothing too specific stands out when we try to make anything. Just try to combine who we are and all the things that make us who we are, which is like a lot of different bands and sounds just make something new with it.

Maraya: It’s good because it gives us a lot of variety to what we try to do… it’s kind of a headache sometimes because it’ll be too broad of an idea so we’ll have to hone it in, but it’s getting better.

Alton: Same as the other three have said, our bigger inspirations within alt-rock are Whirr, Swirlies, and My Bloody Valentine, things of that nature. From what I provide to the band, I can be a little more unconventional in my approach. I listen to a lot of different genres and jazz, which I bring forward in the music. I think we all bring a unique writing approach. We all have our different ways of what we bring to Willowick.

Maraya: I really like more emotional, slower-type things.

Devin: We’ve very much been on emo kind of stuff lately… mid-west emo type sounds but a little heavier sometimes.

If you had to label your sound, what would it be?

Alton: I would just say noise.

Devin: Yeah, we just like making noises. We like making noise rock a lot.

Maraya: I think at first it was shoegaze.

Nicolas: I think noise rock is pretty accurate.

What should people know about Willowick?

Maraya: We’re just a bunch of goobers, I think that’s about it.

Devin: We’re just trying to have fun with it. We aren’t trying to take it too seriously.

Anybody to shout out?

Maraya: There’s a friend, Anthony, who plays in Foreign Policy. We played two shows with them and they’re really good.

Devin: That was our first avenue to getting our first gig, so it was a nice connection and helped us get rolling with that. Shout out to Anthony.

Alton: Shout out Nathan. Shout out to Lizzie Died Young.

What direction does Willowick want to go?

Devin: Just to keep expressing ourselves fully. Even if it’s abstract or weird or if people don’t like it, I don’t really care to be honest. I hope people like it but that’s not the point. Just expressing ourselves, getting our emotions out, make people feel things.

Maraya: Yeah, just putting our ideas out.

Where can we find you on social media?

Nicolas: We are on Instagram @ilovewillow