Columbus’ own: Way Yes’ pastel-clad dudes tackle mortality on new LP

Emily Real
Thu, 09 Nov 2017 04:24:26 +0000
Arts & Life, Features, Music, bands, Beach-goth, Columbus groups, columbus' own, dead ringer, featured, get dead, glenn davis, local music, max lewis, new LP, Ohio music, ready to die, Tuna Hair, Way Yes

Self-described “beach goth” band, Way Yes, released their second LP in late October. Credit: Courtesy of Nick Fancher

Way Yes, self-described “beach-goth” rockers, released its second LP “Tuna Hair,” last month. The new LP tackles mortality and death through lush and breezy indie-pop tunes with names such as “Dead Ringer,” “Get Dead,” and “Ready to Die.”

Way Yes frontman Glenn Davis said the spirit of juxtaposition is something that the band has always found intriguing, and thus has been ingrained in its music.

“The subject matter and the tone of the songs sometimes don’t match, or there’s both sides [to] the same thing, which we’ve always liked,” Davis said. “I think the same kind of thing is in these kind of morbid songs being presented by these four weird dudes.”

Guitarist and vocalist Travis Hall said Way Yes’ latest album was created on kind of a slow build. The band wrote a ton of demos, and then pared the demos down to songs that were the strongest from a structural standpoint.

“This time we were intentionally wanting to keep it more open, which we sometimes succeeded and sometimes didn’t,” Hall said. “I felt like we were trying to give it a little bit more space and rely on the songwriting and not so much on the production … we wanted to challenge ourselves to write songs that were just good, no matter what way they were played.”

Despite having just released a new album, future plans for Way Yes are blurry at the moment because the band’s percussionist, Max Lewis, moved to Denver shortly after the release of “Tuna Hair.”

That being said, the band hasn’t broken up, with a vinyl release show on the horizon early next year. Band members are OK with having a second to catch their breath, Davis said.

Self-described “beach goth” band, Way Yes, released their second LP in late October. Credit: Courtesy of Nick Fancher

“I think now we’re going to enjoy the record being out and taking a break, and then seeing how we feel,” he said. “We’re keeping it open.”

Hall and Davis said that over the seven years they’ve been together, they have found that the most important thing is keeping everything relaxed and fun.

Despite having to market and promote itself during its time off –– which the group has always found awkward and excruciating –– ?Davis said it still manages to keep up the positive energy.

“All of these kinds of things… are really hard for us to take seriously,” he said. “And so, even though we really do take our music seriously, with the promotion part for us we try to make it fun for us, the only way that we can have fun doing that kind of stuff is making that weird and push it a little bit.”