Q&A: Fwango Faces “Consequences”

MusicQ&A

Jul 18

INTERVIEW

THE FWANGO FRIENDSHIP FEELS LIKE “GOING TO A HOUSE PARTY WITH ALL YOUR FRIENDS,” in the words of drummer Cody Pomeroy. College-turned-lifelong best friends Logan Hall, Cal Gunderson, Cody Pomeroy, and Zachery O Wagner have brought their brotherhood from shows in their backyard to venues across LA with their string of indie-rock singles.

On June 27, Fwango released their latest single, “Consequences,” bringing that house party vibe to the summer. Offering enthusiastic drum grooves from Pomeroy, an energetic bass line from Wagner, and a playful guitar solo from Gunderson, the song sonically screams late-night drive or shower concert. Hall’s complex song form and lyrical narrative bring an edge to this otherwise upbeat summer tune, however, reminiscent of Harry Styles’ “As It Was.” Just as often as their song explores the sentiment that “baby, it is of no consequence,” does the titular lyrical sequence remind that “all the consequences are creeping up on me / all the consequences are just crushing me.” The juxtaposition of these perspectives brings a realism to Hall’s reflection on the anxiety that often accompanies good times.

Fwango is dedicating the next phase of their project to more releases and putting together a more cohesive and larger drop, like an EP or album. See them perform “Consequences” live September 14 through a The Luna Collective Presents show at Gold Diggers LA with Dafna and Zuli Jr.

Continue reading for a glimpse into the band’s free-spirited approach to evolving their sound, how their careers in film and video influence their band visuals, and why they arrived at going by Fwango:

HALL: Well, we had a list of about 120 names, and there was not a single name that all four people liked. And I think by the time Fwango came around, it was a word that had “mouth-feel.” So we were just like, yeah, that'll do, because we were getting pretty into, like Fireflies in a Barn Telling Stories at Night territory.

POMEROY: We had a lot of long names, and then it was just like, Fwango, yeah, that's it!

LUNA: Yeah, it just rolls off the tongue. Well, thank you for taking the time to speak with The Luna Collective! On June 27, you released your latest single, “Consequences.” Congratulations! For readers who haven’t listened yet, how would you sonically describe it?

HALL: It's a mess (laughs). No, I always called it in our group chat, and I don't know if this ever picked up steam, but I always said it’s kind of like a Weezer song. Big guitars is a word I think I would use.

POMEROY: Very fuzzy. It's a very fuzzy song. The guitars are, which I guess has a Weezer ‘90s feel. But then verse two diverges completely.

HALL: Yes, it's not very in-your-face for how much guitar is going on. Definitely at points, like when there are eight layers of guitar. We're not sophisticated enough to make a shoegaze song, but the direction would be lots of guitars stacked on top of each other. So it's like, sawing off the rough edges. And, yeah, I think Cody's right, that verse two is the only time where it's really, “boom, boom, boom,” punching at you a bit.

GUNDERSON: It always gives me a throwback vibe, sort of Weezer-y, and I think we tried to make a more fun song. Not that I don't think our songs are fun, but I think they've been very minor key, a little more serious. This one's a lot more upbeat.

HALL: There are a lot more backing vocals on this. Usually, our backing vocals are just layered in there for a harmony. Our first song, “If You Want Me to Move,” has some sweet harmony backing vocals. But otherwise, it's pretty much just been me, and a little of Cal on “Over It” at one part. But this one has a call and response, and I think that has a really good sound. To be able to hear it listening back, and for the first time, not get that “ahh” listening to myself feeling all the time, because I hear Cody responding, or Cody and Zach at the end.

POMEROY: And then I'm finally on the track, and I go “ugh” when I hear myself, and I'm like, go back to Logan.

LUNA: It’s hard to hear your own voice!

HALL: It’s hard, too, once you get out of the studio, because it's kind of locked in. When you're recording a demo at home, I've literally taken the last five seconds of a line. But when you have a mixing engineer sitting with you comping it, you're sitting there, like, I could go back, but I'm only going to ask to get back in there so many times. So you live with your decisions, but maybe in a good way. When we first had it coming out of all that, there were parts where it's like, oh man. But now I think all that stuff is exactly what it needed.

LUNA: I like that. Tell me more about the meaning behind its titular lines: “All the consequences are creeping up on me, All the consequences are just crushing me,” and the story this song provides overall?

HALL: I'm pretty bad at writing lyrics where it's just one narrative story. Usually, there's an idea, and then what I end up doing is I'll write a verse idea that ends up challenging the initial premise. So it’ll be the premise of a song, and then either the narrator or just the universe will be like, “nah, that's not true.” So “all the consequences are creeping up on me” is a fun summer song, but there's an anxiety bubbling under it, like something's chasing you. And then you get into the first verse, and it's a narrator who's confidently trying to tell someone else, “Hey, all this sh*t we have to deal with: just throw it away. It doesn't matter. It's you and me here. It's us versus the world.” But then it basically keeps going back and forth between that feeling and the more internal feeling that it's not that easy to just throw away the past and all your problems. It has a simple and liberating feel. It's kind of a push and pull. That's why the consequences thing is the brain, at least in my mind, because that's what, at least for me writing, it always came back to. Despite these fake moments, you’re like, I broke out of my chains. I'm throwing all this stuff away, and it feels so good. At the end of the day, you'll always reckon with the consequences of your actions a little bit.

LUNA: So, before “Consequences,” you released singles “Never Sleep” and “Over It” last year. While “Never Sleep” offers a sulking and repetitive synth pattern, “Over It” has more of a chill New York garage rock vibe. “Consequences” seems to creatively diverge from these other recent releases. Would you say its feel is one you hope to move further towards in the near future, or will your next releases show off yet another side to your sound?

GUNDERSON: Yeah. I mean, the next song we're gonna drop doesn't sound a ton like this song, but I would say it at least heats up. The chorus is happy, just like this chorus is happy. So we're having two happy choruses in a row, which is rare.

POMEROY: I feel like the trend or theme of all of our songs has been driving, and they've been driving in different ways. “Never Sleep” was heavy and very crashy, and “Over It” was also driving, but in more of a Strokes-coded way. I feel like this next song that we're working on is also driving, but it has a different tone to it.

LUNA: With all of the different vibes your singles offer, what would you say are some of the through lines signature to Fwango?

POMEROY: I will say a shredding solo from Cal Gunderson is a signature piece of the Fwango equation. Also, I think structurally, we try to avoid this, but we always do a fast double-speed second verse.

HALL: Pretty much only the drums. Tapping the hi hat super fast, 16th notes.

POMEROY: I feel like whoever writes the demo, they'll write a verse one and a chorus one, and then we write verse two. But, what do we do now? I'm like, what if I play really fast? We're all like, yeah, that's it, and the formula has worked.

HALL: That's kind of on me too, because I think sometimes when writing demos, I get lazy, and I won't really write a verse two, because in my head, I'm like, well, of course it's gonna be basically the same as verse one, right? So I'll just write a verse, a chorus, and a bridge, and I'll meet up with the guys. Then, when we do, someone will say something along the lines of, I feel like it really dips in energy around verse two.

POMEROY: And I’ll say, well, I'll play twice as fast. But I think generally it’s a good momentum shift. I feel like the other parts space out in verse two. We have different things that pull out of the arrangements, like more energy in the drums.

HALL: I think we generally have more complicated bass lines than other people, maybe not more complicated, but bouncier bass lines than a lot of other things.

GUNDERSON: Yeah, we’re trying to avoid bass that’s just an extension of the drums. We want to make it its own thing, which I feel like we've done really well with all of our recent releases, especially our next song coming up. It's very bass-heavy. That's something I always like to do when I write.

HALL: I feel like the person who came up with the sound definitely carries into ours. So it's an interesting question of what are our through lines? Because I feel like all the stuff that Cal originally hit has a driving baseline that oftentimes, at least in my perspective, a lot of my stuff does have like a pretty fuzzy, ubiquitous, guitar. “Cover My Eyes” feels a little different too, because Zach came to that one. So I don't even know what that really has that’s different. But I think a lot more guitar interplay on that, although Cal does a great job for that as well.

LUNA: So far, the band has put out six singles since September 2022. Are there plans to put these towards an EP or album?

POMEROY: We've talked many times about it. I think this next phase of Fwango is going to be interesting, because I feel like we've found a new workflow. Especially with Zach being in New York, but I think we have a lot of ideas and we're excited to write something that does have more of a through line, as a package deal. We want to write something that has a theme as a bigger project, because we've released six songs in two and a half years to want to do something that we can really sink our teeth into.

HALL: I think the general feeling is this is getting to be about that time, but I would not expect this last one “Consequences” to be a part of that package. I think when that package comes, it's gonna be fresh material, but that's where the wind is blowing. For me, the conversation has always been, if we're gonna do an EP, it should be about more than the music industry, where you're like, okay, well, if we package it, that's a good idea. Versus these are all songs about relationships. So these are all songs about the environment. I think we need to come together and figure out what that next space is that’s out there.

POMEROY: We've even, just for fun, taken all the demo ideas we've had and tried to move them into different formations, to be like, oh, what if we did put these together as a project? And I think we're not quite there, but we have a lot of ideas.

HALL: We have a lot of demos that we've said are EP or album songs, where we never go to the studio because we were like, oh, that would be really cool as the opener of something.

LUNA: That's exciting.

HALL: Yeah, a lot of it's just sitting down and doing it, and getting Zach back here, going to New York, and knocking out a couple more.

LUNA: Tell me more about your creative vision with the “Consequences” music video, and what it was like filming it.

POMEROY: The vision went through a lot of iterations, but ultimately, I think because with this song we're always like, oh, this is gonna be the summer hit, this is our pop song. Since our first one, we wanted a simple concept to play with. And I think the idea evolved as Logan and I kept pitching things.

HALL: Ping-ponging it over text. And then there were things where it'd be like, that's cool, but can we do it? And we're like, oh no, we can't do it. So what can we do instead?

POMEROY: It started with, we were gonna shatter vases in slow motion. There was a lot of glass.

HALL: That was the first time where you're like, do you have the money to shatter a bunch of glass? So we were gonna shatter a lot of glass, throw multiple glass items on the ground. Looking back at that, I don't even know why that survived an hour, because none of those places should be cool with us doing that. They would look at their security footage so mad when they saw us shattering vases.

POMEROY: The ultimate goal is we wanted to create some kind of surreal feeling, like play-along scenes. We wanted some cool context to it, of a living room or a bedroom, and make these surreal setups.

HALL: Latching onto everyone having their own space, or room, and a liminal space was cool. But then from there, you start to think, okay, well, how do you make that a little more kinetic? Especially since another thing we were latching onto was static frame. So, do you like the idea of an area, and cutting, and you would always go back to the same setup, and how do you make that exciting? Oh, let's do sight gags. We had Cal, at a part where he doesn’t play guitar, go get a beer from the fridge. I think we came up with it on set. We were in this warehouse in a very strange area of downtown LA, and Cody DoorDashed a bunch of beers to the set. So we actually changed our shooting schedule, because now we had to wait to shoot.

POMEROY: We wanted to market us as a brand, put our faces on screen. That was a big part of it.

HALL: It was cool to see the drum set with Fwango on it in good lighting. One thing that was fun for us with it was just that we all work in the film industry too, so it was a chance to be a little more in charge of your destiny. It's nice to actually get to steer an idea.

POMEROY: It's rewarding to us, for sure, and we're both editors, so we could sit down together and sharpen our skills and make a great music video for the band.

HALL: It was cool when we were editing it, we’d cut a version, and then we’d re-cut it, and keep sending it back and forth. And then eventually we got together and spent an entire day just locking it in. It was a lot of fun.

LUNA: It was a fun watch! You’ve played many venues in and around LA. What atmosphere do you attempt to create at your shows?

GUNDERSON: I think a lot of our fans really enjoy jumping around and singing along. Our hottest choruses, like, “If You Want Me to Move,” people love to sing along to. People love chanting during “Never Sleep.” So that kind of stuff always makes me happy when I see people singing, and they all know when the cool moments are about to happen so then they start hyping each other up. I just feel like as long as they see us having fun, they're gonna have fun. So yeah, I just try to have as much fun as possible.

HALL: Yeah. I mean, it's weird preparing for the shows. It always feels super brave because we don't play that much. I feel like once we get up there things just start going horribly wrong in some random ways, and then it’s just a fun time. Like at our last show, Cody's snare stand, literally, the metal broke in half. We hadn't started playing yet, so it was fine. One of the other guys from another band, The Departures, shout out to them, went to a nearby place where they had a practice space super coincidentally. We aren’t born and bred live performers, so it was one of those ones where stuff always gets a little wonky, so we just try to have fun with it. People pick up on that. I feel like the anxious part melts away and it turns into a party.

POMEROY: It always feels like playing the best house show to me. Like our first show. We all went to college together, mostly. But I feel like our friendship is like going to a house party with all your friends. And our first show, literally was a backyard show at [Logan and Cal’s] house. And I feel like every show since then has felt like that, but the stage has just gotten bigger. But it's still like, well, we're probably gonna f*ck up, but our friends are gonna love it, so we just go with it.

LUNA: That’s great! What’s on the horizon for Fwango this year?

GUNDERSON: We got another song coming out, hopefully within two or three months, maybe even sooner. And from there, we're just planning on getting back to recording. We have a lot of demos on the horizon. I think we are starting to have that conversation more and more about releasing a larger body of work, so maybe that'll come next. Our goal was to just put more out this year, and I think we're doing that.

POMEROY: Because Zach is in New York, we would love to play a show out there on the East Coast, maybe in conjunction with going out to record. We opened up for a [New York-based] band who came out to California, and we'd love to maybe go out there and get our chops into a new city, because we've never played outside of LA, let alone California. So maybe that'll be in our future, but at least trying to play outside of Los Angeles would be a lot of fun.

HALL: Hopefully one or more singles this year. If there isn't more than one single this year, it's part of something larger that we can't put out, but we're trying to speed up. All of us write a lot, I think, more than we did. I know Cal has got a bunch of demos, and I have a bunch of verses.

POMEROY: See, my tactic is I write one song a year, so that way they feel guilted into recording it. And honestly, I think it might work.

HALL: I listen to it every night, like sh*t, we have to make this.

POMEROY: When you only make one banger a year, you gotta record it.

HALL: That is true. You have a completed song that we haven't done something with yet.

POMEROY: We'll see if it makes the light of day.

HALL: We're gonna play again in either late August or mid September. So we'll have another show in LA.

LUNA: Is there anything else you want to speak more on or introduce before we close?

HALL: On this song, we got to work with Greazy, who we worked with on our last song, “Over It.” He's a recording engineer here in LA, and he's really good, a really fun dude to hang out with. This is his second song with us, so I just wanted to give him a shout out for making it such an easy environment for us to rock out in, and teach us something along the way. And on our next song, we worked with him too. And then this song, “Consequences,” and our next song were also mixed by Cian Riordan, who is a super cool guy, way above our pay grade, as far as talent. He was willing to work with us and answered my email despite, like, I wouldn't answer an email from fwangoband@gmail.com but he did. So I think part of the coolest stuff about this song was due to him and his mixing. All this to say we're grateful we got to work with those guys.

POMEROY: I feel like he was like, I want to help out these kids. And he came to our show! It's like our friends, and then Grammy-winning, St. Vincent mixer. So cool. We're beyond grateful that we have these connections.