When Chicago INNERVIEW asks Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s Alec Ounsworth how he’s doing, he sighs. “I’m alright,” he says. “I’m on the move. I have a flight in an hour and a half…” He sounds tired, which is not all that surprising considering as of right now, Ounsworth essentially is Clap Your Hands Say Yeah — pulling triple duty as guitarist, vocalist and synth-wizard (with help from producer/Reel Big Fish alumnus Matt Wong on bass.)
After a minor panic involving an international number was resolved with some hastily purchased Skype credits, Chicago INNERVIEW managed to get through to Belle & Sebastian singer/violinist Sarah Martin at her hotel in Bangkok, where the band is currently touring. In the past week they’ve played to crowds in Singapore and Taiwan, and a few days after our interview they’ll be in Tokyo. “It’s Chinese New Year here,” she says brightly, a Scottish lilt playing across each syllable. “I think we’re at a pretty cool part of the world.”
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There’s no one in music quite like Andrew W.K. Dressed from head to toe in good-guy-white and pretty much always donning a goofy smile, he’s the reverse image of the garden-variety gloom-and-doom metalhead. Andrew’s bafflingly affable persona makes him an outlier amongst fellow headbangers, but it’s his seemingly bottomless supply of party-starting energy and relentlessly positive outlook on life that has made him both an icon and an enigma…as well as a magnet for conspiracy theories. Andrew W.K. will be in Chicago this New Year’s Eve to rock a special show at Thalia Hall and while it’s sure to be an amazing time, it’s worth noting that he’s always as ready to “Party Hard” offstage as he is during one of his faithfully frenetic live sets that serve as high-octane testaments to the limitlessness of human possibility. Sometimes that means speculating on Nicolas Cage as a vampire or just chilling out to a rerun of Friendship Is Magic, and the other day it meant having a chat with the good folks at Chicago INNERVIEW.
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WHY? frontman Yoni Wolf’s songwriting and lyrical style is unforgettable at first listen as psychedelic imagery and wordplay of repressed memories hover over the wildest of mind-altering dreams. The ever-prolific and chameleonic Wolf has released hip-hop and trip-hop albums collaborating with Doseone in groups like cLOUDDEAD, Hymie’s Basement, Reaching Quiet, and Greenthink among other sonic collaborations and side projects while helping to co-found the L.A.-based experimental hip-hop label Anticon. Chicago Innerview had some time to speak with Wolf about his life and how he’s kept his sanity over the past decade of touring.