Interview: Inner Wave

Part One: An encounter with my favourite band 

Have you ever heard a song so good it stops you in your tracks?

I was folding laundry when it happened. After first hearing Song 3, I lurched across the room for my phone, desperate to find the unknown name that was suddenly so important to me. And if you don’t know the name Inner Wave, here’s a gift from me to your ears, free of charge.

A five-piece ensemble, the cool Californian band consists of Pablo Sotelo on lead vocals and guitar, bassist and vocalist Jean Pierre Narcaez, guitarist and keyboard player Elijah Trujillo, Luis Portillo on the drums and vocalist and keyboardist Chris Runner. Jean Pierre, Elijah and Pablo even go as far back as secondary school! They have released three fantastic albums - the latest being the mesmerising story Underwater Pipe Dreams – each project unique, each song shape shifting between genres, and there is no band or artist I have come across in my musicophilic life that I could compare these to. And isn’t music that sounds nothing like you’ve heard before the best kind of music? 

With splashes of rock, indie, psychedelia, dance pop, and more, the sonic concoction that is Inner Wave should not be missed out on. If Shrek was real, he would concur that they make musical onions. Why? Ogres have layers. Inner Wave has layers. Since I was given my first dose, they had me addicted. What followed in the next two years involved many hours of listening, sharing with friends who I knew would appreciate them (you know who you are), and researching the enigmatic band, on the constant look out for a UK tour. 

Fast-forward to 2019, a baking hot day in which two years of manifesting were coming to fruition. May 10th and the Amazing Abbey (who shares my love for small indie bands) and myself found ourselves at The Dive, a medium white marquee sat within The Great Escape’s small but lively festival ground, smack bang in the middle of Brighton Beach. We veered to a long bar at the forefront of the buzzing promenade, faced the pink shoreline sunset on some large couches, (cracking idea), downed our drinks, then rushed back to The Dive. Two night buses from Cardiff at 2am that morning, 5 gigs, and a day of walking around Brighton had led to this point, and we were flagging. But we had to reserve our spots for the most important gig of the day. Watching a band so close to my heart was a 2019 highlight, and then getting to chat with them after their show is one of my most important personal achievements. I spent twenty terrific minutes with these artistes, a chat more than a formal interview, but here goes: 

S: First off, thanks so much, guys! One line that sticks in my head from you guys is “Our children will be buried under blankets of snow”. This reminds me of 18th century romantic poetry. I love how you juxtapose an upbeat, warm track with sometimes dark, gothic lyrics, does this idea resonate with you? 

P: That definitely resonates with our sound! Funny, I don’t think anyone’s brought up that line before. I like to juxtapose stuff a lot in my music. I think it makes for interesting art, too. 

S: Definitely! You can’t have the good without the bad. You guys are lifelong friends: if you guys could sit and have a conversation with your thirteen-year-old selves, what would you say?

P: That’s a good question. Maybe just keep doing what you’re doing. You know like the butterfly effect, like if you could go back in time and change a little thing things could be completely different? 

S: Yeah, yeah 

P: Yeah, I wanna avoid that. And just say to myself: keep going, things will work out. 

S: I mean definitely, you guys have been grinding a long time

P: I would also say to myself, when you get to the UK, get power converters, I would say that

S: Ahaha 

(They had technical trouble during the show) 

P: We would have been ready; we had all our shit set up. My pedal board, when I plugged it in, would cut all the electricity out for some reason. 

S: It was still an amazing show, still made my year

IW: Thank you!

S: It was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen, because it was you. 

P: We definitely want to come back for maybe a support tour or a small headline run

S: You guys understand the importance of layers, transitions, and long instrumentals. Most of the stuff I hear these days sounds similar to one another, but you guys are different. Your sound is so distinct, whimsical, magical, it's transient. It makes me feel things I didn’t know I could feel. 

P: Hellllll yeah! We need you to write our bio

S: I would LOVE to write your bio

JP: Yo, can you rate our accents later? We’ve been working on our English accents

S: Yeah definitely!! Hahaha. If you guys could perform on stage with any band alive, deceased, or split, who would it be, and why? 

P: The Doors 

S: You guys remind me of The Doors sometimes, when you use organs and harpsichord

E: I don’t know if it would go together, but Cortex. That shit would be tight. 

S: If you guys had to pick an animal to encapsulate the spirit of Inner Wave, which would it be? 

P: A zebra. It looks like one thing, but it’s a different thing, yanno. 

JP: A shrimp

E: A jaguar 

S: From the Deth cover art! When you put that out, holy fucking shit, I had it on full blast alone in my back garden! Deth displays your versatility. You could probably make music of any genre you chose, yet you go down the path that you do. Then you released Deth, a 180 from what you usually put out. Madness

P: Thank you, it was actually an April Fool’s Day joke! 

S: Is there an album from your childhoods that made you fall in love with music?

E: Probably that Cortex album, or Madvillain

S: Well, thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to speak with you and ask you a few questions, this has been a dream come to life!