Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Columbus Alive: Fatherhood Inspires New Whiles Album ‘Mercury Ghost’

Lots of bands come together and burn out in short periods. Luckily The Whiles, while only four albums deep, have managed to stay loosely together and put out material every few years. Here is an article from the Columbus Alive regarding their 2013 album Mercury Ghost.
When Whiles singer Joe Peppercorn and his wife had their first child seven years ago, it changed the way he viewed his role in the universe. 
“I describe being a parent to people as that ‘Back to the Future’ photo, where Marty McFly sees himself start to disappear,” said Peppercorn, clad in a Brian Wilson T-shirt at a Downtown coffee shop. “I think that’s a good thing, realizing how small I am and how many billion people [there are]. I never understood that until I had children and realized how much bigger the world is than myself.” 
That change of perspective worked its way into the Whiles’ excellent new album, Mercury Ghost, which the band will celebrate with a release show at Ace of Cups on Friday, Nov. 4. The lush, melodic pop record is the band’s fourth release on Anyway Records in a nearly 20-year career that has seen the Whiles flirt with major-label success and play alongside many national acts, especially early in its career. 
2012′s Somber Honey ushered in the second phase of the Whiles, in which Peppercorn and his bandmates accepted that mainstream success may never come, and that live performances and releases may be few and far between. But the chemistry and friendship among the members - singer/guitarist/pianist Peppercorn and his brother, lead guitarist Matt Peppercorn, plus bassist Chris Bolognese, guitarist/engineer Jake Remley and Cleveland-based drummer Paul Headley - glue the Whiles together. 
“It’s a very intense connection,” Peppercorn said. “That’s the only reason we’re able to still be a band. We can get together and it clicks. I think there’s an implicit agreement that if we get together and it doesn’t work, that’s when we should probably stop.”

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