White Lung are loud, heavy and straight to the point. They’re a punk band that started off destroying people’s young minds in garages in Vancouver. Now they are touring the world sharing their 90’s hard-hitting flavor. I spoke to the lead singer lordess, Mish Way at the end of a working day. I was ready to go home, she was just waking up at a friends house in Berlin, Germany preparing for another day of touring.
Hey Mish, how you doing?
I’m good, how are you?
Yeah pretty good, just finishing work so I’m pretty psyched to go home.
Oh are you? I’m just waking up…
Ah, so you’re getting psyched to do shit…
Yeah I’m in Germany so it’s a bit different.
Germany, eh?
Yeah I’m in Berlin staying at a good friend’s place, we’re on tour right now…
How is Europe going, is everyone enjoying the shows?
Yeah, yeah it’s great, everyone’s been really, really nice. It’s nice that Domino (Records) have all their people around and everyone’s been great to us. All the shows have been really nice so far so I can’t complain.
I just wanted to start with something a bit off topic. In Australia, we’ve just had our national budget handed to us and it sucks. There are cuts to the ABC, funding for pensioners, the health system, attacks on the environment, foreign aid and also for the unemployed – it’s pretty much fucked. I’ve been divulging all this info whilst listening to your music and I can’t help but feel pissed off. Did something piss you off from an early age to start playing in a punk band or was it more the sound you enjoyed?
I think for me it was a lot of things but kind of dumb things. I mean, I grew up in the suburb and everything was ok but I also grew up playing a sport that was really strict and I also grew up around really shitty men. Like really shitty. It’s not their fault, its just where they grew up. They were really closed-minded and narrow-minded and that made me mad. I think that’s what fuelled so much for me to start playing and just to get out and I just thought, “I can’t handle these people anymore.” It wasn’t anything to do with violence or something like that I just thought, “Oh my god I can’t deal with this.” Like I can’t get treated like this and have people be this…stupid.
Yeah stupid people can really get on your nerves and make you feel a bit trapped…
Why are you mad at your country? I thought everyone got paid well in Australia and everyone was a good friend… Don’t you make like $27 an hour?
(Laughs) Oh some people do, I definitely don’t…
This is just what I’ve been told. I’ve been told I should go to Australia and be a waitress.
(Laughs) It is great wage for a lot but we also pay a lot of tax. And we currently have a dickhead of a prime minister who just cut the budget for all the people who aren’t doing so well and put it into fighter jets and making it easier for the rich to get richer pretty much.
Yeah I tell you now, I’m from Canada but I live in America now and man, it gives me such an appreciation for my country sometimes, because America is fucked up. I got so sick in January and I’d never experienced a situation where you can’t go see a doctor, I had to wait and wait and then pay… Anyway, anyway we’re getting off topic here.
Yeah, yeah ok we’ll slide back in. Your sound is epic. It’s got this 90’s punk feel similar to tracks that we were listening to on surf movies when we were growing up in watching them on VHS. But it has your dominant female vocal, which I love. What bands did you grow up listening to?
When I was a teenager the initial thing that happened to me first was listening to Nirvana and then after Nirvana I found out all these great 90’s punk bands that were happening and I found, Mark Flanagan, The Clippers etc… – it was like peeling an onion. Because back then I was like five years to late to be living in that scene in real time the way you found music then was different too. You would be CD shopping and looking through magazines. Also the way I found other bands in those days is like, for example, through reading an interview with someone like Joni Mitchell and then hearing what she was listening too you know what I mean?
So Anne-Marie, our drummer, really bonded because we had a lot of the same influences whereas Kenny (guitarist for White Lung) who is younger then us has more of this post-punk kind of gothic pallet. I think also we got into this because when I was living music in real time and when I was in high school what was alternative and “cool” was soooo bad like Korn and Limp Bizkit and I was like “I don’t relate to this” so I kind of went backwards. For me music is something that I love so much and I’ve tried to discover more and more about always. I really will listen to everything. Anything with guitars pretty much- I’m going to like it, I like rock music.
So Kenny’s the only dude in the band, does he get picked on for, you know, having a penis?
(Laughs) Yeah, well of course we pick on Kenny. Not only can Kenny take it and take it with grace he also… he’s like… Kenny’s a fucking weirdo. (laughs)
He’s pretty good. We were in France the other day and someone asked him what it’s like to be in a band with all these women all the time. And he was like, “I don’t know, what are you talking about?” He’s so good-natured about everything and really relaxed.
Yeah he sounds like a good guy to have around. He’s hooks and riffs on every recording are very prevalent. Does he make sure they are heard or does that come about naturally, do you just let him shred away?
Well Kenny and I kind of have this thing where we are a good team. My approach to signing is very direct, more straight-forward and confident, there’s no real… ‘spazzing’ to it. Whereas the way Kenny plays guitar is the complete opposite. I think when he realized that contrast between us the more he pushed it. And so this last record he really tried to create the distinction between the two. He’s just naturally a very anxious person as well so he plays in a way that is ‘spaz’ but it’s orchestrated and it works. Kenny’s an amazing guitar player, he also does this thing where he’ll create structures on the fret board where it is purposefully strenuous and difficult to play so other people can’t duplicate his style easily. What a psycho huh?
Yeah, self-inflicted pain to hide his treasures, that’s great.
Yeah, he’s like a mental patient.
Does punk have a definite male dominance, have you ever felt any weird macho vibes when doing shows with other male punk bands or are they usually pretty respectful and into your performances?
I never feel that that’s a problem being in bands, I had more trouble as a waitress. Vancouver’s punk scene is not big enough to be ‘clicky’ and shitty. It’s really diverse and its great. You could be all playing in a garage together somewhere strange and there are no gender issues. Whereas you could go down to Florida and its different. They’re all like “All you guys are drug addicts” and blah blah blah. Vancouver never had that because it has a small town vibe. I can’t really complain about everything because the more I travel the more I realize how easy my life has always been. My circumstance growing up was not that bad at all compared to others. That doesn’t take away anything or make any feeling I have not as real but I’m just saying it’s not really as bad as it could be.
And how about your shows coming up in Australia, have you ever been?
No, I’ve never been so I’m really excited. I always had this vision that I’d never go to play there for some reason, I didn’t see it as a place for us to go play but everyone kept telling us we have to because it’s great. I’m looking forward to it.
I think you’re songs would suit a surf clip, I’d like to make a clip to your music one day. Does anyone surf in the group? Ok, cool. No, no-one surfs. I think Kenny might try it – he’d try anything. I never would, I wouldn’t want to swallow that much water.
– Colbey
White Lung’s new album is out June 17th titled ‘Deep Fantasy. ‘
Australian tour dates –
JUNE 5 – Sydney – Factory Theatre
JUNE 6 – Brisbane – Alhambra Lounge
JUNE 7 – Melbourne – The Tote
JUNE 9 – Melbourne – Howler Bar
Buy tickets at: whitelung.ca
