Elk Walking has evolved over the past few years from an acoustic duo
into a full band, debuting Between Us as their first full-length album.
Self-proclaimed as an album of honesty, the freshly formed band
wanted to capture the essence of the group's newly discovered energy.
With an upcoming headlining show on Sunday, April 15 at Elbo Room,
we decided to take some time to get to know the indie band by speaking
with Julian and Savanna.
Would you care to briefly introduce the band?
S: Julian and I both play the tambourine mainly. Sometimes, we play guitar too and sing.
Just kidding. We both are on lead vocals/rhythm guitar, switching off depending on the song. Jeff is also on guitar! We are a very guitar-centric band, always searching for ways to improve on our craft but I think we’ve learned over time by playing together more and more how not to step on each other, having three guitarists in the band. Then we’ve got Tyler, who holds it all down on the drums and David holding things down as well, he’s the newest member of the group, on the bass guitar.
Photo by Mckenzie Hanson
How did you all go about choosing a band name? What are the reasons it stuck?
The band name [Elk Walking] doesn’t hold any specific significance— it's just something that represents the overall vibe of the project.
Acknowledging that your debut LP was released in August 2017, how did the creative process differ from when you recorded your first EP?
S: The first EP, The Road Ahead was recorded in 10 days summer of 2015 and released in March of 2016. It was really not planned out in great detail. We took the 6 best songs we had written as a duo [Savanna and Julian], and recorded them with some of our college friends. The EP was recorded and mixed at a local Chicago studio called Rax Trax that I heard about from my ensemble director, Nicholas Tremulis, and a handful of Columbia students were going there and recording for class projects at the time.
We recorded and mixed Between Us over the span of a few months during early winter of 2017 at Treehouse Records: Recording Studio in Chicago. The creative and overall process for the LP was much more of a thought out, collaborative effort. We had been playing certain songs that ended up on the album live as a band, gigging around Chicago for about a full year before deciding that we wanted to go back into the studio and record again.
Julian has five songs on the new album he wrote and I have five. We weren't planning to split it up evenly like that but that's just how it ended up. Before bringing these new songs to the studio to record the album we spent months with the rest of the guys writing and rewriting parts, continuing to feel the songs out and play them at shows - thinking about studio arrangements, if we wanted to bring in a few friends to play keys, other instruments to add to the songs, etc. (which we did end up doing for a few tracks.)
Photo by Catalina Florea
What's the composition process like? Is there a main songwriter or do all members bring different parts to the table? Do you start with a riff, lyrics, or a mix?
J: Savanna and I write the songs and then bring them to the band, lyrics and chords written. A lot of times the song form changes as we work on it with the rest of the band and sometimes instrumental sections are added and things are rearranged but the general skeleton of the song stays the same. I'd say the songs are really about the lyrics.
Focusing further on lyricism, do the lyrics have deeper meaning, tell a story, or are just lyrics for the purpose of conveying emotions for your audience?
J: A lot of these songs are stories about love and what comes with love, or heartbreak. Some of them are about struggles of life, like friends battling with alcoholism or depression, and some describe dreamscape like imagined settings. Some have deeper meanings but I think it would be something that means something different for each listener. It's not something concrete we planned out.
What emotions do you want to resonate with your audience? What genre would you consider yourselves to fall under?
J: Through my lyrics I desperately want to express positivity and love, and optimism about the future of humanity. Although lots of my songs are darker and sad, I think it's worth writing about those emotions because they are worth recognizing and contemplating in order to get through to the other side of them. I always try to keep the lyrics hopeful even when they talk about sad things. I think I'm a generally optimistic person who believes in the great potential of humanity. If there's any message I'd like to convey it's that.
S: I hope to convey an overall positive message through my songs as well, even when touching on subjects such as a break of a relationship, depression, or substance abuse. I still try to come out of it [the song] with a positive outlook or “light at the end of the tunnel.” I would say that Julian and I have a 'different enough but similar enough' approach to songwriting I think and that’s why it works well as a collaborative effort to tell these stories we write for this band. I strive to be able to resonate with every individual who cares to listen to our music and especially, being an openly gay woman in society today, I hope to empower other women in the LGBTQ community through my songwriting and relate to them by sharing my own personal experiences.
Photo by Catalina Florea
What's it like to grow as a band in Chicago? What are you looking forward to?
S: We all love the city of Chicago and it has been really fun so far being able to grow together as a band in the local scene here. We are looking forward to playing at Elbo Room and are happy to be supporting the non-profit organization, Hope For The Day. We are also looking forward to putting out a new single we’ve been working on for the past few months. That will be out sometime early this summer.
Stay tuned with Elk Walking by checking out these links below and seeing them Sunday, April 15 at Elbo Room!
Music: Bandcamp, Spotify, Soundcloud
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