Interview: The Paperhead
We spoke with Walker Mimms of The Paperhead about their newest release Chew.
You guys recently announced the release of your fourth album, Chew, on Trouble In Mind Records. How will Chew be different from your previous releases?
Chew, in our eyes, is more of a spontaneous group effort including our engineer/buddy Jake Davis. I think we've opened up to new influential topics reaching further away from our older albums, telling different exciting stories and talking about modernity and so on.
You guys are from Nashville. Obviously, the city is full of country and folk music happenings. Is there a thriving neo-psychedelic scene there or are you guys a solitary feature of the music community there?
Oh yeah there's a HUGE amount of bands that are in the local neo-psych, garage rock, diy etc. scene whatever it may be. Nashville is a haven for all kinds of bands honestly.
What parts of living in Nashville improve your songwriting and accelerate your creativity?
Southern food, and learning about true revolutionary music history concerning areas right down our street. Local culture and history in general.
Your music contains features from a wide realm of psychedelic music spanning several decades of rock history. What were your main influences and how do you pull together the different layers for Chew?
We all bring different stuff to the table, it's hard to describe exactly what we all like individually but we came together as friends in high school wanting to be in a prog rock band like Yes or Zappa. It all makes since when we sing along to Apostrophe.
What was the recording process like for Chew?
We have a 1/2 inch 16 track that we use, along with a trusty cassette 8-track. But we dump it all to protools usually later and do more details in the mixing process with our friend Cooper Crain. And it's more fun when we record in the woods at a cabin.
Is the songwriting done collectively? How do you divvy up the creative processes?
We all bring individual demos to the table, the only suggestion between us is to record a little something to review at home before we all try to play it as a group.
You guys are heading to Europe for a tour beginning at the end of March. Have you toured Europe before? What are the most enticing parts about touring? What will you miss most in Nashville while you're gone?
Love seeing new cities and glad we're going to mainly new ones on this next tour, it'll be our second full Euro tour. Haven't been on the road in a while, and will definitely miss Southern/Mexican food most of all after eating nothing but bread and cheese overseas!
Lastly, can we get the inside scoop on your meeting with Steven Tyler per your Instagram post a couple of months ago?
I ran into Steven Tyler at a party.