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“In love with both The Stooges and The Jam… steamroller guitar riffs and vocals about partying all night every night.” -NME
“The bastard child of Irish whiskey and cheap American beer.” -NoiseTrade
“Radiating the very soul of rock ‘n roll across the decades and pin-pointing it to this very moment. ” -Heavy Planet
“You know that buzz you get right about the time you’ve had plenty to drink? It’s like that. Fearless. Exciting. Alive.” -Maine Music News
“So edgy and so damn catchy you won’t be able to take it off repeat. Makes 99% of the rest of rock bands in Nashville look like boys choirs.” -No Country For New Nashville
BIO
Since they formed two years ago, The Wans have been unleashing shotgun blasts of rock & roll that have resounded from their hometown of Nashville (American Songwriter) all the way to London (NME). They’ve already opened for artists such as Pearl Jam, Beck and the Black Lips, and their music has been featured on ABC’s Nashville, A&E’s Longmire and USA’s Necessary Roughness.
Their new album He Said, She Said (out Sept. 9) was produced by Dave Cobb (Rival Sons, Jason Isbell) & mixed by Vance Powell (Jack White, Arctic Monkeys). The band wrote over 40 songs for the new record before whittling them down—with the aid of producer Cobb—to the 10 best. “We tracked all the songs in one week at Dave’s studio, which is completely analog,” says lead singer/guitarist Simon Kerr. “He has this old mixing board that some of our favorite albums were recorded on—The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin. The sound of that board really guided us on He Said, She Said. We cut it completely live—even the vocals.”
“And we were at Dave’s the whole time—basically slept on his floor the week we made the record,” says drummer Mark Petaccia. “We’d sleep for an hour or two a night then wake up, drink some whiskey and get back to recording. It was intense, but it was fun.”
On He Said, She Said, The Wans channel both the classic riff rock of Led Zeppelin & Cream and the grunge of ’90s bands like Nirvana & Soundgarden, but with a modern twist. “We’re all massive fans of ’60s rock and most certainly the early-’90s grunge movement,” says bassist Thomas Bragg, “but we didn’t really go into this planning to make a ’90s-sounding record. Once the album was finished, though, it had certainly gone in that direction, and we all looked at each other and knew we had something special.” The songs on He Said, She Said possess the same swagger as on the band’s 2012 self-titled debut EP, but they’re more focused than ever. And they’re all pretty much about drunken one night stands & break ups. (“Not that I endorse any of those things,” Kerr laughs.)
The Wans picked up their name from transplant Kerr’s hometown back in Ireland. “It’s everyday slang in Derry,” he says. “Pretty much, it means ‘The Ones,’ but the way it’s spelled is the way it’s pronounced in an Irish accent. So now everyone has to pronounce it that way!”
With the release of He Said, She Said, a new music video on the way, a fall tour in the works as well as some prime festival appearances at the Hangout, Forecastle and Austin City Limits, 2014 is set to be a breakout year for The Wans.
