White Lung singer Mish Way on their “most intelligent” album

Interview by Jason Schreurs

We got Mish Way, singer of Vancouver, BC punk band White Lung, on the horn to talk about jaw-dropping guitarist Kenneth William, sticking to her lyrical guns, and incestuous music journalism.

How are you feeling about singing to Domino?
We’re really happy and excited for the album to come out. After Spring last year we had a lot of different labels contacting us, but Domino seemed the best to me because there were no other bands on that label that were like us, and what we were doing, which I really liked. They really understand what our band is about and what we want to do, so we’re super excited to have the record come out on such a great label.

What is it that you want to do? What plans did you talk about with the label?
I have a pretty clear statement, lyrically, as far as the things I talk about and I didn’t want to curb that; I just wanted to propel it further. Also, we didn’t want to have to stop the speed, or aggressiveness, or loudness of our band, or anything like that, but at the same time we’re all musicians and we’re always going to get bored and want to try and do new things. This new record is different; it’s still a White Lung record, but it’s different.

What are your thoughts on the new album?
I’m super happy with it. It’s just a fat rock record, but it’s still super aggressive and it’s the most intelligent songwriting we’ve ever done. Ken’s guitar parts are totally amazing; they’re so delicate and smart. Some people don’t get everything that he’s doing, they just get bulldozed by the other stuff. But his guitar work on this record is insane. It’s a great record.

What’s it like playing with Kenneth and watching him do his thing?
It’s so fucking weird. It’s like watching… the only way I can equate it, and this is such a bad example, but I grew up dating skateboarders. You know when you’re watching someone skateboard and they do it in this way that they make it look so easy and so graceful and you don’t actually see the mechanics of their muscles, and their thought process, and the fear, and all of this stuff… That’s what I feel like just watching Kenny play guitar. It looks so effortless and so great and so insane. But when you really stop and think about what he’s doing, he’s such an incredible guitar player. Nobody plays like him. I dare someone to find a guitar player as unique and inventive that plays in his style today. There isn’t one! There’s just these stupid bar chords and these noodley solos, and that’s fine, but what he’s doing is orchestra shit. It’s fucking insane.

How did you meet him?
I worked in this dive bar in my early ‘20s and White Lung was all girls at the time and Kenny was in this band called Cheerleader Camp, but I think he played drums and keyboards and sang in this noisy, electro punk band. Him and his band used to play at this bar that I worked at and I would always give them booze and stuff. Then I got to know him from a venue called the Emergency Room when our bands played shows together. So then when our very first guitar player Natasha [Reich] left the band, Kenny just emailed us and said, “I know all of your songs. Can I come play?” and I didn’t even know he played guitar, so I said, “Yeah, cool,” and he was fucking amazing. It was like, “What the fuck just happened?”

I noticed you worked with Vancouver producer Jesse Gander again. What was that like?
He had a super big hand in production on the 7” and the album. We’ve worked with him from the beginning and I wouldn’t want to work with anyone else. Jesse’s so great. Then we got this girl Heba Kadry [at Timeless Mastering] in New York to master it and she just made the songs so loud and amazing. So her and Jesse made a really good mixing/mastering team.

How have your lyrics changed on the new album compared to your earlier stuff?
I feel like they’re less reactionary and immediate and more thoughtful. Normally when I would write lyrics in the beginning of White Lung we’d write in our jam space and I would take the first thing that came into my head. I could be a song about someone bumping into me too hard on the street earlier that day that would be in there, you know, because that’s what I was pissed off about at that moment. But now with this new record and the way we’ve been writing songs, I’ve had a lot more time to sit down and toil with my lyrics, and edit them, and play with them, and think about what I really want to say. This record is talking very universally, in a way, while still being very selfish and abstract and individual, which is the only way I know how to write. But I’ve had more time to think about what I actually want to say and just make better lyrics and better writing. I’m a writer. That’s what I do. So it just comes naturally to play with something over and over and over until it’s perfect.

How has it been balancing your writing with the music?
It’s hard right now, because there’s so much going on with the new record and music is kind of taking over. I’m also really trying to get away from music journalism because I find that it’s too much now with the band. I love doing that kind of stuff, and there’s things I’ll probably still do, but I’ve been doing more of the sex/relationship advice stuff that I do, and a lot more personal essays, rather than actually doing music writing. I’m trying to be selective about what I do because I don’t have the time. I also feel like it gets a little conflict-y, like people think I’m cheating or something by writing about certain bands. It gets too intertwined and incestuous and it feels a little weird.

Now that you’re signed to Domino do you think more people will get into the band?
I don’t know yet. I can’t answer that until we get back on tour. We’re not playing in North America until probably June, and we’re going over to Europe before that because I feel like we’ve just been touring so much here that people are sick of us. So, I don’t know. Until we go on tour, we won’t see the difference it makes.

White Lung‘s Deep Fantasy is out now on Domino Recording Company.