Wheat is a band that always seems to be at the beginning of something special. Over the arc of a professionally improbable, yet creatively inevitable, nearly 20-year career (yes, you read that number right – there’s a zero after that two), band founders/co-conspirators Scott Levesque and Brendan Harney have never been stand-still sort of guys, content to repeat popular formulas or dwell on what came before – whether triumph or tribulation.
Actually, they’ve never been content about much of anything. Which is precisely what makes Wheat artists in the truest sense of the word, restlessly conjuring new configurations of style, sound, and content from the tensile clay of their imaginations – and then recasting and reshaping those forms all in the name of reaching for new epiphanies.
They’ve certainly attained quite a few since their 1997 debut, the lo-fi indie-pop stunner, Medeiros (more on that in a minute) took us all unawares in its undertow. In between, Wheat have run the gamut of the so-called “music business,” from inside track to out. They’ve been signed to indie labels, major labels, more indie labels, and no labels. They’ve played Conan O’Brien’s shiny, star-studded stage and the sticky, beer-soaked floors of your local rock club. In short, they’ve done just about everything that comes with the rare but ruthless territory of being artists who insist on remaining true to themselves. And now, here they are. “I try not to dwell on the past and I’m not a big fan of regrets or the glory days, or what I’d do differently, or wish I had done,” says singer-guitarist Levesque. “And I never think things are lost or Wheat is over. I always feel there could be a sequel. I feel this really exciting energy now. Where that’s gonna go, I don’t know yet.”
A sequel indeed. With brand new music and a slew of multi-pronged Wheat projects in the works and on the way, the band is again poised to strike anew. Slated for this summer will be a new seven-song EP, Wishing Good Things for the World (out on Shorebird, a new Rhode Island-based new film and music company whose mission is to curate multi-media works combining film, fine art, and music). Also in the works is a documentary of the same name which will chronicle the story of two friends who met as art-obsessed students at college (UMass-Dartmouth) nearly 20 years ago, and embarked on a life of making music together. Along the way, they’ve been guided by a musical map populated by like minds and co-conspirators who’ve helped light their way (most notably, guitarist alum Ricky Brennan, who departed after Wheat’s third album and major label splash, 2003′s Per Second, Per Second, Per Second … Every Second).
A full-length album of all-new material is also set to accompany the film, which is still a work-in-progress (much like its subject). In the meantime, a deluxe, multi-format re-issue of the magnificent Medeiros is on tap to trigger our collective sense-memories of the first time we heard this utterly enthralling band. For an outfit that’s made a marvelously adventurous career of looking forward rather than gazing back, both the career-overview documentary and the re-release of Medeiros represents an about-face of sorts. But the time is finally right, say Brendan and Scott, to pause for a little reflection: to sum up what was; take stock of what is; and contemplate what may come of those considerations. “Scott and I have never been people to spend much time thinking about what we’ve done,” says Harney, Wheat’s drummer and sometime singer and keyboardist. “By the time Medeiros came out, we were already moving on in our heads and writing new material for the next thing, because that’s what’s exciting for us as artists.” But with half a dozen full-length albums, not to mention assorted EPs and singles scattered across the better part of two decades, Brendan says, “it was time for Scott and I to assess where we were as a band, and what the band was about.”
As is so often the case in Wheat’s world, serendipity played a part in their appraisal and conception of the forthcoming Wishing Good Things for the World EP. Brendan tells the story of a friendly neighbor who, knowing Harney had a band, one day anxiously approached him with a query: Would he be interested in adopting an old church organ that the neighbor’s father had played for years before he passed away? Neither neighbor nor church had room for such an old behemoth anymore and, sadly, its undignified destiny appeared to be the trash heap. Not so fast. Not only was that orphaned organ the basis for a new track, “Rescue,” but its unruly majesty is all over the new EP, he says with a chuckle. “In some ways, it became about a kind of a rescue for us and what we were about,” Harney says. “Not only in salvaging (the organ) so it didn’t get thrown away, and that his father’s memory could be with it, but it’s also something we can use to conjure new memories. How weird is that? When you’re not expecting it, something comes along to rally around.”
“Our stuff, at the heart of it, always comes from some kind of truth in our own lives,” he continues. “We’ve never been the kind of guys who can just whip up a story. Unless you do the living, there’s nothing to write about. So when I go back and listen to everything we’ve ever released, the styles are sort of different … some may be cleaner than others, or some may be more upbeat, or some may employ a little more studio chicanery. But it all sounds like Wheat to me.” From the autumnal glow of ‘99′s Hope and Adams to the prismatic pop of 03′s Per Second Per Second Per Second … Every Second to the bumptious clatter of ‘09′s White Ink, Black Ink, it is ultimately Wheat’s mercurial spirit and soulfully resonant writing that unifies the work as a whole. In fact, “Changes Is,” a jubilant song from it most recent White Ink, Black Ink, may be the band’s most directly autobiographical: “We tend to change our minds / We tend to take wide turns / And our steps are out of time / We watch our bridges burn / Changes is the better part of me.”
Call Wheat an alchemy of ostensibly contradictory sonic impulses. They’re artful masters of melody, bridge, and chorus who revel in scuffing the pop polish, and gleefully turning everything inside out and upside down. “I never liked the new pair of shoes or new shirt,” Levesque says with a laugh. “I would always like to ball the shirt up first. I feel weird about wearing a new sneaker. I want to rub a little dirt on it. I’m probably an egomaniac with an inferiority complex. I’m trying to blend in while I’m screaming.” What remains unsullied is the core common denominator of this band: a fruitful creative partnership fashioned from a friendship that began when Scott and Brendan were dreaming kids in college. The intervening years have brought changes, naturally, because life will do that. But it’s also brought newfound perspective. “It’s nice to have a little body of work now to think about,” says Levesque. “It’s funny how life happens that way. You don’t expect to have any history, and then suddenly, in doing life you end up with some. The quest for beauty, that’s what keeps me interested. I hope it never ends.” [Jonathan Perry, Spring 2014]
