In Conversation With The Wanna Go
This past summer marked the two year anniversary of Salt Lake City locals, The Wanna Go. The band officially debuted with their self titled EP last year, and have been gaining momentum since their initial launch. Now with The Wanna Go’s newest EP, Wasteiod, they’ve traded in their previous honeyed nostalgic sound for one now more stentorian. The use of heavy instrumentation, and lead singer Jaxton Dayton’s raucous voice make Wasteoid an idiosyncratic listen. Salt Lily recently had the opportunity to catch up with Jaxson Dayton, Ian Hooper, and Christian Hooper of The Wanna Go
How did you guys start playing music together?
Ian: Christian and I have been playing music together since we were kids, just slogging through terrible punk covers in our basement when we were 13 and 16. We started our first "real" band together at 17 and 20, and Jaxson actually opened for us as a solo act at our very first show. He had just left a folk-pop band and was focusing on his own music, which was way different from what we're doing now. We had some lineup changes, leading to Jaxson joining on bass and vocals. We got close with each other and just decided to keep things as the three of us after the other guitarist left. Three name changes later, and here we are!
What inspired the band's sound?
Jaxson: We all had this deep mutual love for lots of different styles of music. Ian definitely leans more into the garage rock, psychedelic sound, Christian favors punk, and I'm really into pop music, so we just sort of fused all of it together. We're always sharing new music with each other and bringing our own tastes to the songs we write.
What is your usual song writing process?
Ian: Jaxson or I usually bring a frame or a blueprint to a song with chord progressions, riffs, bass parts, or drum ideas. We'll just jam on the basic ideas together and all throw things into the structure until we get something really cohesive. Christian doesn't do much writing, but the energy and the rhythm he brings to our songs is insane. Nothing feels really "whole" until Christian sits at his drum set and does his thing. He really gets Jaxson and I to run with our ideas and make changes that benefit the sound. I wrote the "blueprints'' to 5 of the 6 songs on Wasteoid, and Jaxson and Christian helped me get them where we wanted them to be as a band. It was a really cool process dissecting the bits and pieces I had and making them something better than the sum of those parts.
Do you have any message or question that you are trying to get through to the audience?
Jaxson: Ian and I came up with the concept for Wasteoid and I ran with it in all of the lyrics. It's supposed to represent the worst parts of ourselves. None of it is very... clean. We wanted to focus on how messy life is.
Ian: The hidden track, Halogen, is the only one I really wrote lyrics for, and it's about a really dark time in my life where I was more focused on drugs and self-destruction than anything. I wanted the EP to be self-deprecating in a way, while still being honest.
What is it like releasing an album/EP during a pandemic?
Christian: We started recording in March when Covid began poking its head. We realized that we were always around each other so we would be okay, and Jordan from Hard Jive studios reassured that we could get things done there just fine. The recording process was awesome, and it was really cool to have this DIY feel that was very personal. We finished it in April and had to wait all the way to now in order to release it because we wanted to play a show to launch it. We finally got tired of waiting and realized things won't be getting better any time soon, so we released it.
How is your upcoming album different from other things you’ve released before?
Jaxson: This one feels right. The first song from the EP we were playing to crowds was Midnight Runner, and every time we played it, we got high praise.
Ian: Yeah, I was pretty burned out from many of the songs off the first EP, so I totally changed direction and leaned heavily into a classic rock feel. It's so much more "us" than anything we've done before, but at the same time we're trying to avoid being put in a box, so we're branching out even more on the next project.
Is there a certain theme or story behind your new EP?
Ian: Everybody has those moments where you look inward and think, "am I a shitty person?" Asking and reflecting on that question was my whole purpose in writing the way I did. Recognizing that you're not always the good guy... we all make really poor choices that hurt people intentionally or otherwise.
What do you want your audience to get out of your music?
Jaxson: I want to challenge our audience to rethink how they see things. Put things in a different perspective.
Christian: Have passion in what you do, put yourself and your interests out into the universe and be proud of it.
Ian: Recognize when you're at fault, and do better. Love yourself.
Do you guys have any exciting projects/shows coming up?
Ian: Shows, sadly not due to the pandemic, but we are in the final writing stages of our next EP, which has much more of a psychedelic edge to it. Hoping to release in winter of this year. We have a huge catalogue of unreleased music, like 20 songs deep or so. We're working to get them recorded as much as we can.
How do you guys feel about being a band in Salt Lake City, do you guys think you will ever relocate?
Jaxson: Salt Lake is such an interesting place to perform. We've seen crowds totally reject bands you would think they would like, and others completely embrace bands you'd think they hate. Most of the time we have a good response from crowds, but because we're a bit different from a lot of groups in how aggressive and goofy we are on stage, it can be a mixed bag. Who knows if we'll relocate, but if we do it would be somewhere with a slightly more diverse scene.
Is there anything you guys would like to add?
Jaxson: Stream Wasteoid!
Christian: Be nice, love everyone.
Ian: Black lives matter, wear a mask.
You can stream Wasteoid on Spotify, and read our review of the EP here.
