The Inquisition: 008.Wander

1. How did you came up with the name of the band?

The band name comes from a videogame called Shadow of the Colossus. Originally, we came up with Waking Wander as the name, but we cut it to Wander because the original was too redundant.

2. Do you have a standard procedure of creating a song? Do you just jam around or is there a main riff and the track is build up on it?

Ryan (our drummer) writes the music, he plays around with some ideas on an acoustic and shows everyone their parts during practice and we all bring it to life

3. What are your influences and what kind of music do you hear when you are at home?

Ryan Francisco (drums): Mono, Toe, 65daysofStatic, Explosions in the Sky, Sigur Ros, te', Godspeed You Black Emperor
Joseph Aguda (Bass): I feel a good musician or artist exposes themselves to, and enjoys, a large range of things. Individually, we each have our own tastes, but we do share a love for Japanese music, videogame/movie scores, and instrumental music. Toe, Te', MONO, 65daysofstatic and Sega Genesis games to point a few.
Bernard Barcela (Guitar): I listen to post-rock, electronic music, soundtracks from videogames/movies. My guitar playing is influenced by pop punk.
Christian Francisco (Guitar): GY!BE. Classical music. Brahms, mozart, vivaldi, pretty cliche stuff.

4. What’s the first record you've ever bought?

Ryan: Arctic Monkeys: Whatever People Say That's What I'm Not
Christian: The Scorpion King Soundtrack. I just remember hearing a distorted guitar and was so confused. My guitar didn't sound like that, how the hell do i do THAT on a guitar? I think I was about 9 or 10 years old.
Joe: The first record I ever bought was Logic Will Break Your Heart by The Stills. Had a handful of golden songs in there.
Bernard: They're Only Chasing Safety by Underoath (I actually don't remember because I download/stream all my music)

5. Name a band that you would like to share the stage or tour with ?

Ryan: Mono
Bernard: MONO
Joe: Another high energy group, but one that has a different feeling from us. I personally would love to play with 9mm Parabellum Bullet, Polysics, or Anamanaguchi
Christian: I'd love to tour with Radiohead, Deafheaven, or maybe Explosions in the Sky.

6. Did the internet and specially the blogs helped to spread your music around the world? Name a place (country) that you were surprised to know your music has reached to?

Christian: To my surprise blogs have been posting Mourning on their site. I was surprised it was listed and review in Germany as well as posted in Russian and Ukrainian sites. There was this teenage fan from Singapore who messaged us saying he would bus to our gig in the major cities if we ever came to his country.
Ryan: Facebook has helped with keeping in touch with our fans, I was surprised to find that people like our band from Russia.
Bernard: I think some guy in the UK uploaded Wander tracks to Youtube.
Joe: The internet is one of the only reasons why music spreads to other places nowadays. I was stoked when someone from Greece ordered our vinyl. I think it was around the time civil unrest was going on which makes it even more crazy.

7. Do you support the idea of bandcamp where fans can decide the price or services like spotify?

Ryan: I think bandcamp is a great place to start, I think if our new fans like what they hear they shouldn't be pressured to downloading our music.
Christian: I hated spotify because of the ads. When it was on my computer it always opened automatically. I hated that.
Bernard: I love bandcamp. I fully support it.
Joe: Bandcamp is one of the better ways to spread music around the internet. Especially for underground/independent bands who can't really demand people to pay a premium for their stuff. We've found that people will pay for it even if its up for free, and the ones that do are the truest fans.

8. Where do you see yourselves in 5 years?

Ryan: Playing more shows, meeting new friends, and traveling overseas
Christian: Graduated, doing music full time, or something music related. Hopefully with these guys doing legit tours.
Bernard: Touring japan (wishful thinking)

9. Is the artwork of an album important nowadays in the digital era?

Bernard: I feel that artwork is very important to an album, as it can reflect how an album would feel in terms of tone or attitude or whatever.
Ryan: I think album art helps people reference a bands album
Christian: Everything a band does is a statement. It's good to have a visual that accurately matches the music.

10. What is you favorite album cover?

Bernard: Starscream's "Future, Towards the Edge of Forever"

Christian: Modest Mouse "Good News for People Who Love Bad News"

Joe: Deafheaven's "Roads to Judah"

Ryan: None

11. It seems that a lot of people are turning on vinyl again. Why do you think that is and which is your preferable media format?

Christian: I started getting into vinyl a couple years ago. I was fascinated by the 1920's and early 20th century in general so I liked collecting old 78s vs rock records. It started as research for this steampunk/cyberpunk manga me and Ryan were working on for Wander ( a concept we later ditched). This was why Short Story Collection (our first release) had such unique album art. I tried copying how vinyl covers were on the 78s where record companies used universal album sleeves/covers. I wanted to release all of Wander's albums in this format along with a character driven universe. But after a while Ryan and I became more writers than musicians and we were dying to just release a good album and be a good band. Most of our songs were written in 2010, its only catching up to us now because we have some money to record and release it.
Bernard: Vinyl makes for pretty memorabilia. I prefer digital (.mp3 at 320kbps or .flac)
Ryan: Physicals are pieces of music history, looking back at old music you used to listen to is cool, having a record of your favorite bands is like collecting a pokemon, you want to catch them all.

12. What's the funniest story or moment as a band?

Ryan: Everything is too damn funny.
Bernard: We had to kill a spider in my garage one time.
Christian: We did a small tour down to LA area. the motel room didn't have a lock on the bathroom. You could see basically see the bathroom from the outside hallway, so naturally Bernard and Joe propped it open while I was using it. I took a pic of Bernard on the toilet in a motel room for revenge.
Joe: There was this one time Christian was humping the air on the floor while playing Mourning during practice.

More info:

Facebook

Tumblr

Bandcamp