White Ring have been busy of late. Their last album Gate Of Grief appeared last year, followed up with the new mixtape Chained Volume 2 and a European tour on the horizon. We caught up with Adina Viarengo to see what’s new and get the low down on White Ring.
So, what’s new with White Ring?
We’re working on our second full length album right now which will be out early next year. Really excited about the new stuff! We’ve been in a good flow lately playing with different writing methods. Also putting together a Europe tour for this fall looking sick.
Please tell us about the latest release.
We just released a free mixtape Chained Volume 2 on our website boundmfg.com. It’s mostly Bryan’s instrumentals that didn’t make it onto Gate of Grief. There are two songs with Bryan’s vocals and one with mine.
White Ring has a very intense sound, what are the challenges recreating that on the live stage?
We don’t exactly try to recreate the recordings on stage, we want it to be a different experience live. I play with a lot of effects like delay, reverb, chorus, distortion and this can create lots of feedback problems on stage. Sometimes every show we play the sound person will ask me to change every effect I use because different venues have their own acoustics/set-up…think I’m getting better at finding a balance. Practicing at a super loud volume is helpful to emanate what a venue is like. I’m basically pulling down my effects and making that more of a recording thing, starting to have a more dry vocal live.
As an artist, how did you arrive at vocals as your instrument of choice?
It’s always been my favorite since I was pretty much a toddler. I love visual arts and was into singing and guitar as a tween, then hated guitar for a bit and got really into drumming in my late teens. I’m not good at writing music on instruments, like I can write instrumental parts but I don’t hear full songs in my head. I realized that as much as I love drumming, vocals are the thing I wanna focus on but I never thought I’d find someone so compatible to work with.
What are you aiming to achieve with your own artistic expression?
To make content people can hold onto through the ups and downs of life. Good art makes me cry (a lot), gives me goosebumps and sometimes inspires me to do something I wouldn’t normally do. I want to offer an introspective experience that pushes a person out of their comfort zone.
How do the roles within the band fit in to each other? What’s your process for creating music?
Usually Bryan writes an instrumental idea then I write a first vocal idea and we work it til it comes together. Demos used to be emailed back and forth and sometimes worked on long distance but for this new album we’re working a lot physically together in the same space which is fun. I almost always start with a purely phonetic idea and add in lyrics through later drafts. It used to be really hard for me to sing without pre-written lyrics but with White Ring it feels totally natural to do it this way and I’m able to access a more pure creative zone because I’m not hung up on any details at first. I try to document a bunch of ideas with no judgement, put it away and come back to refine it later.
What are you listening to at the moment?
I’m all over the place but this week I’ve been listening to Taylor Swift’s Wildest Dreams on repeat to brainwash myself. Korn when I’m driving.
What do you want to achieve with music? What are your dream goals?
I just want to keep growing and for our music to find the people it’s meant to find. Performing is pretty much my favorite thing ever and I wanna play as many shows as possible in every continent.
Any good/bad tour stories?
I feel like it’s all a good story except for the bad parts lol. I had food poisoning for our last show in LA that was so intense, probably worse than having a sore throat which I always thought was the worst. Had to use all of my mental/spiritual resources to get through it and not leave. The adrenaline was so powerful I felt good just for our set and we had fun.
What one sentence do you want on your headstone?
Bye forever<3
So there you have it. You can catch White Ring on the UK leg of their tour with Ventenner and Victim Unit at these shows:
Oct 2nd – Trillians, Newcastle
Oct 3rd – Arts Centre, Colchester
Oct 5th – Soup Kitchen, Manchester
Oct 6th – Thousand Island, London
