Audio By Carbonatix
Welcome to The Grand Tour, a regular feature where
PHXmusic.com takes you inside practice spaces, tour vans and seedy
apartments occupied by Phoenix-area bands. This week we give you a look inside the industrial strength rehearsal space of The Whisperlights. If you would like your band featured, tweet @PHXmusicdotcom. Think of how exciting it will be to show off your space to your mom, aunts and little sister!
Tempe based indie-rock band The Whisperlights will share the stage at the Phoenix Civic Space Park Friday, March 5th with shaggy rockers What Laura Says.
Smells Like: The Whisper-dudes practice in one of Tempe’s industrial parks, sharing a building with a bunch of bands, including a particularly pissed off sounding grindcore band. Though Whisperlight’s space smells like warm amp tubes, the hall smelled suspiciously like another band was partaking mid-jam.
Most cherished piece of gear: The guys bandied about several answers, before settling on their new organ. “The white organ,” multi-instrumentalist Illya Riske, champions, though fellow guitar/keyboard/bass juggler Owen Marshell states that Riske himself is the band’s “coolest thing.” Violinist/guitarist/vocalist Tobie Milford jokingly suggests the band join fellow Grand Tour-ees in celebration of their beer cooler.
Odds n’ ends: The band doesn’t have much space for niceties, cramming as many amps, keyboards and guitars into their room as they can. Even without drummer Wasef El-Kharouf, who couldn’t make practice due to shooting his new dancing robot film, the space was packed. Poor guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Dave Gironda was relegated to a tiny corner of the space, strumming Strokes riffs before debuting a new song, his turn as lead singer in the group, who all trade off on vocals.
