Interview & Photos: The Weeks

Interview & Photos by Sarah Rodriguez

Raucous Mississippi rock combo The Weeks, formed in 2016 while all form members where still in high school. Staffed by twin Brothers Clyde (lead vocals) and Cain Barmes (Drums), Samuel Williams (guitar, vocals), and Damien Bone (bass). They released their debut album, Cadillac Comeback, in 2008. Their swaggering, sludgy, and slightly southern indie rock was further expanded on a follow up EP Rumspringa, which came out a year later. following their self-released second album, Dry Land is Not A Myth, The Weeks packed up and moved to Nashville. Then in 2014 they released Dear Bo Jackson,and then an EP and now then fifth album in 2017 called Easy.

You’re from Mississippi- did all of you grow up there or is that just where the band came together?

Sam: Damien grew up there in Florence, Mississippi, I moved to Jackson when I was about 12, and then we started the band when I was about 14.

How was the music scene in MS? Was there a good community with local bands?

Cyle: When we were growing up in high school there were a ton of local bands that we really looked up to and loved but they all grow up, go to college and move out of town, so that’s when we started the band.

Sam: Yeah there was like a vacuum right when we started, it was like 5 or 6 bands that were fucking incredible. Usually the bands that you like when you’re like 14 years old- by the time you’re 20 you’re like, “I can’t even listen to this shit”. But I would still pump all of those records today. But now…there’s really not a lot going on.

Cain: Yeah that era was before we were all in bands and once they stopped, we kind of started and filled our gap of wanting to go to shows by making the shows come to us for a little while.

Your new single “Comin’ Down” sounds very classic rock ‘n’ roll. Who are your top 3 music influences?

Sam: It’s weird because not all music influences always show up in our music…but for the new record, especially that song, I think Thin Lizzy is probably a huge one. But I remember writing the music for that song the day that Lemmy Kilmister from Motörhead died. And I didn’t really listen to them much, but I felt like they would write a song that was just a one note riff the whole time.

Cyle: I feel like the idea of that song is very much in the vein of like.. partying but understanding that it might not be the most healthy thing for you.

Sam: Yeah, very much tongue and cheek. Ummm, who else is an influence? Dude, I was listening to so much of that Ramones record, End of the Century.

Cyle: While we were writing, I got big into Stiff Little Fingers.

Sam: So to put them all together: Thin Lizzy, Stiff Little Fingers, and The Ramones.

While writing your music- is it a collaborative process or does one person write all of the lyrics and someone else writes the music?

Sam: (points at Cain) He writes all of the lyrics and then I’ll typically write the skeleton of the music. Like for Comin’ Down, the music didn’t change at all, from the demo that I made to the song you hear on the record.

Cyle: The two different ways we normally do it is either starting with lyrics, hashing out music around it or if he has a little skeleton, he’ll come to me and I’ll try to build something around that.

Sam: Yeah, he’ll do the lyrics with the exception of when I have like three words I really like. That’s as far as I can possibly get. I can’t think of a fourth word. So if he can do the other like nine hundred words.

Random fun question- if you had to create your own TV show, what genre would you choose? Sam: True crime. Or a game show.

Damien: I was thinking the same thing.

Cain: We were just talking about this last night!

What is your dream tour lineup? With artists that are dead or alive.

Sam: Okay for the alive ones.. there’s this band from Texas called the Texas Gentleman.

Cain: This is doable, they’re buddies of ours.

Sam: Yeah, this is a real tour that I want to make happen… and The Night Sweats.

Cyle: And then there’s David Bowie, Prince and Tom Petty.

Sam: We would get CRUSHED.

Cyle: We’d be the first of four though!

Cain: Yeah to let everybody know, we are not headlining our dream show. I am definitely opening for those bands. Except we’d do a song with all of them during the set.