For White Denim, a four-piece garage rock band from Austin, the past year has been a whirlwind period of exciting progression.
This career-defining mean streak began with the release of D, its fourth record, to critical acclaim, which led to opening slots for tours with both Manchester Orchestra and Wilco, as well as a live release taped at Jack White’s Third Man Records. This was all while picking up a fourth member, guitarist Austin Jenkins, to help tighten up the group’s once-rambunctious, now refined sound.
“We’re used to playing 500 capacity rooms,” bassist Steve Terebecki said, discussing his band’s live experiences prior to its opening stints with indie rock royalty. “But now we’re playing 2,500 [capacity venues] and up, so it feels like a big thing.”
For the first proper time since post-D fame, the band will get to harness its own rip-roaring live capabilities with a headlining tour, which stops in Washington tonight at the Rock N Roll Hotel.
“We’ve been working on a lot of new material,” he said. “We’re going to be testing some waters with that, [and] we might play longer sets.”
Yet devoted fans need not worry about any drastic changes to the band’s hallmark live mantra of stringing together songs for extended, riff-heavy jams.
“We’re still going to play big chunks of big medleys where we link three, four, five songs together,” Terebecki said. “[We’ll] play like 30 minute chunks of music, but we’ve been doing that for a while.”
White Denim has no detailed plans to record a follow-up to D, but being on the road does not mean being out of a creative mindset.
“We’re constantly demoing and working on new stuff,” Terebecki said. “It’s going to be a busy year with touring, but when we have time we’re going to try and get in the studio, and we’re actually bringing studio gear on the road with us.”
Whether or not the band will be toying with new songs in the van, the real show will be on the stage where White Denim unleashes its rock ‘n’ roll ruckus.
White Denim will play the Rock N Roll Hotel tonight. Doors open at 8 p.m. Tickets cost $12.
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