Wentworth Kersey
Denver's dreamiest duo foregoes the CD-release route
Jeffrey Wentworth Stevens, one half of the elusive Wentworth Kersey
Acoustic instruments bolstered by digital wizardry is hardly a fresh idea in indie rock. But the Denver duo known as Wentworth Kersey is getting mileage from the formula—by downplaying it. On WK’s second self-titled EP, singer-guitarist Joe Sampson and keyboardist-programmer Jeffrey Wentworth Stevens—members of the local acts Bad Weather California and George & Caplin, among others—seamlessly meld haunting folk songs to minimal yet soaring samples and synthesizers. The result is a lush, lonesome vibe that sneaks up and bites you on the ass with its epic-ness. Instead of throwing a typical CD-release show at a hip venue, the twosome is adding to the mystique of the disc by simply giving it away—that is, with the purchase of a cup of joe at the group’s favorite coffee shop, St. Mark’s. In advance of the giveaway (which begins Sunday, May 17), Stevens spoke with Decider.
Decider: You each have plenty of music projects on your plate. What made you want to add Wentworth Kersey to the list?
Jeffrey Wentworth Stevens: Actually, it was mostly Joe. About two years ago, he just called me out of the blue and said, “Hey, I have some songs. Do you want to play around with them?” I was looking for something new and challenging. I feel I’d kind of gotten into a rut with George & Caplin, the same old electronic tricks I’d always apply. There’s a looseness to the loops [with G&C]. It’s more freeform. Joe was the complete opposite. He gave me structured songs, and I had to write around them.
D: What was the initial concept?
JWS: When Joe gave me those first songs, he said, “I want it to sound like Bollywood or something like that, with Indian percussion.” And that was pretty funny, since I was obsessed with Bollywood movies at the time. So I tried it, and the result was “The Death Of Anthony Gonsalves” from our first EP. Joe actually recorded his songs on eight-track tape, so they sounded really crappy, and it was hard to make my electronic stuff match.
D: When bands mix acoustic and electronic elements, they tend to play up that clash. But with Wentworth Kersey, those things mesh together a lot more seamlessly. How intentional was that?
JWS: It was super intentional. Joe and I would break out the record player and listen to a lot of old records. We just love the quality of that. We wanted to dumb down our sounds, make them match. There are string lines, orchestral lines, that I would write on a cheesy synthesizer. Then I’d run those through amps, mic them, and put them on tape. It made the electronic stuff sound bigger, more authentic. To most people we probably don’t sound electronic, but in a weird way, this is more electronic than anything else I’ve done.
D: Are you two even in the same room at any point while recording?
JWS: On the first EP, no. Joe recorded his parts then gave them to me to work on. On the new one, though, we worked together more, which made it easier to sync things up. I literally had to hand-place each drum hit on the first EP to match Joe’s rhythm. Actually, I just made all these weird, loopy, ambient tracks, and now Joe is trying to write around those. Joe’s also really good at singing in fake French, so we might do a fake-French, Serge Gainsbourg kind of thing for the next EP. [Laughs.]
D: Wentworth Kersey almost never performs live. Why is that?
JWS: We’re two old bastards who are done with playing live. [Laughs.] Joe is definitely reclusive, and for him it’s terrifying to play live. For me, the idea of arranging everything for a show is just a nightmare. So we basically said, “Screw that. Let’s just make a great headphone record.” We still toy around with different ideas for playing live, but it’s a studio project before anything else. That ties into the whole reason why we’re giving this CD away at St. Mark’s instead of playing a release show. We could play 500 shows and we’d never get out as many CDs as we did giving them away with a cup of coffee.
