By Max Cohen
Milk St. are an emo (think whiny folk-punk, not screechy math rock) trio from Bangor, Maine who are true DIYers. Partly fueled by a love of unexpected legends like the Front Bottoms and Modern Baseball, and partly by spite, they’ve carved out a groove of self recording projects and going on frequent weekender tours between stretches of gig work. They’re currently wrapping up their HAWT DAWG summer tour, playing at Songbyrd tonight with local psych band Argo and the Violet Queens. You can still grab tickets here or at the door.
Their latest album V3M0NT is a wonderful, jumbled, noisy lump of feelings that sounds ripped from the head of someone spending a long night lying awake, worrying about being a piece of shit. But the songs really came from painstaking, deliberate basement recordings and lots of layered, collaborative, multi-instrumental trial and error tracking between bassist Gabe Chambers, drummer Harry Burns, and vocalist/guitarist Jonah Wakefield.
I had the chance to talk with Wakefield about the new Milk St. practice space, V3M0NT’s reception among playlist curators, their building indie label buzz, the hefty investments up-start bands have to make, and how he has learned to work through his insecurities as a vocalist and a performer.
This interview was originally recorded on March 7, 2024 for Taking Notes on WRGW. It has been edited and condensed for clarity.
So you’re moving to this new place. Is this a personal place or like a band house?
Wakefield: Both. Gabe and me have lived together for a long time. It’s always been easier since we’re gonna be in the same place anyways for the band. And then I run a recording studio in Bangor that’s mostly become a glorified band space for us because most of the projects we’re working on are related to Milk St. stuff at this point. So we moved into this new place that has a huge basement that we can use and I’ve been also setting up that space so we’re gonna, hopefully, do shows here eventually. We had some bands come up and do shows in the other space, and we had some bands recording there too. So, we’re hoping to kind of do the same thing here.
Talk to me more about the recording studio in Bangor.
W: Yeah, so that’s called Duplex Studios. It started as originally just a space for us to do stuff when we were called a completely different name at that point. But it was in the attic of this duplex I lived in, and it was just this DIY space with packing blankets up on the walls. It’s kind of always been where we recorded all our stuff out of and then we’d have local friends and bands that would want to do recording sessions. We even did some live, like, Audiotree style stuff here too. And then some shows we had, like, Cheem and Battle Mode reach out wanting to do shows. We had some bands all the way from Texas reach out like this ska band called Hans Gruber and the Die Hards which is really sick. They came through.
So you mostly are DIY and home recording?
W: Yeah, everything we’ve done so far, we’ve recorded it either in my house or at the college that I went to, because they have a recording studio there. But the new record was purely, in our studio.
Where’d you go to college?
W: I went to a school around here called Hudson University, but it’s really, it’s New England School of Communications, but they just bought it. They have three full recording studios. It was pretty cool.
You studied music?
W: I studied audio engineering, Yeah. So I have a bachelor’s in audio engineering, basically.
When you were recording that first album, Spaced, were you engineering it, or was somebody else engineering it? A mixture?
W: It took a long time to make that record, because we didn’t know what we were doing. And a lot of it’s not even relevant, we don’t play the songs live most of the time. There’s a billion drafts of them being recorded, because I did a lot of it, like for my projects in school, I guess so it was just over a long period, kind of workshopping, all these, these songs I had written when I was, like, 16. Well, really 14 to like 17. And then all through college, we kind of experimented with recordings, and then I ended up doing the rest of the songs for my capstone project. And then we had a friend named Ezra Jones mix almost all of them. And then V3M0NT was very different, because we recorded all of it in my recording studio with my microphones. But it just takes a long time to mix your own stuff. There’s too many decisions. So I ended up having Ezra mix a lot of those songs.
Congratulations on the new album.
W: Thank you. Thank you so much.
How has the response been to V3M0NT?
W: It’s been amazing. It was kind of crazy. You know, submitting it a lot, because you get a lot of denials as well. Like with anything the criticism was at first really hard to take in. A lot of people being like, I don’t like this, or I don’t like that, because they’re just going through a ton of submissions and it’s really quick.
When you say “they,” do you mean playlisters or critics or both?
W: Both. Yeah so they’re just giving you super quick, oh, I don’t like this, or the vocals sound like garbage, or whatever it is, you know? But then you get a lot of really, really nice ones. And we’ve learned to really focus on the nice ones and not read the bad ones at all. I mean, I’ll take into consideration what people say at shows, especially. But with playlisters, it’s so toxic and you can get wrapped up in it really fast, you know what I mean? There were some really cool articles that were written about us, about the album and stuff like that. We had this big magazine from Australia called Happy Mag that reached out, and they wrote an article about us. And that was mind blowing. Really, we appreciate everyone, especially when people reach out to us.
What’s a highlight of the record that you are the most proud of?
W: Honestly, I think recording “Peyote” was like the biggest one. We got together with Harry, and that was the first one that we started workshopping and it clicked so fast. I think the process of it coming together, and then adding on, like, you know, the slide banjo, and being like, what about this? We had a really good chemistry, it just came together super fluidly and everything was very organic and natural. It felt like it was how it was supposed to be all the time.
It’s cool. It’s a cool sound. I like that there’s so much eclectic instrumentation and production going on, it makes it an exciting listen.
W: Yeah, that’s what I really wanted. That was something that my favorite professor, he was a rich role model musically, and he always talked about ear candy. He was like, “I love the ear candy on records more than the actual construction of the songs.” It’s the little twinkles and sparkles that jump out to you musically that were highlights. And I feel the same way, like the Front Bottoms has a lot of those synth sounds and weird little ear candy things that are thrown in there.
Can I poke you about the vocals for a second? It’s interesting that they’re the first thing you said that you don’t get only love about. You’re doubling and tripling the vocals a lot on the record, yeah?
W: Yeah. That kind of came out of anxiety, actually. There was a lot of doubt. I got really into it because I don’t know how to sing. I never have, I’ve never been able to. I don’t know what I’m doing. Even with guitar, I know what chords I’m playing, but I don’t really know what I’m doing. The single we released right before the singles started coming up for the album, a lot of the feedback that was negative was about the vocals. Everything that we do is, I feel, from a lot more of an emotional standpoint, as opposed to a technical standpoint, including my singing.
And it’s definitely improved. I think that I tried, when I was recording, to do too many vocal takes to almost mask what I thought were maybe imperfections. And I think that honestly, having reviews for the first time was kind of getting to us mentally, at least me. And I refuse to use auto tune, so I was like, “if we have enough vocals, and there’s some, like, overdrive on one it would maybe mask that, or maybe people would like it more.” And I got really wrapped up in that. And then we actually reeled in a lot of the takes. There were sometimes six vocals, and the guy who was engineering it was like, “We should pick one and focus on that.” That was a huge process for me, and I had friends that aren’t musicians be like, “Oh, I hate when you do too many vocals. I’m not a huge fan of that” and I care more about what they think than like, some random person in, you know, Idaho or California or wherever, in Nebraska. And it was funny, because I found that the songs we recorded earlier in the sessions, I did that more with and then as time went on, I got more comfortable, and I grew mentally in terms of, I don’t care. I’m doing this for me. And we ended up going back and re-recording some of the vocals to just be like, this is the take that we’re doing.
I think the vocals that are on the final product, the doubling was definitely an artistic thing, but the fact that they’re doubled or tripled started as an anxious thing for me, an uncomfortability with being exposed. It made me feel naked, I guess, and I didn’t like that. But then, especially playing live, kind of got me out of that. I’m super happy with my vocal performance and I don’t think I was as confident or happy with my performances before.
You studied audio engineering in college. How long have you been playing music?
W: I’ve been playing guitar since I was eight, and I always hated it. Well, I didn’t hate guitar. I hated learning how to play guitar and how to read music and stuff. What I really enjoyed was being able to just play my favorite songs and sing along to them. And something that I never really thought of until Gabe and I talked about it recently, was like, he’ll practice guitar, but I won’t practice guitar unless I’m also singing. And I only really practice guitar by playing songs I enjoy. I’ll learn harder songs as I go, I guess is how it’s always been. Lately I’ve been learning a lot of like Dave Matthews Band on guitar because it’s just a lot harder to play. And I think it’s really interesting how he writes his songs. Gabe has pointed out that I’m more practicing songwriting. I think I’m more of a songwriter than a guitar player. I’m not like a singer. I just enjoy the process of writing songs that I would want to hear way more than I do practicing guitar.
Have you ever considered getting lessons for either?
W: I’ve thought about it, getting more of a vocal coach so that I can learn how to sing better without hurting my throat as much. I did, like I started out learning music when I was eight, and I did that for like, a full year and I hated every second of it. It made me hate guitar. It just felt like I was like a robot, and I wanted to be able to just feel it out. And that’s how it became, like an emotional outlet for me. I would learn my favorite My Chem songs, like as I grew up and went through my teen years, or whatever it was, and I would scream them. And I wouldn’t even try to sing. I would just scream them over my electric guitar and I enjoyed that way, way, way, way more than knowing I was playing the song exactly how it sounds on the radio.
And it was almost in this mentally ill, OCD way where I was so afraid that if I took lessons, it would somehow taint what I’m doing. When I was a teenager into early college I was afraid, like, I would have panic attacks about it, that if I knew music theory that I would somehow sound like everyone else, and the art would be stripped of what makes what I’m making unique. Which is totally a silly notion. The only reason I haven’t taken them, I guess, is because I’ve seen an incremental growth in myself and my abilities as we’ve just been playing and doing what we’ve been doing. And if I ever learn more music theory with guitar, it would be on my own terms. And that is still, honestly, because I wouldn’t want someone else’s guitar playing style to influence me in any way, as I’m actively songwriting for a band. But Harry’s actually a drum instructor, and both his parents, one’s a vocal instructor and the other’s a piano teacher. And Gabe is going to college for musical education, so they know what they’re doing, like, really, really hard.
There’s times where we’ll be writing and I don’t know what I should do and they’ll tell me, like a chord or whatever it is. And then I’ll take it, mess around with it, and find a voicing that I think sounds cooler, I guess. But even my terminology of using, “voicing”, has only been because Harry introduced that into my vocabulary. You know what I mean. I’m very much a product of what I’m naturally exposed to. But I try to do that with music a lot, and I just take things as they come into my life and let it just kind of build like a katamari ball over time.
Yeah, I think that fear of, for lack of a better way to put it, loss of identity in music by learning it someone else’s way is really common. And I understand it, the DIY thing of, “I can’t have somebody else tell me how to do it.” But, they might have something useful to say, you know?
W: Exactly, exactly, and that’s what I’ve learned. And I think that it was definitely an oversight on my part, or just being young too. I always thought I sucked; like that was the biggest thing. I was like, I suck so bad, but I need to find a way to get better without somehow diminishing my integrity. And it was just silly. It was totally a silly idea. So the writing has gotten more collaborative over time. Because a lot of times before I did have these skeletons for songs and ideas and these concepts and what songs were about, and I had lyrics, and I would bring them to them, and they would add on to it, pile on to something that already existed. But with some of the songs out, now it’s like, I have this riff, or I have this chord and this idea, and I think it sounds cool, and then they will build everything around that, as opposed to an already existing scaffolding for a song or whatever.
How are you all able to tour so often and so sustainably?
W: I just wing it honestly. Specifically with the big tours we do on Gabe’s school breaks. I do all the booking and management stuff. I bartend and I work like 10am to 8pm every weekday pretty much that we’re not on tour. I wake up early, like at six, and I do all my booking stuff, go to work, make money, and then come home. And then we make music at night in the studio. So we’re pretty busy. We work really hard. I think people think that we get paid a lot as musicians, and that’s how we’re able to do it. There are some nights on tour where I put $100 in a gas tank in a day, and that’s not counting food, it’s just gas. And then we’re, like, making 30 bucks on the show that night, or whatever, you know, and because it’s a Tuesday, and we had to drive from Maryland to Vermont.
It’s not immediate. You pay for studio time, and then you pay like, $1,200 to get vinyl made, or whatever it is, and then you pay another $500 for 50 T shirts or whatever. When I did my taxes, the amount I spent in the band last year was in the tens of thousands. And that was for touring expenses, that was gas, that was our house, that was also the studio, but it becomes a lot of money, and you get a return, you know, later. But we take a lot of risks financially, and that includes touring, but that’s what we want to do.
Do you find it’s the best way to build your audience too?
W: Yes, 100 percent I think there’s ways to build it online or whatever, and that’s totally cool. That’s a tool that we have. I hate doing it for starters. I do all of the social media stuff. I do not enjoy it. But I think shows are the best way. And it’s super important to be strategic about how you do it and get the right local bands that way they bring their friends out and bands that are going to promote and take their art seriously. And as we’ve had shows with bands that they just all do in their past time, because it’s something to do, and they all want to get paid, and they all want to just play covers, it’s a very different beast. And that’s fine, but you’ve got to be strategic when you’re doing what we’re doing, for sure
Milk Street is currently unsigned, right?
W: Yes. So we worked with a local record label that’s more of like a distributor. They call themselves Barely Alive Records, and we worked with them on V3M0NT. They got us vinyl, and t-shirts, but we’re still paying them. Like, they’ll get a big amount but you have to buy so much vinyl and then we buy back the records as we need them. So say, before we get on tour, hey, I need 50 records. And we pay them for those records, and then we take those out on tour, and they keep the surplus. We pay them back in full as we get them. And then if they sell them on their website, they keep that money, and that goes into paying back our debt, basically. So they’re kind of more of a bank. Most places don’t do physical anything except for, like, one local place like Lewiston, Maine that they had to hook up with, we’ve distributed, so we’ve done all of that work on that end. So yeah, we’re an unsigned band. We’re about to release some stuff independently, and we’re going to be unsigned in that regard. But for V3M0NT, we did work with them on that.
Do you have goals of finding an indie label?
W: We’ve been talking to a few indie labels, nothing I can really say right now, but there’s one in particular.. I think that’s the next step for us, for sure, and I’m definitely looking and there’s one that approached us at a show on this tour. Actually, it would be like a dream label for me. Like, if there’s anyone, there’s like, four labels that I won’t say who, that I’ve always thought that’s who I’d want to be associated with, and this was one of them.
I think that the new stuff is good enough to catch some attention in that regard. So I’m hoping. Shopping for a label is exciting, and even being a little bit wanted is huge. Even if this doesn’t work out, it’s crazy that they were like, “I like your stuff.” Feels huge.
Speaking of “I like your stuff,” do you ever wonder what some of your heroes may think of your music? There’s such a clear Front Bottoms influence, do you ever wonder what Brian Sella would think if he heard your music?
W: Yes, and actually, this label that I talked to, the specific person I knew was texting him. While I was standing next to her, she was talking to Brian. And I was like, holy cow! Like, yeah, it was pretty cool. It was the first time in my life where I was like, whoa. Like, that’s crazy.
Do you think he’d like it?
W: I don’t know. Probably not, to be honest, just because it’s similar to what he makes. I mean, he might like it. I feel that way about a lot of influences. I think about what the guys in Modern Baseball would think about our first record, because there’s a lot of influence in there. Would they want to listen to it? I listen to very different stuff than what I make. Lately, it’s been a lot of Purple Mountains, a lot of Peach Pit, Pine Grove, Big Thief, I listen to Dave Matthews bands a lot lately. And Blind Melon.
Dave Matthews has been unnecessarily overhated.
W: I think they’re awesome. I think they’re so good. Just different, different than what I make.
Are there any new musical influences on your upcoming stuff that you were not expecting?
W: We’re gonna come out with some stuff that is leftover from V3M0NT that we didn’t finish in time. That has some influences from the stuff I used to listen to, like Fidlar and more punk type stuff in there. And then the new stuff we’re writing right now. I think I’ve settled into the way I write, I guess. And I think that new things will influence that and change it over time, and it will become more mature. But like the new stuff is a lot darker and it’s going to be a lot more Pixies influenced, I guess that’s something that isn’t in there. It’s definitely still going to be milk street, but it’s definitely gonna have some more electric stuff.
You spoke pretty candidly at the show that I saw about some of the subject matter being from a dark place. As well as some of the subject matter being from these very fun road shenanigans. And there’s a very nice mix of that on V3M0NT. Where’s the lyrical direction going?
W: This next stuff is a lot more serious, but it’s not obvious. Nothing on V3M0NT was very obviously breakup-y and about girls, except for, like, “Long Drive,” I guess. But that was also about crashing a car. Everything was on purpose, not directly about breakups. A lot of Spaced was and I was sick of it. I don’t want to just be that guy. More of us had a lot more serious things happen. And I think if anything, there’s more songs about stuff like that than about relationship stuff. It’s more about the semantics of breaking up, as opposed to just breaking up and missing someone, if that makes sense. It’s more about the very little nuances that happen and things that someone might think about. One of the things I say is, “I don’t know why I prefer to sleep alone. Maybe I’m angry, or maybe I just think it’s what I deserve.” The last couple albums, I guess, have been about, ‘I’m upset because I lost something, and I feel like a victim,’ I guess. And the new stuff is about, ‘oh, I messed up, and I feel like a piece of shit.’
Do you find those sorts of songs more rewarding to write? Or are they just a different kind of thing than the sillier “FREE ACID,” “Peyote” thing.
W: We try to keep it pretty light and punk rock. I think, as an attitude, we keep things kind of sarcastic anyways. Like, I think “FREE ACID” is very much about finding a sense of family and loving these people and then losing them, or feeling abandoned, or like they left you. And it is a pretty serious topic but it feels lighthearted. Like Elliot Smith is a phenomenal songwriter. I can relate in a lot of ways, especially when I’ve been at my lowest. But his music makes me sad. His music doesn’t make me feel better. It makes me feel heard, and it makes me feel seen, but it makes me feel way, way worse to listen to it. And I found that I felt better once I’d listen to it to like, work through the things, but I have to stop listening to that type of music to actually get better, whereas I try to make people feel less alone and heard. I think that’s something I really want in my music, is for people to feel better after listening to it. I want to focus on what I’m thinking and what I’m feeling, but it’s light hearted. You know, you can listen to it and dance to it and feel good about yourself.
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