Indiana's Indie Music Source
“Not ones to disappoint, Gills and Wings’ music lives up to the expectations of its name. They sound just like [their recordings] live, with more energy. They’re that tight musically.” ~ Sadie Powers, Magazine 33
Zack Daggy: Who is Gills and Wings, and when did you form as a band?
Alex: Gills and Wings are: Danny Reyes – Vocals, synth, Santiago De Lafuente – Vocals, Piano, Alex McCallum – Guitar, Matt Hulcher – Bass, Andrew Hackett – Drums
Gills and Wings began when a good friend of mine and music teacher at the University of Miami, Chris, called me (Alex) from Miami to play me some material he had recorded of one of his student’s brothers. The brother was Santiago. The music was a couple of songs written by he and Danny, whom he had been working together with since high school. I liked the songs a lot and began collaborating on arrangements with them. We were all recording parts at our houses and sending them to each other over the internet, discussing sections over…After a short time, we decided to spend some extra time working in person on the material. So, Danny, Santi, and Chris flew to Virginia to work on the material with Andy and I. Andy is a good friend and multifaceted musician whom I had collaborated with many times in the past. We spent four twelve hour days in a steaming hot space working through a song book Danny and Santi brought with them. After those days, I decided to fly down to Miami and work with them for a week. It was during that trip that Santi, Danny and Chris decided to move to Virginia to put together a band with Andy and I. Santi and Danny moved into my house (Chris was from Richmond originally) and we all started working. After a few months we decided we needed a dedicated bass player and asked Matt to join the team. Matt had also worked in different musical situations with me throughout the years. A month later Chris decided to take a different direction with his life outside of music and left the group. The remaining five decided on the name Gills And Wings and the band was born.
Zack: Where does the name Gills and Wings come from?
Santiago: The name Gills and Wings originates from the lyrics to an old song of ours called supernatural. It represents superhuman qualities and characteristics of transformation. When a person watches a band they love, they seek to escape their troubled times. Their wish is to find the unreachable in their busy lives, and hope their emotions stir as they watch the band they’ve connected with for so many years. The best friend you never met, the things you’ve always kept as secrets and for some odd reason someone out there feels just the way you do. Those are feelings of transformation and that’s what we hope to accomplish with this band.
Zack: How would you describe your style?
Matt: Theatrical rock n’ roll. We have a “soft spot” for dramatic musical expression.
Zack: What is the Nietzschean Philosophy and how does it relate to your music?
Andy: That’s a great question, but let me instead touch upon another present-day psychosocial issue with even farther-reaching implications than my band’s aesthetic philosophy. All over the world, right now, in every time zone yet known to man, there is discontent, disquiet, and dissatisfaction, and people will be dissed only so much before they rise up against their oppressors. Examples abound: Boy George has been refused a spot on Celebrity Big Brother. Every toy store I visited today was sold out of those darling robotic hamsters. Even hot Swedish nannies can’t get the respect they deserve. When it’s cold outside, how is anyone supposed to text wearing gloves? What is the world coming to? The cat lady next door has told me she’s seen her houseplants weeping, and I believe her; think of millions of your brothers and sisters slaughtered to feed art schools full of gluttonous horticolonialists and you’d be crying too. These injustices have inspired me to spend countless minutes and a millivolt of neuroelectricity drafting a treatise that will answer the questions, calm the nerves, and assuage the guilt. It’s titled “One Hundred Reasons Why ‘Smallville’ Is A Better Superhero Show Than ‘Heroes’.” The premise may seem obvious to those in the know, but believe me, I have reached conclusions that very few adolescents have even dreamed about. I would like to debut my findings on this very site, this hub of culture, this electronic petri dish filled with fuzzy specimens of questionable origin known charitably as “musicians.” Talk about pearls before swine! Hoo, boy! Wait… what do you mean, “You’ve run out of space”?
Zack: What is your favorite song to perform and why?
Danny: I like performing Catastrophe. It’s a song the audience can immediately relate to. I guess the specifics and the minute details about it aren’t as necessary for the audience to grasp the essence or emotion of the song as they might be in other songs. I also like its mood, it’s about an internal struggle and it has shades of sadness but it’s not depressing. And because I don’t play any synth on it and it’s not necessarily very hard to sing, I can really get it into it–pour my heart out–nasty style.
Zack: I understand that your song “Circus” was picked up for MTV’s Real World. Tell me about that.
Matt: That was amazing. We signed a contract with a company that supplies MTV with music for their shows and within a few months “Circus” was chosen for The Real World Brooklyn. They did a great job of putting the song in the right context and I can’t even begin to tell you how great it was to just see those 3 letters (MTV) next to our band name!
Zack: What has been the greatest moment of your music career thus far?
Andy: My answer to a question like this would usually be something like “There’s no single greatest moment, because every time we make a connection with a listener, it’s a great moment that can be replicated millions of times across the globe,” but that would really be for the benefit of my band mates because the they have huge egos like Ian Ziering or Nelson Mandela. Since this isn’t going to be published onthe Web or anything, I can honestly tell you that the greatest moment for me is any time I watch myself playing on stage. The other patients sometimes ask how I can watch myself on stage, but what they can’t seem to understand is that I am “here” and “there” and “way over there” at exactly the same time. Not that I’m a triplet, because that would be weird. To clarify: when I play, I inhabit the psyches of everyone in the immediate vicinity. My consciousness travels like a boat from my head universe to their head universes, thereby making an interbrainial, metaphysible connection not unlike a wormhole. I call it a “music hole.” It’s a virtual orifice into which the sounds are discharged, impregnating the minds of anyone who may be listening… kind of like how Prince does it, just with less glitter. I have mental love children who are gainfully employed as musicians in infinite head universes, and they all watch me when I play and tell me I was awesome when I finish. Sometimes it makes me nervous, but I get over that pretty quickly. Now about my “Smallville” vs. “Heroes” thing…
Zack: What has been the most embarrassing moment of your music career thus far?
Alex: One time during a recording session, I was recording a guitar solo. The engineer thought I had gotten the take and I told him I didn’t think it was right and that I would get it in the next take. He told me that if I wasn’t satisfied with the next take, I had to take off my pants for the remaining takes. Needless to say, the next take wasn’t the one. And, while I was proceeding to play with no pants on, he snuck in and took a picture. The picture now lives on the wall of the studio with me, no pants, headphones and a guitar.
Zack: Where is the strangest place that you’ve found inspiration?
Danny: Dogs. I once wrote a song with Santi about Henry, one of Alex’s dogs. Henry’s got a troubled soul and we thought it would be fun to write an uplifting song about leaving the past behind and concentrating on the happiness of the moment directed to Henry. I don’t think he understood what we were singing about but he’d look up when we’d sing his name. Then, when I got my dog I wrote a verse about him. I tried to write it like a love song so that the listener wouldn’t know that I was singing about a dog, but then, I wasn’t sure if it’s unethical to play a joke on the listener, and it did start to sound a little creepy. And just recently, a friend’s dog died, and I’ve been working on a song about that. I think after that one I’m going to have to put the dog motive to rest.
Zack: What line from one of your songs best describes Gills and Wings?
Santiago: The phrase i like the most would have to be the bridge to “man in the well” “I started to ask if he’d like an accomplice in solitude but he said that loneliness doesn’t allow room for two”
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