[piano intro] - [Narrator] "Shaped by Sound" is made possible through support from Come Hear NC, a program of the North Carolina Arts Council within the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

[calm music] - "Shaped by Sound".

- 13 North Carolina artists, their songs, their stories, this stage.

[upbeat music] [upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [Karly screams] [upbeat music continues] ♪ Pickin' the ticks off of you ♪ ♪ If you need me, I'll call you ♪ ♪ In wino shoes, he drags his feet ♪ ♪ And I crawl toward you unkillably ♪ [upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] ♪ Reality TV argument bleeds ♪ ♪ Through the floor when I go to sleep ♪ ♪ Walk over the wet boards of a wooden bridge ♪ ♪ When I don't feel like bein' comforted ♪ [upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] ♪ Melting outward like a movie ♪ ♪ Burning from the screen ♪ ♪ You and your broke dick sincerity ♪ ♪ The bar light flickering ♪ ♪ With high beams on, we're driving slow ♪ ♪ Through the doglegged logging road ♪ ♪ Look back and watch the engine blow ♪ ♪ Through the darkness and the dripping snow ♪ [upbeat music] - Karly, Xandy from Wednesday.

Thank you so much for being on "Shape by Sound".

- Thank you.

- Thanks for having us.

Karly, you're from Greensboro, Xandy, Asheville?

- Yep.

- What is it about North Carolina that kind of continues to sort of shape this music that you're making right now?

- Mm.

- Or that you've made before?

- Being from here is like kind of the most original thing about me and that's what makes the music good in a way 'cause I'm writing about this place and there are other bands that are from here, but not nearly as many as like it would be in bigger cities like that.

So I feel like just describing this place where I'm from and know really well is what I'm supposed to do.

Yeah, like I would never... And also it's just when you're gone, so much touring, coming back to the place where you know like where my parents live and where the friends, the community, that I've made over my whole life is at, I feel like there's nothing that attracts me to anywhere else for that reason.

Like I just don't have that other places.

Do you feel like- - What do you think Xandy?

- It's sort of a simple concept, but like every person is a product of their environment and that context is really important for everyone's lives and I feel like we're living maybe in a time where like a lot of people feel the need to reject that or like try on like a different city or like, there's nothing going on in my hometown, so like I'm getting outta here but like, I think just embracing that has done so, so much for your music and our music and it's the move in a life, in a person's life, I think.

- Definitely for us.

- Yeah.

- Did you all meet in Asheville, right?

- Mm-hmm.

- So you all were living in Asheville?

- I feel like that's a hyper creative space.

- I think the part that was the most supportive to us was there was a venue where both me and Xandy worked where we could have band practice in the venue.

We were seeing new stuff all the time tore through.

We bring up the Mothle all the time, even though it's like a place that hasn't existed for like five years now.

But it's just so foundational to like having the... And it validated us so much 'cause the adults that ran that place were like, "The music is good.

Like keep playing music."

And they kept booking us for shows.

[upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] ♪ Snuck in through the tennis court ♪ ♪ Laid in the dark on the carpeted floor ♪ ♪ Came here for a party in middle school ♪ ♪ Rode my bike home, drunk off of a Four Loko ♪ [upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] ♪ Last time I saw you was a live stream of a funeral ♪ ♪ You laughed when you told a story from when we were young ♪ ♪ Looks like you're holdin' up alright ♪ ♪ But I know it's sometimes hard to tell ♪ [upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] ♪ I don't sleep in that room anymore ♪ ♪ When the cicadas sync up they breathe too hard ♪ [upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] ♪ We watched a Phish concert and Human Centipede ♪ ♪ Two things I now wish I had never seen ♪ ♪ We smoked weed out of a Pepsi can ♪ ♪ Lyin' around under a Christmas tree ♪ [upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] - Karly, would you say that you're a collector?

- 1000%.

It's kind of like everything in my life is centered around collecting.

- In what ways do you collect?

- I feel like I am kind of like a memory hoarder.

Anything that like helps me remember things like I feel like the songs I write are memory hoarding.

I hate forgetting stuff that happens.

Like I feel like I'm like obsessed with when someone tells me a story, I'll like, I don't wanna just hear it once, I wanna know it forever and so I'll try to like mythologize it in my life some way or tie it to an object or write a note somewhere in a notebook.

Even if I don't use it in a song, at least it's down somewhere and then physical objects too.

As a kid I did that a ton with dolls, which is why there's dolls all over the set for our session.

And then, I mean, a million different things.

I think you have to experience certain things in your life to really tune into a sense of empathy that is widespread and I like to know what makes people that way and I think those are like, honestly, to maybe improve on myself, but also just to like constantly restore my faith maybe in humanity.

Validate our existence even though we're kind like ruining everything.

- You feel like by saving something, you're giving it another life in a way?

- Ideally.

And I'm definitely more attracted to doing that for people whose lives would never be kind of like immortalized in that way.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

Like people from Greensboro or my friends, you know, like, I mean, I would think everyone wants to have something that lasts, but I don't know, maybe it's just like a obsession with that I think.

A lot of the most like beautiful things are trying to conquer these like huge indescribable feelings.

I think my approach to doing that is finding portraits of death in really small instances or portraits of scary stuff like that or small portraits of like love in a... Like the example I can think of is an older song of ours, "Formula One".

Love is going to sleep with the lights on so your partner won't bump into something as they walk into the room to go to bed later.

There's other examples of that.

But just, yeah, like trying to describe really big things through really small things.

♪ Sweet song is a long con ♪ ♪ I drove you to the airport with the E-brake on ♪ ♪ Ain't heard that voice in a long time ♪ ♪ Had to check back there to make sure you were alive ♪ ♪ Angel hum of an electric car ♪ ♪ Reverses towards me ♪ ♪ Sometimes in my head ♪ ♪ I give up and flip the board completely ♪ ♪ But everybody gets along just fine ♪ ♪ 'Cause the champagne tastes like elderberry wine ♪ ♪ And the pink boiled egg stays afloat in the brine ♪ ♪ 'Cause even the best champagne ♪ ♪ Still tastes like elderberry wine ♪ ♪ You'll cry at commercials ♪ ♪ At an unbolted leg scrapping against the ground ♪ ♪ As the tilt-a-whirl goes around ♪ ♪ Roll one up, say it's mostly CBD ♪ ♪ Said I wanna have your baby ♪ ♪ 'Cause I freckle and you tan ♪ ♪ I find comfort that angels don't give a damn ♪ ♪ But everybody gets along just fine ♪ ♪ 'Cause the champagne tastes like elderberry wine ♪ ♪ And the pink boiled eggs stay afloat in the brine ♪ ♪ 'Cause the best champagne tastes like elderberry wine ♪ [upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] ♪ But everybody gets along just fine ♪ ♪ 'Cause the champagne tastes like elderberry wine ♪ ♪ And the pink boiled eggs stay afloat in the brine ♪ ♪ 'Cause the best champagne tastes like elderberry wine ♪ - You've also said that that your latest album "Bleeds", it's something that you all have been working toward this entire time that it feels like the most Wednesday album.

Can you talk to us a little bit more about that?

Maybe both of you if you could talk about that.

- Yeah, do you have something to say first?

- I mean, it just feels like, you know, if you're like a stone in like a tumbler in a river or something, it keeps on like refining and the edges get more and more smoothed out.

And then like, especially with something as finicky or as subtle as like a band when you're making music and you're like a collection of people, everybody's got their own like galaxy of self that they're bringing to the table.

But as you go down that path, you have more and more of this collective identity, you know, as a people, as like a unit, as a band, but also that obviously feeds into the music and just getting more and more comfortable like in the studio and more and more comfortable with our instrumentation too, has really led to "Bleeds" and it's... I mean, we're so, so proud of it.

It's really... I was pulled away in the studio when we were like, you know, listening to those back, I just couldn't really believe what we had made and it felt so much bigger than myself.

Yeah.

- Yeah, I think just trying to capture like kind of intimacy of our friendship over the years just from touring together and spending every waking moment together was really important and I wanted to like figure out how to put that to sound.

I mean, I think the way this band could not exist as Wednesday, I don't think it could get away with being Wednesday without what Xandy does on the steel.

I think his integration of using the lap steel as a feedback driven shoegaze instrument has completely revitalized like lap steel for a lot of people in a lot of ways.

People come up to 'em all the time saying that they have picked one up and are inspired by a sound and I think my lyrics like are a similar thing people point to and it's a very specific thing I do.

But I think at the end of the day, sonically, it's Xandy- - I think that's really generous of you.

But I was going to say that, I mean your songs like are the absolute nuclear core of our music and they just are getting astronomically good.

I mean, they've always been good, but like you are, I feel like as a writer just on top of the world in terms of your craft with this last album and I was really sort of shaken by some of the songs you brought to the studio when it was time to make the album.

[upbeat music] ♪ Scratch-off ticket for the education lottery ♪ ♪ Found him drowned in the creek, face was puffy ♪ ♪ They hung his dirty jersey up in a trophy case ♪ ♪ Next to his girlfriend in a picture with a varsity face ♪ ♪ I wound up here by holdin' on ♪ ♪ Your faceless fear gathers like a mob ♪ ♪ Wound up here by holdin' on ♪ ♪ I wound up here by holdin' on ♪ ♪ Started the highway then ran out of money ♪ ♪ So we met up at the on ramp, drink 20/20 ♪ ♪ Weeds grew into the springs of the trampoline ♪ ♪ You saw a Pit Bull puppy pissin' off a balcony ♪ ♪ I wound up here by holdin' on ♪ ♪ I wound up here by holdin' on ♪ ♪ Wound up here by holdin' on ♪ ♪ I wound up here by holdin' on ♪ [upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] ♪ Misread your name at the wake ♪ ♪ Snack from a vending machine ♪ ♪ Like a smack on the ass at the back of a dream ♪ ♪ Mounted antlers in the kitchen on a crooked nail ♪ ♪ Other killers keep teeth, keep the finger nails ♪ ♪ I wound up here by holdin' on ♪ ♪ You reappear before I noticed you were gone ♪ ♪ Wound up here by holdin' on ♪ ♪ I wound up here by holdin' on ♪ [upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] - I had like to ask folks, you know, in what ways are you shaped by sound?

- For some reason, the thing that brings up for me is when I was, of course I'm like addicted to talking about it when I was a kid, maybe I should be like psychoanalyst or something.

But I have this really strong memory of like, the first time I was affected by music.

I was in a post office with my mom and we were waiting in line and "Voices Carry" by 'Til Tuesday, played on the radio and I just remember being like, the world stopped and I was like, "What is this?"

And I had no way to look it up.

I didn't have access to the internet, I was really... And then luckily it's a popular enough song, I heard it on the radio 10 or 15 years later and I was like that, I immediately was brought back to that instance and I just think music has that beautiful power- - Totally.

- in the same way, like a certain smell does.

- Totally.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- I don't know if there's like such a thing really as like a musically-minded person.

I think we all have that sort of common thread in us but like, yeah, something about like being a kid and the way songs were affecting me too.

It's like a few months ago I was taking a drive with a buddy and he put on the "Lego Island" video game soundtrack, like the old PC game, and it would just like shook me to my core, because I was like, "I know every corner of every song from this because I was so obsessed with that game when I was a tiny kid, it's just crazy how much even today, you know, 28 years later, it is lodged in my brain."

And I haven't thought about that for decades and it's just like, I don't know, like we are so, so shaped by sound in these like mysterious ways though that's like, I can't even begin to understand.

- Yeah.

- Right.

- Yeah.

- I mean, - it wasn't until like COVID that I realized how much like, I was like, if there's ever like a zombie apocalypse and I can't like play a show with my band, whatever the like cyanide pill is, like, I'll probably... 'Cause that's what makes my life worth living, I love making music, I love playing music to people.

I think it informs what my... It's why I wake up in the morning so I'm like, "If I literally don't have that, I'm good."

I don't need to like... That's why I am here.

- Yeah.

Well, thank you both for being here, really appreciate it.

And yeah, this has been awesome.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

♪ Knocking on that screen door ♪ ♪ Even though I can see right through ♪ ♪ Feels like I'm almost good enough to know you ♪ ♪ Oversold myself ♪ ♪ On the night we met ♪ ♪ I'm not as entertaining as you might've thought I was then ♪ ♪ And I'm scared to death ♪ ♪ There's women less ♪ ♪ Spoiled by your knowing ♪ ♪ New and much sweeter ♪ ♪ Many much more patient with much more than I can give ♪ ♪ You have seen me angry ♪ ♪ Know it's not been easy ♪ ♪ And I know it can't always be ♪ ♪ That's the way love goes ♪ - [Narrator] Thanks for joining us on "Shaped by Sound".

If you'd like to hear more of our discussion from today, you can find it over on our website at pbsc.org/shapedbysound.

Or you can find 'em on our PBS North Carolina YouTube channel.

[upbeat music] ♪ Cracked my tooth on a cough drop ♪ ♪ Winter stuck around after it's gone ♪ ♪ Grocery store on Christmas ♪ ♪ Parked too close to someone to get out ♪ ♪ Foreign coins machine won't take ♪ ♪ Cash out what we could to pay the rent ♪ ♪ Drunken dark is broken ♪ ♪ Sometimes it feels like it will never end ♪ [upbeat music] - [Narrator] "Shaped by Sound" is made possible through support from Come Hear NC, a program of the North Carolina Arts Council within the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

[calm music]