Indie garage rock trio roll back to the South.
The Whigs are pretty big — big enough to have met Conan O’Brien and The Black Keys. But they’re not too big to visit Columbia, and they’ll be playing the New Brookland Tavern tonight.
The Whigs, an indie garage rock trio, got their start in Athens, Ga. The band includes lead singer and guitarist Parker Gispert, drummer Julian Dorio and bassist Timothy Deaux.
The Whigs got together in 2002 at the University of Georgia, and their first record, “Give ‘Em All a Big Fat Lip,” was released in 2005. They got their start playing small gigs and eventually worked their way up to touring worldwide with big names in the music business.
The Whigs have toured with bands like The Black Keys, Kings of Leon, Band of Horses, The Kooks, Tokyo Police Club and many others. In addition, they’ve performed frequently on late night talk shows, including three appearances on the Late Show with David Letterman, two on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and one each on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
The Whigs have been together for 12 years but their popularity has been growing from the start. Back in 2006, Rolling Stone named the Whigs in their top 10 “artists to watch.” Later that year, Spin Magazine named them an “artist of the day.”
Gispert said that he and Dorio had known each other since middle school, but didn’t really start playing together until they were in college.
“I actually was a philosophy major at UGA,” Gispert said. “We got philosophy, psychology and art history in the band.”
The Whigs have toured all over the world, including concerts and music festivals in many countries in Europe and Asia, but Columbia represents some measure of coming home.
“We’ve played in Columbia a couple times. … I grew up outside of Atlanta, so Columbia was just one of those places I was coming in and out of at certain points,” Gispert said. “So we’re psyched to just come and play a show.”
The Whigs are starting out their tour this year in the South and making their way around the country in anticipation of the release of their fifth album, “Modern Creation,” on April 22.
Having been together for such a long time, the band has created its own unique rock sound with a variety of other musical influences from each member, including classic rock, indie, and western.
“We really draw from a lot of stuff,” Gispert said. “We all come from a pretty rich collection of influences, so it has kind of melded together into our sound.”
A couple of Gispert’s current personal listening preferences are the artists Cass McCombs and Kurt Vile.
When asked about his favorite places to perform shows, Gispert reminisced about the band’s past tours. While Columbia isn’t a huge city, he explained that the local areas give the band some great memories.
“It’s all different,” Gispert said. “We’ve played places like Greenville a lot, and they may not be as exotic as somewhere like France, but it’s nostalgic. You sort of form memories with these places. Pretty much everywhere we go to is fun and has its own reason why it’s cool to play there. I don’t have any specific favorites; I just like it all.”