www.facebook.com/westviewmke
From: Milwaukee, WI
Sounds like: Progressive Metal
1. How did you get started with music and how did you develop your sound? Who thought of the name “West View” and is there any meaning behind it?
Everyone in the band started out their music careers relatively young around middle school. We started out more pop rock and metalcore and slowly started liking the more progressive sound with such influences as Volumes. We started developing guitar tones and working with dual dirty vocals to try and differentiate us from other local bands. The name "West View" comes from a street name and that is the extent of the meaning. Just a street name and we went with it because of its simplicity and catchiness.
2. What do you want people to take away from your "Lapse" EP?
Take the self-titled track for example, "Lapse", is about mental health and the struggle associated with it. Or "Pyre" which is about burning away past memories of relationships. Overall it's about the 5 stages of grief, 1st song being the first step of grieving to the last song "Distill" being about acceptance.
3. How would you describe your sound to the average listener?
Our sound would probably be best described as progressive metal. We enjoy adding in dual vocals, heavy breakdowns, and relentless riffs. Every bands goals we feel is to have their own sound so we try to constantly push the envelope when it comes to the metal sound.
4. Who are three bands you’d like to tour with?
Local bands we would love to tour with are: Above/Below, Terraform, Portals. National touring acts we would love to play alongside would be: Veil of Maya, Counterparts, The Amitty Affliction.
5. What are your three desert island albums that you'd never get tired of listening to?
Three desert island albums would be: Divination (In Hearts Wake), Via (Volumes), Chasing Ghosts (The Amity Affliction). We as a band take influences from these artists and have listened to these albums dozens of times.
6. What’s your take on the current state of Metal? What’s the current music scene like there in Wisconsin both locally and state wide?
We think it's definitely changing especially with the generational change. Progressive metal, at least locally, has become a little over saturated. In 2017, Milwaukee lost a couple power house bands and they still continue to drop. Overall, we think it's moving in a good direction, people booking more shows and we ourselves are trying to revitalize the local music scene by booking.
7. What’s your take on legal/illegal music downloading?
We think that artists work hard and deserve the money that comes from that work. So they should get paid and it sucks that people do download music illegally, but the advantage of having music on streaming services such as Spotify and Google Play, is that people don't download music illegally as much anymore because they can just stream it. And bands get paid for streams. So the way people listen is constantly changing.
8. What’s next for West View?
We're going to be releasing a music video for our song "Pyre" in the beginning of 2018. We're working on remixing our songs from our first EP, "Foundations", as well as beginning to write brand new material for a late 2018-early 2019 release.
9. Any shoutouts?
We want to give a huge shoutout to the local Milwaukee scene because of the support they've shown us since we've been around.
