The relentless psychedelic battery of Winona Riders

Winona Riders, Le Klub, Paris by Alessandra Berry

My experience with Winona Riders was a unique one. Twists and turns embroidered with lore reasoned that I be there that opulent night. I think I’d had a hard day at work or something and was in desperate need of something nice to go and see to cleanse the mind; but it was a Monday. While I was on shift, lo and behold, Zach of Electric Cherry Blossom had shared a story saying he had two tickets he couldn’t use for Winona Riders at The Shacklewell Arms. Now this place is genuinely at the top of my list of London venues and when I messaged he was insistent that seeing them was so important he didn’t want money for the tickets, he just wanted me to go, so naturally I went.

I didn’t realize they would play for around 150 minutes on some Django: Unchained type relentless psychedelic battery, but I was determined to stick around even though I was knackered. So they finished the set and I shouted to the one guitarist saying something like: “Hey would you guys be up for an interview for the magazine I write for?” and he says: “Sorry, no english.” 

Fuck. 

For a moment I was thinking all this time waiting and I can’t even talk to them? Thank god it turned out that the bassist (Santi) and drummer (Francisco) spoke pretty good english, so after the show I did manage to get the interview I needed. 

NOIZE:Keeping the crowd that interested and involved and high energy for such a long set was really impressive.

SANTI: It’s like being in a rave.

FRANCISCO: That's the concept.

SANTI: We like raves. We like ecstasy. We like it all.

NOIZE: How did you guys meet?

SANTI: the 2 guitarists on either side of the stage met… They had different bands, and one time they played together and they had the same band t-shirt on, a band like nobody knows about.

NOIZE:Which band?

SANTI: It was Fidlar. It started like a romance with each other, suddenly they spoke and they formed this band, they called [Francisco], he didn't play drums but he wanted to play drums, he told me we needed a bass player i said okay sure.

FRANCISCO: [Santi’s] actually a guitar player. One of the singers is actually a drummer. That's the fun part, because we are all learning together.

NOIZE: So I'm guessing you have a lot of music released then? ‘Cause it was a long set.

FRANSICO: Yeah we have 4 albums, a couple of singles and ‘b’s. Before we came here, we recorded another album, a fifth album, it’s going to be released–

SANTI: When we go back home, we speak with the mix engineer, and give him the whip haha.

NOIZE: Are you releasing it with a label ?

FRANCISCO: Yeah. Indie Folks. It's an independent label, it's not a major label like Sony.

NOIZE:But it’s done well for you?

FRANCISO: Yeah because we do what we want and they like what we do and it's like a team that works well together.

NOIZE: Are you planning to do a few festivals next year?

FRANCISCO: No, not yet, could be good. We did a festival in Spain. Monk week, that was the first show of the tour. 

NOIZE:So you gigged for 5 years before coming to Europe. Did you do any of the US beforehand?

SANTI: No, but we’re planning to do it next year, and Mexico.

FRANCISO: We have to conquer the world, you know.

NOIZE: What's it like being a band in Buenos Aires, what's the scene like over there? Are there many people doing what you're doing?

SANTI: there's a really big scene going on, down in Argentina, I couldn't say if it's ‘as we do’, maybe not the same genre but there's a lot of things to do. If you wanna see anything. If you want to see a band it’s pretty good.

FRANCISCO: there is a big underground scene, mostly after the pandemic, the vibe of that.

There's usually a lot of different genres going on, there's a big post punk one, lots of psychedelic bands, rock n roll bands, and we try to do our thing.

NOIZE: Why the winona riders, where does the name come from?

FRANCISO: It was a happy accident. We had a different band name before the first show which was Lou Weed. That was the first idea. And the glasses that Lou Reed wears are the glasses that [Winona Ryder] wears. We played the first show and someone messaged us like "we have the same name could you please change it” and one of the guys' fathers says "why  don't you call yourselves winona riders”? And it was like, okay. That's like that.

NOIZE: You opened for the Brian Jonestown massacre?

SANTI: We are playing in Berlin now, and you know [Anton Newcombe] lives in Berlin? He reposted all our stuff because we stayed in touch, he really likes the band.

When we were rehearsing, in the first hours of the band, we used to go to one of the guys' houses, it was the lockdown, and we couldn't move you know, we stayed in his house because it was near the rehearsal room and we took acid and we watched dig. And 2 years later we were opening for them. And they weren't even the only ones. In Argentina we opened for Primal Scream, King Gizzard also.

NOIZE: So how did Anton Newcombe end up introducing you to Black Market Karma?

SANTI: It wasn't a direct thing but, it was an instagram thing, you know? Like, we both follow the band and Anton follows him so we sent them a message and we ended up doing a split EP together, 2 songs are from them and 2 from us. We recorded in Argentina and they recorded in the UK.

WINONA RIDERS, LE KLUB, PARIS BY ALESSANDRA BERRY

I can’t say I’ve really seen anything ‘as they do’ to be honest. For a start, three guitarists is already rare, and something difficult to pull off sonically without it sounding overcomplicated and a mess. Seven members is also crazy in so many ways: logistically, and then the idea of all those people discussing and contributing to writing? However they are all so in touch with each other and work so well together it feels like it wouldn’t work any other way.

According to Santi they all write together; there isn’t one ‘leader’ and I think this is part of what makes it work. I think another big contributing factor, from what I gleaned from their hectic maelstrom of a set, is their ‘Bez’, as we call it in Manchester: one member simply playing maracas and tambourine flailing wildly for two straight hours while they played, a veritable cheerleader of sorts… damn, it makes me think about the amount of bands that wouldn’t have broken up if they had just had someone like that fighting their corner every performance; energy never ebbing, even for a second. Christ, the man could have probably kept Fleetwood Mac together if he had been between Peter Green and Stevie Nicks shaking his shit.

Picture a completely non-stop psychedelic barrage of crazy riffs, mad electronically synthesized sounds and wild dancing, inspired as they said by their love for raves back home, this is what the Winona Riders show was about.