Walk the Whale
Press Kit
We’re here to add some heart and art to the alt-pop and folk scene.
Logan and Parker met at Florida State University in 2010, bonding over a love of King Crimson, the Beatles, and Pink Floyd and collaborating on student-film scores. After college, the two went their separate ways to pursue music education only to reconnect over a kindling desire to make good on their passions and get their music out in the world. Trained as cellists but adept on multiple instruments, they bring a unique twist to the genres of alt-rock and folk. their layered compositions offering thoughtful, provoking songs capturing shared experiences.
What results is heart-filled artful music that addresses the challenges and melancholy that life deals us, while simultaneously giving us a lesson and a way out. The compositions are masterful, with precise and perfect flow, translated through the instrumentation of keyboards, cello, violin, bass, guitar, and drums.
The Band Name
While they'd love to paint a picture of some epic moment of inspiration–like scuba-diving and running into a pod of humpbacks singing ocean songs. The actual story came from a conversation with an old friend.
about this old, very large golden retriever that his family had, and her name was Trinity–after the The Matrix movies. She got to where she was a little less able to walk very far, and his dad would start calling down the stairs, “Thomas! Walk the whale!” and this kid got out there and walked his dog! They felt it touched on something, a metaphor for the problems the band faced starting their project and the solutions they found.
As classically trained cellists making rock, pop, and folk music, the band felt out of their element. Lifting this mass of songs, accumulated over a lifetime of playing music, out into the sunshine and stage lights seemed impossible. To say nothing of the absurdity of having cellos in your rock songs.
“We were feeling a bit like Sysiphus. Except we chiseled the rock and picked the hill. These are our songs, after all, and no one needed to hear them. But we did, and that gnawed at us.”
Sometimes, life can throw us all problems that feel unsolvable. Challenges that only you can overcome but can’t seem to start.
The message they hope to convey with “Walk the Whale” is overcoming these challenges cannot be solved with hope. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. It doesn’t do you any good. Instead, grab your cumbersome, awkward whale of an issue and start walking. It doesn’t matter where. Just go somewhere and then come back. And then go again tomorrow.
“For us, we just had to try. It will never be the best, the most perfect, or maybe even what you intended. But it will be yours. And as long as you keep it up, you're still doing it right. The only difference between trying and succeeding is wherever you drew your line in the sand.
Don’t draw those lines; just look around. You’re already going the right way.”
Work With Us
When they're not busy applying their classical education to popular music, they continue to collaborate and create at many levels within the music community. Formally trained on multiple instruments, music composition, production and sound engineering, they've grown their repertoire to include film work, TV shows, video games and dance choreography. The band has had had the good fortune to work with FSU School of Dance, Martha Graham Company, the Twyla Tharpe Company, Suzan Farrell, and Gwen Welliver. Thier music has been played at the Kennedy Center, NPR and in various films.
They love to collaborate on:
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Studio sessions for new music (everyone loves a cello!) piano, ukelele
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Your live shows
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Music production
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Rhythmic analysis
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Music choreography
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Music for film & TV
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Music for video games
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Music lessons - beginners to advanced
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Music composition & song-writing
Let their expertise help you find your musical ‘voice’. Get advanced tips on how to write your music out as quickly and efficiently as possible, and take a deep-dive into how jumbles of notes can be organized into something intensely meaningful.
Drop them a line — they can't wait to hear about your project!
EP: Let Me Land
An obsessive passion for music and experimentation led to to a prolific writing process, and within a few months the band had written over 20 songs. The ones that tell the story of the band’s inspiration and journey are best represented in Let Me Land.
Consider the EP in two sections. The first, “Cruising”, “See Through”, and “Foundations " tell the story of leaving home and the changes you go through as you build a life for yourself.
The second, “Let Me Land”, “Home”, and “Time to Move Along” describes the arguably tougher task of how to accept those changes and move forward with your ambitions. It’s dangerous business, stepping out onto the road. But, if you do keep your feet, you may find your home wherever you find yourself.
Video
"As a founding member of the San Francisco rock band Moby Grape and a musician myself,
I have never liked the idea of classifying players. But what I remember as a teenager in the early sixties,
is that the highly skilled musicians did mostly studio work and / or toured in backup bands. Some of the pop
stars they supported wrote their own songs. But most did not. Meanwhile I would say the lines between musician, performing artist and songwriter have been breaking down ever since.
When I first saw Walk the Whale, I was convinced they were the latest generation of this synthesis and
as bearers of the same torch I had in my day. Anyway It was a year ago I sat in Lost Chord listening to
their first set and wondering why they were not already hugely famous. To me it has always been the songs
that put an artist on the big stage, the ones that make you say to yourself "hey that's me they're singing about ".
Anyway that's what Logan and Parker do and why if I find a way to get them signed to a decent record
company I'm gonna do it (unless of course some smart A&R guy from a major label does it first)."
Peter Lewis
Press & AWaRDS
Band for Best Perfomance: Sadie Japser
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