The Willowz - Biography
The Willowz are an Orange County-based coed garage rock band that melds deep elements of blues, soul and 1970s punk. Formed in Anaheim in 2002 as a teenage trio of Richie James Follin (vocals/guitar), Jessica Reynoza (bass/vocals) and Alex Willow (drums), the band drew comparisons to the one-time labelmates The White Stripes as well as The Kinks for their stripped down, very raw recordings and live performances, featuring the synergized interplay of Follin and Reynosa on the mics. Over the years, The Willowz have released four full-length albums and several 7” records, toured extensively and, in 2004, placed two tracks from their debut LP on Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry would also subsequently direct a video for the band’s song, “I Wonder”). In 2005 the band gained further mainstream attention as finalists for Yahoo.com’s “Who’s Next” contest, where listeners vote on up-and-coming artists.
A 19-year-old Follin taught Reynoza how to play bass in New York City before The Willowz took form. They met the first drummer, 16-year-old Alex “Willow” Nowicki, at a party and the first iteration of the group was as a bratty garage-punk trio. They released a couple of 7” albums for German imprint Wanker and Robbie Fields’ Hollywood-based Posh Boy early on and gigged incessantly, before releasing their self-titled debut LP in 2004 on Dionysus. The youthfully buoyant album, by turns impassioned, sarcastic and feckless (captured in essence on the frenetic track “Meet Your Demise”), earned the attention of director Michel Gondry, who handpicked a couple of the tracks—“Something” and “I Wonder”—to be featured in the film. The attention created a buzz for the band, and after more touring with bands like The Weirdos and The Mutes, and the helpful pull of Gondry championing them, The Willowz signed a deal with the Sympathy For the Record Industry label.
The follow-up album was Talk In Circles (2005 Sympathy for the Record Industry), and featured collaborations with iconic punk Keith Morris of Circle Jerks on the track “We Live on Your Street,” as well as Gondry again in directing the video to “I Wonder,” done so because he said he dreamed of the song. Two other tracks from the album ended up on the soundtrack for Gondry’s French film, The Science of Sleep. The songs were notably longer (especially the ballads) and more jam-heavy than on the debut, but the lo-fi fuzzy garage element remained intact.
They returned two years later as a quartet—now with Loren Shane Humphrey on drums and Aric Bohn on guitars—for the blues-tinged Chautaugua (2007 Dim Mak). “Nobody” was Follin in vintage form, which was a raspy cross between Dan Auerbach and Jack White. Other songs like “Siren Song” were ruggedly fuzzcentric with exemplar notes of blues-rock. The bands blues roots showed through on Chautaugua more than any other album.
In 2007 and 2008, The Willowz toured to the point where lead singer Follin commented that the members no longer had a home. They played the annual SXSW festival a couple of times, and their burgeoning fanbase expanded in anticipation of the group’s fourth full-length release—Everyone (2009 Downtown Music). The 10-song album saw the return of the band to its all-or-nothing root sound, with a punk-like brevity to the songs—the record contains a mere 26 minutes of running time. The longest song is the title track, which at 3:24 well exceeds the 2:30-minute average.
As still-young twentysomethings, The Willowz have tweaked and honed and paid homage to the bands that stood before them, but have remained true to their punk blues origins, carving out their place in the gritty garage rock revival of the aughts.