By Marley
“Four dirty little white kids trying to resurrect ghosts” – according to their Facebook. Wolfgang Marrow is a band like no other I have seen and I have seen a lot of bands. Four musicians from small towns came together in the City of the Gold.
With Louw Cronje on the lead guitar, harmonica and vocals, Little Sandy on rhythm guitar and vocals, Benjamin van Wyk on the bass and Bernard (Tiki) Britz beating on the drums. Louw and Sandy write all of the songs and it’s as original as whiskey in a jar. Seeing them at Mieliepop two years ago I had hoped they will be marking off Nelsparta as one of their small towns to visit. And that hope is a dream that is coming true on Friday 30 October 2020 at Café Rock & Throttle.
In honor of Wolfgang Marrow’s gig and of course Halloween, I had the spooky chance of chatting to the band;
STM: When did Wolfgang Marrow started and how did you guys get together?
WGM: Wolfgang Marrow started out as just a two-piece outfit back in 2012 and then grew into a chunkier band by 2015 with our album “ Bad Advice”.
STM: Where does the name ‘Wolfgang Marrow’ come from and why?
MGM: We used to drink beers behind a church where they gave Ballet classes, they played an awful lot of Mozart – this led to beer induced chit chat about Mozart…his second name was Wolfgang, we wanted to capture the absurdity of our musings – something you felt deep in your bones, aka your Marrow.
STM: How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard your music?
WGM: When two kids who listen to way too much Pixies and Joe Strummer are left to their own devices…plus slide guitar.
STM: You have released two previous albums, how did you experience this journey of recording and planning?
WGM: We love the processes of writing songs – we take prerecording pretty seriously so that when we hit the studio we don’t waste time with figuring out things on the spot (also because we are poor) – Also Click tracks are a necessary evil.
(Photo: Supplied)
STM: What has been a highlight for the band thus far?
WGM: We love travelling so all our highlights are probably not things based of off so called success (of which we are not very familiar with in any case) – The best moments are late nights with your band or the inside jokes that ensue after a few days on the road – that and garage pies.
STM: What did you do to keep creative during hard lockdown?
WGM: Luckily Louwki and I (Sandy) live together so we turned our kitchen into a creative / scrabble / creepy night club, we used an app to send music we made to the other bandmates and it turned out to be a very productive lockdown.
STM: Do you have day time jobs and if so what is it that you do?
WGM: We all work for the so called “man”, a Geologist, a Designer, a drawing lecturer and an Industrial phycologist – its pretty obvious who does which job after meeting us for a few drinks.
(Photo: Supplied)
STM: You have played at some amazing festivals, do you have a favourite and why?
WGM: It is very hard to pick a favourite – it is for sure not a lockdown live stream show (I think all bands feel the pain on this topic). It would probably be a toss-up between STRAB and Mieliepop.
STM: You are first time visitors (to my knowledge) to Nelspruit, what are you expecting from the Nelspartans?
WGM: We have actually played in Nelspruit once before and it was an absolute riot of a jol – We always say every single Nelspartan we have ever met has been such a down to earth good person, we are looking forward to it…after all, we are also just small town kids.
STM: Your gig at Café Rock and Throttle is Halloween themed, are you going to dress up and if so what will you be?
WGM: We like to keep a little mystery …. But probably something related to our outfits used in our last music video “ Extreme Sports”.
STM: Lastly why should we attend the Halloween show on 30 October 2020?
WGM: You should always attend a rock show on Halloween – especially when trying to usher out bad vibes, and even more especially when there is blues and rock involved – its good for your JuJu.
Follow Wolfgang Marrow on Facebook, Sound Cloud, iTunes SA, Instagram.
Catch Wolfgang Marrow at Café Rock & Throttle in Nelspruit on Friday 30 October 2020, entrance is R50 per person (no under 18’s allowed) and dress up for Halloween is a must! Prizes for the best dressed. For more info 071 886 0970
