The Willowz’s positively possibly true tales
by Chris Ziegler
OC WEEKLY 11/7/03
The following stories about the Willowz could not be
verified at press time:
The Willowz did all but one show of their first national
tour with a fiftysomething transsexual named Kat Kitty as their chauffeur. The
Willowz’s bassist, Jessica Reynoza, got a bass lesson from Motown Funk Brother
James Jamerson Jr. in a restaurant in Tennessee during a blackout. The
Willowz’s drummer, Alex Nowicki, got in a shoving tussle with the tall guy in
the Strokes and tagged "www.thewillowz.com" on the Strokes’ tour bus
on the way out. The Willowz’s old keyboard player (since served walking papers),
Nick Hide-the-Last-Name-From-the-Cops, burned down a house. The Willowz’s
guitarist, Richie James, was asked to be in a band with A Tribe Called Quest’s
Q-Tip, but declined. Eaton’s mom once dated Henry Rollins. The Willowz got
signed to Posh Boy Records because they practice in a half-burned-up house full
of busted computer monitors in the Whittier hills that happens to be next to
D.B. Cooper-elusive Posh Boy honcho Robbie Fields’ parents, and one day Robbie
just walked over and asked them to do a record. The drummer who plays on the
Willowz’s first seven-inch was the drummer for G.G. Allin & the Murder
Junkies. The Willowz had reps from Island and Atlantic or whatever majors at
their first show, rounded up by the producer of the Donnas, who heard the demo
they recorded in a Whittier garage and dragged the whole West Coast industry
out to gnash and drool at them. The Willowz were offered several soul-gutting
major-label contracts by a bunch of fat guys in New York who liked
fried-peanut-butter-and-bacon sandwiches; the Willowz declined said contracts.
The Willowz are 19, 19 and 17. And the Willowz are the most hated band in
Anaheim.
For such a baby band, the Willowz lug around a lot of
stories. But that last one might be true, James says. "If you shut up and
be quiet, everyone likes you. And if you have personality . . ."
Well, yeah. But some instead call it ego. Or worse:
"Naw, I like the Willowz," says one kid from Anaheim. "Well, two
of ’em." But James definitely has something, and refracted through his peach-fuzzy
19 years on this planet, it warps and bends into something people could get a
little jealous of. He taught Reynoza to play bass note by careful note, made up
the words for the Willowz’s B-side "Think Again" right as the tape
rolled at their first session in NYC in his stepdad’s recording studio (it has
since become one of their more notable songs), and walked the
hot-off-the-studio reels into Universal Records’ New York HQ just to see if he
could become a teenage rock & roll star less than 24 hours after pressing
the RECORD button. He didn’t, but who even knew you could just walk into
Universal like that, anyway? He’s 19, but with hormones and teenage insecurity
sublimated to matter-of-fact ambition and book-learned show-biz acumen; he’s at
once unassuming, boyishly enthusiastic ("I’m into everything," he
says, talking about what’s on the turntable, which, if you’re wondering, is the
new Outkast record) and immovably committed to getting the Willowz into your CD
wallet. It’s like if Black Flag put their work ethic into getting on MTV—on
their own terms, of course. "As lame as TV is now," Eaton says,
"I’d still want to be on it."
The Willowz’s upcoming debut CD—the demos of which got
major-label reps at their first show, the one that’s coming out on LA’s
Dionysus in January? Slick and fatty; you could roll corn dogs with it. But
live and unpolished, they’re Redd Kross’ Born Innocent, rolling down a hill in
a trash can, punky kids pinching Nuggets riffs into
sloppy-but-smarter-than-it’s-supposed-to-be teenage garage rock. Major labels,
this is not your new Hives or your new Strokes, even if Eaton has some
semifamous parent-ish people who maybe greased the process along a bit
(recording engineers, ex-punk-rockers, Dee Dee Ramone’s art gallery proprietor,
etc.). This is the good old stuff: "Get Down" is "Psychotic
Reaction"; "End Song" is a slab of Troggs; "Rock & Roll
Song" (which we have the feeling they rarely play) is early Velvets drone
set for low lights and thick curtains—Reynoza tiptoes through call-and-response
that’s perfect to nod off to ("Wake me up when everyone’s dancing . .
."). Nowicki (ex-CTW, who this paper apparently hated) rolls over those
drums better than 17-year-olds are scientifically supposed to be able to, and
James sings like he has a time bomb lashed across his chest—gums flapping, no
pauses for breath, singing, "I’m at a loss for words!" completely
dishonestly. Lots of personality. Maybe hated. But hard-working, too. He
e-mailed about eight times after the interview was over, adding more stories
and mentioning the Willowz’s manager (Ted Gardner, "really
important!"). At parties, he leaves people demos, and when you wake up the
next morning, there they are, smiling up at you in blown-out Xerox
black-and-white. That’s the plan for the Willowz: get everywhere.
"People just wanna hang out," James says. "Seems like everyone wants to hang out, instead of getting something done!"