Lead singer Quinnisa Kinsella-Mulkerin of South Portland-based band The Wickies grew up writing songs and singing for Big Blood, a band started by her parents, Caleb Mulkerin and Colleen Kinsella, who were themselves once members of the legendary Portland band Cerberus Shoal.
Last year, Quinnisa and Aiden Arel released their debut album as The Wickies on Brooklyn-based indie label Ba Da Bing Records. Now with new members Josie (bass) and Noah (drums) onboard, they are gearing up to play live for the very first time as a band, opening for Philadelphia-based indie acts Friendship and 2nd Grade on June 29 at SPACE.
Quinnisa and Aiden spoke to SPACE intern Claire Crawford over Zoom ahead of their performance.
You released your debut album with Ba Da Bing records, which is an impressive accomplishment for such a young band from Maine. How did you end up connecting with those guys, and how has the experience been working with a very established indie record label?
Quinnisa: Well, Ba Da Bing reached out to Big Blood, my parents, in maybe 2020 because we had been on Feeding Tube Records, which is a super obscure record label. That’s just what my parents want, because they don’t want any recognition at all. So, Ba Da Bing wanted to put out a record for Big Blood, and my dad was like, I have to make sure that I like you. So they became friends, and we are now on Ba Da Bing and Feeding Tube for Big Blood.
When me and [Aiden] started Wickies, it was not even a question. [Ba Da Bing] was immediately like, I really like it, I want to put an album out for you guys, and it’s just stuck.
I know you guys have two new members, Josie and Noah. Can you tell me the story of them joining the band?
Quinnisa: I met Josie in kindergarten. We’ve known each other for a long, long time. We became friends again our year of high school and she’s my best friend, and seriously such a cool person. I remember we were all hanging out and I think [Aiden] or I asked her if she ever wanted to play bass, and she was like, my uncle could teach me but I’ve never played it before. She just picked it up so fast. She was so quick with it. And I was like, okay, well, you gotta join us now. Seriously, can’t miss out on this.
Aiden: And Noah, he kind of played drums. It was the same thing, we were like, would you be able to play drums? Do you know how to? He said I could try. And then we just went and tried a practice. And from the first practice we knew this was gonna be great. Both of them were naturals at it. They had a lot of excitement toward it, which other people that we tried before…
Quinnisa: …didn’t really seem like they were excited about it. I feel like The Wickies has a really special thing because — I’m not gonna lie, obviously Big Blood is a really big part that helped let us be able to creatively be free in our endeavors. I’m just saying big words at this point. But, it seemed like people who weren’t excited, who we had tried to bring into the band before, just didn’t really understand that this is a real thing. We already have a physical album out. If you want to put the work in, you can be a part of this. And we’re not just a bunch of teenagers in a garage playing around, we actually have something to show for ourselves.
Since Big Blood has come up, I would love to know what you’re taking from that experience into The Wickies and also if you’re doing anything differently now than what you were doing with them.
Quinnisa: Well, Big Blood is a very special, really interesting case of people making music together. I take a lot of inspiration from Big Blood in the way that I don’t feel like I should be afraid to do something musically because I’ve already been in this freak, weird band. Seriously, I should do whatever I want if I want to do it, no matter how weird it is in a song. I take a lot of freedom in that, like, it’s okay, I can be a little bit weird.
I think because [Aiden’s] been playing with Big Blood too, we’re both more open to the idea of opportunities than my parents have been. Maybe that’s because we’re young and our music is different. My parents have said our music is way more digestible than Big Blood, which is probably true. So, taking things musically to be kind of adventurous in songwriting is something I take from Big Blood, but also being open-minded is something I’m doing differently.
According to your Instagram, you have a new album coming out this summer. Can you tell me anything about it?
Aiden: Yeah, it’s our album that we’re gonna be recording this summer with Noah and Josie. Before, you know, we all go off to college.
Quinnisa: We wrote a bunch of new songs for the show that’s happening. We’re only playing a couple off the album.
Aiden: Oh, yeah. We’re playing maybe three.
Quinnisa: Yeah, and the rest are all new ones that me and him both wrote. So basically, because I wrote way too much material and he wrote a lot too; we probably have more than enough for an album. We’re gonna start practicing downstairs, and that’s where my dad can record us while we practice, because he records Big Blood anyway. So, he’s just gonna record us practicing and then we’ll take all that and it’ll be an album.
Aiden: It’s gonna be a little different than the first album, because we will be actually able to record most of the songs live.
Quinnisa: Yeah, because we didn’t want to do overdubs for drums or anything,
Aiden: Before, it was just me and her, so everything needed to be patched together because it was just the two of us recording everything.
Quinnisa: It’ll be good. I’m excited.
What will college look like for the band?
Quinnisa: I think we’ve all had our mini meltdowns at one point in the last month or so about how we’re really loving doing the band together and really don’t want to stop doing it. It seems like we’ll all just come together during breaks or whatever and do as much as we can when we can.
Aiden: But we’ll have this album that we’re gonna record this year to kind of keep the glue of what we did together.
Quinnisa: Keep the momentum, yeah.
Good luck with the big changes coming up! Tell me a bit about what it looks like to take an improvisational approach to songwriting.
Quinnisa: Well, that’s kind of how I operate. I feel like half the songs where I sit down, and I write with an intent to make a song just don’t sound as good as when I just go in the practice room and start free balling. Usually when I improvise a song, half the time it’s me in my bedroom with my acoustic guitar or whatever. I have an idea for a bunch of chords and then I sing over it like the chords are the secondary thing. Chords always piss me off, because I feel like I’ve used every chord progression known. That’s certainly not true, but I’m too lazy and stubborn to learn new ways to play certain things. And I’ve used every capo bar so I just kind of like, I don’t know. It’s really hard to explain. My dad’s described it as, like you’re building a bridge. You’re placing a brick and then you’re just placing another one right in front of you. You’re just building as you go. It’s not even something that I think about. When the words come into my head it’s natural instinct to do it like that.
Aiden: It’s pretty fun to watch. She just sits down in the practice room, or whatever. She hits record on her memos button.
Quinnisa: Voice memos, yeah.
Aiden: And then you just watch her play the same thing over and over and kind of mumble to herself until she —
Quinnisa: That’s when we’re not improvising all together. That’s what I don’t want, I don’t want you guys to hear it.
Aiden: And then she has realizations of what marriage she likes — eureka moments.
Quinnisa: Yeah, definitely. But when I write, when I improvise in front of people, it’s different from when I do it by myself.
When you’re putting together an album, are you thinking about cohesion of the work as a whole? In the last one, there’s a couple moments where things carry over. So, I’m curious if you think about that after you write the songs, or how you approach making it feel cohesive.
Aiden: It’s definitely after we write the songs that we think about that, because we don’t think that far ahead ever about anything. But I would say, personally, I do like when there’s cohesion.
Quinnisa: You like when things —
Aiden: — blend into each other, yeah. It just makes my brain feel good.
Quinnisa: I feel like, for this album, there’s a similar theme for all the songs I wrote, because I don’t really think about it. I do like when we put fades into them that kind of loop into the next song, because of the cohesion.
Aiden: Yeah, but we never think that far ahead.
Quinnisa: No.
Aiden: But I would like to.
Quinnisa: I don’t want to; I like that we don’t think that far ahead. I feel like that’s why it’s special. You know, we’re 18, we’re not thinking that far. And also, it comes out as it is. But we could also try thinking about it.
Do you have any songs or artists that influence your sound?
Quinnisa: I love Can, I love… Oh, the Cure is my favorite band ever. I think they’re the best band ever. I seriously will die on that hill. Definitely a lot of inspiration from the Cure. We like a lot of kind of bad hyper pop rap right now, I can’t lie.
Aiden: But we don’t take inspiration from that. That’s a guilty pleasure.
Quinnisa: That’s good. That’s true. I like Ariel Pink a lot. I take inspiration from a lot of stuff like that. A lot of weird, obscure ’70s bands. I said it in a previous interview, but The Pretty Things, I think I take a lot of inspiration from them.
Aiden: On this new album I’m playing mostly lead guitar a lot, and I think what I take inspiration from mostly is the Pixies, their guitars. Because, I don’t know, I love how he plays stuff like that. And also, my songwriting, I like to take inspiration from them. I don’t know.
Quinnisa: I feel like I take inspiration from Dean Blunt. I like to make like things that sound kind of atmospheric and airy. When we all come in together, I want to make a cocoon of sound. It’s not harsh, it’s enveloping. And I feel like that’s what I get from Dean Blunt, and he’s also just really good.
To talk about SPACE for a second, I’m assuming, since y’all are from the area, you have awareness of it. Have you been to many shows here?
Quinnisa: I have been to a lot. I kind of grew up going to SPACE and the Apohadion and stuff. And The Oak and the Ax, which you don’t know about, but that was a venue previously. But I used to go to SPACE. I still go to SPACE a lot.
Aiden: The other two had never been to SPACE before, so we actually took them to a show. What was the show?
Quinnisa: It was the woman [Rachel Blumberg] who played these drums for Michael Hurley and [also played in the band with] that really good song called “Funeral Singers”… it’s, oh my god, it’s Califone! We went to the Califone show.
Aiden: We went to the Califone show. [Josie and Noah] got really nervous because they’d never played a show before and they got scared of the stage, but we assured them that it would be okay.
Quinnisa: Yeah, Noah looked like he was gonna shit his pants.
Aiden: They were excited though, they’re excited. I love SPACE. I think it’s a cool —
Quinnisa: Super cool venue.
Totally agree. Do you have other shows you remember being cool over the years?
Aiden: Oh, who was? Oh, we saw [Portland band] Sequela there. Which I loved.
Quinnisa: I think my mom had a couple art openings at SPACE, and there was music also that somebody, probably one of our friends, was playing at the same time. And I remember thinking that was super cool. Honestly, it’s all blended together. I have a vivid memory of going to a show…
Aiden: The one I remember most is Sequela so I don’t really —
Quinnisa: My consciousness is very shallow past 2020, I don’t really remember anything.
I don’t know if you guys are nervous like the rest of the band, but is there any special meaning to the show, since you’ve been here a lot? Are you excited?
Quinnisa: It’s definitely special. It’s the first time The Wickies is playing live anywhere. Not even with the two additions.
Aiden: Because we played with Big Blood. We played with Big Blood.
Quinnisa: But it was like Big Blood doing adaptations of Wickies songs. We went to Europe. We played in Europe; we went on tour. So, it’s not just them two having their first show. This is all our first show as The Wickies. Like, fully. So, I’m a little bit nervous, because I kind of got to be a diva with Big Blood. I kind of got to sit back and let my dad set everything up. I didn’t really have to worry that much. All the songs were pretty old from when I was 13 or my mom’s songs, and in that way the pressure was not on me. Now I feel like the pressure is on me. And almost everyone we know is coming.
Aiden: Of course.
Quinnisa: I know, but I would so much be less stressful if we were playing and nobody we knew came.
Aiden: But that’s what a hometown show is gonna be, which I also kind of love a little bit, because I think it is a good place to play.
Quinnisa: Yeah, it definitely is. So yeah, we are excited.
The Wickies play with Friendship and 2nd Grade on Sunday, June 29 at 7:30 pm at SPACE, 538 Congress St., Portland. Tickets are $15 advance and $18 day of show. $2 off for SPACE members.