Interview: Stuck in Quarantine with Glaze

Austin band Glaze talks inspiration, quarantine, and Mexican snow cones in their latest interview with Afterglow.

Written by Dhiren Wijesinghe
Photo courtesy of Glaze

From left: Austin Yeates, Stephen McElwee and Jake Villareal

Local trio Glaze is making headway in Austin’s music scene with their jam-packed shows. After meeting at their college’s radio station, Glaze released their first EP, Wasted Mind, in 2017. Since then, the band has toured across Texas with their friends Last Dinosaurs, released a second EP, GlazeTV, and played in Monterrey, Mexico.  

Released in August 2019, GlazeTV’s hard-hitting, punk-like drumming and distorted guitar riffs force you into a rage of head-bopping. From the start, the EP’s first song, “Beetlejuice,” rushes into the fast-paced, sonic world of Glaze. Sung entirely in Spanish, GlazeTV’s closing track, “Yuki,” lets frontman Stephen McElwee explore his Mexican heritage. Frontman Stephen McElwee, bassist Austin Yeates, and drummer Jake Villareal chatted with Afterglow in early April via Zoom call to talk about their creative process, what the Coronavirus means for the future of Glaze, and what direction they are taking the band. 

Afterglow: I know times are really weird right now, with the Coronavirus and quarantine. How have you guys been holding up, and has that changed your creative process when it comes to the band?

Stephen: So far ... I was thinking about it today. I haven't seen the guys in like a month. Like, physically in person in a month. And I think there's been a lot of ... I mean, yeah, it's just adaptation to the new way things are going to be for a while. I don't think we've been able to get a lot done process-wise. Austin's still working and stuff too, so it's just kind of tough. We've never had to experience this. But I think we're slowly getting more used to it. I have sent them a demo that I kind of made, and yeah, I think we're going to try and do it that way.

Austin: Yeah. So basically, I think what we want to do is just kind of like, someone records something, sends it to the next person, another person records something and sends it to the next person. As far as how we want to actually record that, produce it and distribute that, is up in the air right now. I could see us eventually meeting up at some point and just trusting each other enough to do that. We haven't actually talked about it yet, but I mean I could see that happening, depending on how long this quarantine lasts. You know, we've already been recording our own music anyways, so we could probably just try to use that to our advantage and hopefully put out something during this time, or at least sometime soon after.

Do y'all think that this quarantine is making you feel like you need to be pushing out music and putting some type of pressure on you? And if it is, do you think that's a good or bad thing?

Jake: I don't know... Stephen, maybe it's different for you, but for me I've been more motivated, I think. I feel like I've been more creative now, because I have more time to just think about what I'm writing, or what I want to write, and I just feel like being creative. So I think that for me personally, that has come about recently. Stephen, I feel like we're kind of in the same boat. We want to do stuff and now we have by trying to just write a little bit and jot down any kind of ideas we have. I think at least for me personally, it's been positive. I've been jamming almost every single day. I mean, I play drums in the band, but I can't play drums in my apartment, so I'll just pick up my guitar and just jam out different things. I think it's been really cool. I feel like, Stephen, you probably have a similar experience.

Stephen: Yeah, definitely. I think there's more time to get ideas down. And in the last like three years, it's probably been the most amount of time I've actually had to sit down and write and be creative to a certain extent. But, I do still think there's a lot of pressure to get music out. If you're not doing it during this time, it's like, "If you have the time, why aren't you doing it?" So I think there's a bit of a pressure, but I mean pressure is always good because it just kind of forces you to have to be creative and try to maximize that.

In general, where do you guys draw inspiration from as a band and as individuals when it comes to your music?

Jake: That's something I've been thinking about a lot recently. I think it all comes down to what or how a song makes me feel. You know, our early stuff was more on the post-punk vibe. And our newer stuff is a little bit more on the bedroom side, I don't know. Like, what would you call it, dream-ish? I don't really know. But yeah, it's definitely a little poppier. I think it's about where that sound is going and how that makes me feel. But I think it's good to explore different genres, you know, completely remove all your biases and understand, "Is that something that I like genuinely? Or is that something that maybe doesn't resonate with how I feel?" So, you know, taking that approach to just different music. Last April or something, we went on a tour with Last Dinosaurs and I had heard a few tracks of theirs before. They were really cool. We had a few shows with them and we got to talk to them quite a bit for those few days. Now, I follow all of their music and interact with their personal Instagrams and stuff like that. Their music was probably not something I would've heard every day, but that definitely opened my eyes a little bit more. And like I said, it helped me remove that bias and just made me more accepting of that sound. That's where I've – at least me personally – have been just kind of accepting other genres. If I hear something cool, then I'm just like, "That's badass." I've tried to think, "How would I make that sound or how would I make that my own?"

Austin: To bounce off that, I think before we were just so stuck on the idea that we have to have this certain sound. We have to have these huge, acoustic, loud drums. We have to have this huge, distorted guitar, and we were just so stuck on one sound. I would honestly say within the past year we've definitely opened up to just so many different genres and so many different fields of songs. It's not really something you think about specifically in the writing process. You know, you don't just sit down and write something and say, "I'm writing this because of this influence right here." It's a subconscious thing that you might not actually see come to light until the material is produced. And then you kind of sit back and say, "You know, I can see that sound coming from whatever this was going on before. It could be because we shifted our minds a little bit." I think the more open that we're becoming to different sounds in general, it's allowing us to be more creative and to be more open to whatever style of music we want to head to.

I think I've noticed, especially in your older stuff off of your first EP, that you use your voice more as an instrument. Speaking about your new EP, GlazeTV, you have a song called "Yuki." I noticed that you sang the lyrics in Spanish. What inspired that song? Is it about Yuki from the video game "King of Fighters?"

Stephen: So, for that song, it was a lot slower to begin with. We had written it, we showed it to Jake and we sped it up a bit. Jake's actually the one who wrote the vocal melody for that song. At that point I had always said I wanted to write something in Spanish, and at the time I was listening to a lot of 80s romantic, Spanish ballads and stuff that my mom would listen to when I was growing up. So I tried to approach it from that perspective, but not go full throttle then still blend it with our sound so we wouldn't go full-on ballad. So, "Yuki" is actually in Monterrey, Mexico. It's what you reference a snow cone as. So a lot of the song has to do with this, sort of nostalgia and the love of things. And I've also really liked the name "Yuki" for a long time and I thought it just felt nice with that song. I've gotten that question a lot where they think it might be either Japanese or something, but it's actually Mexican snow cone.

Austin: I was going to say, I didn't believe him until we went to Monterey last summer. Then you would see Yuki stands everywhere and I was like, "All right. Yeah. Right. This is a thing."

Jake, you mentioned earlier about your tour with Last Dinosaurs. Where exactly in Texas did y'all go?

Jake: We had three dates. Houston, Dallas and Austin. Not in that order. I think Dallas was first, but it was fantastic. Super fun. I think Stephen had a conversation with them before we had booked that, so there was already a little bit of a relationship. But it was definitely, I think, one of our highlights aside from GlazeTV. I think last year going on that mini-run with them was a great learning experience. They're awesome guys. 

Austin: Yeah, it was cool because on the way to the first show – the first show was in Dallas – we drove from Austin to Dallas. It was really positive, but I do remember there was a little bit of, I guess not tension, but a little bit of nerve just because we had never done anything like that before. We've never toured with a band like that. Especially like Last Dinosaurs, who've never toured in America, but people are dying to see them. We were a little skeptical just because I know that our sound is a little heavier and a little different. But honestly, that first Dallas show was amazing, and the whole crowd was super receptive of our music. I would say after the first song we played onstage on that tour, we already knew it was going to be an amazing experience for us the whole time.

Jake: Yeah, we're super grateful for it. It was neat to see, when we showed up for loading – which is like, I don't know, three hours or something before doors – there was already a line for people who just lined up to get in. There were probably like 50 people there early, so early. And it was hot, too. And when Last Dinos pulled up, all of their fans were freaking out and I was just like, "Dude, this is so amazing to share the stage with these guys for the next few nights." And then after, I remember we had our merch booth, and they had their merch both, and they had a line all night from wall-to-wall. It was unbelievable. Super cool.

Stephen: Yeah, I was fangirl-ing hard. Like, we'd get done playing, and I'd just load everything off and then just go jump in the crowd myself too. Just because, I'd never even seen them live prior to that. So, being able to see them live for me, I was geeking out the whole time.

Before we go, what's next for Glaze in the near future?

Stephen: I definitely think we're going to start testing and doing trial runs with this demo idea. Sending stuff to each other and trying to get as far as we can with that. Hopefully have something recorded soon. Something to put out. I'd love to do a music video for it, but I don't know how that exactly would work. And like Austin said, it might just have to be something where we'd have to just, trust ourselves and just do it. We're not going to try to stop at all because of what's happening. If anything, we have to push harder for it.

This interview has been minimally edited for clarity and length.

Listen to Glaze on Spotify and follow them on Twitter @glazetheband