Recently having attended Virgin Mobile’s FreeFest I had the oportunity to interview Terry Wolfers, bassist for the London born band, Alberta Cross.
After the band’s amazing hour-long set I joined Terry for a brief interview behind the stage on a comfy couch sipping a cocktail as Terry enjoyed a cold Stella Artois. Looking very much like a “musician,” Terry was super laid back and fun to talk with despite having every reason to carry a huge ego around with him.
Who are you most excited to see here at FreeFest?
Well, I actually have to shoo-off. I have to fly back to England. Obviously I would have loved to have seen The Black Keys. Everywhere we play, they’re there, you know. I love them.
You’ve said you became bored with the London music scene. Is that the reason you came to New York and how would you compare the two scenes?
Well, just because we have been there, I mean, I grew up there and had been there for quite awhile. It just seemed all everyone was interested in was sounding the same, and there would be other bands that would just copy the sound. You know, it would be like, ‘that works,’ and ‘that works,’ and labels too, labels would stop signing up [original bands]. It was really disappointing. Everyone was following the same stuff. Then in New York, there could be four different bands on the bill and people would be very welcoming. Like, ’Oh yeah, they play, and you guys play, and this band would really suit you guys.’ Where as in London if you were different people would be like, ‘What are they doing playing together?’ London can be like that.
Did you always know that you were going to do this, and are you surprised by your success?
No, obviously I wanted to do it at a very early age. It was quite apparent. Sometimes even just walking around in New York in the grocery store or whatever, I take a step back and think, “wow, how did this happen?” After being in New York for 6 months I was like, “I’m in New York!” We’re just so busy, you don’t really get the time to step back sometimes.
When I first heard you guys I thought your music screamed ‘Neil Young’. Are you actually inspired by him?
Yeah, well, defnitely. When we recorded the first EP, me and the singer in this band were in a band before this and we had kinda gone away from all the “band” stuff you know. I had just gotten some recording equipment and he had new material so it was like a demo, and it was done in a much more singer/songwriter sort of way instead of a “band, ” you know. It was nice not to worry about drama or another guitarist or anything. Someone like Neil Young has that talent. He can replace whoever he wants.
