GetMusic's artist spotlight features Wooden Crates, sharing the story behind the music, the latest work, and what comes next.

Introduction & Background

Please introduce yourself and share a bit about your background.

Wooden Crates is a DIY garage punk project out of Anchorage, Alaska. We are really a one-man project, but we use collective terms like "us" and "we" so we can pretend to be a 3 piece band.

What's your musical origin story?

We've been playing the Tony Hawk games since we could first pick up a controller, and that is definitely where our love for punk music started. We picked up a bass for the first time in 5th grade and played in the school band throughout high school. The real musical journey didn't start until 2020, when our roommate moved out and left his guitar behind. We have picked up a guitar every day since that day and couldn't stop ourselves from writing.

What were the driving forces or pivotal moments that inspired you to pursue music?

We are very creative people. If we enjoy something enough, we have to try our hand at creating it. After stints in short films, illustration, and graphic novel writing, we finally found our true creative outlet: turning up to 11 and blasting noise.

Musical Identity

How would you describe your style of music?

We use old analog equipment to make DIY garage punk. We have abandoned amp simulators, digital effects, and all that crap. We use real pedals and shove a cheap mic up to a real, pre-owned amp. Our entire garage "studio" probably costs less than the guitar in any given band.

How is your personality reflected in your work?

We are loud and opinionated. This comes across pretty clearly in our music. Anyone who listens to us will know exactly what we are about and what we believe.

Describe your creative process when you write new music.

A lot of our lyric writing comes from a cool phrase or line that serves as the seed for the rest of the song. If something pisses us off enough, we react by writing a song. We try to employ something new that we learned in every song. Whether its a musical technique, a mixing process, or a song structure, every song has something new and different that we haven't done before. That's why we have improved so quickly (in our humble opinions).

Current Work

What is the name of your latest release?

A Little Loud

What was the inspiration for that release?

Even before we were making music, everyone always said we were too loud. Now we own it as the noise that drives the whole band. We are loud, roudy and opinionated, and we don't see that changing anytime soon.

What challenges or unexpected moments did you encounter during the writing/recording process?

We try to track everything in one take. Sometimes we go to record before we have the song locked down, so when we have a new idea to improve the song, it requires a total rerecord. This is the downside of the old-school way we approach recording, but what we get is something more pure and raw.

Promotion & Engagement

What strategies do you find most effective for promoting your music?

We have no clue! Let us know when you find out.

How do you engage with your fans online and offline?

One thing the punk community values is authentic connection. They can smell self-promotion a mile away, so it's important to enter these communities with the intention of engaging and connecting and not trying to further your agenda.

What upcoming promotional activities or releases are you most excited about?

We are working on Merch, which should be released by the end of the year. We are always working on new music, so a new release is never far away. I am also currently looking for a bassist and drummer so we can finally get some live shows going!

How can folks contact you?

All of our stuff is here: www.submithub.com/link/woodencrates