Photograph by Thomas Crone
At first glance, the three young women who make up the Belleville, Ill.–based Willis (willis1.bandcamp.com) appear to have time traveled: through the years, over the seas, across generations of style and music and culture. Clad in layers of black and cavorting in the eerily frozen neighborhood cemetery (where a tombstone gave them their collective name), sisters Milena and Bella Kanak and their best friend, Paige Smyth, have somehow shape-shifted from their spiritual birthplace in 1981 London, landing as teenagers in the unlikely location of St. Clair County, Ill.
We’ll assume this flight of fancy could be reality, because the arrival of Willis in Belleville would otherwise seem a bit too unbelievable to be true. Mentored by St. Louis new waver Tory Z. Starbuck, the band has evolved from art-program curiosity into one of the most exciting new musical voices in the area. The teens draw influences from artists twice their age: Brit legends like The Cure, The Smiths, Nina Hagen, early David Bowie, Joy Division, Soft Cell, Bauhaus, and unquestionably, Starbuck himself.
“I think that Willis are like The Shaggs playing The Residents,” Starbuck writes. “They’re great. I think that once they find a few more music recipes to compose with, they will surprise themselves as much as the spectators. I like the amount of thought and work that goes into their props for each show, too. They are teenaged girls that are playing shows in bars and clubs as opposed to getting drunk at parties. They are like new wave science theater nerds living out their dream. How cool is that?”
Starbuck, a native of the western exurbs of St. Louis, knows that growing up different can be a drag. He knows that Willis has paid for it, on some social levels.
“And they try to stay positive no matter what kind of drama is going on,” he adds. “A lot of people are pretty mean to them.”
The topic of their social fit in Belleville is one of those topics alluded to in a conversation with Willis, but it’s never fully explained. In an interview or a photo session, communication with the group runs along a couple of concurrent tracks. There’s a question asked, then a three-headed answer given, the trio routinely finishing one another’s thoughts or ending statements in bursts of quickly dissipating laughter. Inside jokes are continually suggested. Sometimes the answers come in tones that perhaps only the three can hear, a common language, a shared, self-created dialect.
This much seems apparent. The band formed in late 2012. It has played more than 100 shows since, including gigs in basements, clubs, off-brand art galleries, and at least one brewery, even though the band’s a ways away from drinking age. Most have been performed with other young groups on the rise, playing small venues like the Livery Company, where we initially meet up. There, the three members sit on a couch, each clutching a Red Bull in a paper bag.
At some point, all three run to their car to fetch their two releases. One’s a two-song cassette, a 2013 Halloween release featuring tracks called “The Black Cat” and “Skeleton Fog.” And there’s a full CD, too, an 11-track affair called They Hate Us, with songs like “Tombstone” and “Fat Camp,” which are about exactly those subjects. You could say that the music’s recorded in a lo-fi style, fitting for a band whose lineup is minimalist even for a three-piece: Milena’s on Casio keyboards and the occasional bass; Bella blasts out the vocals; and Smyth’s found behind a pared-down drum kit.
The band came together quickly, when Smyth was “texted in science class. They asked if I wanted to be in a Goth band.” Already familiar with the sisters from music classes at the Center of Creative Arts, she answered “Yes.”
Milena says the sisters’ parents “really like the kind of music that we play.” She pauses. “They think it’s really funny.” Their father is Mark Kanak, once the bassist of Alton punk legends Judge Nothing. “I don’t think he’s talked to us about that for a long time,” says Milena. “I’m trying to remember what he’s had to say.” “Just that he played bass in a few bands,” Bella offers.
Most musicians, especially those that get together as teens, go through multiple bands. But the members of Willis say they’re in it for the long haul. They want gigs. “I don’t think we play enough,” Milena says. “In the event my fingers fall off, I’ll play with my thumbs.” And they tire of the support slots. “We open up too much,” she adds.
Sound men “tend to be pretty sassy with us,” they say in a collective jumble. Their audiences “are pretty funny when they get upset at our music.” That said, audiences’ confusion tends to motivate them—those in attendance always assume they’re older, they note, but they’re also told that they “have a lot of guts to just do it.” Moreover, they note, “people don’t know where to put a new wave band, especially when we do a Frank Sinatra cover.”
If Frank Sinatra covers seem far-fetched, consider that the musicians often trade quips about the BBC cult comedy The Young Ones, a 12-episode punk rock comedy that few have seen and fewer have been able to truly understand.
That the members of Willis, these colorfully coiffed teens from Belleville, can quote The Young Ones, well, that makes sense—complete, total, time-traveling sense.
Now Hear This
Kevin Renick and Wolfgang Lehmkuhl, “Goodbye Typewriter”: Ordinarily, we’d send you toward a local record store in this space. But this time, we suggest you head over to YouTube for a glance at songwriter Kevin Renick’s newest video, directed by Wolfgang Lehmkuhl, for the song “Goodbye Typewriter” (youtube.com/watch?v=ZSxt5dyd-hE).
As for the namesake track, Renick says, “The song was originally produced by a guy named Justin Robinson, but I made some improvements to it, added a female backup singer, and had the whole thing remixed by Adam Long, a brilliant local engineer that I really click with. He deserves the credit as producer of this version, I think, as the song took a big leap forward with his input.”
While the cut may be Renick’s, the video definitely bears Lehmkuhl’s stamp. Renick says this type of cross-media collaboration makes for an interesting creative process.
“I made most of the big decisions on my CDs to date and have to live with them,” he says “It’s a steep learning curve. But doing a video or film is a different art form, and I think the interesting thing is when you trust your basic creation to a filmmaker’s sensibility. Wolfgang has an edge to everything he does, and I always knew it would be unpredictable to work with him. Yet I really wanted to do it, and I am more than happy with the result. He took a lot of care with this thing, and even though it’s his vision, my song and my personality come through, and I couldn’t have asked for more than that. I actually felt very free making this video, watching Wolfgang and his cameramen at work, and seeing what can be done with simple elements, a short amount of time, but an organized shoot. It was revelatory, actually.”
