Q&A: Alumna talks band Smoke Season tour, Spring Sing performances

The original version of this article contained an error and has been changed. See the bottom of the article for more information.

Three and a half years ago Gabrielle Wortman stood on a stage at the Los Angeles Tennis Center and performed for a crowd of thousands at UCLA’s annual Spring Sing. At the time she was a music media and management student at UCLA. Now she, along with her new band Smoke Season, is traveling in a tour van on an seven-city tour up the West Coast.

Smoke Season is composed of Wortman and Jason Rosen of the pop rock band Honor Society. Accompanying them on their tour is the same drummer that Wortman played with at Spring Sing three years ago. The tour, which started Dec. 6 in Las Vegas, will be ending in Los Angeles at the Bootleg Theater on Tuesday. The Daily Bruin’s Rebecca Sarvady spoke with Wortman and Rosen about their eclectic sound, expedited tour and Wortman’s experience with Spring Sing.

Daily Bruin: Your music has a hard to define sound that has been labeled anything from electronic pop to cinematic Americana. How would you describe the music you create?

Gabrielle Wortman: I think that the best description would be ethereal Western soul: that’s our favorite. We just combine our favorite musical influences and ended up somewhere with this hybrid of Americana, soul and psychedelic-electronic. We try to write from a place of all the genres we love.

DB: What have you been influenced by, both in contemporary music and past artists?

Jason Rosen: Current music I’d say The War on Drugs … we’ve been listening to a lot of Portugal. The Man and alt-J.

GW: From a long-standing perspective, we really love the blues and Americana in general. I started as a soul vocalist, so obviously any soul (music).

DB: You’ve traveled for gigs before – this year alone Smoke Season played in Park City, Utah at the Sundance Film Festival and in New York at the CMJ Music Marathon. What has been your biggest takeaway from this West Coast tour in particular?

JR: It’s really cool to get outside the major cities and see the energy and excitement that these smaller cities have. For instance, (Tuesday) night in Fresno, people were partying and having a great time and the energy is just really fun to be onstage playing for them.

GW: From a technical perspective, you learn how to troubleshoot something every show – something with technology, especially with our set-up, because we’re lovers of all pedals and all technical gadgets, something always needs to be troubleshooted.

DB: Have you had any technological snafus while on this tour?

GW: This is the first tour where we have our own lighting rig, so for the past month and a half we’ve been working to create this LED light installation and a pattern all synchronized with the music. So that’s the biggest technology endeavor we’ve taken on in this tour … I had to learn how to solder.

DB: Do you both also work behind-the-scenes in your stage set-up for shows?

GW: We are very hands-on about everything we do as a band, artistically speaking. We’re active in all the artistic direction of our music videos, in the lighting set-up and definitely in the production of our music.

DB: What are Smoke Season’s future plans after the tour ends?

JR: We’re currently in the studio right now, recording a new single called “Bees.” We’re going to release that at the top of the year and actually we’re going to press a vinyl and are going to make that the bonus track on the vinyl-only edition of the EP.

GW: We have a new music video coming out early 2015 and we’re on this tour, currently planning our next tour around California.

DB: Gabrielle, you performed twice at Spring Sing. What are your thoughts on that experience?

GW: It was my first opportunity ever to play in front of a huge, huge crowd of people, and on a big stage. … The first time I played was my sophomore year of college and then my senior year of college I played again. And actually the drummer who played with me my senior year is the same drummer from Smoke Season. … It was a great learning experience to get on a huge stage like that and have to get used to the sound and the echoes and the size of the crowd and not to get rattled. Both times I went, there were about 10,000 people in the audience, which is insane.

DB: Do you think that huge performance has helped you prepare for the constant performing you must do while on tour?

GW: You know, it’s actually easier to perform in front of 5,000 people than it is to perform in front of 50. Because you open your eyes and there’s so many people that you can’t really see anyone; you feel a feeling of great anonymity. But (Tuesday) night in Fresno, for example, we had 100 people. You can see their faces … it feels just a bit more intimate, kind of like you’re naked in front of a crowd.

Compiled by Rebecca Savardy, A&E; contributor.

Correction: Wortman was a music media and management student, not a music and management student.