Within and Without – New band makes the case for keeping alt-rock alive

If he weren’t late, Derek DeBlieux would know what’s going on in his band. Over coffee and cake balls—S’mores for her, the 225 ball for me—singer Raine Landry receives a text from their booking agent confirming the upstart Baton Rouge group’s opening slot for Plain White T’s at the House of Blues in New Orleans.

But oversleeping into the afternoon is about the most rock-star move that soft-spoken guitarist DeBlieux will pull before we meet at Brew Ha Ha.

For a band that cuts a line through dark Fleetwood Mac waters with alt-rock guitars and close guy-girl harmonies, West Without is more methodical than put-upon menacing, more creatively calculated than chaotic. And they are refreshingly upright in their sound recalling an era that doesn’t often get recalled: the late 1990s.

This honest, organizational bent bloomed recently when the five members gathered with one sheet of paper and no manager to document and demarcate everyone’s specific roles: branding, touring, social media marketing, image creation (and protection), licensing, and on and on.

Being a new band with big ambitions isn’t just about chords and lyrics anymore.

After forming at the end of last year, the group quickly wrote and recorded a self-titled EP and dropped new tracks on Facebook and Soundcloud, which led hundreds of fans to the band’s first show months later at the Varsity Theatre.

“It was backwards to what you normally do, which is play a ton of shows before you record, but it went well,” DeBlieux says.

That May debut was the first live performance for Landry, a Baton Rouge native whose mother was a professional singer and opened for Aaron Neville and other stars years ago. The 22-year-old’s only previous shows were the living room concerts she put on for her parents, singing along for hours to Rolling Stones records.

“Those were good!” she recalls playfully. “I feel really bad for anyone who missed them. Oh, my parents were so patient with me.”

At the end of the Varsity gig, Landry walked off stage through a fog of applause. She asked DeBlieux if they were any good.

“I think she was so caught up in the moment, she didn’t realize,” DeBlieux says.

No one in the band had any specific expectations of that first show, just that it was a necessary step for a creative entity that had, until then, cocooned itself.

“We’d been sort of behind the curtain for so long, I don’t think any of us cared if we fell on our faces,” Landry says. “We just knew we needed to play [for an audience].”

The band’s most challenging process was first channeling the ideas of five members—none of whom has known each other very long—into one cohesive vision for the sound of the band. The first few practices revealed a group with tons of ideas, but little direction.

DeBlieux says this refining process is happening organically now. When he writes, it is Landry’s voice singing back to him in his head. It helps that there are common bands they each look to for inspiration.

“Definitely the Beatles is one band we agree on—Radiohead is a big one, too, since I turned Raine on to that, plus newer stuff like Tame Impala,” DeBlieux says as he bites into his cake ball—Funfetti. “It’s like having fun in your mouth,” Landry quips as DeBlieux begins explaining why he was late.

Turns out DeBlieux’s odd sleep cycle is a byproduct of not having a day job or a Plan B, of being completely dedicated to making it as a professional musician.

Landry and the other members of West Without are the same way, ready to cut ties and lend hot pursuit to the collective dream.

“From the beginning, we all agreed,” Landry says. “It was all or nothing for this band.”

Catch West Without live when the band plays its first headlining show at the Varsity Theatre on Oct. 19. westwithout.com