Free Whenever's music navigates the space between form (saguna) and formlessness (nirguna), rooted in the ancient practice of long-form improvisation, resulting in a synesthetic blend of vintage psychedelia, dub reggae, eastern modality, and African rhythmic tradition. Founders Neil Guleria and Trevor LaVecchia, starting in 2020 from their Brooklyn apartment, initially explored trip-hop electronica to desert psych rock, evolving their sound with LaVecchia's chordal movement on bass and Guleria's melodic layers. With a self-proclaimed "psychedelic groove music" identity, they intertwine conversational bass and guitar melodies over Afro-Latin percussion and hip hop-inspired drums. From humble beginnings, their five releases, including Open Air and Jam Junkies, Vol I & II, have drawn attention, leading to performances in venues like the Sultan Room, bolstered by live contributor Brendan Steuart on drums, elevating their music from Manhattan streets to worldwide stages alongside artists like Karina Rykman.
How did the band form and what does the band name mean?
Neil: Trevor and I met for the first time actually a couple years before Free Whenever really started. A mutual friend had basically put us together in a one time band to play a wedding gig in Vermont. We basically met a few hours before our set, barely said a word to each other, played the gig, and went our separate ways in the morning.
Trevor: Then about a year or two later, that same mutual friend sent me a song he had recorded with Neil. Between the unique sonic quality of the recording and that transcendent feeling he had captured, I felt moved to reach out and reconnect. Long story short I contacted Neil, spent the day jamming and making tunes in his Brooklyn apartment, and we’ve pretty much kept that going ever since. Neil: The name was a really natural result of the lifestyle that developed alongside our creation process and the environment we were in. New York City had a bit of a cultural renaissance in 2020 with the pandemic giving rise to a DIY music scene, blossoming NYC park jams and drum circles, etc. Trevor was living with his girlfriend in Brooklyn and we both had a fair amount of time on our hands, so the “free whenever…” text became pretty much a daily reality for us, and eventually grew into a symbol for our philosophical approach to making music.
Previous musical projects? How'd you first get into music?
Trevor: I started as most musical kids do with some cover groups, and eventually I had a group in high school called Birdwalk with my friend John Bemis, who now masterminds a death tech band called Murder Pact. He was an insane drummer and we would just improvise all day and night. We spoke through music. That’s where I learned to play music with emotions and feelings rather than notes and chords. I am forever indebted to John Bemis opening my mind early on to that. I first got into music because it transported me to another world. It gave me purpose throughout my life and to this day it is how I prefer to connect to people. It’s a powerful thing and it’s hard to see people use it as a means to an end. Our goal is to keep it raw, fresh, and direct from the source, to fight for the freedom that music allows us to have in our minds and lives.
Neil: Trevor and I really bonded over that point and it became our shared philosophy and objective when making music. We both approach music mindfully but also know that how and what you play matters only because of the feelings you communicate much more so than the underlying theory that is being applied. My journey playing music was similar in many ways to Trevor’s. I spent a lot of time jamming with my brother and friends throughout my childhood, played in a few bands throughout high school and college. I grew up playing drums and guitar pretty much every day, every chance I could get. As early as 10, I got my introduction to self-recording and multi-tracking my own music with a $30 Behringer mixer and GarageBand. By the time I graduated school and moved to New York I rekindled that interest and became pretty inspired to pursue music through the vehicle of DIY recording and producing.
First concert that you ever went to?
Trevor: My first concert was technically the Wiggles in a small local store… but as far as big rock shows — AC/DC on their Black Ice Tour. After seeing Angus Young spinning on stage doing a ten minute solo.. I was hooked. I committed myself to learn pretty much every AC/DC song.
Neil: Funny enough the first real band I saw was 38 Special.. I didn’t necessarily spend a ton of time listening to Southern Rock then or now, but was glad my parents introduced me to live music early in life. Technically prior to that (my version of Trevor’s Wiggles) was an ABBA cover band at Wolftrap.
What's your writing process like?
Trevor: Lots of improvisation and keeping the tape on. Neil turned me onto the idea of just opening up the DAW and hitting record every time we play and just leaving it running. Our process often involves just listening back to long takes of freeform jams and honing in on ideas. The most cosmic material comes after an hour of just playing, not thinking. It’s always come naturally to us. In the early days, we struggled to even write a song shorter than fifteen minutes.
Neil: We’re really not purists when it comes to this stuff. Whatever works works. In our recording process we try and combine the best of both worlds: written and rehearsed song structures with completely improvised endings, first take live-tracked sessions spliced together with the middle of a 45 minute jam, writing with loops or writing with an acoustic guitar, etc.
What other artists or songs inspire your music?
Trevor: Our closest contemporary influences include Khruangbin, Surprise Chef, Skinshape, and the like. All of them take such vastly different approaches to writing and recording but arrive at a similarly modern psychedelic result.
Neil: Then of course you have the classic psych rock: Pink Floyd, Hendrix, Santana, Red Hot Chili Peppers. The whole band also incorporates a lot of global influences and inspiration from dub reggae to Turkish psychedelia to Afro-Cuban rumba.
What's the live experience like and your philosophy on playing live? Do you think the music live should be identical to the recorded version or should it be it's own thing?
Neil: Our early shows as a band (before we had much written material at all) were absolute jams. Switching instruments, cycling in and out drummers, having random guest musicians join us on stage during those DIY events.. things were very fluid. Eventually as we got more serious about writing concrete material and developing well-written songs, we got better at live recreations that captured the structures and core moments in our recordings.
Trevor: Today our live performances are pretty true to our form and formlessness philosophy. Most songs include a combination of precise note-for-note structures with consistently improvised moments. It keeps things fresh and allows us to keep our songs living and breathing long after the master gets cut. Live music is never going to be identical to the recording unless you are using tracks. Even if you are playing the song as is, it will sound different live. We embrace that. The ubiquity of playing with tracks live has taken away an important aspect of music from the listeners and fans. We want to challenge our fans and have them join us on a new journey every show.
Has the band toured? What has the touring experience been, best shows?worst shows?
Neil: We are embarking on our first tour this month! Super pumped and more ready than ever to do it. We’ve loved incubating in NYC the past couple years but feel like it’s our time to push out into new territories and discover new scenes.
What's up next for the band?
Trevor: Plenty more music, more touring, some really awesome collaborations in the works. We want to keep growing and sharing the message. We love meeting artists with the same spirit as us and want to play with them all. Good music has been pushed underground and there is a movement to bring it back to the masses.
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