Photo by Allison Kromer
Slow Glows is a Cincinnati-based shoegaze band comprised of Kelli Redding, Rachel Thode, and Mariel Westermeyer. Inspired by classic psychedelic rock, Slow Glows keeps things loud and dreamy with an abundance of swirling, hazy melodies.
The band was founded in fall 2016 by drummer Rachel Thode and guitarist/vocalist Kelli Redding. As of fall 2022, the lineup includes recently-added bassist and baritone guitarist Mariel Westermeyer. Slow Glows released several EPs and a string of kaleidoscopic music videos before sharing their debut album Stargaze Rock n Roll (Rose Hill Records) in late summer 2019. Since then, the band has played shows and festivals locally and regionally including the Blink Festival and Cincinnati’s Fountain Square. The band has built a following from the momentum of their live set. Unfortunately, in March of 2020, the pandemic halted their plans for a SXSW tour. The band took the downtime during the pandemic to record a new set of songs that highlighted the ups and downs of 2020’s unprecedented anxieties and confinement.
With a new lineup and new songs, the band made a comeback in the summer of 2021 with their first sold out show at Radio Artifact. The set was recorded and mixed live and is available on all streaming platforms as part of the Radio Artifact Label. Their new album, But What Do I Know was released on May 17th of this year also via local label Rose Hill Records. This was followed by a summer of east coast and midwest tour dates and a handful of fall shows and festivals regionally.
Slow Glows has been described as an upcoming shoegaze staple not to be missed, with plenty of praise for their music both locally and abroad. Their songs have been featured on various radio podcasts, blogs, and playlists, including CincyMusic, Citybeat, Live Eye TV, DKFM Shoegaze Radio, Indie In Red, Psychgazer, The Reverb, Shoegazer Sanctuary Music, Somewherecold Records, The Blog that Celebrates Itself and more.
Slow Glows plans to record new songs during the winter of 2022 and hopes to tour and travel as much as possible in the coming year. Special thanks to the band for taking the time to respond to this new fan’s queries!
James Broscheid: Congratulations on the release of your second record But What Do I Know. I apologize for being a late comer to Slow Glows but that is one thing I am grateful to social media for! How have you held up over the course of our endless cycles of political/social/pandemic turmoil? I must say the new LP provides quite the release from “real world” drama!
Rachel Thode: Hey! Thanks for having us! And what a doozy of a first question! We’ve certainly tried our best to power through these tough few years. Lots of recording during lockdown, lots of reading and checking sources, lots of masking, and lots of canceled shows as I’m sure most bands suffered the same fate, but we’re feeling motivated!
JB: The band’s evolution in sound from your first LP Stargaze Rock ’N’ Roll is notable. Was the approach taken for this record any different from the first record when it came to writing/recording it? What is the story behind the title?
Kelli Redding: We feel we’ve definitely pushed ourselves to become better musicians and songwriters overall over the years in writing these songs, but our process as a whole has mostly been the same. The songs come together pretty quickly for us, typically by working to capture a specific mood and building it around a central melody. The title for But What Do I Know comes from the final line on the last song of the record, Cloudless, and just seemed to resonate.
JB: Can you give us the history of the band? Maybe introduce yourselves and how the three of you came together?
RT:: I play drums and Kelli is on guitar. Mariel just recently joined us on bass and baritone. We started in 2016. I had been out of the music scene for a few years and had started casually searching for new folks to play music with and to possibly start a new band. I posted on a message board and Kelli immediately responded! We got together to jam and quickly learned that our influences were almost identical. We’ve been doing it ever since.
JB: Although born and raised outside Cleveland, I have a near and dear relative in Cincinnati and frequent when I can. Seeing locals The Libertines at Southgate House, The Frank & Walters at Top Cat’s and Foo Fighters at Bogart’s in 1995 are all burned in my memory! Can you describe the scene in the Cincinnati area at the moment? What makes it special to who Slow Glows are as a band?
Mariel Westermeyer: The music being made in our area has typically been “weird” and often served along with an eagerness to both honor our roots and get out of town. Always excited to participate in our local scene full of incredible artists.
Photo by Allison Kromer
JB: With the rise in awareness of shoegaze as a genre (finally!), do you find many like-minded artists in the area? Any recommendations as far as other local bands/artists we should be paying attention to?
KR: Great question! We’re sort of an anomaly in the local music scene here: Cincinnati is definitely a city for punk bands, and there really aren’t any others locally or regionally that come to mind as authentic shoegaze bands that are currently active. We do have a decent psych-rock scene, which provides some overlap with other local bands such as The Harlequins, Pop Empire, or General Baxter, and we often play shows together.
JB: Could you share some insight into what it is like being in an all-woman band in such a male-dominated arena? Especially your thoughts on the collapse of labels like Burger Records. Do those types of thoughts weigh on your minds at all? But What Do I Know certainly demonstrates your abilities to hang with the best of them I think!
RT: I’m sure that all three of us have plenty of stories to tell being in a male-dominated arena. I will admit that when I started the band my main concern was choosing inclusive members for the band and mostly sought out female or female identifying folks.
JB: Kelli, what was the impetus behind starting your own label, Rose Hill Records? Did the band ever entertain the idea of shopping around to other record labels?
KR: Rose Hill Records was started as a way to release local music in our favorite format, vinyl, and as a catalyst to help promote our own albums with Slow Glows. We’ve had some setbacks with the pandemic but hope to start planning releases for other artists in the near future! Of course, if we were offered the financial backing of a larger label we’d jump on that in a heartbeat, but until then, I do really like the creative control of self-releasing our records.
JB: I would love to get your insights into But What Do I Know. Any standout moments during the writing/recording process?
RT: We all have our personal favorites. Paranoid is definitely a highlight for us, mostly because the idea was only loosely written before we came to the studio, so it was pretty much improvised. Sigh felt like such a powerful song when it was written, and we had played it out quite a bit before recording it for the album. The interludes were one long jam that we thought was best broken up and sprinkled within the tracks. Cloudless is cool too I guess, (laughs)!
JB: What does the future hold for Slow Glows? Any chance of a national tour at some point soon?
MW: We our planning our spring tour currently and looking forward to sharing those dates shortly. Always open to bring our music to new locations!
JB: Finally, what are some of your all-time favorite records and what are you listening to now?
RT: I’ve been getting into the band Dry Cleaning and we’re all into Spirit of the Beehive!
KR: A recent favorite for me has been Young Prisms, they’re one of the best shoegaze bands of the past decade and their new record Drifter is so good! (Agreed! – JB)
MW: Mrs Piss and King Woman are currently stuck in the brain.
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