Techno Westerns Talk New Music, Influences, and Tell The Best (And Worst) Gig Stories

Off the Record Press sat down with Wyatt Hautonga and Jake Gordon of Techno Westerns, a Toronto-based band to talk band creation, upcoming EPs, and the best (and worst) experiences playing live. Made up of lead singer Wyatt Hautonga, guitarist Jake Gordon, bass guitarist Sean Rattan, and drummer Jordan Berg; their music offers a new spin on indie pop with something unique for all fans. You can catch them on their upcoming Do It Ourselves Tour and watch out for their latest release, Evening EP, releasing August 11. 

*interview has been edited for length and clarity 

Off the Record: I know the creation of the band is a bit unorthodox, could you just walk me through the story of how you guys got together? 

Hautonga: I’m going to give the abridged version: basically, Jake and I met back in 2018. I had an ad up on Kijiji like, “Hey, I’m new to the city and looking for band members,” [and] he reached out. I was looking for someone who was 19 at the time, ‘cause we need to play venues, but he came in and I was like, “We’ll see how things go,” and we just hit it off. I think it was after we ended [our first practice] and it went really well, he was like “By the way, I’m turning 19 next week.” 

Sean, who’s our bass player, is newer to the band. I met Sean I think in 2021, so he’s definitely like a newer addition to everything altogether. I think we hit it off talking about Anthony Fantano or something like that, and then we just have been doing music stuff since. 

So how do you think your relationship with each other affects your experience in the creation of the music or in the tour experience? 

Hautonga: I see the personal relationship as something that comes before the music. I think for any strong sense of community or camaraderie in a band setting, you need to be really well acquainted with who you work with, you need to be good friends before you’re good band members or good musicians. For us, the big focus is being close and on good terms, so when you get around to creating things, you feel like you’re not only just creating it for you but you’re creating it [for] whoever you’re working with. You have that other person in mind if that makes sense. If I’m approaching a guitar line or something, I’m not thinking necessarily just about me and how I would do this [but] it’s also “How would this sound with someone playing that part?” or “How are they going to feel with that in mind?” and “Are they going to bring their own spin to that? Is it going to have their voice?” When it comes to live shows and the idea of touring, you’re in close proximity, like, all the time so I feel like if we didn’t like each other it would be kind of bad news.

Gordon: Yeah, that's the thing, we want [to be] so comfortable with each other.

Hautonga: We have a lot of shared interests outside of band things, so we already have a similar outlook on what we want to achieve.

So what was your first gig like? Did you start off in venues or was it a house party basement kind of thing? 

Hautonga: Well, technically our first gig was Valentine's Day of 2019, but it wasn’t our first live experience. Our first live experience as a band, we went to a supermarket for an open mic being like, “Yeah, it’ll be a good chance for us to play as a band and sort of figure things out,” and [that] was just not how [it] went at all. 

[to Jake] You knew the guys who ran the event, right? 

Gordon: I didn’t personally really know them, but I guess they knew who I was, and I guess they didn’t like us and the band so much. We’re all there waiting for our name to be called, and then this guy goes up and takes the microphone and says “Okay, Techno Lesbians!”

Hautonga: We’re sitting in the corner like, ‘What the fuck?’ Like, we’re brand new to this, we’ve never played a live show or anything, and we’re like, “Uh, okay.” And then after we got down, he’s like, “I’m sorry I got the name wrong; it was Techno Westerns, haha!” It was just so tense and as we’re setting up, they’re rushing us and we’re having issues with the amps and all this, and they’re, like, telling us off and being like “You have to hurry up and play,” and we’re like “No one is helping us and we don’t know what's happening.”

So we [went] up on stage and that was the first moment I got really bad stage fright. I’m trying to speak into the microphone and project some level of confidence. Instead, all that came out was “We’re Tech- we’re Techno Westerns!” [aggressively nods and thumbs up’s] My legs were just shaking the whole time, I was trying to look all strong and powerful and my legs are just vibrating like a fucking tectonic plate, so I just was standing with my legs glued together just so I wouldn’t fall over.

We do better on stage now. Definitely smoother sailing since, but even North x Northeast – that was great, but [to Jake] your guitar was having troubles the whole fucking time.

Gordon: Yeah, the last show we played, the sound to my guitar, like, cut out all of a sudden a few songs in. We had it fixed for the last, like, two songs and it sounded great but it’s fun, it’s the thrill.

I know you guys have an EP coming out, is there anything you’re most looking forward to about sharing this specific collection of music? 

Hautonga: I feel like the thing I’m most excited about is how good music can sound [by] a dude who powered through two of those songs, like, a week [before] needing [the EP] out. I wrote two of the songs a week before we need to submit. You get about five weeks and we had four songs ready, and two of them I just was not liking, so I sat down and wrote two more right before the deadline ‘cause I needed something that felt better. That was a nightmare, but I mean, I’m just hoping that people like it above all else. I think that’s all you can really ask for, that someone gravitates towards what you’re doing and they like it, and who knows, maybe there’s a fifteen-year-old out there who connects with it in a way that lets them feel like they can take over the fucking world. You know, if there’s someone out there that feels better because of the release of it, then all the power to them.  

So do you have a specific writing process or a formula or is it dependent on the song? 

Hautonga: I feel like it changes almost with the weather. It’s always different in that sometimes I may come in and sit down – where I’m sitting right now is where I mix, master, record, write, so everything happens within these four walls – but it’s different every time in that sometimes there’s a drum loop that’s been sitting around for a year or two, and maybe I have something for it. Other times you sit down and plan on covering something and you go “Wow, I’ve fucked this song up but I’ve made another one.” It’s different every time, I wish there was a formula in a way cause at least if there was a formula I’d find a way to get a number-one song out and keep doing it, but I feel like music or any art form really is just kind of throwing yourself in the deep and it’s a free fall.

I know your music almost transcends one specific genre. Do you find when you start creating a song you already have a sound in mind that you want or is the sound filled in by everything coming in from behind the song?

Hautonga: Maybe it’s a mix of both? Sometimes you go in with an idea of what you want. We made one song ‘cause Sean was like, “I want like an afrobeat,” and we did that. Then there’s times where you’ll go in being like, “I’m going to write a very synth-heavy song, and it’s going to be really dance-y,” and by the end of it, you’ve got something that sounds like Morrissey and Johnny Marr wrote a new Smiths tune. You can plan all you want with stuff, it always just ends up where it ends up. We’re almost just along for the ride. I know we have a very eighties sound and I think that’s just because I lean into the eighties a lot, but I never meant for that to blend into the music. I want to do some stuff that's more 90s inspired or more modern but it always just comes back to that time period.

As you mention the eighties, do you have specific bands you feel you’re really influenced by that translate into your music or is it just the whole era/decade? 

Hautonga: I feel like Memento Mori is very Prince-inspired, it was almost like Purple Rain. There’s definitely [modern] artists we love: The 1975, The Neighbourhood, Arctic Monkeys, Gorillaz, Tame Impala. But [our music] always ends up sounding sort of eighties regardless. It’s a very comfortable time period for us stylistically and from a musical standpoint, but also visually as well, I love that time period. 

With new music coming out and a tour planned, do you have a specific goal of where you’d like to be by the end of the year? 

Hautonga: If I’m being really full of myself and just reaching for the stars, I would be like, “Glastonbury Pyramid stage next year, we’re going to kill it,” but realistically, [by] the end of the year I just want us to be looking at playing outside of Canada a bit more. We want to do the UK and that’s been a long dream. Maybe we can play to more people in cities that haven’t heard of us, and then come back to Toronto after that and see where we stand a bit better. I think it’s just a bit hard right now in Toronto to know where you stand as a band, ‘cause it’s one thing to be big in Toronto, but sadly Toronto isn’t the rest of the world. How are we going to fare playing the UK or playing the States; are people going to like us more, are they going to like us less, are they going to like [us] at all? I think that’s where I’d like for us to be, well-situated enough for us to do that shit. 

As we talk about growth and the future, looking back, is there a music moment so far that you’re most proud of? That moment where you’re like "Oh, we’re actually doing this."

Hautonga: It would be easy for me to point to all of the high points and be like “It was this sold-out show here!” or “When the crowd was singing along [to] the lyrics!” but I actually think, the moments I remember best or the best memories are typically the worst shows that we’ve done, playing to an empty room; like in The Junction of all places back in like 2019. I think it was a weird high point, I remember we were playing with, like, three bands to an empty room, [and] there was no one there. 

Gordon: My parents were there! 

Hautonga: [laughs] Okay, your parents were there.

Gordon: My parents will always be there.

Hautonga: And the ghosts that had situated themselves in whatever seats had been left empty, which was a lot but that was a high point. I remember we got done that show and I was like “Wow, we sounded great.”

The best moments are the worst moments, ‘cause you make something good out of it even when there's not much to take. I think that’s what music is: not always about the good stuff, it's about making light of the bad.

Final question, is there anything you want to say to any new fans checking out the band or any long-term fans, any parting words you want to leave with your audience? 

Hautonga: Thank you to the people who have been around to hear what we have done so far and for coming out to shows and streaming music and putting us in playlists with titles that make me lose my shit laughing. Thank you to those people and the people who haven’t heard us before and, possible new fans, stick around, if not for the music but because we are sometimes comical, and that's about it, that's our selling point. And we have nice visuals, that's it. We have no substance but we’re very pretty. 

Gordon: Exactly, it’s all about that, we sure look the part. 

Hautonga: Yeah we look like a band, we truly look like a band. 

Gordon: Don’t know how to act like one. 

Hautonga: Yeah, we don't know how to act like one but we look like one.