If you’re looking for a fun new band to dive into, say hello to Waterparks (that is, if you haven’t heard of them already). This Houston trio, comprised of Awsten Knight (vocals/guitar), Geoff Wigington (guitar/vocals), and Otto Wood (drums), is one of the most unique bands gracing the covers of magazines like Alternative Press and Kerrang! today. Some may call them pop-punk, but don’t expect them to fit neatly into the conventions of that genre—on their album Double Dare and their three EPs, they play around with a variety of sounds, sometimes incorporating electronic breakdowns, sometimes going for a pure pop vibe. Always, though, you can count on them to provide music with honesty, creative metaphors, and a clever sense of humor.
We were lucky enough to catch up with Waterparks before their August 2nd show in Baltimore while they were on tour with All Time Low. We asked them about Double Dare, their new music video for “Gloom Boys,” and their experience at the APMAs (where they won the Best Breakthrough Artist award). We also chatted about Bon Jovi, Pixar, and Emo Night escapades.
TYF: First of all, the first time I saw you guys was at the Never Shout Never show in 2016.
Geoff Wigington: Our first tour.
TYF: Oh, wow! And your popularity has obviously grown a lot since then.
Awsten Knight: Thank God. (Laughs) If there’s no growth in, like, a year and a half of straight touring, that’d be a little rough.
TYF: (Laughs) Yeah. What would you say is the most surreal moment you’ve experienced thanks to Waterparks?
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Otto Wood: There have definitely been a handful. Reading and Leeds was surreal with Mikey [Way] playing with us.
Knight: Another moment was when our first headlining tour sold out. That was insane. And then the U.K. tour sold out. That was weird. I didn’t think that was gonna happen.
TYF: Some pretty cool moments. What would you say are your favorite memories from this tour so far?
Wood: It’s tricky for me ‘cause all my days kind of blend.
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Knight: Right, that’s the thing. There haven’t really been many giant differentiating factors between days. But I just think it’s a cool thing in general that most of the shows are, again, sold out. So you have that guaranteed comfort of knowing it’s gonna be a full room.
Wood: On top of that, we’re opening for All Time Low, so that’s something we’ve all probably…
Knight: Yeah. I mean, we used to promote outside their shows all the time. We’d bring CDs, we’d bring flyers… Now I’m super nice to the people that are outside shows promoting. I bought one of their CDs the other day.
Wood: You should be. Unless you wanna be like the weird high schooler who hazes freshman. Or that freshman who gets hazed, but is like, “I’m never gonna do that when I become a senior!”, but then you do it anyway. Don’t be that. But anyway, we’ve made it inside the venues now, so things have changed over the span of a few years. We used to be outside pedaling flyers and CDs, and now we’re inside.
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Knight: Pedaling songs onstage. (Laughs)
TYF: Yeah! And you guys just performed at the APMAs.
Knight: Yes, we did.
TYF: You were dressed up as shrubs. How did you get the idea to dress up as shrubs?
Knight: We couldn’t find turtlenecks in time. Like, thick ones. Because the Under Armour ones show your nipples too much, and we were trying to get the thicker look.
Wigington: We heard a loud and booming voice through the clouds that told us that it must be so.
Knight: It was either going to be all black and nice clothes and getting some last-minute hand tattoos, or being bushes.
TYF: Right. And why would you not be a bush?
Wigington: Exactly.
TYF: How was the APMAs in general? What was that experience like?
Knight: It was pretty crazy. We saw GWAR’s butts. With their outfits, their butts are always out.
Wigington: That, and [we performed] in front of certain people that we’ve known about for a long time. It was really crazy doing that.
Wood: It was neat. I liked hearing our name get called out.
Knight: That was nice. Holding a trophy onstage was cool.
TYF: Yeah, congrats on that, by the way! Best Breakthrough Artist.
Knight, Wigington, and Wood: Thank you!
Knight: The award’s right over there, actually, in the front of the bus.
(Lucas, the band’s tour manager, brings out the trophy)
TYF: Whoa! That’s really cool. And you guys just released a music video for “Gloom Boys.” It’s crazy; I love it. What was the filming experience like for that?
Knight: It was fun, ‘cause it was more like our old videos, where we got to meet up with all our friends and just do stupid things.
Wood: I have the tendency to enjoy our music video shoots, for the most part, when it’s that sort of dynamic.
Knight: Most of the ones we’ve done lately have been in LA, and we’ve been on a time crunch, but since this was all friends, we did it in Houston, where we’re from. So we got to take a couple days to actually do it.
TYF: So you guys were friends with the guy who got rejected for the bass-playing position?
Knight: Dude, that’s like, one of our best friends. That’s Travis. I’ve known him for, like, ever.
TYF: That’s awesome.
Wigington: He’s been in how many music videos?
Knight: “New Wave”… He was in that weird fake interview thing we did… He texted us today about going to the zoo.
Wood: He’s very nice to us. He voluntarily lets us beat him up for the sake of our “art.” And if we had a “Behind the Scenes” for “Gloom Boys,” you’d see poor Travis’s tummy. He got dragged in one scene along the ground, and there was nothing but pine needles and pinecones and earth beneath him. (Laughs) We did a second take for good measure, and he was like, “Yeah, I guess we could do it again.”
Wigington: He’s such a good sport. Thanks, Travis.
TYF: So, Otto, is it true that you’ve always wanted to be the bass player of Waterparks [as the video for “Gloom Boys” suggests]?
Wood: I still do.
Knight: He still does. He talks about it all the time. It’s so annoying, ‘cause obviously, a drummer is so much harder to find than a bassist. We don’t need a bassist. We’ve been fine without it. But he doesn’t like the equipment factor of the drums.
Wood: I hate everything about the drums except playing them, basically. (Laughs) I’m a fake! But I’m also trying to secure my spot in the band. I’m looking ahead, and I know that we’re slowly gonna phase out organic drums and we’re going to pad everything, and Awsten’s gonna stop doing more, Geoff’s gonna start doing more—
Wigington: Yeah.
Wood: —And I’m gonna try to lock down the bassist position.
Knight: But the thing is, it’s also about the aesthetic of a drummer, ‘cause rappers bring along drummers.
Wood: Let’s get a rapper drummer.
TYF: Your first album is called Double Dare, and on that album, there’s a single called “Hawaii (Stay Awake),” but the lyrics don’t say anything about Hawaii, so I was wondering, how’d you get that title?
Knight: Feels like it. (Dramatically plays a chord on his guitar)
TYF: Just feels like Hawaii?
Knight: Any song [title] that isn’t related to the lyrical content, it’s just ‘cause it sounds like it to me.
TYF: So “I Was Hiding Under Your Porch Because I Love You”… that just sounds like that?
Knight: Yeah. And also, every release has to have a Pixar title.
TYF: Nice. Also, in the song “Gloom Boys,” you say, “Birthdays and Christmas are not part of my wishlist.” What’s the meaning behind that?
Knight: Being sad. (Plays chord on guitar) That’s all.
TYF: Acceptable answer. You also have the song “Made in America,” and the lyrics on that stand out to me as being a little bit different from the other tracks’ lyrics. What inspired that?
Knight: Well, I wanna make it clear that it’s not a political song. It’s definitely more of a social commentary thing. And that’s just because I’m a little too observant.
TYF: In the songs “Easter Egg,” “I’m A Natural Blue,” and “Little Violence,” you guys seem like you’re talking about some frustrations that you have with the music industry. Are those things that have kept coming up throughout your career?
Knight: The ones related to “Easter Egg,” not as much because I think with some of the things that we’re doing now, and at least the overall outlook and style of what we have going on, it’s not as, I guess, easily taken by somebody else and manipulated into what people consider a watered-down version of what we’re doing. The “Little Violence” one definitely still relates because like I told you, we would be outside of shows and everything—like, we’d do every bit of networking we can, whether it was at Warped Tour, whatever—and nobody wanted shit to do with us. Once big names got involved, and… I’ve got an album thing in my phone of different [magazine] covers that I’ve gotten to be on…
TYF: That’s awesome.
Knight: Yeah, it’s cool. It’s so weird for me. But what I’m getting at is, a bunch of cool shit has happened, and now, it seems like there’s an endless supply of “potential friendships.” And it’s kind of funny how that goes. That’s the only reason Lucas [the band’s tour manager] wants to hang out with me.
Lucas: Yeah.
(All laugh)
Knight: It’s a weird point right now because we’re still very, very accessible. I mean, I just talked to, like, 20 people outside this morning. We’re still very… You can just tweet at us, and we’ll probably see it. It’s like… I don’t know. ‘Cause we still get the front end of all the people who are now trying to be on board with us after years and years of grinding and no one giving a shit. And so that kind of built up a salty little corner of my heart. And so that’s what that one’s about. And yes, it still feels that way sometimes.
TYF: Going along with the theme of Double Dare, have you guys ever done any crazy dares?
Knight: I lit my pants on fire once.
TYF: You lit your pants on fire?
Wigington: Wasn’t that an accident?
Knight: No, no, no. The Internet was like, “You won’t do that.” So then I was, like, doing it, and then it got a little out of control. It got a little out of hand. I ate a cigarette once.
TYF: Oh my gosh.
Knight: In a cemetery.
TYF: To add some context.
Knight: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just so you understand why I ate it. (Laughs)
Wigington: This is important. You need the setting or it just doesn’t make sense.
TYF (to Wigington and Wood): How about you guys? Can you top eating a cigarette in a cemetery?
Wood (gesturing to Wigington): He always dares me to come over to his house to beat him at video games.
Knight: Oh yeah, I forgot! Geoff always dares me.
Wigington: That is true. I have to resort to dire measures to get my “friends” to hang out with me. It’s just to test how fun you are.
Wood: [He says,] “I dare you to come over and hang out with me,” and I’m like, “I could think of 20 other things I’d rather be doing right now.”
Wigington: It’s mainly because it’s an entire obstacle course for me to even try to get to his house.
Wood: He’s lying.
Wigington: I don’t have air conditioning in my car. My car has already got, like, over 300,000 miles on it. There’s lots of things that could go wrong on the way to that that I just don’t want to have the possibility of happening.
Knight: Right, ‘cause he also doesn’t live that close to you.
Wigington: I live, like, an hour and a half from both [Knight and Wood].
Wood: It’s a straight shot!
Knight: Yeah, but it’s still a fucking hour and a half.
TYF: Is Houston that big, or do you guys live in Houston suburbs?
Wood: We’re kind of spread across the Greater Houston area, if you will.
Wigington: Yeah. Some people would not stand for you calling it the Greater Houston area.
Wood: Some people would argue with that. Some people would try to fight you in front of a shitty venue parking lot.
TYF: Why don’t some people like you calling it “the Greater Houston area”?
Wood: ‘Cause they’re 15 and drunk.
Wigington: Yeah. ‘Cause they have a false sense of empowerment, I guess.
TYF: Is there a specific incident to go along with that?
Wood: Yeah, there’s a story here. You’re catching on. But we won’t get into it.
Wigington: But yes. Houston is very big, and it takes about an hour to get from one part of Houston to the other. Not because of traffic. Just because of how big the city is.
TYF: Good to know. And on your EP Cluster, you had ghosts on the cover. I’m wondering, first of all, why is it called Cluster?
Knight: It’s a secret. I’ll tell you about the ghosts, though. I found this artist online, Angela Deane. And her stuff was so, so cool. I was really into her stuff for a while, even before we were signed. On my computer, I’ve got a bunch of things saved, like “This would kind of make a cool album cover.” Just random pictures and stuff that I like. And a lot of her stuff had been saved for a very long time. And then, when we did Cluster—that was our first label release—it was like, “Oh, dude, now we actually have a budget, and we can give her money to let us use it.”
TYF: That’s awesome.
Knight: Yeah. The cover of Black Light [the band’s previous EP], I took that picture. That’s a picture of the paint we used for the teaser thing.
Wood: It’s a balled-up mass of paint, basically.
Wigington: For the teaser for the song titles, we got this weird paint that glows under black light…
Knight: …And we [painted] the song titles. Then [the paint] was all kind of balled up. We had a few other ideas of things to do [for the cover art], but we took those pictures [of the paint] and we were like, “That’s pretty tight.”
TYF: That’s awesome. Speaking of the Black Light cover, if you guys were any symbols on the cover, which symbols would you be?
Wood: Interesting. That’s a good question. Let’s look at all these animals. Let’s look at this wildlife… I wanna be the giraffe.
Knight: You just wanna be tall.
Wigington: You can’t be the giraffe, because Geoffrey is the giraffe.
Wood: No. Sorry. Called it.
Knight (to Wigington): You can be the K!
Wood (to Wigington): You can be Geoffrey the spider.
Wigington: I’ll be the triangle, if there’s a triangle.
Wood: There is! Geoffrey the delta. Delta Geoff.
Knight: I’ll be the elephant because watching them roll around all cute when they’re babies is awesome.
TYF: Very true.
Wood: I’d like to experience what it’s like to be a tall being. That’d be so wild.
Knight: You’re telling me you don’t like when people are like, “You’re shorter in person”?
Wood: Oh, yeah, that’s my favorite thing. Not even “in person,” though. People walk up and it’s unsolicited and they’re like, “You’re short!” It’s like, “Thanks! You’re observant! I’m not insecure about! Leave me alone!”
TYF: You guys recently did a DJ set at Emo Night in Brooklyn. How did that go?
Knight: I think it went well. Otto went on the ceiling. I played a TED Talk.
TYF: For real?
Knight: Yeah.
Wigington: I just kind of stepped back in the crowd and watched.
Knight: Yeah. Geoff didn’t want to do it. He was like, “Guys, this feels wrong.” I was like, “I know.”
Wood: Geoff, he actually has shame. He’s like, “I’m not gonna do this, ‘cause I know better.” So kudos to Geoff for that. I climbed on the rafters and I was just legitimately trying to get away from everyone. My plan was to try to sit up on the rafters, but then a big guy from the venue came and yelled at me to get down, and then, luckily, Lucas came to my aid.
Knight: He only hangs out with us because we’re rich.
Wood: Yeah. (Laughs)
Knight: By the way, I just wanna clear this up, because people think I’m an asshole for joking about this: We’re not actually rich! Again, Geoff’s car doesn’t have air conditioning.
Wigington: I’m literally driving a ’95 Honda Civic that has no air conditioning. The windows don’t fucking roll up or down.
Knight: We haven’t been home in a year and a half! We’re all legally homeless! So! Just to clear that up! (Laughs)
Wood: Yeah. And so this big, burly gentleman came from the side. He came in hot. He was yelling loud. And Lucas was like, “Hey, man, it’s okay.” [The man from the venue said], “Get down! Get down from there right now! You can’t be up there!” I said, “Okay!” I climbed down, I hopped down, and he was still yelling at me, and Lucas was like, “It’s okay. He’s performing.” (Laughs) [Lucas was saying,] “He’s down now. He’s here. Everything’s okay. And the guy was like, ‘Come with me!’” I was like, “Nah, I’m not gonna do that.” I was like (in goofy voice), “Are we in trouble?”, and he was like, “Come with me to some dark, secluded space so I can rough you up.” And I said, “No, sir. No thank you.”
Knight: “We’re from the rich band Waterparks. You obviously don’t know.”
Wood: “I don’t have to go anywhere with you, because I have a car. “
(Knight bursts into laughter)
Knight: I like that. That’s what I’m gonna start saying.
TYF: Good comeback.
Knight: If you’re like, “Let’s go to Chipotle,” [I’ll say], “You can’t make me go to Chipotle. I have a car.”
Wood: Touché. Well played, Awsten.
TYF: Well played.
Wood: Awsten Knight, richest member of the rich band Waterparks.
TYF: Which TED Talk did you play?
Knight: It was one about getting your life together. I made these girls stop kissing onstage. I was like, “Stop! Separate!” I made everybody make room for Jesus, and I was like, “All right. Shut up. Everyone shut the fuck up.” (Laughs)
TYF: “We’re watching a TED Talk.”
Knight: Oh, listening. We didn’t even have the video.
TYF: Oh my gosh. Just the audio?
Wood: Just the audio.
Knight: It was, like, 15 minutes long. They cut it short. They only let it play for, like, five minutes.
Wood: They hijacked a lot of our playlist.
Knight: It wasn’t really the Waterparks DJ set. Like, half of it was.
TYF: What did they do? Did they just insert random music into it, or…
Knight: Well, they’d be like, “You’re losing them!” [I’d be like,] “I don’t think so.” And they’d be like, “Eh, play ‘Misery Business,’” and I’d be like, “Sure.”
Wood: We were like, “Well, all right. We wanna keep playing Smash Mouth.”
Knight: In between things, I was like, “All right, let’s shut this shit off. Time for Bon Jovi!”
Wood: Aye, that was a hit. I mean, it is a hit, but it also was a hit.
TYF: Which Bon Jovi song?
(Wood begins to sing the chorus of “It’s My Life” by Bon Jovi. Soon, Wigington joins in. Knight figures out the chords and begins to strum along. Then, after the others have finished, Wood hums the guitar part at the end of the chorus.)
TYF: That was fun.
Knight: Ha!
(All laugh)
Wood: Sorry, Bon Jovi. I really like your music. I’m sorry for butchering it.
TYF: Exclusive performance from Waterparks. And Otto, this next question is for you…
Wood (using a silly voice, still caught up in the Bon Jovi moment): Is Bon short for “Cinnabon”? Hi! I have a question. Hi, hi! My question’s for Cinnabon Jovi. Long time listener, first time caller. When you wrote “It’s My Life,” was that just you making a statement about how “it’s your life,” and you can, like, you know, do what you want?
Knight: I wonder if Bon Jovi has a Twitter.
Wood (still using silly voice): ‘Cause it’s your life? And follow-up question: What’s it like being handsome forever?
TYF: (Laughs) Is that a reference to something, or is that just your question for Bon Jovi?
Wood: Nope. It’s just what I would ask Bon Jovi. Minus the Cinnabon part, probably. I wouldn’t have the nerve. I’d ask him how he stays handsome forever.
Wigington: I’m surprised that hasn’t been some kind of marketing thing. It’s been, like, four decades now. “Cinnabon Jovi.”
TYF: I feel like if you tweeted Cinnabon about that, they would probably make some kind of witty response.
Wood: We should probably hang on to that, then, so we can get a lot of money, so we can all buy cars.
(Knight pulls out his phone to look for Bon Jovi’s Twitter account. He finds it*.)
Wood (to Knight): Tell him that we’re available any time for the commercial. The inevitable commercial that’ll follow. We should collaborate.
TYF: (Laughs) Anyway, my question for you, Otto: when I saw you at Warped Tour, you were wearing a shirt that had Geoff’s face on it, and it said “Geoff.” I was just wondering, what’s the story behind that shirt? How did that come about?
Wood: I’m rooting for him.
TYF: You’re rooting for him?
Wood: Yeah. He’s on my team. It’s just kind of me making a bold proclamation that even though he won’t take the time to hang out with me, I’m there for him. And I guess it warms me to know that in some fashion, he’s there for me.
TYF: He’s always with you, as long as you have the shirt.
Wood (whispered): I’m wearing him. He’s with me always.
TYF: Did you get that custom made? I’m guessing you did.
Wood: Someone made it.
TYF: So a fan gave you a shirt with Geoff on it?
Wigington: Well, she actually made us all shirts with each of our faces, so we all wore each other’s faces.
Wood: And I ended up taking everybody’s shirt, so I would trade off wearing either Geoff’s face on my chest or Awsten’s face. Even, occasionally, I was self-absorbed and I would wear my own face on me.
Knight: I wear my face everyday.
Wood: It’s true. You wear your best face. Put your best face forward. Especially when you fall.
TYF: Since you guys have a lot of songs with Pixar references, like we were talking about earlier, what are your favorite Pixar movies?
Knight: A Bug’s Life. Totally.
Wood: That’s hard. I really loved Toy Story when I was a young’un, but they’re all so good.
Wigington: Yeah, there isn’t really a bad one… Inside Out.
Wood: I really liked Inside Out. They’re all really good. How about you?
TYF: My favorite movie… I have to say the whole Toy Story series. I’m excited for Toy Story 4. I don’t know how it’s gonna be, but I’m gonna go see it anyway.
Knight: Toy FOUR-y. Don’t put that in [the article]. Okay, put it in there. (Laughs)
TYF: If you guys could be any Pixar characters, which ones would you be?
Knight: I would be the princess in A Bug’s Life. Princess Atta.
Wigington: Dude, that one’s really hard… I kinda really like the horse in Toy Story. Bullseye was great.
TYF: You just can’t go wrong with Bullseye.
Knight (in a silly voice): Classic!
Wood: I wanna be a total villain right now and just say Sid. But I’m not gonna. I’m gonna go with… maybe one of the aliens.
TYF: Good choice. Finally, is there anything that you guys want to say to the fans and readers before we conclude?
Knight: Hmm. Don’t trust Alex Jones.
Wood: Watch Big Fish.
Knight: Use more tape than you have to.
Wood: Watch Big Fish.
Knight: Unfollow me on Twitter.
Wigington: I feel like not enough people have seen Star Wars.
Knight: Last thing of advice would be to make sure that if you’re renting any kind of vehicle, everything works in it the way that it’s supposed to before you actually take it out. Make sure your shoes are tied before you run upstairs, too. Definitely make sure they’re tied if you’re going up an escalator.
Wood: Wear a helmet everywhere. ‘Cause you never know.
Knight: And when in New York, make sure you wear a hat.
Wood: Smog is everywhere. The silent killer.
*In case you’re wondering, this is what Awsten Knight ended up tweeting Bon Jovi.
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