Formula Indie Sessions Interview with The Wheel Workers
The Wheel Workers are an alternative rock band with roots in both Houston and Austin. Our upcoming album, One More Thing to Say, brings together songs from demos from 20 years ago that were rerecorded recently—music that was never released but never stopped meaning something to us. The first single, “Spreading the Fire,” is about keeping your creative spark alive no matter where life takes you.
What is your earliest memory connected to music?
I remember having a small record player along with some Beach Boys 45s and other pop songs from my mom. I loved listening to those records. Oh, and watching David Bowie sing with muppet goblins in the Labyrinth.
How did your passion for creating music begin?
Pretty early on my mom and dad put me in piano lessons and I took to them very quickly and it wasn’t long before I was making my own little songs. I remember I wrote a piece of music when I was young, like 10 years old and it won some kind of composition award. I could always hear melodies and parts in my head; it was just a matter of getting them out.
What’s the story behind your current music project?
The Wheel Workers started in Austin around 2000/2001 — myself, Chris Maness, Nathan Maness, Giuseppe Ponti, and Chad Fontenot, all in our twenties, living together, working crummy jobs, and jamming constantly. That lineup fell apart in 2005, right in the middle of making what would become One More Thing To Say. The band reconvened in Houston in 2009 with new members, and I became the group’s chief songwriter from there. But those unfinished songs never left me. During the pandemic I started reconnecting with the original members, and once I’d become a good enough engineer and producer to actually finish them the way they deserved, I went back into the archive. “Spreading the Fire” is a good example — I found an instrumental demo from those days with nothing but a title on the file. No vocals. I wrote the lyrics twenty years later. It’s basically me in my forties finishing the best music of my twenties.
How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard your music before?
Alternative rock with touches of grunge, post-punk, psychedelia, and progressive rock. Think hypnotic basslines under chiming, delay-drenched guitars, big crashing powerchords, dreamy vocals, and ethereal synths –if you like bands like Pixies, Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Fugazi, the Pixies or even some of the atmospheric moments of Deftones, you’ll probably hear some familiar influences, but we try to let every song find its own identity.
What is one thing you’ve learned that completely changed the way you make music?
That a song isn’t ruined by sitting unfinished for twenty years — if the bones are good, they wait for you. I came back to demos I made in my twenties with two more decades of engineering and production experience, and the songs were still there, just waiting for someone who finally knew how to finish them properly.
What tools, instruments, or software are essential in your creative process?
Guitar is still where most songs begin, even if they end up somewhere completely different. My fender Rhodes is very prominently featured in a lot of these songs. We use Cubase for recording and production, and then I export the tracks to be mixed by Steve Christensen in his ProTools setup that incorporates a ton of vintage analog gear. but honestly, the most important tool is the ability to capture ideas quickly before they disappear.
Which indie artist or song are you loving right now?
I’m loving Being Dead out of Austin, and Jumprope, Municipal Bats, Committeemen, and Darwin’s Finches out of Houston. Honestly, Houston has a ton of good bands at the moment.
How have your personal experiences influenced your music and artistic vision?
Life has a way of reminding you that time is limited. This album exists because I realized these songs were part of a really important time in my life that I didn’t want to have buried. I’m getting older now and sometimes I think about the full scope of my life’s work in music and there was a big gap that needed to be filled. That’s where this album comes in.
What emotions or messages do you hope listeners take from your work?
I hope people come away feeling inspired to hold onto whatever they’re passionate about. “Spreading the Fire” isn’t just about music—it’s about refusing to let the things that make you feel alive quietly disappear. That it’s never too late to finish something that mattered to you. And underneath the nostalgia, there’s real urgency — a sense that the work, and the people you did it with, are worth tending to before the fire goes out for good.
What is the most important lesson music has taught you so far?
What hasn’t music taught me? Honestly, pursuing music as an independent artist is a crash course in many facets of life: how to work with others in a band, how to run a business, how to relate to the world and yourself, what matters and what doesn’t in the short time we have, and much more. That creating something meaningful is worthwhile even if you don’t know where it will lead.
What is a dream venue or festival you would love to perform at?
Levitation in Austin would be an incredible fit because it celebrates adventurous guitar music and artists who aren’t afraid to experiment. That feels very much like where The Wheel Workers belong. But honestly, I’m happy I still get to make music with my friends.
If you could collaborate with any artist, past or present, who would it be and why?
David Bowie. He constantly reinvented himself without losing his artistic identity. He proved that experimentation and accessibility don’t have to be opposites. We would make Labyrinth 2–Revenge of the Goblin King.
Where can our listeners follow and support your music?
You can find The Wheel Workers on Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and at thewheelworkers.com. Listening, following, sharing our music, and coming to a show all make a real difference for an independent band.
Looking toward the future, what’s your dream for the next chapter of your musical journey?
I’d love for these songs to find the audience they were always meant to have. Beyond that, I want to keep making records that challenge us creatively and continue building a community around the music. I’m also really looking forward to mixing our next record in December that features our most recent songwriting with the current members of The Wheel Workers.
What do you hope listeners will discover about you along the way?
I hope they discover that this isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about believing that creativity doesn’t have an expiration date. One More Thing to Say is proof that sometimes art just needs time before it’s ready to meet the world. The songs came from 20 year old demos, but the record is new.
