First/Last-Freya Wilcox & The Howl

"When a couple of Long Island punks walked into Manhattan's darkest dive bar to find an Aussie blues singer howling from behind a beat up guitar, one of NYC's most unique new punk bands was born. Before long, Freya's grated ironies and violent bluesy riffs were sitting right at home atop a rhythm section of equally sarcastic and surprisingly talented twenty-somethings, spreading songs about lying to lovers, falling for assholes and fighting for all the wrong things."

Freya Wilcox & The Howl is a 'blues-punk' trio from Brooklyn who's debut album "Bareknuckle Love" will be released May 23rd and is available to pre-order now. The band hit Pittsburgh Tuesday night (5/12) at The Smiling Moose for the EARLY show with fellow New Yorkers Eli Whitney & The Sound Machine. I want to thank Freya (Guitar/Vocals) for taking the time to participate in this edition of First/Last.

The first album you ever bought?
Placebo's “Black Market Music” when I was 11 and apparently experiencing premature existential rage...

Your last album bought?
John Lee Hooker's “Electric Blues”, it's a picture disc; badass.

Favorite album of all time?
I've never been able to choose between Nirvana's “Incesticide” & Janis Joplin's “I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!”

Least favorite/most disappointing album?
I really, really can't do Adele. At all. So I would say I'm most disappointed in whatever record had that ‘Rumor Has It’ song on it. Ack.

First concert attended?
I grew up in Australian folk festivals, so I saw more bands than I could remember before I could even remember. My first stadium concert was Simple Plan though... ouch...

Last concert?
The last big show I went to was Vance Joy in NYC and I was pretty bored. I think that some artists in the digital age are accelerated to success before they learn to interact with their audience well. I also hold Australians to a higher standard of fun than most... Either way I made my own fun.

Favorite concert ever?
Harsh tie between Brody Dalle, John Butler Trio & Neil Young.

Least favorite concert?
This may mean nothing to Americans, but I saw Pete Murray once and he was so boring I wanted to eat grass just to pass the time...

Any thoughts, experiences about Pittsburgh?
I've never been to Pittsburgh before, but any town with both a whisky distillery and a mattress factory probably has good times down right? I'm really looking forward to meeting the locals, I've missed the gems you find in new towns being in NYC for so long, but I have found wonderful people at PA shows in the past!

Thanks, Freya. Yeah, the Mattress Factory is way cool but don't get your hopes up that it is a popular factory that produces mattresses... it is an art museum.