The Punk-Rock Trio WAKRAT Discuss Inspirations, New Music and More!

Photo Credit- Travis Shinn

Wakrat is a punk-rock trio led by lead singer and bassist Tim Commerford (Rage Against The Machine, Prophets of Rage).

Learn more about the band in the following All Access interview:

Now that we are well into the fall of 2016, what are some words you would use to describe this year? What have been some of the highlights for the band and your music?

The words we would use to describe this year could be: exciting, challenging, relentless, and formidable. One of the highlights for the band was to drive around London on a double decker bus with a “Generation Fucked” banners on it and our album blasting thru megaphones. Or the making of the “Knucklehead” video. Pretty dope. On a musical level there are so many of them – from the creative time in our studio, to the rehearsal month, or our live performances in the past tour and everything in between…hard to pick one.

Growing up, did you all always want to be musicians? Can you recall your earliest musical memories?

From the Bad Brains to the Sex Pistols, but also John Coltrane and Miles Davis.

How did you all first meet and decide to start this band? Why do you think you all work so well together? How did you come up with your band name? Was it hard to narrow it down to one name? 

Tim and Matt met through Zach De La Rocha, who became friend with Matt by hanging out at his restaurant. Matt and Tim are two big mountain bikers and became friends that way.  Matt and I have been friends for 10 years and started writing music together.  Then Tim heard the stuff and that’s how it started. The reason why we’re able to work well together is that we try to give each others space musically and artistically as much as possible. Tim was always jokingly giving a hard time to Matt about his last name. When it was time to pick a name for the band it came up. We all liked it better than Commerford or Grangeon.

You will soon be releasing your self-titled debut album. What was the inspiration for this collection? How long had you worked on [the album]?

The world and the society we live in is a constant source of inspiration of course, but the sound and the odd timing of the music sparked it all for us. The album took about a year to make.

At the end of the day, what do you hope is the message of your music? What do you hope listeners take away from your songs?

We hope the fans get a good punch in the face when they listen to our first album. Hopefully they can relate to the rawness, and the unapologetic approach.

Who are some of your favorite artists and what bands continue to inspire you? Who would you still love to work with in the future?

Bad Brains, Sex Pistols, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, The Prodigy and Stravinsky

Is there anything else that you would like to share with our readers about yourself or your music?

“Long Live Wakrat!” That’s all I got for you right now.