Say It Again: The Welly Welly Wells! (Exclusive Feature + Interview)
- Armin Enayat
- Aug 18
- 5 min read
In a place where the sun feels like a fever dream and deserts melt into mirages, The Welly Welly Wells emerged from a strange stillness—a lockdown hush, when time dragged and sound became sacred again. Wearing worn-down Texan boots and a dust-flecked imagination, Christian Bland (The Black Angels, The Revelators, The UFO Club) and David Galvan, a behind-the-scenes alchemist of texture, came together to cast a new kind of spell. Their sonic world dissolves Texan psychedelia into a gritty kaleidoscope—sun-drenched, fuzzed-out, and swirling through lo-fi memories half-lost on the wind.
While they tip their hats to 13th Floor Elevators, Joy Division, and The Velvet Underground, The Welly Welly Wells sound like a transmission from nowhere else. Even their name rolls off the tongue like an incantation—a riddle half-sung in the backseat of a vintage station wagon. Their self-titled debut EP (July 2024) opens a portal to roadside jukeboxes blanketed in cassette hiss, a dusty love letter to psych, punk, and deep-fried pop weirdness.
“Decapitator” unfolds with a steady, shadowy momentum—drums locking into a hypnotic pulse beneath a murky wall of fuzz. Guitars loop in hypnotic repetition, thick with tape-saturated grit, while vocals hover just beneath the surface. It is not a sprint but a slow burn—tension winding tighter with each cycle, refusing to break.
Flip the 7-inch and drop it into “Take Me Back to Texas"—a jangling desert hymn co-written with Matt Hollywood, driven by a beat that kicks like spurred boots on hard-packed dirt. It gallops in like a fuzzed-out shadow rider—part spaghetti western, part surf rock, part garage revival—leaving ghostly echoes across the desert floor. Basslines tumble beneath it all, steady and propulsive, like a silhouette drifting across a moonlit plain.
Their cover of Joy Division’s “Passover” isn’t just reimagined—it’s haunted. Guitars rumble through layers of fuzz and reverb like a distant storm before locking into the track’s eerie, skeletal riff. More séance than tribute, it channels the original’s dread through a cracked mirror—familiar yet warped in motion. They don’t just play the song—they inhabit it, cloaking it in woozy guitar tones and echo-smeared vocals that linger like a ghost in the machine.
Then there is “The Last Summer II”—a reworked, faster-burning take on Bland’s original from The Revelators. This version drops the cavernous reverb for a fuzz-heavy, garage-punk crackle that pulses with raw urgency.
Their latest single, “4 Minute Warning”, a cover of the Radiohead track, plays like the final transmission from a flickering tower. “This is just a nightmare/soon I’m gonna wake up/someone's gonna bring me 'round”—the lyrics drift between denial and doom, caught in a calm that borders on eerie. There is no eruption here, just a slow-motion descent into inevitability. This isn’t the moment before it all ends—it’s the realization that it already has.
The Welly Welly Wells is a dusty transmission from a sunbaked dreamscape, where fuzz and heat blur the line between memory and myth. It is raw, restless, and always on the edge of unravelling—a desert hymn for the lost and the wandering.
To learn more about the band’s origins, sonic evolution, and what’s next, we spoke with Christian Bland and David Galvan of The Welly Welly Wells.
Q: When and how did The Welly Welly Wells come to life?
David: We started writing in 2020 during the pandemic.
Q: How has the collaboration between you and David Galvan shaped the sound of The Welly Welly Wells? What’s the dynamic like between the two of you in the creative process?
Christian: Well, we like the same styles of music and influences, like The Verve and Joy Division, etc., so since Dave is a producer and recording engineer and a long-time friend, we started organically making music.
Q: The more you say it, the more it rolls off the tongue! Where does the name come from?
Christian: I was watching A Clockwork Orange and was quoting it often, and when me and Dave were hanging out, one day I just told him we should call our band The Welly Welly Wells! And Dave was like, 'There it is!' Perfect!
4) You released your first 7-inch in 2024, and several new tracks have followed since. Is there a debut album on the horizon?
David: Yes, we’re working on all new material at the moment, so maybe next year sometime we will put that out.
5) From The Black Angels to The Revelators, The UFO Club, and now The Welly Welly Wells—you’ve kept your creative outlet alive through many forms. How do you sustain that creative flow across different projects?
Christian: Well, it’s not easy, but I really enjoy making music, and when you work with like-minded individuals, it makes it a lot easier.
6) As an artist, where do you draw your inspiration from?
Christian: I listen to many different kinds of music for inspiration and am always looking for something different and inspiring, and of course I have my favorites. But to answer your question, I get inspired by a sound or style that hits me and moves me.
7) What are the sources for you—musical or otherwise—that feed your work?
Christian: It could be a sound of a guitar or another musical instrument that moves me and some of my influences like Richard Ashcroft, Sid Barrett, Ian Curtis etc.
David: For the Wellys it’s more post-punk influenced with a twist of European alternative rock.
8) What’s next for The Welly Welly Wells? Any tours or live shows in the works?
Christian: Well, the first thing and most important thing is always the music, and once we have that, everything will follow. We will probably play here locally in Austin to get into the groove of things first, then we’ll see what happens next.
9) Before we wrap—anything you’d like to share with the readers or fans? A message, a vision, or just a feeling?
David: Well, that’s a good question. I guess just enjoy your life and be creative in anything you do!
Great Interview 👍