Artist Feature | Skye Peterson of Wake Low

What first drew you to music and songwriting?

Music has always been a huge part of my life - living in Music City only enhanced my love for it. When I was younger, my songwriting hero Sara Groves drew out that passion for sharing my heart through story and song; that’s when I started singing and writing, too. Over time, I came to love the artists my brothers also enjoyed like Bon Iver, Tyson Motsenbocker, and Japanese House. It was a very regular thing in my family to share new music we’d found, so a lot of my favorite artists actually started as my brother’s favorites.

What inspired you to join forces with your siblings as a band, and can you give us a little background on the name, Wake Low?

As mentioned before, me and my siblings all have a passion for music. Asher is a successful producer, Aedan is a writer/animator, I’m a songwriter - it just made sense that one day we would combine forces and make a record together. The problem was that the timing had never worked out because we were all in very different places in life (I was in high school, Asher had a full-time job, Aedan was in college). But, because of the spread of Covid-19, we were all at home together for the first time in a while and we decided to take advantage and form a band. The day of our first band meeting was when a big storm hit Nashville; and for the first time ever, a weather phenomenon called a “Wake Low” occurred, which is when small areas of low-pressure form on the backside of an area of rain -- or in its wake. Besides thinking the name was really cool, the idea of a Wake Low informed a lot of the record’s concept as well.

How is it different to collaborate with your siblings as opposed to others you've worked with?

It might be different with other siblings, but the truth is that we’re all great friends, so spending a lot of time together creating something was not something any of us were dreading. In some ways, working with people you know really well seems easier and brings the best out of your work. We had to work with each other’s strengths and weaknesses to create a beautiful piece of art - a mixture of all of our talents.

Give us a window into the creative process of making this record.

We put three weeks down on the calendar to work on the record. For the weeks leading up to our days in the studio, we created a dropbox folder where we put all of our song ideas. For the first few days, we created all of the layouts of our songs and after that, we created a rough order of the record with our instrumental layouts. So, when we wrote the lyrics, we imagined the placement of the song on the record and wrote it with that in mind. For the rest of the three weeks, Aedan and I wrote the lyrics and Asher worked on the tracks, and by the end, we had a pretty good demo of all 12 songs.

If you had to choose one record that has had the most influence on you as a songwriter, what would it be?

Hard question, because if you were asking me about my own music style apart from the band, I would say 10,000 Kisses by Patty Griffin or, lately, Bravado by Rose Cousins. However, Wake Low was inspired by a completely different - but amazing - genre of music. I’d say Hundred Acres by S Carey has had the strongest influence on my writing for this project.

What are you all working on now?

Surprisingly enough, we’re all doing exactly what we were doing before lockdown, that is, concerning our hobbies/passions. I’m in North West England studying at Bible School, still writing music. Asher is still in Nashville, writing and producing amazing records. Aedan is about to graduate college and is creating beautiful works of art through his animation. We hope, of course, to put out another record someday soon, but in the meantime, we are growing and learning, continuing to use our gifts to put beauty and light into the world in our own way. That’s what this record is about, after all.

You can keep up with Wake Low on Instagram, and hear their new record here.